Violeta Chamorro, in an archive image.ullstein image Dtl. (Ullstein invoice via Getty Images)
Doña Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, former President of Nicaragua from 1990 to 1997, was transferred this Tuesday by air from Managua to San José, Costa Rica, where she will settle “under the care and love of her family and in the company of the staff”. of health professionals and specialists.” A symbol of democracy and public freedoms in this Central American country, the former president has remained in fragile health since September 2018, when she suffered a stroke.
The Chamorro Barrios family announced the transfer “without any setbacks” in a statement released a few hours after the matriarch’s arrival in the Costa Rican capital. “Doña Violeta,” as she is known in Nicaragua, remained throughout her residence in Las Palmas, Managua, “under the care and love of her family, accompanied by specialized health personnel.”
“We are deeply grateful to the doctors, health workers and service personnel who have cared for her well-being throughout the years in Nicaragua, and to all the people who have always accompanied her with their prayers and kept an eye on her condition.” Health, “He remains sensitive but stable,” the family said, without providing any further information about his departure from Nicaragua.
Most of the former president’s children were relentlessly persecuted by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. This was the case of Cristiana Chamorro, the former presidential candidate, and the eldest of the family, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, who were deprived of their freedom for more than two years. For his part, the renowned journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro had to flee into exile in Costa Rica with his wife Desiré Elizondo in 2021 to preserve his freedom and continue reporting.
Cristiana and Pedro Joaquín were sent into exile on February 9 along with 220 other political prisoners on a plane that landed on the outskirts of Washington. Both had their Nicaraguan citizenship revoked and their assets confiscated. Five days after the brothers’ exile, on February 15, Carlos Fernando Chamorro was also denationalized, declared a fugitive from justice, and all of his assets were confiscated by Ortega and Murillo.
Violeta Chamorro’s transfer comes one day before her 94th birthday, which marks the reunification of one of Nicaragua’s most influential families and symbolizes the defense of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. The former president was married for 27 years to the journalist and historical director of the newspaper La Prensa Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, who was shot dead by the Somoza dictatorship on January 10, 1978. After the assassination, this family held fast to the ideals of their patriarch, including the commitment that “Nicaragua will be a republic again.”
Doña Violeta was the first woman to rule in the Americas and became a symbol of peace and reconciliation. His inauguration as president in 1990, after defeating the Sandinista revolution led by Ortega, marked the end of decades of fratricidal war. Despite sabotaging the Sandinista opposition during her term in office, the former president installed democracy in Nicaragua, a phase that lasted until the Sandinista leader’s return to power in 2006 and which today is dominated by a totalitarian regime and endless repression.
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