Idania Fernandez

The second of five children, Idania de Los Angeles Fernández Ramírez spent her early years in León, Nicaragua. She was three years old when her family moved to the neighborhood of Subtiava[1] in the outskirts of León. She lived in Managua between age six and ten until her family moved to the town of Jinotega in 1962. After three years, her family returned to Managua where Idania finished Elementary and High school at the French School of the Sacred Heart between 1965 and 1972,[2] the same institution attended by now ex-President Violeta Chamorro.[3]

Idania developed organizational and leadership skills as a member of the group "Las Metanoias"[4] during her senior year in high school. The group took spiritual retreat trips to hacienda El Tepeyac[2] near Mombacho Volcano and Lake Nicaragua for group study of liberation theology. Idania became an activist who represented her school in various organizations that were demanding the release of political prisoners in 1971–1972. Her activism earned her a slap on the face from school director Sister Nicolle, who feared for Idania's life.[5]

In 1973, her family moved to Panama and she started her college education in Economics at the University of Panama. She resumed her activism joining the Solidarity Committees in support of the Sandinista Liberation Front prisoners. In 1974 she married David Miranda, a Panamanian–Nicaraguan student of Economics. In August 1975 she gave birth to her daughter, who she named Claudia for Claudia Chamorro, another famous Sandinista who would fall in combat a year later.

Following the successful Sandinista operatives at the Chema Castillo's residence in the 1974 Christmas party with attendance of dictator Anastasio Somoza's elite, Idania had the opportunity she longed for so long. She was finally able to meet personally the Sandinistas she fought so hard for their release since her school days, upon their arrival to Panama.

Because Idania had residence in Panama since 1973, and many friends, she helped in the logistics to provide accommodations and supplies to the Sandinistas; so much, that she donated her personal belongings (furniture, appliances, books, etc.) to the safe houses in Panama where the Sandinistas were staying. It did not take long for Idania to fit perfectly in the "organization" (as they used to call the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Panama where they enjoyed medium security environment.

Idania was considered to participate in the spectacular raid at the National Government Palace in 1978, taking 3000 hostages, which resulted in the release of several Sandinistas in captivity. Ultimately; Dora María Téllez was chosen, the only woman in the operative, named after Rigoberto López Pérez.

In 1978 following the popular insurrection in Monimbo, Masaya, 78), Idania decided to join full-time the ranks of the FSLN Command in Panama and Costa Rica, where she frequently met with members of the "Direccion Nacional", the highest ranking of that organization. She trained in Cuba in rocket launching in the middle of 1978. General Omar Torrijos did not like the Somoza regime and offered logistic support and military training to the Sandinistas in the Province of Chiriqui (Panama), and Idania trained there among other young cadres.

Idania wounded in the Southern Front, September 1978

Between 1975 and 1978, Idania made trips to Nicaragua and Costa Rica on clandestine missions, including one trip to the Northern Front and different operatives, but in September 1978 she was wounded in combat on the left hand in Nicaragua near the southern border. She was taken initially to a Costa Rican hospital near the border, and her pictures appeared in Costa Rican newspapers front page referring to her only as "Angela", respecting her identity. Fearing for her security at the Hospital, Sergio Ramírez's wife picked her up and took her to a Sandinista makeshift hospital in Nicaragua near the border.[6]

Upon her return to Panama, the Panamanian military had assigned Secret Service security personnel to high ranking or identifiable Sandinistas including Idania. She could no longer use her real name or passport on her missions to Nicaragua either, or visit public places in Panama without escort. She was also required to carry a high caliber Magnum pistol in her purse at all times.[7]

After a number of spontaneous uprisings in Monimbo, Matagalpa, Estelí and other cities that saw the Sandinistas react to rather than control these expressions of discontent, a major shift in Sandinista strategy was developed. In order to take the lead of the Insurrection, two major Insurrectional Commands were organized; the Frente Interno in Managua and the Western command in the city of León. Idania was assigned to the newly formed Western Insurrectional Command, which required experience with the communities and base organizations ("trabajo de barrios"), worker unions, students, religious groups and organizing the neighborhoods for the final offensive.[6]

