The children of Managua 'rescued' by Franco's La Palma

PalmThe childhood of the Palma-born writer Miquel Àngel Llauger is marked by a disappointment that he has just recounted in his latest book of memoirs, a booklet entitled Whale diptych (Ensiola Editorial). It was early 1973, and I was nine years old. Franco was still more than two and a half years away from death. The country was glued to the images arriving from Nicaragua, in Central America, where on the night of December 23, 1972, an earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale had devastated the prosperous capital, Managua. The press reported more than 10,000 deaths, although the true number was never known. There were another 20,000 injured and an undetermined number of missing. The scene was apocalyptic, with its historic center in ruins. More than half of the 400,000 people who lived in the city lost their homes. The tragedy was worse than the one experienced with the 1931 earthquake.

“That,” Llauger recalls, “was one of the worst earthquakes in the contemporary history of the Americas. In a country as religious as Nicaragua, it was difficult to understand how God could have allowed so much misfortune to occur.” The branch of theology that attempts to address this question is theodicy, a word composed of Greek roots theós ('god') and dike ('justice'). It was the German philosopher Leibniz who popularized the concept in 1710. Essay on theodicy concerning the goodness of God, the freedom of man, and the origin of evilThe Leipzig thinker insisted on exonerating God from the existence of evil and even went so far as to claim that "we live in the best of all possible worlds."

Leibniz's "goody-two-shoes" thesis would be challenged at the age of 45 by the French intellectual Voltaire, one of the fathers of the Enlightenment. Europe was then reeling from the more than 90,000 deaths caused by the devastating Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of November 1, 1755—the city then had 270,000 inhabitants. "A month later," Llauger states, "Voltaire wrote the poem LisbonIn a fiery tone, he challenged the defenders of Leibnizian optimism to continue maintaining, in the face of the spectacle of children's corpses crushed in the streets of the Portuguese capital, that this was the best of all possible worlds. He would make the same criticism in 1759 in his marvelous tale Naive".

'Operation Managua'

The bewilderment caused by the Lisbon earthquake in the 18th century would be repeated in the 20th century with the Managua earthquake. However, in Mallorca, there was no time for theological disquisitions. The mayor of Palma, Rafael de Rosa Vázquez, who had been in office for eight months, decided to take action with a pioneering initiative. Ligero has followed the details by consulting newspaper archives. "The newspapers say that De la Rosa ordered a plane to be chartered in Managua, filled with children, and taken to Mallorca to help them forget such horror for three months. He wanted Palma to stand out from the other state and regional agencies that were simply sending money to Nicaragua for reconstruction." At that time, the only link between Mallorca and Nicaragua was the figure of its illustrious poet Rubén Darío (1867-1916), who visited the island twice, in 1906 and 1913—since 1951, a sculpture of him has stood on the Sagrera promenade in Palma.

The press dubbed this special mission 'Operation Managua'. Deputy Mayor Pedro Cabrer Rodríguez and Councilor Pablo Seguí Alemany were tasked with traveling to the Latin American country with a plane full of food and medicine, which was to return with the children. The family of the author of Whale diptych He had offered to take one in. "At the time, my father, Miquel Àngel Llauger Llull, was the first deputy mayor of Palma and kept us informed about the operation. The idea of having a child from the earthquake thrilled me, because I was drawn to charity. One night a priest visited us; it had been a mission. Going to sleep with my head full of images of shacks and barefoot children and with the first pangs of feeling the injustice of the world."

On Sunday, February 18, 1973, at eight in the evening, the 125 children from Managua landed at Son Sant Joan Airport. They were received by the island's civil and military authorities, accompanied by a children's bugle and drum corps from Inca. Afterward, they went to the Madre Alberta school, where a thanksgiving mass was held. Then they were distributed to families. Many families were unable to take any of the children, as the demand far exceeded the number of children. At Cals Llauger, however, none of the children were taken in for ethical reasons. "That night my father and mother returned from the airport without the expected..."Managua', which was how we affectionately referred to them at home. My siblings and I were quite disappointed. My father was a close friend of councilman Pedro Seguí. He told him that in Nicaragua, the selection had already been made. Most of the chosen children came from wealthy families loyal to the Somoza dictatorship. Upon learning this, my father refused to take any of them in.'

The 'Somoza child'

42 children from 'Operation Managua' had been selected by the nuns of the Pureza, and the other 83 by the National Board of Social Assistance and Welfare. One of the beneficiaries was Roberto Somoza Portocarrero, the 'child Somoza,' as the press reported. Fifteen years old, he was the youngest son of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. TachitoThe third generation of one of the worst dictatorships on the planet. "His wife," Llauger asserts, "the American Hope Portocarrero, personally asked him to leave with the expedition." The Somozas ruled Nicaragua from 1936 to 1979. They almost always held the presidency, but on occasion, they limited themselves to controlling it from another, seemingly secondary, position. The famous phrase "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch" is attributed to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) regarding the dynasty's founder, Anastasio Somoza García.

In December 1972, when the devastating earthquake struck, Tachito had just handed power to a triumvirate of figureheads and had taken refuge in the leadership of the National Guard. From there, he decided to create a National Reconstruction Board and an Emergency Committee to manage the massive international aid. "The result," the writer notes, "was that much material was lost due to the organizational chaos and that a generous slice of the pie ended up in the hands of the presidential family and their circle of cronies. The dictator took advantage of the state's disarray to carry out legal and institutional machinations that returned him to the presidency in 1974."

Manipulated charity

From the pages ofLatest News Llorenç Capellà was among the most outspoken critics of that solidarity initiative. "Managua [...]," he wrote on February 27, "is a typical case of manipulation. It has been exploited by the self-righteousness of those who calmly ignore that children as innocent as those in Managua are dying in Vietnam; of those who, for example, don't want to know that the Palestinian people are marching outside their homes," far from their homes. Capellà didn't hesitate to denounce the other great disgrace: "It turned out that the very poor children whose presence was supposed to promote Mallorcan charity were very rich or middle-class children in no need of any charity, who, at best, will be able to talk among their friends about the good weather and the..." The columnist ended by asking the authorities to also concern themselves with helping the starving children in the area surrounding Palma. The following day, a note in the same newspaper confirmed Capellà's denunciation. There were reports of families confessing they felt cheated by their foster children. Some complained about not having the three domestic help they were used to in their home country.

Aside from this controversy, as the weeks went by, the newspapers continued to follow 'Operation Managua' with lighthearted interviews of the children, who were delighted with their Mallorcan holidays. They also reported on their excursions and their ceremonial kick-offs at local football matches. Maria Moranta, a 62-year-old from Manacor, remembers the welcome they prepared for a group of Nicaraguan dolls visiting the Santa Llúcia sanctuary. "We organized a beauty pageant for them. We gave out a sash for 'Miss Nicaragua' and another for 'Miss Manacor.' We had a great time." On April 21, after three months, it was time for the 'children of Managua' to take their flight home. It was a farewell with rather discreet media coverage. Of the initial 125 children, 117 returned. Some remained in Palma with adoption processes underway. At that time, Miquel Àngel Llauger was too young to understand how unfair that act of charity had been, which, in the midst of misfortune, had mainly benefited the children of the powerful.