The Nicaraguan Revolution ( es, Revolución Nicaragüense or Revolución Popular Sandinista, link=no) encompassed the rising opposition to the
Somoza
The Somoza family ( es, Familia Somoza) is a former political family that ruled Nicaragua for forty-three years from 1936 to 1979. Their family dictatorship was founded by Anastasio Somoza García and was continued by his two sons Luis Somoza D ...
dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the campaign led by the
Sandinista National Liberation Front
The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto Cé ...
(FSLN) to oust the dictatorship in 1978–79, the subsequent efforts of the FSLN to govern Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, and the
Contra War
The Nicaraguan Revolution ( es, Revolución Nicaragüense or Revolución Popular Sandinista, link=no) encompassed the rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the campaign led by the Sandinista National Liberation Fr ...
, which was waged between the FSLN-led government of Nicaragua and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
–backed
Contras from 1981 to 1990. The revolution marked a significant period in the
history of Nicaragua
Nicaragua is a nation in Central America. It is located about midway between Mexico and Colombia, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. Nicaragua ranges from the Caribbean Sea on the nation's east coast, and the Pacific ...
and revealed the country as one of the major
proxy war
A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities. In order for a conflict to be considered a pr ...
battlegrounds of the
Cold War, attracting much international attention.
The initial overthrow of the Somoza regime in 1978–79 was a dirty affair, and the Contra War of the 1980s took the lives of tens of thousands of Nicaraguans and was the subject of fierce international debate. Because of the political turmoil failing economy, and decreasing government influence, during the 1980s, both the
FSLN (a
leftist collection of political parties) and the
Contras (a
rightist
Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, auth ...
collection of counter-revolutionary groups) received large amounts of aid from the Cold War superpowers (respectively, the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
).
Peace process started with Sapoá Accords in 1988 and the Contra War ended after the signing of the Tela Accord in 1989 and the demobilization of the FSLN and Contra armies. A second election in 1990 resulted in the election of a majority of anti-Sandinista parties and the FSLN handing over power.
Background
Following the
United States occupation of Nicaragua
The United States occupation of Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933 was part of the Banana Wars, when the US military invaded various Latin American countries from 1898 to 1934. The formal occupation began in 1912, even though there were various othe ...
in 1912 during the
Banana Wars
The Banana Wars were a series of conflicts that consisted of military occupation, police action, and intervention by the United States in Central America and the Caribbean between the end of the Spanish–American War in 1898 and the inceptio ...
, the
Somoza family political dynasty came to power, and would rule Nicaragua from 1937 until their ouster in 1979 during the Nicaraguan Revolution. The Somoza dynasty consisted of
Anastasio Somoza García
Anastasio Somoza García (1 February 1896 – 29 September 1956) was the leader of Nicaragua from 1937 until his assassination in 1956. He was only officially the 21st President of Nicaragua from 1 January 1937 to 1 May 1947 and from 21 May 195 ...
, his eldest son
Luis Somoza Debayle
Luis Anastasio Somoza Debayle (18 November 1922 – 13 April 1967) was the 26th President of Nicaragua from 21 September 1956 to 1 May 1963.
Somoza Debayle was born in León. At the age of 14, he and his younger brother Anastasio attended Sa ...
, and finally
Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The era of Somoza family rule was characterized by economic development albeit with rising
inequality
Inequality may refer to:
Economics
* Attention inequality, unequal distribution of attention across users, groups of people, issues in etc. in attention economy
* Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups
* ...
and
political corruption, strong US support for the government and its military, as well as a reliance on US-based
multinational corporation
A multinational company (MNC), also referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a transnational enterprise (TNE), a transnational corporation (TNC), an international corporation or a stateless corporation with subtle but contrasting senses, i ...
s.
Rise of the FSLN
In 1961
Carlos Fonseca Amador, Silvio Mayorga, and
Tomás Borge Martínez formed the
FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) with other student activists at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua (UNAN) in
Managua
)
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. For the founding members of the FSLN, this was not their first experience with political activism. Amador, first General Secretary of the organization, had worked with others on a newspaper "broadly critical" of the Somoza reign titled ''Segovia''.
