Sirias, The death of Alexis Arguello

The death of Alexis Arguello: a portent of things to come in Nicaragua?
by Silvio Sirias

‘Before, I thought we all were brothers. I thought the world was a beautiful place. It's a lie. Everyone is selfish. Now I care nothing for the world. It makes me feel selfish to say it, but people made me that way. I hate politics, I hate industry, I hate governments . . . I hate it . . .’

Alexis Arguello, “Adrift In A Sea Of Choices,”
Sports Illustrated, October 31, 1985

We are upset. This is a heartbreaking announcement. He was the champion of the poor, an example of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Rosario Murillo, Presidential spokesperson and
wife of Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua

On July 1, 2009, at 2:02 a.m., Alexis Arguello, mayor of Managua, capital city of Nicaragua, leaned forward while sitting on the edge of his bed, placed the barrel of his Ceska 9 millimeter revolver against his chest and, holding it with both hands, pulled the trigger with the thumb of his right hand, shooting himself straight through the heart.

That act also shattered the hearts of every Nicaraguan --- including those of the nearly 300,000 Americans of Nicaraguan ancestry who live in the United States.

But Alexis Arguello’s command over the collective imagination of his compatriots was not due to his role as a politician in the Sandinista party. In fact, many Nicaraguans remain bewildered as to why he converted to a cause he once opposed and fought against --- literally --- as a member of the Contras.

The reason Arguello’s suicide crushed the spirits of his fellow Nicaraguans --- as well as of millions of boxing fans --- is because he was a living example that through hard work, discipline, and persistence a person can rise out of poverty to capture the respect and admiration of the world.

November 23, 1974

On this date, at the age of twenty-two --- and six years after making his debut as a professional boxer --- Alexis Arguello, in the thirteenth round of the main bout at the Inglewood Forum, knocked out Ruben Olivares of Mexico, Featherweight Champion of the World, to claim the title. Nicaraguans everywhere raised their arms in celebration. The first Nicaraguan ever to win a boxing title, Alexis’s climb to the top had come to represent hope in a nation that recently had seen its capital city destroyed by an earthquake and that, at the time, was edging its way toward civil war.

From this day forward, Alexis Arguello reigned for nearly a decade as the undisputed champion in three weight categories --- featherweight, lightweight, and super-lightweight. During those years he was the brightest spot in Nicaragua’s human firmament, the greatest source of pride for a beleaguered nation. His grace and power in the ring earned him the esteem of boxing aficionados throughout the world, and his name was often mentioned in the same breath as his formidable contemporaries --- a stunning gallery of boxers that included a still resilient Muhammad Ali.

Nicaraguans, however, had adopted Alexis as their Champion when few beyond the borders of this Central American nation knew of him. His compatriots had taken the young man into their hearts in the early 1970s, when, although new to the profession, he started to defeat an impressive string of opponents by knockout. Nicknamed “El Flaco Explosivo” (The Explosive Thin Man) by Edgar Tijerino --- Nicaragua’s most renowned sports writer and commentator --- on the night Alexis took the walk in the Inglewood Forum from the locker room to the ring to face Olivares, he carried the hopes and dreams of every Nicaraguan on his shoulders. And immediately after his crowning victory he became Nicaragua’s Knight-in-Shining-Armor, his country’s Ambassador of Excellence.

A symbol of the people

Throughout Alexis’s boxing career, his behavior both inside and outside of the ring warranted his compatriots’ absolute faith in him. His nickname in the United States, “The Gentleman Boxer,” reflects how Alexis rejected the taunts and crude displays of macho bravado customary in his profession, choosing instead to always say kind things about his opponents. Moreover, after every victory he’d visit his rival’s corner to give him a warm embrace and offer a few words of encouragement. On one occasion, when the victim of his fearsome right hook failed to show signs of rising from the canvas, Arguello, instead of allowing the referee to raise his hand in triumph, pushed his way toward his rival to check on his condition. It is this facet of the boxer’s conduct that has received the most praise in the countless eulogies that have followed his death.

