Gobierno de Reconciliación y Unidad Nacional
Unida Nicaragua Triunfa
Priest and Guerrilla Comandante Gaspar García Laviana
President of the Republic of Nicaragua, Comandante Daniel Ortega Saavedra,
RECOGNIZING:
The ideals and transcendental Values expressed in this Christmas Letter of 25th December, 1977, published during those difficult times of sowing, by Father and Battle Commander Gaspar García Laviana, reflecting his Life’s Commitment of Christianity, Brotherhood and Solidarity:
On the Nativity of the Lord, 25th December, 1977. Somewhere in Nicaragua.
Nicaraguan Brothers and Sisters:
During these Christmas festivities, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, Our Lord and Savior, who came to the world to announce the kingdom of justice, I have decided to address you, as my brothers in Christ which you are, to share my resolve to join the clandestine struggle as a soldier of the Lord and as a soldier of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.
I came to Nicaragua from Spain, my native land, to exercise the priesthood as a missionary of the Sacred Heart, nine years ago. I gave myself passionately to my apostolic work and soon I discovered that the hunger and thirst for justice of the oppressed and humiliated people, whom I have served as a priest demanded, more than words of consolation, the consolation of actions.
As an adoptive Nicaraguan, which I am, as a priest, I have seen the raw wounds of my people; I have seen the iniquitous exploitation of the campesinos, crushed under the boots of the landowners protected by the National Guard, an instrument of injustice and repression; I have seen a few enrich themselves obscenely in the shadow of the Somoza dictatorship; I have witnessed how humble young women are subjected to filthy carnal trafficking, delivered into prostitution by the powerful; and I have touched with my own hands, the vileness, the derision, the deceit, the larceny represented by the dominance of the Somoza family in power.
Corruption, merciless repression, have been deaf to words and will continue to be deaf, while my people moan in the closed night of bayonets and my brothers suffer torture and jail for claiming what is theirs: a free and just country, where plundering and murder may disappear forever.
And since our honest young people, the best children of Nicaragua, are at war against this oppressive tyranny, I have resolved to join that war as the humblest of the Sandinista Front soldiers. Because it is a just war, a war that the sacred gospels consider to be good, and that in my Christian conscience is good, because it represents the fight against a state of things that is hateful to the Lord, Our God. And because, as the Medellin documents signed by the Bishops of Latin America point out, in the chapter on the Latin American Situation in La Paz, “revolutionary insurrection can be legitimate in the case of evident and prolonged tyranny that seriously violates the fundamental rights of the person and dangerously damages the common good of the country, whether it comes from a person, or from obviously unjust structures.”
I ask all my Nicaraguan brothers that with their love of Christ, they support this struggle of the Sandinista Front, so that the day of redemption of our people does not continue to be delayed. And to those who out of fear or need, still serve Somoza, especially the honest officers and soldiers of the National Guard, I say that it is still time for you to side with justice, which is the side of Our Lord.
To the businessmen who have not participated in corruption, to the decent farmers, to the professionals and technicians who reject the chaos and despotism represented by Somoza, I say that for each of you, there is a fighting position on the side of the Sandinista Front, to dignify our Motherland.
To my brother workers in the factories, schools and workshops, to the artisans, to the forgotten homeless and jobless in the marginal neighborhoods, to my campesino brothers, to the farmhands crowded in camps, to the cutters and laborers, to all those who have been robbed of even the most miserable opportunity in this land; I tell you that it is time to close ranks around the Sandinista Front, to unite our hands and our arms, because the resounding of the rifle of justice in our mountains, cities and towns, is the sign of redemption that is approaching. Because from the rebellion of all of us, from the insurrection that we will all carry out, light will result and the darkness of Somoza will be erased.
And to my brother combatants from the Sandinista Front in the "Carlos Fonseca Amador" Northern Front; in the "Pablo Úbeda" Northeastern Front; in the "Benjamín Zeledón" Southern Front; and in your quarters of urban resistance in our cities, I convey to you my firm conviction that we are going to build the day of triumph with the sacrifice of our fallen heroes, who embody the will of our people to fight; with the revolutionary dedication of the people, themselves organized for their struggle, and with the sacrifice that we are willing to make from within the trenches, united around the National Directorate.
Somocismo is sin, and freeing ourselves from oppression is freeing ourselves from sin. And with rifle in hand, full of faith and full of love for my Nicaraguan People, I must fight until my last breath, for the advent of the kingdom of justice in our Motherland, that kingdom of justice in our Motherland, that kingdom of the justice that the Messiah announced to us under the light of the Star of Bethlehem. Your brother in Christ, A FREE MOTHERLAND OR DEATH Gaspar García Laviana Missionary Priest of the Sacred Heart.
Consequently and with that Luminous, Exemplary and Heroic Testimony and a Legacy of Christian and Fraternal Solidarity and LOVE OF NICARAGUA,
The President of the Republic,
RECOGNIZING:
1. The decisive contribution of Father and Battle Commander Gaspar García Laviana to the Nicaraguan People´s Liberating Revolution;
2. The immeasurable contribution of Father and Battle Commander Gaspar García Laviana to the Foundational Bases of Genuine Christian Solidarity and Fraternity of the Sandinista Popular Revolution of our Nicaragua;
3. The Spirit, Mystique and Commitment of Father and Battle Commander Gaspar García Laviana, from the Passion and Love of Christ for Humanity;
4. The supreme sacrifice that each moment of his struggle for the Liberation of the oppressed in Nicaragua represented, culminating with his Transit to Eternity in Rivas, in combat for Peace and Life with Rights, in his Beloved Nicaragua;
5. The Lessons and the Validity of his Beliefs and his Example for all generations of Nicaraguans and in particular, for the Youth of all times;
RESOLVES:
1. Appoint Father and Battle Commander Gaspar García Laviana, on the 43rd Anniversary of his Transit to Immortality, as a National Hero of the Republic of Nicaragua;
2. Promote more knowledge and appropriation of his Thought, Work and Legacy as a permanent inspiration, and as a Sublime Apostle of our Christian and Socialist Proposals and Practices of Fraternal Solidarity;
3. Deliver this Decree to the Families and Communities of Tola, San Juan del Sur, Buenos Aires and Cárdenas, and the entire Nicaragua, that honors us all with the well-deserved Proclamation of Father and Battle Commander Gaspar García Laviana as Undefeated Hero of our Blessed, Sovereign, Free and Always Dignified Nicaragua.
Given 10th December of 2021
in the Plaza of the Revolution in Managua
Capital of our Blessed, Sovereign and Always Free Nicaragua
at 43 Years of the Transit to Immortality
of the Priest and Guerilla Comandante, National Hero,
Gaspar García Laviana.
Daniel Ortega Saavedra
President of the Republic of Nicaragua