Oscar Romero

Thirty-six years ago today, the Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero, was assassinated during mass. It was a stunning act of treachery, ordered and executed from within the people in power. But instead of silencing Oscar Romero, his best intentions were made immortal.

Romero was not a highly politicized person; in fact, he shunned the liberation theology movement around him. His cause was steadfastly with the poor, social justice, and the cessation of the violence that had engulfed his country.

The histories of these tiny republics along the Central American Isthmus are written in the blood or martyrs like Oscar Romero. No country has been immune to the violence that has taken the lives of many people of high profile, such as Romero and Benjamin Linder in Nicaragua, who are emblems for a much wider and deeper problem of violations of the rights and even murders of thousands of nameless people.

Here are some words of Oscar Romero, something on which to reflect while enjoying this marvelous holiday.

Portrait of Oscar Romero by Puig Reixach.

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No programme accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

movies about Nicaragua

Much of Nicaragua's cultural and political history is captured in the cameras of diverse filmmakers through the years. Here we present another set of films that tell stories new and old. Please let us know which films you like, and why! 

Nicaragua-A Nation's Right to Survive. This 1983 documentary directed by John Pilger presents the difficulties facing the young, revolutionary Nicaragua, crippled by aggression from the superpower to the North. "The issue is that the United States has no right to invade and humiliate a small country" (A. C. Sandino). This film includes footage of US biplanes in attacks on Ocotal, where the first aerial bombing in the world was conducted in 1926-before the Spanish massacre at Guernica.

Land  "Next time you pack your sunscreen bring your gun". A documentary video about the housing development boom on the Nicaraguan Pacific coast. If you are thinking of buying property in Nicaragua, see this first. Directed by Julian Pinder, is available on Torrents.

Pictures from a Revolution by Susan Meiselas. "PICTURES FROM A REVOLUTION is also a smart, unvarnished tale of the evolution of images as they run headlong into popular culture and political agendas". 

The Mosquito Coast, based on the book by Paul Theroux, tells a Gulliveresque story set on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast. Starring Harrison Ford as a dreamer wanting to change the Nicaraguans, only he still does not even know them. 

Nicaragua: An Unfinished Revolution presents social and political issues facing the Sandinistas in their second chance at social transformation in Nicaragua. This video, produced by Al-Jazeera, is presented below.

No Pasaran, a film by the Australian filmmaker David Bradbury, covers the history of Nicaragua from the construction of the Somoza dynasty until the Nicaraguan Sandinista Revolution. 

Click on the "escudo" to contact us. 

Laguna de Apoyo Reading List II

Nicaragua is at the same time, a small, impoverished piece of the Latin American reality, and an historical and literary force unto itself. To understand Nicaragua as an outsider compells a great deal of reading. Here, we present yet another set of readings for the thoughtful Nicaragua lover. Plenty of great literature is about and by Nicaraguans, and we recommend reading it all.

Life as a Anglo child among the Caribbean people of Nicaragua brought this author a universe of novel experiences which he retells with grace and sensitiviy toward the subject. The Creoles and the Miskito people, little understood or accepted on the Pacific side of Nicaragua, are revealed among his anecdotes written a century ago.










Life in state and class oppression and struggle to achieve liberation united with Christian religious principles among the common people of Nicaragua. The result was explosive. The will of many men and women solidify against the dictatorship, and a call to faith was made and heard among many, breathing life in praxis to the concepts of liberation theology. A prime document in the history of Nicaragua, The Gospel in Solentiname is also a call to arms to people of faith, through the exegetic words of poor, rural people seeing Jesus of the Gospels in their midst, sharing their lives and their injustices. Ernesto Cardenal is a Trappist monk, studied under Thomas Merton in Gethsemane, Kentucky, and he participated in the founding of an intentional community in the Solentiname islands in southern Lake Nicaragua.





The Country Under My Skin is the autobiography of Gioconda Belli, the story of a young woman poet from a well-to-do family who chooses to join the reviled Sandinista rebels. Her first-hand accounts serve as valid historical accounts as well as moving personal reflections and worthy prose. Belli participated actively in the rebellion against the Somoza dictatorship, and later in the Sandinista society and government.







