Violeta Chamorro
Violeta Barrios Torres de Chamorro was a Nicaraguan politician who served as the president of Nicaragua from 1990 to 1997. She was the country's first female president. Previously, she was a member of the Junta of National Reconstruction from 1979 to 1980.
Her husband, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, was a journalist with his family's newspaper, La Prensa, which he later inherited. As a result of his anti-government stance, he was often jailed or exiled, forcing Chamorro to spend a decade following him abroad or visiting him in jail. When he was assassinated in 1978, Chamorro took over the newspaper. Pedro's murder strengthened the Nicaraguan Revolution and his image, as wielded by his widow, became a powerful symbol for the opposition forces.
Initially, when the Sandinistas were victorious over Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Chamorro fully supported them. She agreed to become part of the provisional government established under the Junta of National Reconstruction. However, when the Junta began moving in a more radical direction and signed agreements with the Soviet Union, Chamorro resigned on 19 April 1980 and returned to the newspaper.
Under her direction, La Prensa continued to criticize the government and its policies despite threats and government-forced shutdowns. When President Daniel Ortega announced that elections would be held in 1990, Chamorro was selected as the candidate for the opposition group known as the National Opposition Union. This 14-party alliance ranged from conservatives and liberals to communists and because of ideological differences had difficulty in devising any political platform other than a promise to end the civil war. Despite polls indicating a victory for the incumbent Sandinista President Ortega, Chamorro won the election on 25 February 1990. Her election helped bring an end to the civil war through reconciliation and the demobilization and disarmament of forces belonging to the opposing factions. She was the first elected female head of state in the Americas. She was also the second woman to be elected in her own right as a head of government in the Americas, after Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica.
Chamorro was sworn into office on 25 April 1990. Chamorro's leadership covered six years marked by economic strife and social unrest, but she was able to compromise with rivals, maintain a constitutional regime, re-establish international banking relationships, and end the hyperinflation that had plagued the country for several years.
After leaving office on 10 January 1997, Chamorro worked on several international peace initiatives until poor health forced her to retire from public life.
Early life
Violeta Barrios Torres was born on 18 October 1929 in Rivas, a small city near the Nicaraguan border with Costa Rica, to Carlos José Barrios Sacasa and Amalia Torres Hurtado. Her family was wealthy and conservative, and although she was often claimed by the U.S. media to have been of the Nicaraguan aristocracy, in truth, her family had large landholdings and cattle; they were more akin to the cattle barons of the western United States than the "Nicaraguan Gloria Vanderbilt" she was sometimes styled as in the American press.She attended primary school at the Sagrado Corazón de Jesús school in Rivas and the French school in Granada. Barrios began her secondary education at the Colegio La Inmaculada in Managua and then transferred to an American boarding school, as her parents wanted her to perfect her English. She first attended Our Lady of the Lake Catholic High School for Girls in San Antonio, Texas, and then in 1945 moved to Blackstone College for Girls in Virginia. In June 1947, her father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and though he died before she could make it home, she returned to Nicaragua, without graduating in the United States.
Personal life
Violeta met Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal in 1949, they married in December 1950; subsequently, they had five children together. In 1952, on his father's death, Pedro Joaquín inherited the newspaper La Prensa. He took over publishing and under his direction, the paper became a voice of opposition to the Somoza regime. Chamorro Cardenal was frequently jailed between 1952 and 1957 for the content of the paper and in 1957 led a revolt against Somoza. His actions resulted in his exile to Costa Rica, where Chamorro joined him after settling their children with his mother. Two years were spent in Costa Rica, with Pedro writing against the regime and immediately upon their return he was jailed again. Chamorro's life throughout the 1960s and 1970s was a repetitive cycle of reunions with either her husband or children. She followed him; if he was forced to leave, she left the children with family and traveled to be with him; if he was jailed, she was reunited with the children and visited him. Chamorro's earnings from a rental property that her mother had given her gave the couple a steady income. When her husband was assassinated on 10 January 1978, she took over control of the newspaper. She was in Miami at the time of the murder.Over the years, Chamorro's family was split into feuding factions based upon political association. Two of her children, Pedro and Cristiana, worked at La Prensa, although Pedro left Nicaragua in 1984 to join the Contras. Her other children were active Sandinistas; Claudia was ambassador to Costa Rica and Carlos became the editor of the FSLN daily newspaper Barricada. In spite of the conflicting political views of her children, Chamorro encouraged and hosted family dinners during which she insisted political affiliations were temporarily put aside in the interest of family harmony.
