“The opposition is saying that he was participating in the march. Don’t be disrespectful, don’t be irresponsible. We are Sandinistas yesterday, today and forever. Even though it hurts terribly and we could say ‘an eye for an eye, a family member for a family member’; we have made the message of peace and love of the Sandinista Front and of Comandante Ortega, our own. And let the Sandinista leadership guide us at this time. That’s how we feel. Even though we are torn up we continue preaching ‘no more violence, no more dead’. There is no justification for what they have done. When the Sandinistas march, we don’t have one single death. When the right – the coup-makers march – well, there are the results – there is my brother, dead”.
Sister of Lenin MendiolaThe boats will hold/hippopotami from wall street/penguins from nato/crocodiles from the vatican/swans from buckingham palace/bats from the pardo palace/and other flammable matter
From Burning Our Boats, Mario Benedetti
Writing on the topic of the coup attempt which took place in Nicaragua, I recently cited a short article written by Enrique Hendrix in conjunction with violence which took place in the environs of Managua’s technical college known by its acronym UPOLI. In that piece Hendrix pointed out that while the National Episcopal Conference or CEN accepted on April 24 to mediate the National Dialogue, they did not, despite the urgency of the situation, set a date for the talks to begin for a full twenty days. Hendrix additionally implied that the Catholic leadership was, at the highest levels, involved in the turmoil and in early November many of those claims were proven to be true, mainly that the crisis had indeed been a coup-attempt and that the Catholic hierarchy played a pivotal organizational role in the disturbances including the use of violence and organized crime.
At last the smoking gun. The revelations were made by Archbishop Silvio Báez via an audio brought to light by members of Saint John Paul the Apostle church in Managua and the authenticity of the recording was implicitly confirmed by Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes when he described the recording as ‘a very private conversation.’ In the audio Silvio Báez took credit for the formation of the Alianza Civica, the umbrella group which came to represent the opposition to President Ortega. His choice of language was crude, describing his allies as, “abortionist, homosexuals and traffickers.” In addition to ‘traffickers,’ a reference to agents of organized crime who carried out many of the deaths, Báez underscored the extent to which the tranques (roadblocks) were used as mechanisms of violence when he referred to them as ‘tranques de muerte’ or (barricades of death). An English translation with detailed analysis as well as the original recording in Spanish are here.
Up until now there has been a steady, if under-reported, stream of evidence which supported the claim that a number of high-ranking church officials participated in the coup-attempt. Within Nicaragua those actions represent a much larger divide. There are two very different strains of Catholicism within the small Central American nation and both are strongly rooted in the religious fabric of the country. One side of the schism is represented by the old-guard when the church backed the oligarchs and juxtaposed to that highly conservative tradition is the theology of liberation which grew in tandem with the revolutionary activities of the Frente Sandinista Liberation National or FSLN which eventually defeated the regime of Anastasia Samosa and vowed to defend the rights of the poor.
Discussion of the Catholic church in Nicaragua almost always includes mention of the abortion issue. The complete ban on abortion tends to feature heavily in criticism of President Ortega. It has been the signature issue among some women’s groups within Nicaragua, particularly among those opposed to Daniel Ortega who also claim a stake in the opposition including Sandra Ramos and Azalea Solis as well as Vilma Núñez, the head of a leading human rights group. Mainstream media typically depicts the issue as one where Ortega made a deal with the devil. On the other hand, the three women named above have been leading the charge against Ortega for years and presently are very much aligned with the same conservative members of the church hierarchy who called for the ban.
To be clear, the legislation which moved the proposed ban into law was passed toward end of the Bolaños administration, not under the Ortega presidency and came about in a more indirect manner than the public is led to believe. In a piece titled The Case Against Ortega, Chuck Kaufman describes how the issue had become politicized and how Ortega had directed the members of the Sandinista caucus to vote their conscience. Although some voted against and some abstained, enough of the representatives voted with the more conservative legislators to pass the bill. Kaufman wrote, “What Ortega’s detractors leave out is that under his government not a single medical official or woman has been prosecuted under the law. Compare that with El Salvador where women who have had natural miscarriages have received long prison sentences.”
Another topic related to Catholicism within Nicaragua which is frequently cited is the split between Ernesto Cardenal and Daniel Ortega. Ernesto Cardenal was a priest, turned revolutionary, turned poet. The Gospel of Solentiname and poems like Zero Hour are known throughout Latin America, the former an admired text of liberation theology. In his youth Cardenal studied with Thomas Merton and eventually returned to Nicaragua, specifically to the Archipelago of Solentiname.