The beginning of Arguello’s descent

Ring Magazine ranks Alexis Arguello as the 20th best fighter of the 20th century, the Associated Press named him the best junior lightweight of all-time, and the International Boxing Hall of Fame inducted the Nicaraguan in 1992. But the fighter’s glory years came to an abrupt halt in 1983 when he attempted to win a fourth division title against the much-younger and harder-hitting Aaron Pryor who, although fiercely challenged by the Nicaraguan, eventually knocked him out in the 14th round. The defeat was a crushing blow that every Nicaraguan took personally. Alexis retired shortly afterward.

Arguello, however, still retained his good looks and charm. As a result, he received offers that kept him in the limelight, including a stint as a boxing commentator for HBO and a chance to try his hand at acting when he appeared in an episode of Miami Vice. In addition, in spite of having succumbed to an athlete’s worst enemy, the passage of time, he still remained his nation’s most glorious living hero.

Outwardly, then, Alexis’s life seemed idyllic: the son of an impoverished shoemaker, he had risen from out of Barrio Monseñor Lezcano --- one of Managua’s poorest neighborhoods --- to take the world by storm. He lived in Miami, owned a mansion, a yacht, several luxury cars, and attended parties alongside the rich, famous, and beautiful of the world.

Yet, although he led a glamorous life, Alexis never forgot his roots. He invested in Nicaragua --- buying houses and vehicles for himself and his relatives as well as contributing generously to charity.

But as often happens with individuals who achieve wealth and fame through boxing, after the cheering ended Arguello’s life quickly started to unravel.

The first setback took place shortly after the Sandinistas rose to power in 1979, while the boxer was still in his prime. The revolutionary government confiscated all of Arguello’s holdings in Nicaragua, alleging that the boxer had been an associate and supporter of deposed dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The reality was that Somoza, desperate for positive publicity, engineered Alexis’s presence at a political rally in the city of Esteli, and during the ceremony he bestowed upon the athlete the honorary title of Lieutenant in the widely repudiated Guardia Nacional --- Nicaragua’s army. To all who witnessed the event, it appeared that the dictator counted with Arguello’s full support. Sadly, such occurrences, where the unwavering popularity the boxer enjoyed among his compatriots would be used for political ends, became a leitmotiv in Alexis’s life.

And a few years later, to add to the former boxer’s troubles, in the emotional void that followed his retirement, he went from being a millionaire to being broke, became dependent on alcohol and drugs --- cocaine being the main culprit --- and lost his family.

Alexis Arguello, the Contra

In search of something new to devote his life to after boxing, as well as still being angry over the confiscation of his properties, Alexis Arguello joined the Contras, the US financed guerrilla force that sought to destabilize the Sandinista government. His enlistment was a significant public relations achievement for a group that was perceived throughout much of the world as lacking legitimacy. A photograph of Alexis Arguello wearing a Contra uniform circulated widely in the world press. The Sandinista government, in response, established a decree that forbade the Nicaraguan media from mentioning Arguello’s name, hoping to keep his compatriots from learning that their hero had joined the counter-revolutionaries. Reporting directly to Edén Pastora, the famed Comandante Zero --- the Revolution’s best-known dissident who had led the Sandinista forces in the final battles against Somoza’s army --- Alexis was ready to fight “to help free his nation from communism.”

While touring the southeastern jungles of Nicaragua, Arguello witnessed scenes of extreme poverty and suffering among Nicaragua’s indigenous population. Torn apart by their despair, he requested humanitarian assistance from the Contra leadership. They dismissed his concerns, saying that all resources were destined for the men and women fighting the Sandinistas. Yet the retired boxer had observed that the Contra leaders were living in relative opulence in neighboring Costa Rica. Confronted with what he considered a hypocritical stance, Alexis abandoned their cause.

