Photo: Coleen Littlejohn and FSLN international relations secretary José Figuero (fourth and fifth from right) with a delegation of international election observers, Nov 6, 2021.

Coleen Littlejohn: A Life of Grace and Revolution

Originally from the snow country of upstate New York, Coleen Littlejohn chose to make Nicaragua her home and to support its Sandinista Revolution. She lived a life of demonstrable grace.

Coleen passed on October 25, 2026, after a prolonged battle with cancer. When I last spoke with her three weeks ago, her positive attitude was as infectious as ever, and she still hoped to do more solidarity work. Her loss will be felt profoundly by her family, her wide circle of friends, the solidarity movement, and at the highest levels of the Sandinista government. She touched many lives and accomplished much in her lifetime.

According to a web search and the best of my memory, Coleen completed a BA in history at Le Moyne College and a master’s in development economics at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 1977. She then worked as a development economist for Catholic Relief Services in Colombia, Chile, and Nicaragua, and for Save the Children-Canada in Nicaragua. She was an officer with the World Bank in Nicaragua and Liberia, along with assignments in Ghana, Washington, DC, and elsewhere.

Coleen’s Nicaraguan husband died in a plane crash in Cuba that some suspected had been caused by US sabotage. A naturalized citizen, she lived in Nicaragua since 1980, raising her son there. Her grandchildren were the joy of her life.

In June 2023, Coleen helped organize the Nicaragua hearing of the International People’s Tribunal on Sanctions with testimony from nine Nicaraguan witnesses and one participating remotely from the US. The National Lawyers Guild, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and others sponsored the multi-country investigation.

That year, she also presented a professional case study titled “A Different Pandemic Strategy: Nicaragua Example” at an international conference on the effects of COVID-19 restrictions in low- and middle-income countries held at King’s College in London.

This important report refuted the slander against Nicaragua’s public health response, emphasizing its community-based healthcare system, vaccination campaigns, hospital infrastructure, and efforts to protect vulnerable populations. She argued that Nicaragua’s investment in universal healthcare and community health workers contributed to its management of the pandemic. Earlier in her career, she had helped coordinate the World Bank’s response to the Ebola outbreak in Liberia.

She continued to organize international solidarity delegations to Nicaragua, even after she had undergone repeated cancer treatments. In March 2025, Coleen hosted a delegation from Veterans for Peace. Her home was always a welcoming place for international visitors and locals alike, whom she treated with characteristic warmth and generosity.

To the end, she remained an activist with the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition and the SanctionsKill! Campaign.

And everything she did was infused with grace. Her kindness and generosity were extraordinary.

On a personal note, I visited Nicaragua in 2022 with an international delegation to celebrate the anniversary of the Sandinista National Liberation Front’s (FSLN) 1979 overthrow of the US-backed Somoza family dictatorship. Two days after that year’s celebration, I fell sick. Delirious with a 103°F fever from COVID and pneumonia, Coleen helped admit me to the new Hospital Fernando Velez Paiz Epicrisis. In a country striving for socialism like Nicaragua, healthcare is considered a human right and is free.

Six days later, I was discharged and spent the next three weeks convalescing at Coleen’s house until I had recovered enough to fly home. I was just one of many who benefited from her extraordinary hospitality, which strengthened our commitment and solidarity in support of Nicaragua’s living revolution.

Another, broader example of her grace was how she adroitly navigated the vicissitudes of the Sandinista Revolution through its 1990 defeat at the polls, its electoral return in 2007, and the attempted coup of 2018. Coleen remained committed to the elected Sandinista leadership; some others close to her did not.

Yet her grace was so deep and genuine that she was not acrimonious about people in her life who differed with her about the revolution’s direction. She had a remarkable ability to move on. She would simply note that some people “don’t agree,” although she still treated them with respect. That was Coleen’s generosity of spirit – her grace in action – even as she remained militantly siempre Sandinista.

¡Presente!

Roger D. Harris

October 26, 2026

Corte Madera, CA, USA