Consisting of approximately 20 members during the 1960s, with the help of students, the organization gathered support from peasants and anti-Somoza elements within Nicaraguan society, as well as from the communist
Cuban government
Cuba has had a socialist political system since 1959 based on the "one state – one party" principle. Cuba is constitutionally defined as a Marxist–Leninist state. The present Constitution of Cuba, which was passed in a 2019 referendum, also ...
, and the socialist Panamanian government of
Omar Torrijos
Omar Efraín Torrijos Herrera (February 13, 1929 – July 31, 1981) was the Commander of the Panamanian National Guard and military leader of Panama from 1968 to his death in 1981. Torrijos was never officially the president of Panama, ...
, and the social democratic Venezuelan government of
Carlos Andrés Pérez.
Uppsala Conflict Data Program
The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) is a data collection program on organized violence, based at Uppsala University in Sweden. The UCDP is a leading provider of data on organized violence and armed conflict, and it is the oldest ongoing data ...
Conflict Encyclopedia, Nicaragua, State-based conflict, In depth, The Sandinista revolution, http://www.ucdp.uu.se/gpdatabase/gpcountry.php?id=117®ionSelect=4-Central_Americas# ink is not working/ref>
By the 1970s the coalition of students, farmers, businesses, churches, and a small percentage of Marxists was strong enough to launch a military effort against the regime of longtime dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The FSLN focused on guerrilla tactics almost immediately, inspired by the campaigns of Fidel Castro and Ché Guevara. Penetrating the Northern coast of Nicaragua, the Río Coco/Bocay-Raití campaign was largely a failure: "when guerrillas did encounter the National Guard, they had to retreat...with heavy losses." Further operations included a devastating loss near the city of Matagalpa, during which Mayorga was killed, which led Fonseca to a "prolonged period of reflection, self-criticism and ideological debate." During this time, the FSLN reduced attacks, instead focusing on solidifying the organization as a whole.
Fonseca died in combat in November of 1976. After his death, the FSLN split into three factions which fought separately: Tendencia GPP (Guerra Popular Prolongada) (English: Prolonged People's War), which followed Maoist ideas; Tendencia Proletaria (English: proletarian
The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philoso ...
), which followed Marxist-Leninist ideas; and Tendencia Tercerista (English: third), which pursued politically left-wing nationalism, social democracy
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote s ...
, and liberation theology.
Overthrow of the Somoza regime
In the 1970s the FSLN began a campaign of kidnappings which led to national recognition of the group in the Nicaraguan media and solidification of the group as a force in opposition to the Somoza Regime. The Somoza Regime, which included the Nicaraguan National Guard, a force highly trained by the U.S. military, declared a state of siege, and proceeded to use torture, extrajudicial killings
An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether ...
, intimidation and censorship of the press in order to combat the FSLN attacks. This led to international condemnation of the regime and in 1978 the administration of U.S. president Jimmy Carter cut off aid to the Somoza regime due to its human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
violations (Boland Amendment
The Boland Amendment is a term describing three U.S. legislative amendments between 1982 and 1984, all aimed at limiting U.S. government assistance to the Contras in Nicaragua. The first Boland Amendment was part of the House Appropriations Bill ...
). In response, Somoza lifted the state of siege in order to continue receiving aid.
Other opposition parties and movements also started a process of consolidation. In 1974, ''Unión Democrática Liberal'' (UDEL) was founded by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal
Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal (23 September 1924 – 10 January 1978) was a Nicaraguan journalist and publisher. He was the editor of '' La Prensa'', the only significant opposition newspaper to the long rule of the Somoza family. He is a ...
; the alliance included two anti-Somoza liberal parties as well as some conservatives and even the Nicaraguan Socialist Party
The Nicaraguan Socialist Party (''Partido Socialista Nicaragüense'') is a political party in Nicaragua. Founded in July 1944 by Dr. Mario Flores Ortiz. PSN operated as the official communist party in the country. At the time of its foundation, P ...
.
