Nora Astorga
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Nora Astorga (circa 1948 — February 14, 1988) was a guerrilla fighter in the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979, a lawyer, politician, judge and the Nicaraguan ambassador to the United Nations from 1986 to 1988.
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[edit] Early life and education
Astorga was born to a religious, middle-class family in Managua. She was the first child of a lumber exporter and rancher with connections to the powerful ruling Somoza family. In her youth she was a devout Roman Catholic, often doing charitable work in the poor neighborhoods of Managua.
In 1967, she announced to her family's dismay that she supported Fernando Agüero, not his opponent Anastasio Somoza Debayle, in the presidential election. For her personal safety and to "straighten her out", her family sent her to study medicine in the United States, where she remained from 1967 to 1969.
"I decided to study medicine because I believed it was one of those professions that would allow me to work for social change", she said. However, ironically, the animal dissections disturbed her and she had to abandon her studies.
She said of the years she spent in Washington, D.C., "What impressed me most about the United States were the social contrasts and above all the racism. I had never seen racism like that in Nicaragua ... [m]y political consciousness was born then." [1]
[edit] A revolutionary
Astorga returned to Nicaragua and studied law at the Universidad Centroamericana de Managua. Her association with Nicaragua's Sandinista revolutionaries began during her years as a university student. From 1969 to 1973, she was responsible for finding safe houses and transportation for the revolutionary leader Oscar Turcios.
At age 22, she married Jorge Jenkins, a student activist. The young couple spent the following year in Italy, where he studied anthropology and she studied banking law and computer programming. Five years and two children later, they separated. She led a double life as a mother of two and a corporate lawyer for one of Nicaragua's largest construction companies, while clandestinely aiding the Sandinistas.
After the assassination of newspaper editor Pedro Chamorro in 1978, Astorga decided to take up arms against the Somoza regime. "I finally understood that armed struggle was the only solution, that a rifle cannot be met with a flower, that we were in the streets, but if that force didn't get organized we wouldn't achieve much", she said. "For me, it was the moment of conviction: either I took up arms and made a total commitment or I wasn't going to change anything." [2]
She gained national attention for her participation in the botched kidnapping and murder of General Reynaldo Pérez Vega (nicknamed "El Perro" or "the dog"). Pérez Vega was deputy commander of Anastasio Somoza’s National Guard. On March 8, 1978 (International Women's Day, ironically) Astorga invited the general to her apartment in Managua, hinting to him that the sexual favors he had long been seeking would be granted. When he arrived, however, three members of the Sandinista Liberation Army — Hilario Sánchez, Raúl Venerio and Walter Ferreti — burst out of her bedroom closet and seized the general. The plan was to ransom him for jailed Sandinista revolutionaries, but Pérez Vega put up a struggle and was murdered. Later, his throat slit, he was found wrapped in a Sandinista flag. Astorga said of his murder, "It was not murder," Astorga said about he incident. "He was too much of a monster."[3]
In an interview shortly before her death, she described her feelings about her role in the Pérez Vega murder this way:
- ...Sometimes people ask me why I don't have any guilty feelings in regard to "the dog". They want to know how I could do something so fierce without feeling guilty. I believe I don't feel guilty for three reasons. First, we were supposed to kidnap him, not kill him. Second, I wasn't there at the momement of his death. And third, he represented repression. He was practically Somoza's second in command, the one who conducted all those murderous operations in the north, the one who massacred so many in Masaya. He really was a monster. I understood his death as part of the liberation struggle... [4]
She became the subject of a national manhunt and next appeared to the Nicaraguan public on the pages of La Prensa, the nation's opposition newspaper. She was wearing jungle fatigues and carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. Astorga had escaped to the jungle and joined the Sandinista revolutionaries. There she became pregant with her third child by José María Alvarado, a leading Sandanista.
[edit] Justice Minister and UN Representative
After the Sandinistas took power in July 1979, Astorga was appointed Vice Minister of Justice. In that position she oversaw the trials of some 7,500 members of Somoza's National Guard.
In 1984, her appointment as ambassador to the United States was refused by the Reagan administration because of her involvement in the killing of General Reynaldo Pérez Vega. Vega had been a CIA operative.[5]
Astorga became a deputy representative to the United Nations in 1984, and in March 1986, became the Nicaraguan ambassador to that body. She was instrumental in getting the United Nations to recognize a ruling by the World Court declaring United States' support for the Contras illegal.
[edit] Death at age 39
On Valentine's Day 1988, "La Norita" died of cervical cancer in Managua, aged 39. She was awarded the title "Hero of the Fatherland and Revolution" and the Order of Carlos Fonseca.
She appears as one of the twelve apostles in the mural of the Visitación at Casa Ave Maria in Managua. A barrio, or neighborhood, in Managua was named for her.
[edit] Further reading
- Patricia Daniel (1998) No Other Reality, the Life and Times of Nora Astorga (CAM: Bangor [UK]).
- Margaret Randall and Lynda Yanz (1995) Sandino's Daughters: Testimonies of Nicaraguan Women in Struggle (Rutgers University Press).
[edit] References
- ^ Editors (April, 1988) "Nora Astorga: el orgullo de ser nicaragüense." Envio Digital, Número 82.
- ^ Editors, Envio Digital
- ^ Sciolino, Elaine (September 28, 1986) "Nicaragua's U.N. Voice." New York Times.
- ^ Editors, Envio Digital
- ^ Saxon, Wolfgang (February 15, 1988) "Nora Astorga, a Sandinista Hero And Delegate to U.N., Dies at 39." New York Times.
[edit] External links
Nora Astorga: El orgullo de ser nicaragüense, an interview (in Spanish) from Revista Envío with Astorga shortly before her death.- Nora Astorga in Her Own Words, an English translation of the interview with Nora Astorga in Revista Envío.
