Supporters of the Nicaraguan Government of Daniel Ortega invaded on Tuesday the funeral of poet Ernesto Cardinal, a reference in Latin American poetry and a key figure in Liberation Theology, in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Managua. More than a hundred women and men in uniforms with red and black scarves (the colors of the Sandinista Front) called the deceased and those who accompanied him “traitor”, and then harassed personalities such as writer Gioconda Belli, in addition to beating and assaulting five journalists who covered the funeral.
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It was a tense day in the cathedral. Government supporters – popularly known as mobs – arrived at the temple before the coffin. When Cardenal’s coffin entered, the mobs shouted slogans: “We want peace” and “could not and will not”; the latter in reference to the citizens and opponents who starred in the social protests of 2018 and who the regime accuses of an attempted coup thwarted.
In parallel to the Mass, the Government machinery entitled in its media: “Nicaraguans pay tribute to the poet and priest Ernesto Cardenal”. A clear example of the dissociation of the official discourse to the fact. The propaganda showed a photo of the uniformed mobs with the handkerchief, those who supposedly attended the Mass “out of admiration for the example” of the Trappist priest.
However, in the cathedral the followers of the Government attacked the personalities and citizens dressed in blue and white that carried banners with the figure of Cardinal with one of his verses: “Think of those who died.” “Long live Daniel Ortega,” a sympathizer shouted to the apostolic nuncio Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, when the diplomat tried to calm the spirits.
The poet Ernesto Cardenal died Sunday at the age of 95 due to health complications according to his age. The poet was one of the strongest critics of the Ortega Administration, which is why the regime orchestrated a political persecution against him in recent years. However, before his death, the presidency decreed national mourning for three days. Although the vice president praised Cardinal on Monday, the truth is that the poet’s funeral has been tarnished. First the police militarized the funeral home where their wake was held for fear of a citizen protest, and on Tuesday the government supporters said in the Cathedral that “Ernesto Cardenal is culture, but he was a traitor.”
Beatings and more insults
The coffin of the poet Cardinal was protected by family and close friends, such as the writer Gioconda Belli. “Of course we are afraid to prophesy the coffin,” Belli lamented. The cardinal’s personal assistant, Luz Marina Acosta, repudiated the invasion of the mobs in the Eucharist. “They shouldn’t be yelling barbarities at Ernesto. He already rests in peace. As he was religious, that’s why we brought him to Mass. I said that only people who love Ernesto Cardenal, who are many, would come, but they sent all these people. This is not spontaneous people. We already know who sent them, ”Acosta said in reference to the Government.
At the end of the Mass, the relatives decided to remove the coffin of the poet as soon as possible from the church in the face of increased tension. They couldn’t do it through the front door. They had to remove it from the side of the Cathedral, under the screaming of the mobs. After the coffin was removed in the funeral carriage of the religious precinct, government supporters and media reporters harassed Gioconda Belli and other assistants.
Five journalists were assaulted and beaten, including reporters from The press and other portals. The most affected was the journalist Hans Lawrence, of the publication Nicaragua Investigates. Although he tried to protect himself in the cathedral’s cural house, government supporters broke the gates and continued the beating. Lawrence ended up in a hospital in Managua vomiting blood, but was later stabilized by doctors.
This Wednesday, a public body Mass will be held at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Managua. Subsequently, we will proceed to the cremation ceremony and on Saturday, the poet’s ashes will be moved to the Solentiname archipelago, in the Great Lake Cocibolca, in the community that he founded with his “spiritual children” who fell in the fight against the Somoza dictatorship.
Highlights poetic and ethical legacy
The assistants to the wake, among which was the ambassador of the European Union, Pelayo Castro, highlighted the ethical poetic legacy of Cardinal, as well as his poetic imprint. The priest is considered a referent of poetry in Spanish and a moral beacon in Nicaragua, since from his days as a revolutionary until his death his principles against the dictatorships in the country and his zeal for promoting social justice remained immovable.
“Father Cardinal is a bulwark of the struggle for democracy. In his poems you can see the complaints against arbitrariness committed by the regime, ”said former Minister of Education Carlos Tünnermann. “It is a very accessible poetry that takes as its themes the history of its country, and the struggle of the natives. And then he directs his poetry to the universe. It leads to science poetry. Does science poetry. That night, when we raise our heads to the sky, we will see a new star. It will be the soul of Ernesto Cardenal who has already reintegrated into the universe and the creator. ”
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