Liberation Theology is often described as a Marxist interpretation of theological teachings, but that description oversimplifies a philosophy which examines so closely what it means to be poor. After reading on the topic I came to appreciate how the phrase, ‘preferential option for the poor’ more accurately represents this complex theological discourse as an outgrowth of the social and political realities of Latin American characterized by high levels of inequality. Bearing in mind certain characteristics of the poor such as humility and spiritual strength, liberation theologists found parallels to the suffering of Jesus. What emerged was a philosophy at once egalitarian and aspirational which applied the concept of praxis (Latin for practice) and marked a grand departure from the top-down hierarchical teaching.
Nan McCurdy is affiliated with United Methodist Church and contributed to this article. She has worked in development and human rights since 1984 and lived in San Juan de Limay, Esteli, a rural part of Northern Nicaragua during the 80s. She described, “There were Christian Based Communities and a number of the people, many very poor and some who were illiterate who had the opportunity through the progressive priests to participate in theological workshops, even with famous international theologians like Elsa Támez and this type of outreach was taking place throughout the country. Of course, because of what they experienced and the Biblical understanding of building the reign of God here on earth—they were all Sandinistas and still are—that was the effect of liberation theology.”
The press often calls attention to the split between Ernesto Cardenal and Daniel Ortega and typically does so in an effort to show that other Sandinistas have distanced themselves from the current leader of the FSLN. But the effort is one which is also misleading as many of those former Sandinistas broke ranks more than twenty years ago when the Sandinista Renovation Party or (MRS) was formed and who have moved steadily to the political right. As a political party MRS never gained much popular support, but have been very active in the NGO community and these days, certain members have been implicated in the planning and execution of the coup attempt.
The emphasis on other Sandinistas who no longer back Ortega obscures the fact that his base remains strong even following the crisis and that seems the case not because of cronyism, clientism or corruption, but because the policies which the Ortegas, (Rosario Murillo, the wife of Daniel Ortega is acting Vice President) have advanced have been substantial and effective.
I met Ernesto Cardenal many years ago when I was working as a volunteer teaching English to children in Solentiname. At the time Ortega had just been elected and if there was any anti-Ortega sentiment, I didn’t notice it. One person I spoke with told me that over the years Cardenal became close to a family in Solentiname who are MRS supporters. I also learned that Ernesto Cardenal lives in the Managua neighborhood of Los Robles within a two-block radius of a number of senior MRS members such as Sergio Ramirez, Dora Maria Tellez and Ana Vigil.
Ernesto Cardenal is not the only liberation theologian to have gained international standing. Miguel D’Escoto attended a Maryknoll seminary and went on to become a prominent figure in Nicaragua’s political scene. The Catholic organization of overseas missionary work, Maryknollers are well positioned under the tent of liberation theology as they serve marginalized communities in Africa, in Asia and in Latin America. D’Escoto was one of the group of twelve to declare his support for the FSLN in 1977. Like Ernesto Cardenal he eventually took a more active role in politics which caused the reactionary Pope John Paul II to strip him of his priestly duties. In the 1980’s d’Escoto served as foreign minister which paved the way to a later stint as President of the United Nations General Assembly (2008-2009). His priestly status was reinstated by Pope Francis and he supported the FSLN fervently until his death in 2017.
In the view of some Pope John Paul II could have done more to defend the liberation movement, although it was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who as far back as the 1980s led the counter charge claiming liberation theology to be a Marxist movement and warning that class warfare was not the purview of the church. Ratzinger went on to become Pope Benedict XVI. According to McCurdy what took place in Nicaragua was a purging. “In 1990 when the Sandinista Revolution was voted out, the Catholic hierarchy brought in conservative priests from other countries. In Limay, they brought a priest from Spain, so the population who has followed have tended to be conservative. And in many places, like Limay beginning in 1990, the conservative priests who were then in charge basically defrocked the progressives. So many of those wonderful, smart, trained popular theologians in Limay have not participated in the church for decades, but they have participated in improving the lives of many people through their work with the Sandinista Party.”
