Comandante Valenciano was the leader of a unit in the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) after fleeing from Nicaragua to Costa Rica in the early 1970s. He was the father of Amanda and Ricardo Valenciano Libre.
Biography[]
Valenciano witnessed Augusto César Sandino's exploits as a young boy, and thus often passed on stories of him, and how he was eventually assassinated by the Somoza regime. He had fought alongside Sandino during his struggle against U.S. occupation of Nicaragua, but later retired, married a woman, and had two children, Amanda and Ricardo.
During the Nicaraguan Revolution, some Sandinista students came to Valenciano's house and, although he didn't initially join them, he did help them to escape from the National Guard. However, this came at the cost of la Guardia breaking into his home and interrogating him, trashing his house. He remained quiet despite being beaten, but suffered continual harassment from that day forth. This drove him to join the FSLN, though he attempted to hide this from his children, not wishing for them to get hurt. His wife, however, left him after becoming fed up with the situation.
The Comandante with daughter, Amanda, and son, Chico.
Eventually becoming Comandante, and joined by his children Amanda and Ricardo, he escaped with the Sandinistas over the mountainous border of Costa Rica in 1973, after they were driven out by la Guardia. The KGB later offered to help back their revolution, to which the Comandante ultimately agreed, although Amanda noted that it was a difficult decision for him to make. As part of the deal, he and his men operated a purification plant supplied by the KGB, in order to smuggle and sell drugs to the United States and gain the funds for the revolution, something that they were ashamed of.
The Comandante was killed a year later by the CIA group Peace Sentinel.[1]
Personality and traits[]
According to Chico, the former FSLN Comandante had an interest in photography, and used to talk about rangefinder cameras.
Behind the scenes[]
Concept art of the Comandante for Peace Walker.
Concept art for the Sandinista Comandante, which is included in Chico's section of the Peace Walker Official Art Works book, depicts him with brown hair, although his family photo in the final version depicts it as white.
The Comandante is never given an official name, but the surnames of both, him and his wife, can be inferred from the surnames used by their two children, with Valenciano being the paternal surname and Libre being the maternal surname per Spanish customs.[2]
Appearances[]
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (mentioned)
- Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (mentioned in "Backstory")
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (mentioned)
Notes and references[]
- ^ Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Kojima Productions (2010).
Mother Base > Staff > Amanda
"The daughter of the comandante of the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) and a guerilla fighter who aims to spark a revolution in Nicaragua. She fled to Costa Rica to escape persecution, but her father was killed by a mysterious armed group, and the task of leading the Frente fell to her." - ^ See Naming customs of Hispanic America for information on how surnames are used in Hispanic America countries.