The Clarinetist behind the Barricade

This is in Matagalpa during the last offensive. What’s deceptive about the photograph is that there’s a wall just to the right of the sandbag barricade, so I’m actually protected by both the barricade and a part of the wall, as is the clarinetist. The National Guard is fighting back which is why the other two men are calling out to each other and trying to figure out what to do. The army had retreated to the cathedral, which gave them a vantage point and a powerful position against the guerrillas. The guy with the clarinet found the army band’s instruments at their abandoned headquarters. He decided that the war was almost all over, so he was sort of celebrating. He was right; it was the turning point. But one of the men behind the sandbags was Biardelarte, one of the nine Commandantes of the Frente. He was still frantically worried about the Guardsmen in the cathedral. I think this photo captured exactly the dilemma of a war winding down. Somoza had left the country, but there was still fighting. It was a question of how long this was going to dribble on; eventually they surrendered.

Susan Meiselas: Born in Baltimore in 1948. After graduating from Harvard with a BA in Visual Education Meiselas started workshops and film and photography programs ranging from the South Bronx to the rural South. Her coverage of the wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador brought her international recognition as a war photographer. A member of Magnum since 1976, she recently completed a six-year visual history of Kurdistan.