Among the most prominent writers in the Spanish language, Ruben Dario was a master of poetry and prose, and a modernist for all times. His writing often transcended Nicaragua and his readers are found throughout the Spanish-speaking world, for his precise and universal use of language and cadence. Azul, a collection of poems and prose, was written when he was only twenty-one years old, and today excerpts from it are pillars of the Spanish language. All Nicaraguans can quote passages from his work. To know Nicaragua is to know Dario, and vice versa.






Ben Linder's death and life are remarkable even today, in part because of his novel choice in life: to work for no income as a volunteer in revolutionary Nicaragua. He was killed in a military operation by contra rebels, just like thousands of other young men and women. Unlike most of the others, however, Ben Linder was a US citizen working as a civilian in Nicaragua. Ben was targetted for assassination because he was making lives better for poor Nicaraguans in the remote countryside. Denial, resistance, and later, outright hostility toward Ben's family and others who demanded to know the details of US involvement in his death illuminated a sad reality: The US government of Nicaragua sponsored terrorism in Nicaragua. This would be a thrilling story, if it were not true. Instead, it is a chronicle of a country caught in a cold-war crossfire, in the microcosm of one martyred American young man and his coworkers. This biography, written by Joan Kruckewitt, is a worthwhile read.




The most cogent intellectual critic of US intervention in Nicaragua during the 1980's was Noam Chomsky, who re-interpreted the Reagan administration's zeal to undermine the Sandinista administration, using his skills in communication. "One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist" and similar concepts were embodied in the contra war and revealed by Chomsky's brilliant analysis. Nicaragua was a prized piece on a chessboard for the US government, and Chomsky provides key features in the dissection of use of language in the war of words.

Click on the "escudo" to contact us.

Remembering Benjamin Linder

Benjamin Linder Lives in the Hearts of Those Who Follow.

Ben Linder died 24 years ago this week, victim of a senseless act of war. He was killed in a targetted, terrorist attack, along with two Nicaraguan co-workers, while building a small hydroelectric dam project to provide electricity to San Jose de Bocay, in northeastern Nicaragua. The arms, training, and motivation behind his death were provided by members of the US security apparatus. Did Ben Linder threaten the US government or people with his actions? The following editorial was published on the twentieth anniversary of his death (El Nuevo Diario 28 April, 2007).

Recordando a Benjamín Linder

Jeffrey McCrary *
Desde el primer momento, hace veinte años atrás, que tuve conocimiento de Nicaragua, ésta ocupó mi conciencia, aunque no me di cuenta del momento y de sus repercusiones hasta mucho depués, gradualmente. Ese día en que Benjamín Linder, un joven norteamericano, ingeniero, payaso completo con su narizón rojo, maquillaje y uniciclo, murió asesinado en San José de Bocay, un 28 de abril de 1987.

No supe que este maravilloso hombre existía hasta unas semanas después de su muerte, cuando sus padres visitaron mi entonces ciudad de habitación, Houston, Texas. Sus padres me narraron en términos sencillos y directos la breve historia de Ben en Nicaragua como voluntario en la construcción de proyectos de generación de energía sostenible para brindar electricidad a pueblos remotos por primera vez. El pueblo de El Cua recibió electricidad y estuvo en camino un segundo proyecto hidroeléctrico en San José de Bocay. Aún recuerdo sentirme conmovido cuando me relataron sobre sus esfuerzos para ayudar a gente opromida por inmensas escalas de pobreza, ignorancia e injustia, y cómo su vida se acortó cuando se hizo blanco de un lado que luchaba contra otro en una guerra salvaje que consumió a ese inocente y pecoso con igual ferocidad. Perdió su vida con una bala tirada a poca distancia después de caer herido al ser impactado por un morterazo, dejando así en camino su segundo proyecto de generación hidroeléctrica para que otras almas valientes lo terminaran.

Para muchos ciudadanos estadounidenses como yo, Nicaragua se hizo un caldo de ideas e ideologías, de estrategias de resistencia y de combate, y de protestas pacíficas rotas por chorros de sangre. Ben Linder y muchos otros, en ambos lados de esa década terrible, se hicieron héroes de algún tipo, y sus imágenes fueron muchas veces utilizadas para hacer llamados a favor de su causa política sagrada. Pero la historia de Ben, quien nunca deseaba ser mártir y héroe, hizo llamado a algún sentido privado mío. Como Jesús siglos atrás convirtió el agua en vino, Ben hizo electricidad de ella para pueblos de los cerros remotos. Me fascinó el concepto de que uno puede usar sus talentos al servicio de otros, tanto como me decepcionó y confundió la agridulzura de sus esmeros.

