Edén Pastora, revolutionary, dies at 83

MANAGUA, NICARAGUA » One of the most mercurial, charismatic figures of Central America’s revolutionary upheavals, Edén Pastora, died early Tuesday. He was 83.

On Aug. 22, 1978, Pastora, better known as “Commander Zero,” led a group of guerrilla fighters in an armed takeover of Nicaragua’s national congress, becoming the subject of an iconic image with rifle raised above his head as he boarded a plane to escape to Panama and then Cuba.

After the photo circled the globe Pastora’s comrades dubbed him “Commander Kodak” for pulling off the kerchief all had been wearing as a mask and mugging for the camera. Their daring mission succeeded in freeing 60 Sandinista prisoners and shook dictator Anastasio Somoza’s hold on power.

Alvaro Pastora, one of his sons, said he died at Managua’s Military Hospital of respiratory failure.

Edén Atanacio Pastora Gómez was born Nov. 15, 1936, in Ciudad Darío, Nicaragua. His father was killed when he was 7 — he blamed the agents of the Somoza family dictatorship — and his mother sold lands to help finance his education.

Pastora dropped out of a Mexican medical school in 1962 and joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front that battled the Somozas. He was caught and jailed three times over the next 11 years before taking time out to become a shark fisherman in Costa Rica.

He returned to the fight three years later. His 1978 raid on congress made him one of the country’s biggest heroes when the rebels toppled the dictatorship a year later.

Charismatic, folksy and controversial — he later said he had fathered more than 20 children — Pastora was named vice minister of defense and enjoyed wide popularity. But Pastora was at odds with his more radical leftist comrades and grew disillusioned. He distanced himself from the Sandinistas and President Daniel Ortega in 1981 and dropped from sight.

He emerged in 1983 at the head of an anti-Sandinista force in southern Nicaragua, the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance, but he remained separate from the main factions of the U.S.backed Contra armies.

“I was not a traitor nor arrogant, it was them, (the Sandinistas)” he said in a 2003 interview. “They wanted to copy the Cuban model and failed and they didn’t listen to me. I never wanted to be in charge nor to be the figure, but they shoved me aside to the point of obliging me to armed dissidence.”

He remained proud of that iconic seizure of the legislative palace.

“In spite of everything they say about me, you are going to see that when I die the history of Nicaragua is going to talk about a ‘before the palace and after the palace,” he said.

In May 1984, a bomb detonated at a news conference called by Pastora in La Penca near the Costa Rica border. It killed seven people, including three journalists and wounded Pastora. It was believed to have been ordered by the Sandinista Front.

MOISES CASTILLO — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE Eden Pastora, better known as “Commander Zero,” speaks May 3, 2018during an interview at his house in Managua, Nicaragua. Pastora, one of the most mercurial, charismatic figures of Central America’s revolutionary upheavals, has died. His son Alvaro Pastora said he died at Managua’s Military Hospital of respiratory failure.