On 10 January 1978, the editor of the Managua newspaper ''La Prensa'', and founder of the Union for Democratic Liberation (UDEL), Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal
Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal (23 September 1924 – 10 January 1978) was a Nicaraguan journalist and publisher. He was the editor of '' La Prensa'', the only significant opposition newspaper to the long rule of the Somoza family. He is a ...
was murdered by suspected elements of the Somoza regime, and riots broke out in the capital city, Managua, targeting the Somoza regime.[Washington, Somoza and the Sandinistas: Stage and Regime in US Policy toward Nicaragua 1969–1981 Author: Morris H. Morley, Published: August 2002, , pg. 106] Following the riots, a general strike on 23–24 January called for the end of the Somoza regime and was, according to the U.S. State Department staff at the U.S. Embassy, successful at shutting down around 80% of businesses in not only Managua but also the provincial capitals of León, Granada, Chinandega, and Matagalpa.
In the words of William Dewy, an employee of Citi Bank
Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City ...
who witnessed the riots in Managua:
On 22 August 1978 the FSLN staged a massive kidnapping operation. Led by Éden Pastora, the Sandinistan forces captured the National Palace while the legislature was in session, taking 2,000 hostages. Pastora demanded money, the release of Sandinistan prisoners, and, "a means of publicizing the Sandinista cause." After two days, the government agreed to pay $500,000 and to release certain prisoners, marking a major victory for the FSLN. Revolts against the state continued as the Sandinistas received material support from Venezuela and Panama. Further support would stem from Cuba in the form of "arms and military advising."
In early 1979 the Organization of American States supervised negotiations between the FSLN and the government. However, these broke down when it became clear that the Somoza regime had no intention of allowing democratic elections to take place.
By June 1979 the FSLN controlled all of the country except the capital, and on 17 July President Somoza resigned and the FSLN entered Managua, giving full control of the government to the revolutionary movements. Somoza fled to Miami, his Nationalist Liberal Party became practically "decapacitated" and many of its functionaries as well as business figures overtly compromised with somocismo chose the exile. The Catholic church and the professional sectors generally approved of the new reality.
Sandinista government
Immediately following the fall of the Somoza regime, Nicaragua was largely in ruins. The country had suffered both war and, earlier, natural disaster in the devastating 1972 Nicaragua earthquake
The 1972 Nicaragua earthquake occurred at 12:29:44 a.m. local time (06:29:44 UTC) on December 23 near Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. It had a moment magnitude of 6.3 and a maximum MSK intensity of IX (''Destructive''). The epicenter w ...
. In 1979, approximately 600,000 Nicaraguans were homeless and 150,000 were either refugees or in exile, out of a total population of just 2.8 million.
In response to these issues, a state of emergency was declared. President Carter sent US$99 million in aid. Land and businesses of the Somoza regime were expropriated, the old courts were abolished, and workers were organized into Civil Defense Committees. The new regime also declared that "elections are unnecessary", which led to criticism from the Catholic Church, among others.
Economic reforms
The Revolution ended the burden the Somocista regime had imposed upon the Nicaraguan economy and which had seriously deformed the country, creating a big and modern center, Managua, where Somoza's power had emanated to all corners of the territory. Somoza had developed an almost semifeudalist rural economy
Rural economics is the study of rural economies. Rural economies include both agricultural and non-agricultural industries, so rural economics has broader concerns than agricultural economics which focus more on food systems. Rural developmen ...
with few productive goods, such as cotton, sugar and other tropical agricultural products. All sectors of the economy of Nicaragua were determined, in great part if not entirely, by the Somozas or the officials and others surrounding the regime, whether by directly owning agricultural brands and trusts, or actively putting them into local or foreign hands. It is famously stated that Somoza himself owned 1/5 of all profitable land in Nicaragua. While this is not correct, Somoza or his adepts did own or give away banks, ports, communications, services and massive amounts of land.
The Nicaraguan Revolution brought immense restructuring and reforms to all three sectors of the economy, directing it towards a mixed economy
A mixed economy is variously defined as an economic system blending elements of a market economy with elements of a planned economy, markets with state interventionism, or private enterprise with public enterprise. Common to all mixed economie ...
system. The biggest economic impact was on the primary sector, agriculture, in the form of the Agrarian Reform Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land (see land reform) or, broadly, to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land ...
, which was not proposed as something that could be planned in advanced from the beginning of the Revolution but as a process that would develop pragmatically along with the other changes (economic, political, etc.) that would arise during the Revolution period.["Agrarian Productive Structure in Nicaragua", ''SOLÁ MONSERRAT, Roser. 1989. Pag 69 and ss''.]
