Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal

Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal (September 23, 1924 – January 10, 1978) was a Nicaraguan journalist and publisher. He was the editor of "La Prensa" — the only significant opposition newspaper to the long rule of the Somoza family — and husband of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro who later went on to become President of Nicaragua (1990-1996).

Early life

A native of Granada, he was a chief opponent of the Somoza dynasty. While still a law student, he began taking part in demonstrations against General Anastasio Somoza García and was briefly jailed in 1944 after making an anti-Somoza speech at a rally. That same year, his family’s newspaper, "La Prensa," was shut down by the regime, and the Chamorro family fled to Mexico, where he began studying journalism. He returned to Nicaragua in 1948, becoming editor of "La Prensa" after his father’s death in 1952. While "La Prensa" was never shut down or completely censored, Chamorro was often jailed because of its content.

Activism

Concerned about the plight of his country, where Somoza had crushed all political opposition and amassed a considerable personal fortune, Chamorro remained involved in politics. In 1954, he was jailed, tortured and sentenced to imprisonment on charges of rebellion, but the sentence was commuted to house arrest in 1955.

Chamorro was arrested again in 1956 during a bloody government clampdown following Somoza’s assassination. In 1957 he was accused of complicity in the assassination, but later charged with rebellion and banished to San Carlos, a distant town in northern Nicaragua.

He fled to Costa Rica with his wife Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, and organized an expedition in 1959 to overthrow the government of Somoza’s elder son, Luis Somoza Debayle. However, the expedition’s members were captured and Chamorro brought for a third time before a military court, which sentenced him to nine years in prison for treason. Upon his release in 1969, he resumed the editorship of La Prensa, which continued attacking the Somoza regime, now headed by Anastasio Somoza Debayle, younger son of the former dictator.

In 1975 the government imposed upon Chamorro a 32-month suspension of constitutional rights after an attack by Cuba-backed rebels. Chamorro headed the opposition Democratic Union of Liberation (UDEL) and campaigned for human rights and the restoration of democracy. His paper became the main opposition platform, bringing the corruption of the Somoza regime into the spotlight of world opinion. During this period, Chamorro and "La Prensa" were repeatedly censored. The regular procedure was that on the afternoon prior to the day of its publication, all but the first and last pages of the paper had to be submitted for review by a board of censorship composed of three officers of the National Guard. The first and the last pages were submitted on the day of publication.

Murder and legacy

Chamorro wrote a letter in 1975 to Somoza: “I am waiting, with a clear conscience, and a soul at peace, for the blow you are to deliver.” Three years later, in January 1978, Chamorro was killed by unknown gunmen who pulled up beside him in a car and opened fire with machine guns. Somoza claimed Chamorro was assassinated by Pedro Ramos, a Cuban-American entrepreneur whose business had been attacked by "La Prensa". At the time, however, the Chamorro family and the wealthy opposition held that Somoza had ordered him killed.

At his funeral, thousands of people followed the coffin from Managua’s Oriental Hospital to the Chamorro family home, taking turns carrying it.

Following Chamorro’s murder, an estimated 30,000 people rioted in the streets of Managua. Cars were set on fire and several buildings belonging to the Somoza family were attacked. A general strike was called. Outside the capital, unrest flared in a number of cities and towns, particularly in areas where National Guardsmen had massacred peasant farmers during the counterinsurgency effort. The government responded with further violence and reintroduced martial law censorship. During 1978, there were seven machine gun attacks and attempted bombings of La Prensa, now under the management of Chamorro’s widow, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. Following Somoza's overthrow, she was a part of the FSLN-based junta from 1979 to 1980. Violeta Chamorro was elected president of Nicaragua in 1990.

Speaking about her husband to the participants of the 1998 IPI World Congress in Moscow, Violeta said: “During his whole life, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro was a tireless fighter for democracy in Nicaragua and against the dictatorship of Somoza. This cost him incarceration, torture, exile and finally death. He was warned many times that plans existed to assassinate him, yet no threat detained him from fulfilling his mission to impart the truth and preach democracy.”

ee also

* Chamorro (family)