Estos veinte años me han regalado muchas experiencias y conocimientos sobre los cuales me pongo a reflexionar. De los muchos elementos del ser nicaragüense que aprendí a admirar y respetar, uno es su enorme capacidad para perdonar. Es increíble concebir que tantos de los mismos hombres y mujeres que yo conozco y respeto hoy en día, pueden haber ordenado, ejecutado, apoyado o caído como víctimas en tantos actos bárbaros en tantos lados de ese conflicto, tan sólo dos décadas atrás. Me deja atónito cuando aprecio la capacidad de curar las viejas heridas entre gente que ha sufrido enormes pérdidas, más aún cuando veo viejos enemigos juntarse las manos en causas compartidas. El sufrimiento del campesinado ya es una bandera bajo la cual los nicaragüenses se unen más que nunca. También, las conflictivas connotaciones partidarias del trabajo de Linder se han desteñido con los años y con los avances en una agenda más común que nunca. Una vez, Linder fue considerado un enemigo por algunos aquí; ahora, la gran mayoría de los nicaragüenses coinciden con su misión.

Otro elemento del ser nicaragüense que me ha atraído es el sentido de causa que impulsó la revolución y continúa motivando a muchos hacia vocaciones que compensan el espíritu mucho más que el bolsillo. Un entero estilo de vida se puede hallar en nicaragüenses que laboran en instituciones sin fines de lucro, enseñan en aulas y sirven el sistema médico en medio de condiciones abismales; pasan horas incontables en la lucha constante para hacer de Nicaragua un lugar decente para todos, y de muchas otras maneras manifiestan la dignidad del hombre y la mujer en su vida cotidiana. La compasión hacia los oprimidos y sufridos es tan invariablemente manifestada por el ser nicaragüense en tantas dimensiones de su vida, desde sus preferencias en el empleo hasta su trato a los niños en los semáforos. Benjamín Linder no fue el primero ni será el último que trabaje al servicio de otros menos afortunados, pero él fue quien me despertó la idea de que yo podría hacer algo, aunque fuera minísculo, para otros en Nicaragua. Tal vez yo nunca podría hacer a los niños reír con mi humor, sin embargo, aprecio mucho el viaje que he seguido estos años al lado de este país y su gente. Aunque nunca me conociste, me trajiste aquí. Gracias, Ben.

* Biólogo

---

Comentarios de nuestros lectores

Mike
Sr. Jefry : Gracias por recordarnos las cualidades de Ben Linder! Algunos nicaraguenses podríamos tratar de imitar la generosidad y el internacionalismo de Ben!

LENIN FISHER
Homenaje a quien homenaje merece.

Yasser Cohen
A Benjamin lo mataron los enemigos de la paz y del progreso en Nicaragua.

El Nuevo Diario - Managua, Nicaragua - 28 de abril de 2007

Read more about the life and death of Benjamin Linder here. This quote from the biography of Ben Linder by Joan Kruckewitt:

On April 30, 1987, under a fierce afternoon sun, a funeral procession wound its way through the cobbled streets of Matagalpa, a small city in Nicaragua. Daniel Ortega, the country's president, and his wife, Rosario Murillo, followed the casket, slowly walking arm in arm with two Americans, David and Elisabeth Linder from Portland, Oregon. The Linders' son and daughter, John and Miriam, walked beside them. Oscar Blandón, a hydroplant operator and electrician from the remote village of El Cuá, walked alone, head hidden underneath a baseball cap, a sentinel that never strayed from the casket. Clowns from the Nicaraguan National Circus followed behind, their painted mouths turned downwards. Behind them walked thousands of Nicaraguans and foreigners. The funeral procession stretched for more than seven blocks. 

If you would like to volunteer in Nicaragua, follow in Ben's footsteps and make life better for poor Nicaraguans. FUNDECI/GAIA can arrange volunteer projects for you in Nicaragua. 

Click on the "escudo" to contact us.