COPA SANDINO 2014

COPA SANDINO 2014 “80 ANOS – SANDINO VIVE”

Hola Futbolista y amig@ de Nicaragua,

I am contacting you to see if you would like to enter a team for this year’s 28 Copa Sandino.

It will take place on the afternoon of SUNDAY 18th MAY at Ashton Park Secondary School, Blackmoors Lane, Ashton, Bristol BS3 2JL. Four five a side pitches will be marked out on grass with no rebound boards. This year again Ashton Park school is kindly allowing us to use their sports fields for free so a Big Thanks to them.

The Copa Sandino is a sponsored, charity five-a-side football tournament which raises money to support solidarity and development projects in Nicaragua. Each team is asked to send us a cheque for £50 as a non-refundable deposit and minimum contribution made out to “BLINC”.

Sponsor forms and info will be sent out on receipt of this payment.

Players are expected to raise at least £10 per person.

You will need at least one keeper and five outfield players. Please ensure that all players have the same colour shirts. Bibs (yellow) are however available. We will also provide the balls and referees. There will be a DJ and Latino food from 10 am and the games will start at 10.30am finishing at 3pm. You will get a minimum of five matches as the bottom 3 in each group go into the “Plato Collett” so don’t leave early. Please arrive by 10.00 at the latest.

Depending on the weather, you may need football boots/moulded or trainers. Teams from the local Mexican, Spanish, Brazilian and Chilean communities have been invited.

This year we are raising money to build another single classroom pre-school for under fives in Puerto Morazan and more information on where the money is going will be available on the day from your Jefe Sandinista during the group stages. We are hoping to run our popular Nica quiz where you can win beer but not hassle the quiz mistress. Photos below of how the funds from Copa Sandino 2013 were used: pre-school new build in Barrio Plan.

Please call 0117 328 4450 or email: alix.hughes@uwe.ac.uk for further details. We need your deposit to book your team a place as 16 spaces are available on a first come first served basis. Please either bank transfer your deposit (details from Steve e: s.j.roser@gmail.com) or send a deposit cheque made out to “BLINC” with your team’s name and contact details as soon as possible to guarantee your place to:

BLINC c/o BITA, ACE, St Matthias Campus, UWE, Bristol BS16 2JP

Many thanks. Good luck and see you at the Copa Sandino 2014

En solidaridad Alix Hughes, pp Comite de BLINC

Sandino’s death 80 years ago remembered

It was Feb. 21, 1934, when a firing squad of 13 National Guard soldiers, under orders from Anastasio Somoza Garcia and with the collaboration of US Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane, shot national hero Augusto Sandino and his generals Francisco Estrada and Juan Pablo Umanzor at a Managua airfield. The 80th anniversary of the assassination was commemorated last week in Nicaragua with rallies, speeches, walks, and volunteer work.

At the evening rally in honour of Sandino, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Antonio Jaua said, “How could we not come to commemorate the death of a follower of Bolivar like Augusto Calderon Sandino? We feel honoured to be in this plaza where we were so many times with our comandante Hugo Chavez and we feel an ocean of sentiment because of so much history, so many memories.” President Daniel Ortega reiterated his support for President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and said that the government of the United States had misrepresented the struggle in Venezuela. He called on President Barack Obama to “Concern yourself with Guantanamo [and] work to stop the killing of migrants on the border of the United States.”

The National Assembly held a special session in honour of the anniversary attended by cabinet ministers and members of the diplomatic corps. Assembly President Rene Nuñez said that Sandino’s thought was rich and diverse, that he spoke of cooperatives, of Latin American unity, of foreign intervention, of patriotism, of sovereignty, of the working class and of peasant farmers. Nuñez said, “It is important to study the thought of Sandino, who was not only a military fighter but also a political visionary and a forger of men.” Historian Aldo Diaz Lacayo pointed out that Sandino’s struggle against the occupation of Nicaragua by US Marines was celebrated in all of Latin America, and even in Europe and Asia.

Members of Sandino’s family, Army Chief General Julio Aviles, and other high military and police officials, laid wreaths at a monument to Sandino at the Battalion of Mechanized Infantry. Aviles said, “The example of General Sandino is in our hearts and on this day… we repeat our commitment to our people to continue doing all that we can for the building of the just, dignified, and prosperous country that Nicaraguans deserve.”

Demonstrators tied up traffic on several days last week. On Feb. 20, the crowd at the Sandinista Youth rally and march, estimated by its organizers at 50,000 and by El Nuevo Diario at 35,000, tied up traffic all around the city as it wound from the Central American University to the Hugo Chavez Circle in commemoration of Sandino’s life and death.

Meanwhile, assemblies were held, films shown, exhibitions opened, streets paved, and patients treated by special medical brigades, all in honor of Sandino. At the Palace of Culture (formerly the National Palace), an exhibit opened of paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs entitled “Sandino in Latin American Art” and containing works from Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, France, and Nicaragua.

(Informe Pastran, Feb. 21; El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 19, 20, 22; Radio La Primerisima, Feb. 17, 20, 21; La Prensa, Feb. 19, 21)