Economic reforms overall needed to rescue out of limbo the inefficient and helpless Nicaraguan economy. As a "third-world
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " Firs ...
" country, Nicaragua had, and has, an agriculture-based economy, undeveloped and susceptible to the flow of market prices for its agricultural goods, such as coffee and cotton. The Revolution faced a rural economy well behind in technology and, at the same time, devastated by the guerrilla warfare and the soon to come civil war against the Contras.
Article 1 of the Agrarian Reform Law says that property is guaranteed if it laboured efficiently and that there could be different forms of property:
*''state property'' (with the confiscated land from somocistas)
*''cooperative property'' (part of confiscated land, but without individual certificates of ownership, to be laboured efficiently)
*''communal property'' (in response to reinvindication from people and communities from Miskito Miskito may refer to:
* Miskito people, ethnic group in Honduras and Nicaragua
** Miskito Sambu, branch of Miskito people with African admixture
** Tawira Miskito, branch of Miskito people of largely indigenous origin
* Miskito language, original ...
regions in the Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
)
*''individual property'' (as long as this is efficiently exploited and integrated to national plans of development)
The principles that presided Agrarian Reform were the same ones for the Revolution: pluralism, national unity and economic democracy.
The Nicaraguan Agrarian Reform developed into four phases:
# phase (1979): confiscation of property owned by Somocistas and its adepts
# phase (1981): Agrarian Reform Law of 19 July 1981
# phase (1984–85): massive cession of land individually, responding to demands from peasantry
# phase (1986): Agrarian Reform Law of 1986, or "reform to the 1981 Law"
In 1985, the Agrarian Reform distributed of land to the peasantry. This represented about 75 percent of all land distributed to peasants since 1980. According to Project, the agrarian reform had the twofold purpose of increasing the support for the government among the campesinos, and guaranteeing ample food delivery into the cities. During 1985, ceremonies were held throughout the countryside in which Daniel Ortega would give each peasant a title to the land and a rifle to defend it.
Cultural Revolution
The Nicaraguan Revolution brought many cultural improvements and developments. Undoubtedly, the most important was the planning and execution of the Nicaraguan Literacy Campaign ''(Cruzada Nacional de Alfabetización)''. The literacy campaign used secondary school students, university students as well as teachers as volunteer teachers. Within five months they reduced the overall illiteracy
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in Writing, written form in some specific context of use. In other wo ...
rate from 50.3% to 12.9%. As a result, in September 1980, UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
awarded Nicaragua with the " Nadezhda K. Krupskaya" award for their successful literacy campaign. This was followed by the literacy campaigns of 1982, 1986, 1987, 1995 and 2000, all of which were also awarded by UNESCO. The Revolution also founded a Ministry of Culture, one of only three in Latin America at the time, and established a new editorial brand, called ''Editorial Nueva Nicaragua'' and, based on it, started to print cheap editions of basic books rarely seen by Nicaraguans at all. It also founded an ''Instituto de Estudios del Sandinismo'' (Institute for Studies of Sandinismo) where it printed all of the work and papers of Augusto C. Sandino and those that cemented the ideologies of FSLN as well, such as Carlos Fonseca, Ricardo Morales Avilés and others. The key large scale programs of the Sandinistas received international recognition for their gains in literacy
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, hum ...
, health care, education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...
, childcare
Child care, otherwise known as day care, is the care and supervision of a child or multiple children at a time, whose ages range from two weeks of age to 18 years. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(r ...
, unions, and land reform
Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...
.
Human rights controversies
The Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation (abbreviated to Heritage) is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that is primarily geared toward public policy. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presiden ...
, a conservative American think tank with close ties to the Reagan administration, charged the Sandinista government with numerous human rights violations, including censorship of the press and repression of the country's Miskito and Jewish populations. It charged that the government censored the independent newspaper ''La Prensa,'' though French journalist Viktor Dedaj, who lived in Managua in the 1980s, contended that ''La Prensa'' was generally sold freely and that the majority of radio stations were anti-Sandinista. The Heritage Foundation also claimed that the Sandinistas instituted a "spy on your neighbor" system that encouraged citizens to report any activity deemed counter-revolutionary, with those reported facing harassment from security representatives, including the destruction of property.
