July 23, 1959: Student Protest and State Violence as Myth and Memory in Leoón, Nicaragua

At about noon on July 23, 1959, students from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN) presented themselves before the departmental military commander of León, Colonel Juan César Prado. Prado was the ranking local member of the Nicaraguan Guardia Nacional (GN); as the country was under a government-declared “state of siege” that included the imposition of martial law, he had authority over what occurred in the city. At the colonel’s request, the students had come to ask for permission to conduct their traditional desfile de los pelones, a boisterous ceremony in which male first-year students (pelones) had their heads shaved and paraded through the streets in drunken, costumed merriment to celebrate their arrival at the university. The colonel acceded to the request on several conditions, including that the parade not come within two city blocks of GN headquarters, located in the central plaza across from León’s cathedral,...