Word: dona
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...course, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro -- Dona Violeta to even the hardest-line members of Nicaragua's Sandinista government -- believes precisely the same thing. Otherwise she could not devote her life to a cause that has torn asunder her country, her family and her young girl's dreams of a happy life with a good man. Dona Violeta, 59, is president and publisher of Nicaragua's opposition daily La Prensa (circ. 50,000 to 75,000, depending on the availability of newsprint). Even more, she is a living reminder of what Nicaragua might have been had her husband Pedro Joaquin Chamorro...
Though the leaders of Nicaragua's Marxist government detest her politics and have often tried to intimidate her into silence, they have been known to troop dutifully to Dona Violeta's comfortable four-bedroom house across from a parklet in Managua to talk things over. Chamorro knows her enemy and has not the slightest hesitation about addressing the commander of the revolution and President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega Saavedra, like a naughty schoolboy -- or worse. The last time Ortega visited her home, he noticed that a nine-year-old picture of him with members of Nicaragua's first postrevolutionary government...
...late Dona Violeta's name is heard more and more often as a possible , presidential candidate to oppose Ortega in next February's national elections. While she has repeatedly denied any such ambitions, a gleeful light fires up her eyes when the subject of challenging Ortega comes up. And she has reason to be optimistic. A recent survey concluded that if the election were held tomorrow, the Sandinistas would lose to the opposition. When Ortega is pitted against Chamorro by name, the polls show her a slight favorite...
...Barricada, and has run editorials calling his brother a traitor. Daughter Cristiana, 35, is a director of La Prensa. Her sister Claudia, 36, was the Sandinista Ambassador to Costa Rica until last year. The private pain of the Chamorro family is a microcosm of Nicaragua's national agony. And Dona Violeta is the prism through which it is seen...
Comandantes do not like to be called boys, and both Dona Violeta and her newspaper have been singled out for harsh treatment over the years. The walls of her home are often defaced with insulting graffiti. As for La Prensa, it has been shut down by government decree five times in the past decade, once for 451 days. Last September a La Prensa editor was abducted and savagely beaten by people he recognized as Interior Ministry agents. The next month the government circulated a memo threatening sanctions against public enterprises that advertised in the newspaper...