Alvaro Conrado, Symbol of the Nicaraguan Rebellion, Honored at his High School
HAVANA TIMES – Alvaro Conrado Avendano took his ex-wife Liseth Davila by the hand and together they walked to the podium. The entire Santo Domingo de Guzman church shouted: Alvaro, Alvaro, Alvaro…Davila took the diploma and raised it stirring applause.
“Mothers do not surrender, we demand justice,” shouted Davila. “Alvarito will always live in the heart of Nicaraguans” and everyone continued applauding with joy.
They were the students, new high school graduates, applauding and remembering their classmate Alvaro Conrado Davila, who on Saturday would have had graduated with them, if he had not been killed at age 15 on April 20, 2018, when he went to the UNI (Engineering University) to bring water to university students who had rebelled against the Government.
The Colegio Loyola gave the parents of Alvaro, the diploma that he would have received in a gesture that was applauded by the entire educational community.
“We are grateful to the Colegio Loyola for remembering my son,” Conrado Avendano said Saturday night on his Facebook account. “He would have been proud of participating in his graduation with his peers.”
His classmates decided to dedicate this graduation to their murdered peer. On top of their caps, as a tribute, they placed a drawing of Alvaro Conrado.
Ortega supporters tried to tarnish the graduation
But the dictatorship tried to interrupt the homage. The Santo Domingo de Guzman church, located a few meters from the Loyola school and where the ceremony took place, awoke Saturday painted with offensive messages towards the youth assassinated and the school and the church were watched over by the Police.
“Your blood was in vain,” “You were used as cannon fodder,” was read on the walls. Later, during the graduation, pro-Ortega mobs surrounded the church and with loudspeakers played the song “El Comandante se queda” (The Commander will stay).
“Traitors, traitors, you are all traitors,” screamed one of the regime’s fanatics to parents who were inside the church.
Later, another fanatic of the dictatorship threatened to take the journalists covering the homage to the infamous “Chipote” interrogation jail.
Within the church all the parents and graduates applauded the tribute to the martyred youth, except three. It could be seen that a father, a mother, a graduate and small child waved a flag of Ortega’s party, the FSLN. The rest of the parents booed at them, but there was no aggression and nothing happened.
Later, social networks exploded pointing out that the Ortega supporters had family and work ties with the Government.
Graduation ceremonies, a torment
Graduation ceremonies in Jesuit schools have become a torment for the regime. Last Friday a minority group of seven parents, including public officials and businessmen benefitted with public contracts, barged into the graduation ceremony of the high school at the Colegio Centroamerica waving red-black flags and shouting cheers to dictator Daniel Ortega.
Their discontent was for the dedication of the ceremony: “To our country that in pain screams for freedom.”
The students decided that dedication voluntarily. The seven parents complained to the principal alluding that the students chose the dedication under pressure. They called a parents’ meeting but did not accept the outcome.
A vote was taken of the 80 parents present and 72 voted in favor of the dedication their children had chosen. The seven Ortega supporters voted against and one abstained.