The Heritage Foundation also criticized the government for its treatment of the Miskito people
The Miskitos are a native people in Central America. Their territory extends from Cape Camarón, Honduras, to Río Grande de Matagalpa, Nicaragua, along the Mosquito Coast, in the Western Caribbean Zone. Their population is estimated at 700 ...
, stating that over 15,000 Miskitos were forced to relocate, their villages were destroyed, and their killers were promoted rather than punished. The Los Angeles Times also noted that "...the Miskitos began to actively oppose the Sandinistas in 1982 when authorities killed more than a dozen Indians, burned villages, forcibly recruited young men into the army and tried to relocate others. Thousands of Miskitos poured across the Coco into Honduras, and many took up U.S.-supplied arms to oppose the Nicaraguan government."
Investigations conducted by the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
, the Organization of American States and Pax Christi
Pax Christi International is an international Catholic peace movement. The Pax Christi International website declares its mission is "to transform a world shaken by violence, terrorism, deepening inequalities, and global insecurity."
History
...
between 1979 and 1983 refuted the Foundation's allegations of anti-Semitism. Some Jewish people had property expropriated for their collaboration with the Somoza
The Somoza family ( es, Familia Somoza) is a former political family that ruled Nicaragua for forty-three years from 1936 to 1979. Their family dictatorship was founded by Anastasio Somoza García and was continued by his two sons Luis Somoza D ...
regime, but not because they were Jewish. The prominent Sandinista Herty Lewites
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.
Early life and involvement in the N ...
, who served as Minister of Tourism in the 1980s and mayor of Managua
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in the 2000s, was of Jewish descent.
Amnesty International also noted numerous human rights violations by the Sandinista government. Among what they found: they contended that civilians "disappeared" after their arrest, that "civil and political rights" were suspended, due process was denied detainees, torture of detainees, and "reports of the killing by government forces of those suspected of supporting the contras".
The Sandinistas were also accused of mass executions. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights investigated abuses by Sandinista forces, including an execution of 35 to 40 Miskitos in December 1981, and an execution of 75 people in November 1984.
Contra War
Although the Carter Administration had attempted to work with FSLN in 1979 and 1980, the more right-wing Reagan Administration
Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...
supported a strong anti-communist strategy for dealing with Latin America, and so it attempted to isolate the Sandinista regime.Uppsala Conflict Data Program
The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) is a data collection program on organized violence, based at Uppsala University in Sweden. The UCDP is a leading provider of data on organized violence and armed conflict, and it is the oldest ongoing data ...
Conflict Encyclopedia, Nicaragua, State-based conflict, In depth, Contras/FDN, http://www.ucdp.uu.se/gpdatabase/gpcountry.php?id=117®ionSelect=4-Central_Americas# ink is not working/ref> As early as 1980–1981 an anti-Sandinista movement, the ''Contrarrevolución'' (Counter-revolution) or just '' Contras'', was forming along the border with Honduras. Many of the initial Contras were former members of the Somoza regime's National Guard unit and many were still loyal to Somoza, who was living in exile in Honduras.
In addition to the Contra units who continued to be loyal to Somoza, the FSLN also began to face opposition from members of the ethnic minority groups that inhabited Nicaragua's remote Mosquito Coast
The Mosquito Coast, also known as the Mosquitia or Mosquito Shore, historically included the area along the eastern coast of present-day Nicaragua and Honduras. It formed part of the Western Caribbean Zone. It was named after the local Miskit ...
region along the Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...
. These groups were demanding a larger share of self-determination and/or autonomy, but the FSLN refused to grant this and began using forced relocations and armed force in response to these grievances.
Upon taking office in January 1981, Ronald Reagan cancelled the dispersal of economic aid to Nicaragua,[U.S. Department of Justice, Appendix A: Background on United States Funding of the Contras, http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/9712/appa.htm] and on 6 August 1981 he signed National Security Decision Directive number 7, which authorized the production and shipment of arms to the region but not their deployment. On 17 November 1981, President Reagan signed National Security Directive 17, authorizing covert support to anti-Sandinista forces.
