Shotguns Silence a Critic

A political killing touches off another Managua earthquake

Five years after the earthquake that killed 10,000 people and sent office buildings tumbling into one another like falling dominoes, the downtown area of Nicaragua's capital city of Managua is still a semi-ghost town of empty lots and damaged structures. But the streets are passable again and often clogged with traffic. Thus Newspaper Publisher-Editor Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal, 53, was driving at a leisurely pace last week as he headed from home on one side of the city toward his office on the other at La Prensa, the country's largest newspaper (circ. 30,000). Because he was driving so slowly, Chamorro was unable to escape when another car that had been following his Saab suddenly drew abreast. Shotguns were poked from the window of the car, and a series of blasts struck Chamorro. His car went out of control, jumped a curb and struck a lamppost. Rushed to a hospital by medics who first assumed he had been in an auto accident, Central America's best-known newsman died on the examining table.

For 30 years Chamorro had been a relentless critic of Strongman Anastasio ("Tacho") Somoza and his family, who have ruled the nation for more than four oppressive decades. His death caused a political earthquake in Nicaragua, and his funeral quickly dissolved into a political event. A crowd swelling to 40,000 followed the coffin from the hospital mortuary to Chamorro's home and then to La Prensa's office. The angry marchers moved on to burn a Somoza-owned textile mill and a commercial blood bank that Chamorro had exposed for selling Nicaraguan blood abroad at a lucrative profit. Some stoned a police station; the cops responded by lobbing tear gas into La Prensa's building. The crowds shouted "Death to Somoza!" and "Down with Yankee imperialism!" Among a score of buildings set afire was an American bank. To forestall further rioting, the government pressured Chamorro's family to bury him ahead of schedule.

Chamorro's supporters blamed Somoza for the shooting. They had good cause to suspect him. Ever since the two were eight-year-old schoolboys, Chamorro and Somoza had been enemies. In those days, Somoza told TIME last week, they fought because Chamorro's family paper "kept attacking my dad, and I couldn't stand for that." Dad was Anastasio the elder, who took over the country in 1936. After his assassination in 1956, his son Luis became Jefe, and after Luis' death in 1967, Tacho succeeded him. Those childish schoolyard battles were merely the start of Chamorro's lifelong crusade to unseat the dynasty he would one day describe as "permanent parasites, stealing and corrupting everything in sight." Chamorro became a student agitator at the University of Managua, followed that with a brief adventure as a guerrilla leader who tried to take on Luis Somoza's Guardia Nacional with a thin band of insurgents. He was sentenced to a nine-year prison term for his abortive rebellion. After serving 18 months, he was released in a general amnesty.

Since that time, Chamorro had confined his attacks within his family's constantly censored newspaper. After a deadly band of anti-Somoza guerrillas known as the Sandinistas--with whom Chamorro was sympathetic--launched an offensive against the national guard last October, Chamorro was forbidden to leave the country. Three months ago, he received an unexpected respite: Tacho Somoza, who denies all accusations of tyranny in Nicaragua, could hardly refuse to let his most persistent critic fly to New York City to receive the Maria Moors Cabot Prize from Columbia University for his "distinguished journalistic contributions to the advancement of inter-American understanding."

Somoza insisted last week that he had had nothing to do with the murder of his longtime adversary. "I am very chagrined at Pedro Joaquin's killing," he told TIME. "He was in the opposition, but he was in the honest opposition." The day after the shooting four men were arrested. One of the accused, Silvio Pena Rivas, told a Managua judge that he had been paid 100,000 cordobas ($14,285) to kill the publisher. He said that payment had been made by Pedro Ramos, a Cuban-American, who was owner of the blood bank that Chamorro had exposed. In Miami, Ramos termed the charge "a monstrosity."

Whatever the motive, the killing was another problem for Tacho Somoza, already awash in a sea of trouble. Somoza nearly died from a heart attack last summer; even though he shed 40 lbs. from his previous 240, he has still not yet fully recovered. Politically, the regime is shakier than ever before in the course of its 45 years. The U.S. last year threatened to cut off Nicaraguan aid because of continuing violations of human rights. Partly to appease Washington, Tacho lifted the martial law he had imposed to subdue the Sandinistas. Meanwhile, a new and growing opposition from businessmen and church leaders is increasingly active.

At week's end, Somoza announced that he would give up the presidency when his term ends in 1981. Under the 1974 constitution, no member of his family can succeed him. Somoza will undoubtedly pick a trusted stand-in as puppet President, however, and keep his job as head of the national guard--thus continuing to run the country

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