The lost decade

Arguello returned to Miami to face impatient creditors and an Internal Revenue Service eager to collect back taxes. Knowing only one way to make quick money, he returned to boxing. But his motives had ceased to be pure, which had been the foundation for everything Arguello had done: his was a lifelong search for honesty and honor. No longer fighting for the love of the sport, Alexis retired again after only two fights, but in the absence of something meaningful to do with his life, he succumbed once again to alcohol and drugs. Reports of his erratic behavior flooded the Nicaraguan community. But Alexis Arguello remained a hero in the eyes of his compatriots. They had faith in the Champ, believing that he would be able to come from behind, as he had done so many times in the ring.

He resurfaced in the early 1990s, returning to Nicaragua after Violeta Chamorro defeated Daniel Ortega in the presidential elections. The purpose for ending more than ten years of exile was clear: to reclaim the properties the Sandinista government had confiscated from him. The process, however, proved slow and tedious. In an effort to draw attention to his dilemma, as well as to earn money for the legal wrangling, Arguello returned to the ring. But at the age of forty-two he was a shadow of his former self, and after two lackluster fights he hung up the gloves, for good.

Still, stepping back into the ring got the attention Alexis desired, speeding up the time it took to recover his properties. Also, returning to his homeland boosted Arguello’s spirits as he was welcomed as a hero. Politicians opposed to the Sandinistas sought his endorsement. Businesses did as well. He was a living legend: in the decade in which he was a dominant force in his sport, he had given a people desperate for redemption a chance to feel pride. But their worship also riddled him with guilt. Still battling his dependency on alcohol and drugs, he felt that he was living a lie and in doing so letting down every Nicaraguan that had ever believed in him.

Arguello tried many times to conquer his addiction, but to no avail. Desperate to take back control of his life, shortly after the turn of the century, he enrolled in ODERA, a recently-established rehabilitation center in the town of San Marcos, Nicaragua. The founder of this center, Francisco López, was also the treasurer of the Sandinista Party and a confidant of Daniel Ortega. After seventy-five days of voluntary confinement, Alexis came out proclaiming himself drug and alcohol free. More significantly, however, during the boxer’s internment, López had arranged a meeting between Arguello and Ortega from which the former adversaries emerged as friends.

Alexis Arguello, the Sandinista

Daniel Ortega, well aware of the mythic status the former world champion enjoyed among Nicaraguans, enlisted him in his plan to bring the Sandinistas back to power. Alexis became the party’s vice-mayoral candidate for the 2004 elections and his popularity helped to sweep Dionisio Marenco, the Sandinista mayoral candidate, into office.

Marenco became a popular and effective mayor. His star rose quickly on the Nicaraguan political horizon. But another Sandinista’s popularity, especially when it outshines Daniel Ortega’s, becomes ground for ostracism within the party. This had happened with Herty Lewites, Managua’s previous mayor, whom Daniel also had shunned. (Herty later became the presidential candidate for the dissident Movimiento Renovador Sandinista --- MRS --- and was considered a serious contender when he died from a heart attack only weeks before the 2006 election.)

With Dionisio Marenco falling out of grace with the Sandinistas’ undisputed leader, and with Daniel Ortega vying to place as many of his candidates as possible in office in the 2008 municipal elections, he knew he needed an extremely popular candidate to hold off Eduardo Montealegre’s bid. Montealegre had been Ortega’s most significant opponent in the presidential elections of 2006. To run against Montealegre, who was leading an alliance of political parties seeking to take back Managua, Ortega picked Alexis Arguello.

The results of the November 2008 elections, in which Arguello allegedly won with 51 percent of the vote, were severely tainted by widespread claims of fraud. Ultimately, after a quick recount that remains suspect, Nicaragua’s Electoral Council proclaimed Arguello the victor. But the election results, including Alexis’s, provoked nationwide protests; and the doubt surrounding the former boxer’s victory cast a long shadow during the six months he served as mayor.

What’s more, stepping to the forefront of the mayoral office, unlike when Arguello stepped into the ring, showed his lack of preparation for assuming a position of leadership in the full limelight of politics. His open style of communication, always speaking straight from the heart, provided plenty of fodder for being attacked and lampooned, which the opposition media certainly did, and gleefully.

