Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal

September 23, 1924 (age 53)

Granada, Nicaragua

Chamorro early went to work for La Prensa, which had been founded by his father Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Zelaya in 1926. In 1952 he succeeded his father as the paper’s editor. One of the loudest and most consistent critics of the Somoza family, Chamorro took part in an armed effort to overthrow the government of Luis Somoza Debayle in 1959 and was the principal organizer of the campaign of Conservative candidate Fernando Agüero Rocha against Tachito Somoza in 1967. Although a lifelong Conservative Party member, Chamorro had distanced himself from Agüero Rocha in 1963 because of Agüero’s personalism and decision that the Conservatives should not participate in the 1963 election. However, he agreed to become coordinator of the National Union of Opposition—a coalition of Agüero’s Traditional Conservative Party, the Independent Liberal Party and the Social Christian Party—which backed Agüero’s 1967 candidacy. Chamorro’s newspaper carried articles on corruption and violations of human rights by the Somoza regime. There is some evidence that his assassination occurred because of La Prensa articles about an anti-Castro Cuban exile whose business firm—located in a building owned by Tachito—collected 38,000 pints of human blood and plasma a month for sale in Miami. Chamorro’s murder provoked a reaction that led a year and a half later to the fall of the Somozas.

Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal Edit Profile

editor politician

Background

Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal was born in Granada on 23 September 1924. Member of a distinguished Conservative family.

Career

Chamorro early went to work for La Prensa, which had been founded by his father Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Zelaya in 1926. In 1952 he succeeded his father as the paper’s editor.

One of the loudest and most consistent critics of the Somoza family, Chamorro took part in an armed effort to overthrow the government of Luis Somoza Debayle in 1959 and was the principal organizer of the campaign of Conservative candidate Fernando Agüero Rocha against Tachito Somoza in 1967.

Although a lifelong Conservative Party member, Chamorro had distanced himself from Agüero Rocha in 1963 because of Agüero’s personalism and decision that the Conservatives should not participate in the 1963 election. However, he agreed to become coordinator of the National Union of Opposition—a coalition of Agüero’s Traditional Conservative Party, the Independent Liberal Party and the Social Christian Party—which backed Agüero’s 1967 candidacy.

Chamorro’s newspaper carried articles on corruption and violations of human rights by the Somoza regime. There is some evidence that his assassination occurred because of La Prensa articles about an anti-Castro Cuban exile whose business firm—located in a building owned by Tachito—collected 38,000 pints of human blood and plasma a month for sale in Miami. Chamorro’s murder provoked a reaction that led a year and a half later to the fall of the Somozas.

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