Gaspar García Laviana
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Father Gaspar García Laviana (called Martín as nom de guerre) was a Nicaraguan priest who took up arms to fight as solider with the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN) in 1978.
García Laviana was born in 1941 in Tuilla, Langreo, Asturias (Spain). He became a Sacred Heart priest in 1966. After taking charge of a church in Madrid for three years, working at the same time as a carpenter, he moved as a missionary to Nicaragua in 1969. Through his missionary work with Father Fernando Cardenal in the parish of Tola, García Laviana worked closely with the Nicaraguan peasants and was intimately aware of the many hardships they faced. He often visited sick individuals and was appalled at the lack of accessible and affordable medical care available for peasants. He believed the peasants were being denied basic human necessities including medicine and education. García Laviana also vocally criticized the practice of kidnapping young girls and encouraging them to engage in prostitution; the sexual exploitation of these girls was tolerated because the kidnappings were sanctioned by the Somoza army.
García Laviana expressed his outrage at the oppression of the poor peasants and their marginalization in society in several poems that were published as a collection in 1979 called Songs of Love and War; this was the first book published by the Sandinista government's Ministry of Culture.
As a result of his vocal criticism of the corruption and injustice that characterized the Somoza regime, García Laviana was accused of being a communist sympathizer. By 1977 García Laviana received threatening phone calls and was followed by Somoza officials who monitored his activities. García Laviana aided the Sandinistas by carrying messages, helping to transport people, and mostly importantly by educating and organizing the peasants in order to help them understand their oppression.
Father García Laviana was a priest who was greatly influenced by the spirit of Liberation Theology brought about by the "preferential option for the poor" declared at Vatican II and the Latin American Bishop's conference at Medellín. He ultimately made the decision to take up arms because the peaceful process of political change did not help to remedy the social injustices he identified Nicaragua. He was also disappointed with the failure of the hierarchy in Nicaragua to speak out on behalf of the poor and oppressed. García Laviana did not genuinely condone violence; however, he saw it as the only viable means by which the Nicaraguan poor could be freed from their oppression.
Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua, acknowledged the importance of García Laviana's participation in the revolutionary struggle. García Laviana's involvement in the Nicaraguan Revolution encouraged Catholics to support the FSLN by providing the revolutionary movement with a sense of moral legitimacy. Many of García Laviana's concerns became priorities for the Sandinistas when they assumed power. The revolutionary government took up health care as a major priority, implemented agrarian reform initiatives that redistributed land back to many peasants individually and in cooperatives, and denounced prostitution.
García Laviana died in 11 November 1978, when he was in charge of one of the south columns of the FSLN. He was also a member of the Headquarters of South Front "Benjamín Zeledón".