Sandinista Revolution and Junta of National Reconstruction
The assassination of Chamorro's husband sparked the Sandinista Revolution. His image became a symbol of their cause and when Daniel Ortega led the Sandinista guerrillas triumphantly into Managua in July 1979, Chamorro was with them. A coalition to replace the Somoza regime was formed. Chamorro represented the Democratic Union of Liberation in the first Junta of National Reconstruction, which also included Ortega for the Sandinista National Liberation Front ; Moisés Hassan Morales, of the pro-Sandinista National Patriotic Front ; Luis Alfonso Robelo Callejas, with the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement ; and Sergio Ramirez Mercado for the Group of Twelve. This directorate, which initially promised an independent judiciary, free elections, free enterprise and a free press, was assisted by an 18-member Cabinet and a 33-member Council, whose membership represented a broad spectrum of Nicaraguan society. After the civil war of 1978–1979 and last-minute transferring of the national treasury to foreign banks by the Somoza regime, the country was devastated, and this facilitated the establishment of a Marxist-style government; however, the Sandinistas soon began taking over television and radio stations and censoring newspapers. Following the lead of the Sandinistas' mentor Fidel Castro, Cuban-style Marxism was implemented and Nicaragua increasingly took on the traits of a police state, in some respects. In others, while the Sandinistas did increase their ties with the Soviet bloc and embraced Marxist philosophy, they announced a non-alignment policy and continued discussions on diplomatic, economic, and military relationships with the United States.In February 1980, the FSLN signed several accords with the Soviet Union, causing U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who had initially authorized aid to the Sandinista government, to approve CIA support for the opposition forces. On 19 April 1980, Chamorro resigned from the Junta in opposition to the Sandinistas' push for control, implementation of a Cuban interpretation of Marx, and failure to keep the commitments made in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, for the establishment of a democracy. Her exit prompted other members of the Junta to resign and join opposition groups that were beginning to form. She returned to her role as editor of La Prensa, driving it to become both an advocate of free speech and opposition thought. Her support of the Contras caused divisions in her own family and resulted in La Prensas offices being temporarily shut down on several occasions. In 1986, following the dissolution of the Junta and his election in November 1984, President Ortega even threatened her personally with a thirty-year prison sentence for treason. That same year, she won the Louis Lyons Award from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University; the award citation said that she had "resisted repression and censorship" and remained dedicated to a free press despite threats, redactions and suppression by the government.
1990 election
From 1987, a group of 14 political parties began working together in the hope of defeating the Sandinistas in the next election. By 1989, efforts by Costa Rican President Óscar Arias and other Central American leaders had persuaded Ortega to hold elections. He agreed not only to free elections, but to the monitoring of the process. The opposition bloc, now calling itself the National Opposition Union agreed upon a formula to select a consensus candidate. After five rounds of voting, Chamorro was appointed the presidential candidate for UNO. Her platform primarily consisted of two key promises: ending the civil war and ending mandatory military service. Other proposals included an amnesty for political prisoners and the adoption of free-market economic policies. The campaign also played heavily on her simplicity, her faith, common sense, and the image of her being the "queen-mother" and the wife of a martyr.Almost all news outlets reported that Chamorro could not win. She was depicted as rich with no real experience. There were rumors that she received millions from the United States via their embassy and that she was a U.S. lackey; that she was too religious; and that her coalition was too disorganized, had no money, and was plagued by in-fighting. In reality, her humility and provincial roots worked for her; she had run a family, a business and been part of the original Junta; the Sandinistas blocked payment of funds to her from the U.S. while simultaneously claiming she received them; and she had long been vocal about her displeasure of U.S. involvement in Nicaragua. According to Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa; Humberto Belli, an editor of La Prensa and later minister of education; and other writers such as Edward Sheehan and Shirley Christian who have written about the country, Nicaragua is one of the most religious countries in Latin America. Chamorro's faith and support for free expression united those who had felt alienated by the Sandinistas. Her chief appeal though was that she promised peace to a country tired of war. Ortega spent large sums of money, and strutted around like a "macho rooster", as if the election were already won; he even used a fighting rooster as the symbol of his campaign.
