Ana Lorena Cartín and her importance at Radio Noticias del Continente
Ana Lorena Cartín, a Costa Rican woman and chemist by profession, but with a political vision of life, carried out projects "from the ground up"—as she often said—and passed away on Thursday, March 21, 2024. CLACSO Working Group on Violence in Central America He deeply regrets his passing.
Her work as director of Radio Noticias del Continente (RNC) was fundamental to the struggles of the peoples of Our America, particularly in the Southern Cone and Central America. RNC featured Costa Rican students and exiles from the Southern Cone, primarily from Argentina.
Its main mission was to break the media blackout surrounding the dictatorial governments of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and also those of Central America, a region of the continent embroiled in fierce conflict. In Nicaragua, the Sandinista revolution had just triumphed in 1979; in El Salvador, the FMLN continued its struggle against the military junta; and in Guatemala, various guerrilla organizations were doing the same. RNC joined these struggles, exposing human rights violations and even broadcasting Archbishop Romero's last homily, which was heard in several parts of the continent. As he recently recalled, "We broadcast everything."
At 31, Ana Lorena directed RNC, facing interference from the Argentine dictatorship in Costa Rica, which sought information from her in an attempt to shut down the radio station. Three years after its launch, and in the face of attempts to end its broadcasts and four attacks with weapons and bombs, a network of solidarity with the radio station emerged from countries such as Mexico, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Ecuador. The Latin American Federation of Journalists also protested to the President of Costa Rica. In 1981, Ana commented on the following:
At this crossroads for press freedom in Costa Rica and in our beleaguered Latin American continent, I reiterate my point about the arbitrariness of closing a media outlet, under any pretext, and leaving unpunished the terrorists who carried out armed attacks against RNC, the infiltrators in the state security forces who threatened the safety of the company and its workers, the accomplices of the dictatorships who, with ample resources, dedicated themselves to insulting the station and, what is much worse, to deceiving the people of Costa Rica with a concerted series of distortions.
We join her loved ones in this profound loss and from the CLACSO Working Group on Violence in Central America, we remember her as a woman in solidarity with the struggles of Latin America.
April 3th 2024
CLACSO Working Group
Violence in Central America
This text expresses the position of CLACSO Working Group on Violence in Central America and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