But the public chiding didn’t bother Alexis, who was always up for a few laughs. Rather, it was the feeling that he hadn’t won the race for mayor legitimately. And what bothered him worse were the accusations of fraud and corruption that followed the election. The questioning of his honor, in particular, started to weigh heavily on the mind of the Nicaraguan icon. In a 2003 television interview with Fernando Chamorro, Arguello was asked if he wasn’t concerned that the Sandinistas were using him, the same way Somoza had done twenty-five years earlier. The former boxing champion replied that to be used was fine as long as it placed him in a position where he could help the poor, whom he considered his true constituency.

The Sandinistas, however, would use but not trust their chosen candidate. Rosario Murillo, Nicaragua’s First Lady, as well as the Presidential Spokesperson, named herself head of Arguello’s mayoral campaign and she, in turn, appointed several advisers to keep the former world champion on a tight leash, to try to prevent him from inadvertently saying anything damaging.

Then, after Arguello assumed office, in an agreement apparently reached beforehand, he allowed the secretary of the city council, the Sandinista Fidel Moreno, to be the true power behind the throne. Upon watching online videos of city council meetings, one can observe Moreno frequently whispering in Arguello’s ear, telling him what to say.

As the world worriedly watched the coup perpetrated against Honduran president Mel Zelaya, another coup was simultaneously taking place in the city of Managua while Alexis was in Puerto Rico attending a commemoration in honor of Roberto Clemente, the baseball great who gave his life bringing supplies to Nicaragua after the 1972 earthquake. Upon Arguello’s return, he learned that the city council had passed a resolution stripping him of all powers, except ceremonial ones. Seventy-two hours later, the Nicaraguan national hero was dead from a self-inflicted wound through the heart. The circumstances that led to his decision and what took place during this lapse of time still remain a mystery. Rumors abound of several confrontations between Arguello and emissaries of the president and first lady. What is certain, however, is that the orders to remove Alexis Arguello’s mayoral muscles came directly from the chambers of the first couple: Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

Alexis’s life had crossed paths with suicidal behavior before. His father had attempted it when Arguello was a child. And the champ, having reached the despairing depths of drug dependency in the mid-1980s, went as far as to put the point of a sharp knife against his chest intending to plunge it through his heart. Only the desperate pleas of one of his sons, then a child, stopped him from doing so.

But on July 1, when he pulled the trigger, it was neither the drugs nor the alcohol that provoked the act. Instead, the foul world of Nicaraguan politics, especially as played by the Sandinista leadership, moved him to commit suicide. Every Nicaraguan knows this. The former boxing champion was a man who behaved honorably and who always put his heart into everything he did, even in the brutal world of boxing. The tragic manner in which he ended his life, however, clearly indicates that Alexis Arguello had stopped believing in everyone and everything, including himself. On the night he pulled the trigger, not only did he pierce his own heart, but he wounded those of every Nicaraguan, both at home and away, who saw him as a larger-than-life figure, as one of Nicaragua’s noblest offerings to the world.

More ominously, though, the reaction toward Alexis’s death has revealed the unfathomable chasm that at present exists in Nicaraguan politics: those who oppose the Sandinista government place the blame squarely on Daniel Ortega’s and Rosario Murillo’s shoulders while those loyal to the regime are accusing anyone who mentions the first couple’s complicity of being on the CIA payroll. What remains a unifying theme above all the shouting is that both sides are deeply mourning the Champion’s passing. The people of Nicaragua are having trouble accepting that Alexis Arguello, their national hero, is gone. And what has become alarming for those who know the nation’s history of bloodletting and who are acutely aware that Nicaragua faces yet another political crossroads that may once again lead the nation down the dark passages of violence, Alexis Arguello’s suicide seems like a portent of things to come.

Silvio Sirias resides and writes in Panama. His second novel, Meet Me Under the Ceiba, will be released with Arte Publico Press next month and can be pre-ordered on Amazon. For more information, visit his website at www.silviosirias.com

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