ABSTRACT

Waving away the crowd of reporters who habitually wait outside, the strikingly attractive silver-haired doña Violeta smilingly ushered me into her comfortable, but simple, office. There, a prominently displayed crucifix and a large national flag immediately caught my eye, powerful symbols of Mrs. Chamorro’s arch-conservative political stance. Our lengthy conversation was animated and extremely cordial. When we met again several months later to resume her life story, Mrs. Chamorro reinforced my initial impression of her as a very likeable woman, but one obsessed by a political ideology that divides the world into “them” and “us.”

Widow of the martyred journalist, opposition leader and national hero Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, whose assassination in 1978 galvanized support for the revolution against Somoza; former member of the Directorate of the Government of National Reconstruction created after the overthrow of Somoza; mother of a family which has been bitterly divided by the revolution; staunch defender of traditional Catholicism; tenacious owner and president of the Board of Directors of the embattled La Prensa; the outspoken Violeta Chamorro here narrates her biography and expresses herself unequivocally on a number of issues, including the tense relations between her newspaper and the Sandinista government.

If we place doña Violeta’s reminiscences of her life with her husband Pedro alongside Reinaldo Téfel’s biography, we gain a fuller picture of opposition activities during the long Somoza years. We also see first hand the polarization of Nicaraguan politics today, for until the revolution, the Téfels and the Chamorros had a great deal in common, while today they share only respect for the memory of Pedro Joaquín.