Statement of Locadia López Zamora on the murder of her husband Anastasio Zamora & gang rape of her girls near Dipilto

      This gripping report offers a first-hand account by Locadia López Zamora of atrocities committed by members of an armed band of 16 men on April 9, 1929 at her home in Los Planes, a few miles southeast of Las Manos on the Honduran border, allegedly by Sandinistas under Juan Pablo Umanzor.  She describes the murder of her husband Anastasio Zamora, and the gang-rape of her two young girls, an account confirmed by the girls.  Her narrative raises some fascinating questions about this event, and the larger swirl of events around it  (photo of General Juan Pablo Umanzor, ca. 1931).

      Here’s what we know to be true, combined with some educated guesses about what it might mean:

  •   In their prison declarations a year earlier, the infamous Conservative Chamorrista henchmen Anastasio Hernández and José Eulalio Torres repeatedly emphasized that Anastasio Zamora was a Sandinista and their arch-enemy (see GANGS).

  •   At this precise time and place, several combined US Marine-Voluntario columns were aggresively seeking to clear the Sandinista bands out of the Western Segovias and either destroy them or chase them across the border into Honduras.  These movements are outlined in the official reports in the previous Top 100 page (TOP 100 PAGE 33).  Various reports make clear that the Voluntarios under Flores frequently operated wholly independently of Stockes.

  •   Flores was a staunch Liberal and rabidly anti-Conservative, his mind “poisoned” by hatred and his tactics amounting to “terror,” according to Northern Area Commander Col. J. A. Rossell (report of April 9, the same day as the atrocity; see the VOLUNTARIOS pages).

 •   Sandino imposed throughout the EDSN a strictly enforced prohibition against rape of women and girls – something on which virtually all sources agree.  On numerous occasions, perpetrators were subject to capital punishment.  The account of the rapes is the single most important reason why I doubt the veracity of the allegation that Sandinistas or Umanzor committed these acts.

  •   Especially notable is Locadia López Zamora’s description of the clothing & weapons of her assailants:  “16 men, 8 armed with rifles and the rest with cutachas.  All those armed with rifles were dressed in khaki clothes and had rifle bolts and hats like the Marines.  They were armed with Krag rifles.”  This does not sound like a Sandinista column.  Over the previous weeks, the EDSN bands under Salgado & Ortez & others in the Western Segovias were on the run, hungry & bedraggled, had not killed any Marines, and had had no opportunities to capture Marine Corps hats.  Indeed, her description sounds more like a group of Voluntarios.

  •   The report says she recognized “Juan Pablo Omanzor”, but that would be an easy “fact” to fabricate in an official report.

  •   This is the earliest known reference to Juan Pablo Umanzor, an audacious & fiercely loyal Honduran who by 1931 had risen to the rank of general in Sandino's Defending Army.  He and several others died alongside Sandino when the Guardia Nacional assassinated the guerrilla chieftain on February 21, 1934.

 •   On April 12, according to a report based on information from Gen. Flores published in the Managua newspaper La Tribuna on April 14, Flores’s forces had just captured the 16 men responsible for the attack.  The report in La Tribuna matches in many particulars the testimony of Locadia López Zamora:  16 men, 8 with machetes, 8 with rifles, 4 of whom killed Anastasio Zamora.  Why do these two stories correspond to such a degree?  Such close correspondence seems unlikely, unless Flores somehow knew what Zamora’s widow would say.  I’ve found no mention of these 16 “captured” prisoners in any subsequent Marine-Guardia records.

  •   A report from the Commanding Officer of Dipilto dated 14 May reads:  “Information received from native who lives in Las Manos that Miguel Angel with 15 men armed with machetes, a few pistols, and rifles are in Los Robles. They have been in that district for the past week.”  (IR29.05.31: R-2 Ocotal: 3)  The only Los Robles on the map is many miles southwest of Los Planes, where the murder & rapes took place.  If Flores had really captured Ortez’s 15 men, he would have captured all his followers.  This seems very unlikely.

  •   The fluid & convoluted context make it entirely plausible that the assailants here were Liberal Voluntarios bent on finally eliminating the Conservative Anastasio Zamora and teaching his widow a lesson.  Official recommendations to disband the Voluntarios were being written within hours of these atrocities.  The coincidence seems too big.

  •   The murder & rapes appear to have been rooted in something intensely personal.

      My own sense is that Voluntario General Felipe T. Flores, or one of his underlings, determined to finally rid the world of Anastasio Zamora, humiliate his family, and violate his memory, and that Juan Pablo Umanzor and the EDSN had nothing to do with it.