Address by President Comandante Daniel
in Tribute to the National Hero Roberto Clemente
on the 50th Anniversary of his Transit to Immortality
December 31, 2022
Good evening, brother and sister Nicaraguans, families of this Blessed and Free Land.
We are on this site of the old National Stadium, today it's the Stanley Cayasso Stadium. We are also under the care of our General Sandino by the fountain in the place he was bound to occupy, which he did occupy on July 19th 1979.
Today, December 31th of this year 2022, the last day of the year 2022, around the World, in other regions, they have already said goodbye to the Year 2022, they will be bid it farewell in other places, as we are saying goodbye here in Nicaragua to the year 2022.
Also by bidding farewell to the year 2022 we are welcoming in the year 2023, and we join the People on this night of farewell to the year 2022 and of welcome to 2023, a year which, thanks be to God, will bring more prosperity, more well-being to the Nicaraguan People.
On this New Year's farewell and New Year's night of welcome, we are paying tribute to a Hero, a baseball player, a player of Puerto Rican origin, who gave his Life for Nicaragua: Roberto Clemente. We have him here at the entrance of the Stadium, where we have the photos of Roberto, a National Hero, and in the middle of that sculpture which is also many years old, dozens of years old, a sculpture where all the sports, athletics, baseball are, one can say, they are represented there.
This sculpture is the work of a Nicaraguan sculptor, Fernando Saravia, and he named it “The Gymnasts", that is the name he gave to the sculpture, “The Gymnasts”, and represented there are swimming, tennis, boxing, baseball, volleyball and track running athletes. All of them are there.
An extraordinary, Master Work, made on a monumental scale, cast in concrete, in 1947. Worth noting, since the year 1947. And, despite the earthquake, the work has remained intact, it has not cracked, it was not destroyed.
Clemente was here in Nicaragua, he came to play in 1964 the first time he came to Nicaragua, and he came with a team taking part in an Inter-American professional baseball series, a team that bore or carried the name of "The Senators".
He came from playing in the Major Leagues, he was already in the Major Leagues when he came to Nicaragua to play; he played right field and people here already knew of him, and admired him, because of the way he excelled there in the Major Leagues.
Then he returned to Managua and played in this stadium, Clemente played there, and he returned to Managua for the 1972 Baseball World Championship, when there was Puerto Rico as well as other teams from the Region; and that was the second time Clemente was in Nicaragua.
Then, in the year that he came here, in 1972, the earthquake occurred, now at the end of the year, the earthquake was in December, 50 years on from that earthquake, we paid tribute to the victims of the earthquake on that 50th Anniversary. And when Clemente learned about the earthquake in Nicaragua, the damage it has caused, the number of victims, the dead, once again he showed his Spirit of Solidarity. Because he felt hurt by what was happening in Nicaragua as a result of the earthquake, and he decided to bring a plane with aid for the People, the victims, the families who had survived the earthquake and who were living in really harsh, difficult, critical, painful conditions.
So he came and organized... the earthquake was on the 23rd, and by the 30th they were loading the plane, and on December 31st 2022, a day like today, he could perfectly well have dispatched the cargo to Nicaragua while being indisputably supportive, and stay with his family to wait to see out the year and wait for the New Year, there in Puerto Rico, with his wife, with his children, with his friends; but he said, no, I have to go there, to Nicaragua, to deliver this aid directly. And he boarded the plane.
Right now we have 6:30pm, 7:30, 8:30 at night, so already before 9 o'clock at night the plane had taken off from Puerto Rican soil, it was already going over the ocean heading for Nicaragua, and at 9.22 that night the control tower, which naturally tracks flights that are taking off, leaving, lost contact with the Pilots. And the concern began, the alarms were raised and they tried to locate the flight via other control towers, trying to see if the plane had gone off course, but no, the plane had fallen into the ocean, into the Caribbean Sea.
And there it is, as was well said at that time, the great Caribbean Sea is the tomb of Roberto Clemente. His body was buried in that sea, but his Soul, his Spirit, his Spirit of Solidarity remained in the Soul of Nicaraguans, and in the Soul of Puerto Ricans. And tonight we pay Homage to Roberto Clemente, and we say to him: Thank you, Clemente, thank you, thank you for your Heroism, thank you for your Fortitude, thank you for your Solidarity!
If we had this kind of solidarity based behavior in all humanity, Peace would reign in the World. That is why Clemente's example is an example that we Nicaraguans have to take on; teachers, health workers, Youth, children, take Clemente as an example. An example of the exemplary practice of an Extraordinary Human Being, who fulfilled that Principle: “Love your Neighbor as yourself.” And Clemente loved Nicaragua, he loved this People, as himself.
Long live Roberto Clemente!
Clemente lives on in our People...!
Clemente lives on in Nicaragua...!
Clemente lives on in our Hearts!