In February 1979, Omar Torrijos, head of the Panamenian government invited the Grupo de Los Doce, prominent Nicaraguan businessmen backing up the Sandinistas, for talks in Panama. By this time, arms shipments from Venezuela and Cuba were under way. Dr. Joaquín Cuadra, a member of Los Doce and whose son Joaquín Cuadra, leader of the Frente Interno Sandinista Command, was in Nicaragua, invited Idania and Oscar Perez Cassar for the talks and dinner. Idania and Oscar were also members of the Frente Interno, and scheduled to go back to Nicaragua via Honduras, to assume the leadership of the Western Regional Command for the final Insurrection. Sergio Ramírez, also a member of Los Doce and a member of the upcoming Government Junta, relates that Idania attended with her hand still bandaged from surgery after her wounds in September.[6][7]

In March 1979, Idania went back to Nicaragua to resume her new post in the Western Regional Command, the leading Commando of the Insurrection, and was prepared to stay indefinitely until victory or death, as a member of the ill-fated Insurrectional Command "Rigoberto López Pérez" headed by Dora María Téllez. The Sandinistas sought to finish the Somozas' regime.[8]

Title chosen by Sergio Ramírez for the chapter of his book "Adios Muchachos" dedicated to the memory of the events the day that shook the entire city of León and the rest of the country. On April 16, 1979 the Sandinista war was escalating quickly. Combats were taking place in more than twenty cities in Nicaragua. Most of the leaders of the soon to be Revolutionary Government were in Costa Rica or Panama in safe houses. Their role was to provide the military strategy, negotiations with foreign governments and sketching a plan for the new an imminent Nicaraguan Government Junta, with the war run in the field by five Regional Commands. The most important ones were the Western Command based in the City of León and the Frente Interno, based in Managua. They were considered critical for a fast victory.

On that day, the members of the Western Regional Command integrated by Oscar Pérez Cassar, Idania Fernandez, Araceli Pérez Darias, Ana Isabel Morales, Edgard Lang Sacasa, Roger Deshon Argüello and Carlos Manuel Jarquin were in session in a safe house in the suburbs of León. The National Guard was attacking heavily the City of Estelí, near the mountains and they were coordinating the efforts to help them. Reportedly, there was a whistleblower, a supposedly former Sandinista militia who turned police informant. The informant and eighty members of the National Guard, in jeeps and tanks, surrounded the block, and stormed into the house. The Sandinistas had no chance to escape or to grab their weapons. Ana Isabel got inside a swimming pool and passed herself off as a resident of the house. She was the only survivor. The informant identified positively the men as important cadre, but he argued not knowing the women. All the men were executed on the spot while Idania and Araceli were arrested, taken to the Fortin of Acosasco, tortured, and murdered.[9][10]

Thousands attended their funeral. The Somoza government refused to return Araceli's (who was Mexican) remains to her family. Idania's parents and two youngest sisters were living in Dallas, Texas, and contacted the Dallas Morning News. The paper dedicated a full page article on the events in the Sunday edition.

Soon after, the city of León street fighters headed by Dora María Téllez, Idania's comrade, increased greatly in numbers and firepower as a result of public outrage over the deaths. In June the victory over the Somoza forces in León was complete, followed by Managua two weeks later, bring the Somoza regime to its end.

"I leave you an example of life, mine," wrote Idania to her daughter in her farewell letters. Reprinted in Margaret Randall's book Todas Estamos Despiertas.[11] and many columnists' and editorial pages in Nicaragua since her death.[12] Ernesto Cardenal, Sergio Ramirez and other dissidents of the Sandinistas often quote Idania's writings and ideals.

After her death, Idania's reputation soared. In 1984, at the peak of the Contra war, one of the largest battalions of the Sandinista Popular Army (Ejército Popular Sandinista), dispatched to the Northern Front to fight the Contras, was named after her.

There are nurseries and police stations named for her but no monuments or statues for her in Nicaragua.[13][14][15][16]

• Ref. Idania Fernandez Ramirez, private collection, Painting by American feminist painter Erin Currier