An armed conflict soon arose, adding to the destabilization of the region which had been unfolding through the Central American civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. The Contras, heavily backed by the CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, secretly opened a "second front" on Nicaragua's Atlantic coast and Costa Rican border. With the civil war opening up cracks in the national revolutionary project, the FSLN's military budget grew to more than half of the annual budget. The ''Servicio Militar Patriótico'' (Patriotic Military Service), a compulsory draft, was also established.
By 1982 Contra forces had begun carrying out assassinations of members of the Nicaraguan government, and by 1983 the Contras had launched a major offensive and the CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
was helping them to plant mines in Nicaragua's harbors to prevent foreign weapons shipments from arriving. The 1987 Iran–Contra affair
The Iran–Contra affair ( fa, ماجرای ایران-کنترا, es, Caso Irán–Contra), often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the McFarlane affair (in Iran), or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States ...
placed the Reagan Administration
Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...
again at the center of secret support for the Contras.
1984 general election
The 1984 election took place on 4 November. Of the 1,551,597 citizens registered in July, 1,170,142 voted (75.41%). The null votes were 6% of the total. International observers declared the elections free and fair, despite the Reagan administration
Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...
denouncing it as a "Soviet style sham". The national averages of valid votes for president were:
* Daniel Ortega, Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) – 66.97%
* Clemente Guido, Democratic Conservative Party (PCD) – 14.04%
* Virgilio Godoy, Independent Liberal Party (PLI) – 9.60%
* Mauricio Diaz, Popular Social Christian Party (PPSC) – 5.56%
* Allan Zambrana, Nicaraguan Communist Party (PCdeN) – 1.45%
* Domingo Sánchez Sancho, Nicaraguan Socialist Party (PSN) – 1.31%
* Isidro Téllez, Marxist–Leninist Popular Action Movement (MAP-ML) – 1.03%
Esquipulas
The Esquipulas Peace Agreement was an initiative in the mid-1980s to settle the military conflicts that had plagued Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
for many years, and in some cases (notably Guatemala) for decades. It built upon groundwork laid by the Contadora Group from 1983 to 1985. The agreement was named for Esquipulas
Esquipulas (Nahuatl: Isquitzuchil, "place where flowers abound"), officially Municipality of Esquipulas, whose original name was Yzquipulas, is a town, with a population of 18,667 (2018 census), and a municipality located in the department of Chi ...
, Guatemala, where the initial meetings took place. The US Congress lobbying efforts were helped by one of Capitol Hill's top lobbyists, William C. Chasey.
In May 1986, a summit meeting, Esquipulas I, took place, attended by the five Central American presidents. On 15 February 1987, Costa Rican President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Óscar Arias
Óscar Arias Sánchez (; born 13 September 1940 in Heredia, Costa Rica) is a Costa Rican activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He was President of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2010. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 198 ...
submitted a Peace Plan which evolved from this meeting. During 1986 and 1987, the Esquipulas Process was established, in which the Central American heads of state agreed on economic cooperation and a framework for peaceful conflict resolution. The Esquipulas II Accord emerged from this and was signed in Guatemala City
Guatemala City ( es, Ciudad de Guatemala), known locally as Guatemala or Guate, is the capital and largest city of Guatemala, and the most populous urban area in Central America. The city is located in the south-central part of the country, ne ...
by the five presidents on 7 August 1987.
Esquipulas II defined a number of measures to promote national reconciliation, an end to hostilities, democratization, free elections, the termination of all assistance to irregular forces, negotiations on arms controls, and assistance to refugees. It also laid the ground for international verification procedures and provided a timetable for implementation.
Sapoá Accords at March 23, 1988 initiated the peace process in Nicaragua. Name comes from the location, town of Sapoá near Costa Rican border. Sandinismo in 1988 had reached economical end point since Cold War (1985–1991) was coming to an end as Soviet Union was near the peak of Era of Stagnation
The "Era of Stagnation" (russian: Пери́од засто́я, Períod zastóya, or ) is a term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev in order to describe the negative way in which he viewed the economic, political, and social policies of the Soviet Uni ...
limiting its support to Sandinistas. This in turn limited Sandinista government options to continue the conflict to favourable end and forcing them to negotiation for peace.
