Case of Mistaken Identity for Nicaraguan Statue Abroad

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A statue honoring Nicaragua’s most beloved national figure has been standing for nearly a decade in another country, even though the face of the statue looks nothing like the poet it attempts to portray.  Confidencial Magazine of Nicaragua’s Verónica Díaz reported of a mysterious sculpture honoring the poet Ruben Darío that looks more like a bust of the infamous dictator Anastasio Somoza García.

 Both figures were Nicaraguan, however one is beloved while the other is loathed, for obvious reasons.  The confusion is stemming from the artist’s choice to omit the famed poet’s recognizable curly hair and mustache, causing it to appear more like the dictator.

A Nicaraguan resident of Mexico, who has asked to remain anonymous, claims to have worked for Nicaraguan officials in Mexico in the past, and said that there were talks of introducing a statue of Somoza García under the guise of Ruben Darío.  Judging by the statue’s date of installation in 1997, and who the Nicaraguan ambassador to Mexico was at the time, it’s not a stretch to think that this whole ordeal was planned from the start.  Roberto Castillo Quant and many of his family members had ties to the Somoza regime, including himself, his father and his brother.

Nicaraguan officials have requested that the Mexican statue be decommissioned, due to the fact that there is actual legislature in Nicaragua designed to protect and defend the name and image of Ruben Darío, and the existence of this supposedly false statue is in direct violation of that legislature.