DNA tests vindicate ‘Comandante Cero’

From the print edition

Edén Pastora, you are….Not the father!

In a scene reminiscent of a paternity test episode of “The Montel Williams Show,” former guerrilla leader Edén “Comandante Cero” Pastora was cleared by two DNA tests this week that prove he is not the father of Moisés Edén Ferrufino, who had launched a very public campaign claiming to be the Sandinista hero’s estranged son.

“It was impossible that I was his father,” Pastora said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “When he was conceived, in May of 1979, I was in combat at Colina 155 [in Ostional, Rivas].”

Pastora said the paternity test clamor was part of a smear campaign by political adversaries who “want to damage the image of the Sandinista Front by alleging one of its figures is an irresponsible man.”

Ferrufino, 32, clearly identifies as a member of the opposition. For several weeks before claiming to be Pastora’s biological son, Ferrufino participated in a camp-out protest in front of the Sandinista-controlled Supreme Electoral Council. When Ferrufino finally fingered Pastora as his father, a women’s rights group that is critical of the Sandinista government offered to pay for the paternity test.   

“This was a political slander campaign,” the former rebel hero said.

Pastora, 75, said, “I confess to having 21 kids, eight from marriage and three outside of marriage.” Pastora also adopted 10 children from comrades who died in combat.

“I am not a womanizer, I am an impregnator,” Pastora added. “I have never forced a woman to have an abortion, but I don’t like to use condoms. They gross me out. I am very conservative in that sense.” 

Reprinted with permission from The Nicaragua Dispatch, www.nicaraguadispatch.com.