I remember the night I went to jail. It was all dark and a policeman escorted me to the cell. He opened those horrible gates that sounded terrifyingly and still echo in my mind. He told me: Here you stay. It was a small cell, with beds made of cement slabs. “I was horrified. I had never imagined that ordeal. Never”, narrated the priest Enrique Martínez Gamboa, 64, during a homily given this Sunday at the Corpus Christi Church in Miami Dade, United States.
The priest who belongs to the Diocese of León was in the cells of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, known as El Chipote, for three months and 27 days for the alleged crimes of “conspiracy”, “undermining national integrity” and “propagation of fake news.”
Gamboa is one of the six parish priests and two seminarians who were released, exiled, and stripped of their nationality on February 7, 2023. All these religious were held in a warehouse in El Chipote, where they were forbidden to associate with other political prisoners.
However, Father Gamboa affirms that his time in prison was not accidental. “God had it in his plans, we didn’t spend it for nothing, it was a mission that God had entrusted to us,” he says from exile.
They took us out handcuffed and with our heads upside down.
In the cell where Father Gamboa was taken, there was another priest whom he had not met until then. It was Monsignor Leonardo Urbina, parish priest of the Perpetuo Socorro de Boaco church, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the alleged crimes of sexual abuse and rape against a minor under 14 years of age. He remembers that that day he hurried to introduce himself and the priest replied:
“Brother, I am also a priest and they have sentenced me to 30 years in prison,” Father Urbina hastened to say and then told him “my mother, my old lady, I don’t know if she lives or dies.”
Father Gamboa remembers that in those days he was building more cells, so they —the priests who were in the same cellar— were taken out to sunbathe and took the opportunity to take a look at where the other political prisoners were.
“We priests passed in a line, handcuffed, with their heads down, that was the order,” he describes.
On the way they saw several of the prisoners who, from inside their cell, at the barred door, knelt down and asked for their blessing.
“We gave our blessing to each one of them, even though the policemen lowered their hands to us,” which is why Father Gamboa believes that “it was a mission that the Lord entrusted to us.”
“I fell to my knees when I got to the cell”
The priests Ramiro Tijerino and Sadiel Eugarrios arrived in El Chipote a month and 24 days before Father Gamboa. Both religious were held for 15 days in the Matagalpa Episcopal Curia, along with two more priests and two seminarians, who accompanied Bishop Rolando Álvarez.
That day, he recalls, Father Eugarrios violently took them out of the Curia at around three in the morning. They were put on a bus and the bishop—who is in La Modelo after refusing to be exiled—was taken aside. They were escorted.
“On the way we were thinking so many things” and when they took us to the cell there were so many feelings “that we fell to our knees”. Father Tijerino reflected in his first Eucharist, celebrated on February 11.
“We did not speak to each other because it is the first thing that they prohibited us from: talking to each other, but one is also there that there is nothing to do. Until one little by little begins to speak. “Hey, there they are? Yes, ”he described.
Upon arrival, recalls Father Tijerino, the priest from Mulukukú, Óscar Benavidez, who had been taken four days earlier, was told: “You are no longer alone, the others have already arrived”, those words were enough to imagine that it was them .
One of the moments that Father Tijerino remembers most was when on the second day of being in El Chipote they took him for an interrogation, and when he returned he found on the second bed of the cement bunk where he slept a bag of bread and juice. .
— I said to myself: who brought me this? It can’t be anyone other than my mother, —he remembered, still excited.
“At that moment I remembered my mother outside, just as she was also there when her grandson was imprisoned in 2018 (…) Then I imagined her and I couldn’t hold back the tears, I fell to my knees and cried,” says Father Tijerino, who lost £40 in the six months he was in prison.
When that bittersweet drink passed him, the priest got up and asked the guarding officer to distribute the little piece of bread among the other prisoners in the galley. “She said yes and took the bag of bread and took it to my brothers,” she says.
