Herty Lewites
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Herty Lewites | |
|---|---|
 Lewites in 2005 | |
| Mayor of Managua | |
| In office 2001–2005 | |
| Preceded by | Roberto Cedeño Borgen |
| Succeeded by | Dionisio Marenco |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 24 December 1939 |
| Died | July 2, 2006 (aged 66) |
Herty Lewites Rodríguez (December 24, 1939 – July 2, 2006) was a Nicaraguan politician. He was Mayor of Managua and a candidate for president in the 2006 Nicaraguan general election when he died suddenly.
Lewites was born on December 24, 1939[1] in the San Felipe barrio of Jinotepe, the son of a Jewish immigrant from Poland (a candymaker) and a Catholic Nicaraguan.[2] The two had met when his father visited Nicaragua from New York, fell in love with his mother and settled there.[1] In Nicaragua his father owned the only gas station in town, Texaco, and two friends Lewites met at the gas station became pivotal in forming his commitment to fight the Somoza dictatorship: during the April 1954 rebellion, Lewites, then 15, was shocked by the murders of his friends Pablo Leal and Adolfo Báez Bone by the Somoza National Guard.[2] He joined the struggle against the Somoza dictatorship in 1958[citation needed] and went into exile in Brazil in 1960 with his father following Lewites’ participation in the military action taking of the Jinotepe and Diriamba headquarters.[2] Later Lewites went to El Salvador, Mexico and Cuba, and in 1969 he joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front.[2] Rather than fighting, he began directing Solidarity Committees,[2] becoming involved in financial matters and arms smuggling for the revolutionary movement.[2] In 1973 he was imprisoned in the United States for illicit arms trafficking, spending a year and a half in a federal penitentiary at San Pedro, California.[2] Outside of prison, he was highly effective and creative in his efforts, staging photography sessions to mislead the Somocistas about the whereabouts of key Sandinista fighters like Nora Astorga.[2] He also helped form the Group of 12, a group of major Nicaraguan establishment figures who agreed to show public support for the Sandinistas, lending legitimacy to the FSLN.[2]
His brother, Israel Lewites, was involved in armed struggle and died in the attack on the Masaya barracks in October 1977.[2]
