Édgar Chamorro Coronel (born 23 July 1931) is an ousted leader of the
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...
n rebel
Contras who later became a critic of the rebels and their
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
sponsors, even cooperating with the Sandinista government in their World Court case, ''
Nicaragua v. United States''. He is a member of the prominent
Chamorro family that provided five of Nicaragua's past presidents.
Early life
Edgar Chamorro is the son of Julio Chamorro Benard and Dolores "Lola" Coronel Urtecho, the paternal grandson of Filadelfo Chamorro Bolaños and Bertha Benard Vivas and great-grandson of
Pedro Joaquín Chamorro y Alfaro, 39th President of Nicaragua, and María de la Luz Bolaños Bendaña. He has six brothers and four sisters, and is the nephew of intellectual
José Coronel Urtecho
José Coronel Urtecho (28 February 1906 – 19 March 1994) was a Nicaraguan poet, translator, essayist, critic, narrator, playwright, diplomat and historian. He has been described as "the most influential Nicaraguan thinker of the twentieth centu ...
. In 1950, 19-year-old Chamorro began studying for the
Jesuit priesthood, earning degrees from Ecuador's
Catholic University (B.A., ''magna cum laude''),
Saint Louis University (M.Th., ''summa cum laude''), and
Marquette University
Marquette University () is a private Jesuit research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Established by the Society of Jesus as Marquette College on August 28, 1881, it was founded by John Martin Henni, the first Bishop of the diocese of M ...
(M.Ed.). Chamorro joined the faculty of the Jesuit-run
University of Central America, eventually becoming a full professor and Dean of the School of Humanities before leaving the priesthood in 1969. He received a masters degree in education from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
in 1972, and later joined a public relations and marketing firm, Creative Publicity, in
Managua
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.
In 1977,
Anastasio Somoza Debayle appointed him to a figurehead post as a special ambassador to the
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
for a year.
Activities during Nicaraguan civil war
During the
Sandinista
The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto C� ...
Revolution, Chamorro sympathized with the rebels, at one point hiding
Sergio Ramírez from the
National Guard
National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards.
Nat ...
. But as the civil war's climax brought fierce fighting to the capital itself, fears for his family's safety led him to leave for
Miami, Florida
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
on 17 June 1979. Somoza fell a month later, but after visiting Nicaragua in September, Chamorro decided to remain in Miami.
By late 1979, Chamorro had become involved in the anti-Sandinista activities of the Miami exile community. He joined the
Nicaraguan Democratic Union (UDN), formed the next year by
José Francisco Cardenal
José Francisco Cardenal (born 1940) was a Nicaraguan businessman who became known as one of the most pugnacious opponents of the Somoza and then the Sandinista regimes of Nicaragua, and played an important role in the early days of the Contra r ...
, which merged into the
Nicaraguan Democratic Force
The Nicaraguan Democratic Force (', or FDN) was one of the earliest Contra groups, formed on August 11, 1981 in Guatemala City. It was formed to oppose Nicaragua's revolutionary Sandinista government following the 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somo ...
(FDN) in August 1981. He served on the FDN's political executive committee, which decided to replace Cardenal with a new political directorate. Chamorro was tapped to be a member of the directorate, unveiled at a 8 December 1982 press conference. With his public relations experience, he took on a spokesman role for the FDN, and based himself in
Tegucigalpa
Tegucigalpa (, , ), formally Tegucigalpa, Municipality of the Central District ( es, Tegucigalpa, Municipio del Distrito Central or ''Tegucigalpa, M.D.C.''), and colloquially referred to as ''Tegus'' or ''Teguz'', is the capital and largest city ...
, Honduras to liaison with journalists covering the war. Chamorro claimed that the
CIA prepped him before press conferences and told him to deny that the group had received any funding from the US government.
Chamorro was miffed when the FDN directorate, at the CIA's prompting, appointed
Adolfo Calero
Adolfo Calero Portocarrero (December 22, 1931 – June 2, 2012) was a Nicaraguan businessman and the leader of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest rebel group of the Contras, opposing the Sandinista government.
Calero was respons ...
as its president in October 1983. His not-so-private grumblings that his Chamorro lineage was more illustrious than Calero's did not help their deteriorating relations. Chamorro was forced out in November 1984, in the fallout from the furor over the CIA's ''
Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare'', labeled by the press a "murder manual." He turned against the rebel movement, even submitting an affidavit for the Sandinista government before the
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...
in ''
Nicaragua v. United States''.
After the war
Chamorro is author of ''Packaging the Contras: A Case of C.I.A. Disinformation'' (1987). He has served as a teacher of
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
,
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and Latin American Studies at
Bard College at Simon's Rock
Bard College at Simon's Rock (more commonly known as Simon's Rock) is a private residential liberal arts college in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It is a unit of Bard College, which is located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
The school ...
since 1990 (full-time to 2003), and the
John Dewey Academy in
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,172 at the 2020 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, ...
since 2005.
References
:
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chamorro, Edgar
Contras
Nicaraguan diplomats
Harvard University alumni
Former Jesuits
Bard College at Simon's Rock faculty
Edgar Chamorro
Permanent Representatives of Nicaragua to the United Nations
1931 births
Living people
People of the Nicaraguan Revolution