The United States government was convinced Chamorro could not win without measures to "level the field". The George H. W. Bush administration wanted Congress to waive the prohibition of using National Endowment for Democracy funds to support a candidate and to approve a $9 million aid plan in addition to granting $3 million outright in assistance to UNO. Congress refused, as direct aid to candidates or parties was prohibited by law. Congress finally agreed to the $9 million package, only as per the legal requirements—meaning funds could only be used for election monitoring and observers, drives to increase voter turnout and must be fully disclosed. These funds were earmarked for building voting infrastructure, for vehicles and gasoline, salaries, poll watchers, office equipment, trips abroad to train poll workers and those registering voters, election monitoring teams, and as per the provision of foreign donations, $2 million was paid into the Supreme Electoral Council run by the government. In addition, the CIA covertly paid close to $500,000 to nearly a hundred Nicaraguans living abroad so they would return home to vote. The aid package ran into difficulties though: one month before the elections, only $400,000 of the money had been sent and it was deposited in accordance with Nicaraguan law into an account at the government-run Central Bank. The vehicles which were provided for in the aid package arrived in Nicaragua, but due to the customs director's vacation, the vehicles were not cleared, nor were tags issued for their use. Three weeks before the election, UNO officials reportedly had received only around $250,000 and accused Ortega's administration of delaying tactics and taking a share off the top. The government countered that the history of the Iran–Contra affair was a basis for caution and that the US itself was creating delays. Since the United States invasion of Panama had frozen Panama's banking system, a spokesperson for the Central Bank of Nicaragua stated that the Ortega Administration had no access to their funds which were deposited in Panamanian banks.
Up to 1990, Nicaragua had lived with forty years of the Somoza dictatorship, through a decade of civil warfare and Sandinista rule, and five years of US imposed economic sanctions. Because the election was to be held in the midst of a civil war, it was important both domestically and internationally that the vote was seen to be legitimate. The Esquipulas Peace Agreement which had been brokered by Arias, called for monitoring of elections by the Organization of American States and the United Nations, among other provisions. The election was the most strictly monitored of any in Latin America and involved 2,578 international observers among them former US president Jimmy Carter; Raúl Alfonsín, former president of Argentina; Alfonso López Michelsen, former president of Colombia; Rodrigo Carazo Odio, former president of Costa Rica, and many Caribbean and US dignitaries.
On 25 February 1990, Chamorro won the election with a 54.7% share of the vote, ousting the incumbent Ortega to become the first elected woman president in the Americas. Her victory came as a surprise to most observers. Ortega and his supporters conceded defeat without argument and observers left only a skeleton staff to assist with the handover of power. The two-month transition period was characterized by the so-called piñata sandinista, a spate of transfers of expropriated and confiscated property into the hands of the FSLN's members and leaders that became a complicated issue for the incoming administration.
Possible explanations for Chamorro's unexpected win include that the Nicaraguan people were disenchanted with the Ortega government, as economic mismanagement, a US embargo, and increased Contra activities in 1987 had, by 1990, decreased per capita GNI to 20 year lows. By November 1989, the White House had announced that the US economic embargo against Nicaragua would continue unless Chamorro won. Also, there had been reports of intimidation from the side of the contras, with a Canadian observer mission claiming that 42 people were killed by the contras in "election violence" in October 1989. This led many commentators to assume that Nicaraguans voted against the Sandinistas out of fear of a continuation of the contra war and economic deprivation.