The miracle happened on Thursday
The priest Eugarrios remembers that before taking them out of the cell to exile them, they brought them the clothes they used for visits. There was no further explanation, only that they had to take off their blue uniform and put on their clothes. “They told us to change and leave your uniform at the door, so that when they come back they can put it back on,” he recalls.
It was February 8, around 11 at night when “the miracle happened” and the movement began in the prison, says the priest. When they were ready, they were put on three buses and for the first time they were mixed with the other prisoners. No one knew where it was going, but everyone was speculating.
“We thought we were going to meet with the International Red Cross, because there were rumors that they wanted to enter (El Chipote), then we thought we were going to La Modelo along the bus route, but everything changed when the grills they entered the Air Force”, recounts the 35-year-old priest.
The priests, like the rest of the political prisoners, were given to sign a sheet stating their surrender to the United States. Then they got on the plane and emotion invaded them.
“Many people knew each other, we didn’t know anyone, but many prisoners were years old, they hugged each other, they cried. There were many mixed feelings. We began to sing the national anthem and we prayed the Blessed Sacrament, we were praying ”, he describes from the forced exile to which he was sent.
21 priests exiled, “stateless” or in prison
On the plane that took 222 Nicaraguans into exile, there were six priests and two seminarians who can no longer return to their country because that same day, while they were on the flight, they were stripped of their nationality. Three more priests were arrested, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez, and days later, on February 15, ten more parish priests who went into exile were declared “stateless.”
This is the list of the 21 Nicaraguan priests, seminarians and bishops who were exiled, imprisoned, exiled and declared “traitors to the homeland”.
- Oscar Danilo Benavides Davila, priest of Mulukuku. Released on February 9, 2023 and declared “stateless”.
- Ramiro Reynaldo Tijerino Chavez, priest of Matagalpa. Released on February 9, 2023
- and declared “stateless”.
- Sadiel Antonio Eugarrios Cano, priest of Matagalpa. Released on February 9, 2023
- and declared “stateless”.
- Jose Luis Diaz Cruz, Matagalpa priest. Released on February 9, 2023
- and declared “stateless”.
- Raul Antonio Vega Gonzalez, priest of Matagalpa. Released on February 9, 2023
- and declared “stateless”.
- Darvin Esteyling Leyva Mendoza, Matagalpa seminarians. Released on February 9, 2023
- and declared “stateless”.
- Melkin Antonio Centeno Sequeira, seminarians from Matagalpa. Released on February 9, 2023
- and declared “stateless”.
- Benito Enrique Martinez, priest of the diocese of León. Released on February 9, 2023
- and declared “stateless”.
- Rolando Jose Alvarez, bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the diocese of Estelí, convicted and under arrest after refusing exile. Declared “stateless”.
- Jose Leonardo Urbina Rodriguez, parish priest of the Perpetuo Socorro de Boaco church, was convicted and under arrest for alleged crimes of sexual abuse and rape.
- Manuel Salvador Garcia RodriguezNandaime parish priest convicted and under arrest for the alleged crime of threatening with weapons.
- Silvio Jose Baez OrtegaAuxiliary Bishop of Managua, in exile and declared “stateless”.
- Vicente Martinez Bermudezparish priest of Ciudad Darío in Matagalpa, in exile and declared “stateless”.
- Erick Mauricio Diaz Fernandezparish priest of La Dalia in Matagalpa, in exile and declared “stateless”.
- Juan Francisco Zeledon Montenegroparish priest of Río Blanco in Matagalpa, in exile and declared “stateless”.
- Mangel Jose Hernandez Riveraparish priest of Managua in exile and declared “stateless”.
- Carlos Adolfo Zeledon Montenegro, parish priest of San Dionisio de Matagalpa, in exile and declared “stateless”.
- Harving Salvador Padilla, parish priest of Masaya, in exile and declared “stateless”.
- Edwin Heriberto Roman Calderonparish priest of Masaya, in exile and declared “stateless”.
- Jorge Leonel Mairena Sanchez, parish priest of La Dalia, in exile and declared “stateless”.
- Uriel Antonio Vallejo parish priest of Sébaco, in exile and declared “stateless”.
