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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5377/cultura.v18i59.1057 Cultura de Paz • Año XVIII • N° 59 • Enero - Abril 2012 P / 39-40

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5377/cultura.v18i57.804 Cultura de Paz • Año XVIII • N° 57 • Mayo - Agosto 2012 P / 49-51

Peace is not just the absence of war; peace means basically justice and brotherhood, love. Nicaragua — the people of Nicaragua — fought an armed revolution against injustice and for real peace: war, the violent destruction of an oppressive and inhuman regime, is more than justified if its aim is the creation of a society where men live in peace with each other; this is the real message of Christ. Consequently, the revolutionary government of Nicaragua is not only creating the conditions for economic development of its people, is not only building schools, hospitals and has embarked on a successful campaign of alpha betization, here the army is not only an army of the people, but it is also a revolution that preaches brotherhood and peace for its former enemies, and practices this by re integrating the former oppressors into society and has abolished the death penalty. Revolu tion means change, means the application of Christian principles, is part of a world-wide historical process of evolution, of reconciliation between men as well as between man and nature.

Ernesto Cardenal is Nicaragua's leading poet as well as being a priest committed to social change. Until October 1977 he lived on the island of Mancarron in the Solentiname archipelago in the Lake of Nicaragua, where he had organised a community among the local peasants. In that month he was accused by the authorities of instigating an uprising in neighbouring San Carlos, in which members of the Sandinista Liberation Front and government troops clashed. A warrant for Cardenal's arrest was issued in November 1977, and he went into exile in Costa Rica. The Nicaraguan National Guard meanwhile occupied the island, transforming the small local church into a prison. They destroyed all the handicraft workshops of the community as well as Cardenal's library and home. The members of the Solentiname community, like Cardenal himself, who used to be a pacifist, have now dedicated themselves to the revolutionary struggle in Nicaragua.