Sergio Ramirez, one of the most well know living Nicaraguan writers and Vice President of Nicaragua in the 1980s, one of the founders of the MRS in the 1990s, published this piece on his facebook page about Pinita Vijil, her family´s commitment to the revolution, and what they are suffering today.
In 1978 the Group of Twelve returned to Nicaragua challenging the district attorney’s prosecution of its members (ordered by Somoza’s judge) as a case of terrorism and traitors to the homeland. The dictatorship didn’t dare to imprison us as we traveled to various cities encouraging the struggle. When it was time to go to Leon we were received by Miguel Ernesto Vijil y Pinita Gurdián in their home of wide corridors on the outskirts of the city where they had recently moved.
If you had to choose a family of that time whose deep faith commitment led them to a profound commitment to work for a different Nicaragua, this would be the family. Father Fernando Cardenal, one of the members of the group was very close to this family and he was a mentor to many other families who left the comforts of their home and in many cases their wealth to support a revolution that was about to arrive with enormous expectations and hope.
After the triumph of the revolution, we became neighbors in Los Robles when Miguel Ernesto was named the Minister of Housing and they moved to Managua. Then all of the things that were to come happened; the National Literacy Campaign lead by Father Fernando, the mobilization of young people to pick coffee and cotton, then the draft (Patriotic Military Service) and the terrible war that devastated the country. I watched all of their children, Josefina, Miguel, Virginia, Felix, Francisco, Ana Margarita grow up with my own children. The six of them enthusiastically committed to the country sharing a solidarity that grew out of their faith. Felix experienced a grave brain injury during combat and miraculously survived.
The revolution impoverished the family because they neglected their fortune of assets, or perhaps it no longer held their interest. When Miguel Ernesto died, Pinita took charge of the family with the help of her children, and they all succeeded through the bakery that they established in their home. Pinita taught cooking classes on TV using her own pots and pans and family recipes.
If anyone would like to learn about this exemplary family (exemplary in every sense of the word) they should read Father Fernando Cardenal’s memoirs, Faith and Joy: Memoirs of a Revolutionary priest. This is an archetypal family of a time long past, for many of the new generations almost incomprehensible.
Today Pinita is no longer teaching cooking on TV but rather denouncing the abduction of her youngest daughter, Ana Margarita, and her granddaughter, Tamara Davila, held in El Chipote [prison in Managua]. There has been no information, no access by family members or lawyers not allowing food or medicines, a common experience among the growing number of people being abducted.
These young women have been imprisoned as a result of their faithfulness to Miguel Ernesto and Pinita’s creed; human dignity, patriotism, the constant struggle for freedom and democracy and the search for a better life for all plus a rejection of dictatorships.
Pinita’s fortitude, courage and the strength of her convictions when she speaks is impressive. She left everything selflessly to dedicate herself to a cause that she believed in whole heartedly and now she sees how that cause has been manipulated and falsified. She sees how her daughter and granddaughter have fallen victims of those who clothe themselves in rags of a revolution for which her son risked his life.
No one will be able to silence this woman of courage.
Sergio Ramírez
August 2021