What Nicaragua has experienced most recently was another, although far from quiet, attempt by the conservative high-ranking church officials to expurgate leftist doctrine from the country. Lenin Mendiola was killed on August 11 in the late afternoon in Matagalpa, a small city in the North of Nicaragua. He was an iconic Sandinista, the son of historic peasant and union leaders who had been imprisoned under the Somoza dictatorship. Government supporters believe an opposition march which originated at the Cathedral in Matagalpa, led by Bishop Rolando Álvarez gave cover to the gunman who murdered Mendiola. As a member of the Episcopal Conference, bishop Álvarez has never disguised his support of the opposition and is known to use the sermon to inflame anti-government sentiments.
Other cases of violence in which clergy members are implicated are even more clear. Sander Bonilla, a young gay Sandinista was tortured in the presence of a Catholic priest later identified as Guillermo Barrios. Gabriel de Jesús Vado Ruíz, an off-duty investigator in his early twenties, was kidnapped at a tranque (roadblock), where he died after being tortured, stoned with paving blocks and set on fire. Harvin Padilla, a parish priest from Masaya had communicated and directed the youth involved as evidenced by video. In a confession Dania Valeska Sandoval detailed how Catholic nuns had helped to shelter and transport criminal youths who had been installed at UNAN, one of the public universities. And in the ‘Viper’ confession, Cristian Jose Mendoza claimed the person who had been selected to be interim president had the coup succeeded was none other than Archbishop Silvio Báez.
On July 8 National Police entered Jinotepe and as part of ‘Operation Clean-up’ took down the tranques with minimal force against well armed opposition activists. In the course of events fourteen deaths occurred including one anti-riot police officer and two other policemen. For nearly three months Jinotepe had been the locus of much violence and is a good example of the kind of siege the country was under which bore no resemblance to a popular uprising, let alone a pro-democracy movement.
Kevin Jose Cruz, one of the early deaths which took place in Jinotepe, died in a car accident when he attempted to pass through one of the tranques. In the months which followed, over a dozen individuals were taken hostage by the individuals operating the tranques including Bismark Martinez and Yadira Ramos who were tortured and killed, the later a female police officer was also raped. Marcos Gutiérrez Acevedo and Guillermo Méndez were killed in Jinotepe. This man’s younger brother and father were killed. Additionally, more than 400 truck drivers, primarily from the neighboring countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala were sequestered in Jinotepe. Some of the drivers were abused and some reported damage to their vehicles. Eventually the government of El Salvador filed a complaint with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.
Despite all of these events the international media instead fixated on an encounter which took place in the small city of Diriamba not long after the police had moved to dismantle the tranques and restore order. The episode began when an entourage of priests arrived in Diriamba and were met by a crowd of people who were shouting asesinos and golpistas; (killers and coup-plotters). The outburst was directed primarily toward Bishop Silvio Báez and Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes who were accompanied by a large press contingent including the Chamorro family owned outlet Confidencial, and the Chamorro family newspaper La Prensa as well as 100% Noticias.
The incident, in which Silvio Báez, claimed he was assaulted was covered by The Catholic Reporter, The Catholic Herald, Catholic News Service and Crux. Upon closer inspection I realized all of these sites had posted the same article with a few cosmetic changes. The article itself, written by David Agren who also writes for The Guardian, was conveniently skewed in favor of the opposition: opposition supporters are ‘protesters,’ government supporters are ‘an angry mob’. Press with the opposition were presented as neutral ‘journalists’ versus ‘Pro-government media.’
Even two months after the dust up The International Consortium for Investigative Journalists recycled the story to promote the idea that clergy had experienced repression. Sasha Chavkin who wrote the piece for ICIJ later claimed he was told that the crowd of disgruntled citizens were not from Diriamba. But according to Nicaraguan journalist Jorge Capelán, Diriamba is a very Sandinista town and given the level of violence in nearby Jinotepe, it seems likely that residents would have been outraged. Neither Chavkin, nor Agren acknowledged Sandinista claims that the church had been a torture site where weapons had been stored. They certainly did not question the glaring conflict of interest between loyalty to right-wing interests demonstrated by the bishops and the task of mediating the conflict with any degree of neutrality. Also overlooked is the fact that Confidencial, La Prensa and 1000% Noticias have sought to malign the Ortega presidency for years.
That the clergy traveled with a coterie of right-wing news outlets can hardly be seen as accidental. Sasha Chavkin even refers to Carlos F. Chamorro as a fellow ICIJ member. Interestingly, the very same Chamorro cropped up in the disclosure of The Panama Papers, the trove of leaked data related to off-shore bank accounts along with the name Manuel Ignacio Lacayo, (the two families are joined through marriage). ICIJ was the organization behind the The Panama Papers and Sasha Chavkin is one of the journalists who worked on that release.
In his piece, Chavkin claimed that a video released by Confidencial showed dramatic footage of the confrontation, yet the video showed nothing of the sort. As the clergy approach the Basilica the crowd who are shouting ‘asesinos’ are primarily women walking parallel to the procession. Once inside the church the video shows Baez with a scratch on his arm and father Edwin Roman with scratches on his neck. Roman is another Priest who openly associated with the opposition. During the crisis he encouraged the youth of Monimbo which like Jinotepe was a hotbed of violence. But it was a camera man with 100% Noticias who sought to pull off the greatest deception, sporting a shirt stained with red splashes, but without any signs of cuts or wounds.
The episode took place just after the arrival of a newly appointed Papal Nuncio. Jorge Capelán pointed out that just a few days later, the Papal Nuncio was happily seated with the first couple at the commemoration of the revolution, an arrangement that would have been highly untenable had an actual attack taken place. Additionally, Capelán said that the Pope had sent the Ortegas a direct message of his best wishes for the occasion. I asked him if he thought the timing of the Vatican appointment was designed to tamp down the activities of the church members who had obviously supported the coup attempt. He responded that the timing was a gesture intended to assist the dialogue process. In other parts of our conversation he explained the difficulties facing the Pope which make further involvement unlikely. According to Capelán those challenges include the pressure exerted by reactionary elements within the Vatican, the sex abuse cases which have created a crisis of historic proportions for the church as well as the regional autonomy bishops and cardinals typically enjoy.
Another person I communicated with who prefers to remain anonymous stated, “The focus on ‘attacks on churches and clergy’ is increasing in order to influence the Church abroad and convince the Pope to condemn the Nicaraguan government.” She referred to another incident, again involving Edwin Ramon who claimed to have been attacked in Masaysa. Yet video showed just the opposite, a policeman protecting him against a crowd.
She added, “It occurred to me that what we are witnessing is the end of the preferential option for poor despite the fact that the top Jesuit, the Pope, continues to work for it.”
Umberto Eco, the great Italian writer/philosopher wrote, “If Saint Thomas Aquinas were writing today it would be on Freud and Marx.” Fortunately, Catholicism is not a monolith. A number of priests were recommended to me as clergy who would be good to speak with. I interpreted ‘good to speak with’ as those who had not supported the coup-attempt and I imagine that means some autonomy still exists. And then there is Pope Francis whose commitment to liberation theology was encapsulated by his now famous statement made just days into his papacy. “How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor!”
Still, the tradition of the Catholic church throughout Latin America was to align with the oligarchs. That represents one aspect of the coup-attempt, the restoration of that relationship. It was nothing if not a counter revolution or an attempt at one and Jose Alberto Idiaquez Guevara, the rector of the Jesuit University of Central America has been at the forefront of that effort. Guevara has reached out to Jesuit institutions across the United States with a letter that completely white-washes the events which actually took place. There is some talk that this massive public relations effort moved Dick Durbin and Patrick Leahy to support the Nica Act now known as the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act.
The University of Central America founded under the Somoza regime experienced a renaissance following the revolution which opened the doors to the liberation theologists. Two of those clergy members were later murdered by order of the National Republican Alliance, the political party which was in power in El Salvador at the time also know by the acronym ARENA. Among Americans the more widely known case which also took place at the hands of ARENA was that of the Maryknoll nuns who had been raped and killed. The story was discussed most recently in 2006 when DNA evidence proved that definitively.
It remains anyone’s guess whether Durbin or Leahy are aware that a number of students from the opposition April 19 movement traveled to El Salvador to meet with members of the ARENA party last July. Although the students later attempted to downplay the meeting, anyone familiar with the opposition in Nicaragua knows that visit accurately reflected the ambitions those who had hoped to gain power. Dan Kovalik, human rights attorney and specialist on Latin America and Iran, has recently examined the confluence of regional relationships and the historic role of the U.S.
In summary he wrote: “The result of the Nica Act sanctions will be massive suffering for the poor of Nicaragua who support Ortega the most. These sanctions will be particularly painful after the crisis this past summer in which the opposition managed to trash the economy along with substantial civilian infrastructure (just as the Contras had done in the 1980s). And, should Ortega be unseated as a result of all this, it will most certainly be the violent and most right-wing portion of the opposition which will take power, for it is they who have the resolve and the means to do so.”