The Accords was mediated by João Clemente Baena Soares
João Clemente Baena Soares (born 14 May 1931) is a Brazilian diplomat.
Soares was born in Belém. He worked at the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations for 31 years before being elected to serve as Secretary General of the Organization of ...
at the time as Secretary General of the Organization of American States
The Secretary General of the Organization of American States is the highest position within the Organization of American States.
According to the Charter of the Organization of American States:
Secretaries General of the OAS
Assistant ...
and then Archbishop of Managua Miguel Obando y Bravo
Miguel Obando y Bravo, SDB (2 February 1926 – 3 June 2018) was a Nicaraguan prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the Archbishop of Managua from 1970 to 2005. Pope John Paul II created him a cardinal in 1985.
Life
Obando was born in La Li ...
Since Nicaraguan conflict was one of the proxy war
A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities. In order for a conflict to be considered a pr ...
between Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, peace process management relied also on then Soviet ambassador Vaino Väljas
Vaino Väljas (; born 28 March 1931 in Külaküla, Hiiumaa) is a former Soviet and Estonian politician. He was the Chairman of the 6th Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR from 18 April 1963 to 19 March 1967, first secretary of communist party o ...
mediation depending on the recent US-Soviet agreements since US did not have any Ambassador assigned to Nicaragua from July 1, 1987 till May 4, 1988.
UNO
Nicaraguan historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
and leading social investigator Roberto J. Cajina describes UNO as follows:
"Since the very moment of inception, under the political guidance and technical and financial support from the government of the US, the existence of UNO was marked by grave structural deformations, derived from its own nature. In its conformation concurred the most diverse currents of the Nicaraguan political and ideological range: from the liberal-conservative -traditionally anticommunist and pro-US, to marxist-leninists from moscovian lineage, openly declared supporters of class struggle and enemies of capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
in its superior development stage".["Paradoxes from an heterogeneous and fragile electoral Alliance", ''CAJINA, Roberto, Pag. 44 and ss.'']
The constitution of the UNO Coalition for the 1990 General Elections was as follows:
(exact transcription and translation of the names of these political parties needed)
*3 Liberal factions: PLI, PLC and PALI
*3 Conservative: ANC, PNC and APC
*3 Social-Christians: PPSC, PDCN and PAN
*2 Social democrats: PSD and MDN
*2 Communists: PSN (pro-Moscow) and PC de Nicaragua (pro-Albania)
*1 Central American Unionist: PIAC
See also
*Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in co ...
*Dirty War
The Dirty War ( es, Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina ( es, dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina, links=no) for the period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983 as ...
*Guatemalan Civil War
The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of ...
*Iran–Contra affair
The Iran–Contra affair ( fa, ماجرای ایران-کنترا, es, Caso Irán–Contra), often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the McFarlane affair (in Iran), or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States ...
* Murals of revolutionary Nicaragua
*National Guard (Nicaragua)
The National Guard ( es, link=no, Guardia Nacional, otherwise known as ) was a militia and a gendarmerie created in 1925 during the occupation of Nicaragua by the United States. It became notorious for human rights abuses and corruption under t ...
*''Nicaragua v. United States
''The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America'' (1986) was a case where the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Sandinista ...
''
*Salvadoran Civil War
The Salvadoran Civil War ( es, guerra civil de El Salvador) was a twelve year period of civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
The Farabundo Ma ...
* ''Under Fire'' (film)
*United States embargo against Nicaragua
The United States embargo against Nicaragua was declared by then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan on May 1, 1985, and prohibited all trade between the U.S. and Nicaragua. In a strategy similar to the embargo against Cuba, it was intended to undermine ...
References
Bibliography
*Emily L Andrews, ''Active Marianismo: Women's social and political action in Nicaraguan Christian base communities and the Sandinista revolution''
The Marianismo Ideal
Grinnell College research project, 1997. Retrieved November 2009.
*Enrique Bermudez (with Michael Johns), "The Contras' Valley Forge: How I View the Nicaragua Crisis", ''Policy Review'' magazine, Summer 1988.
*David Close, Salvador Marti Puig & Shelley McConnell (2010) "The Sandinistas and Nicaragua, 1979–2009" NY: Lynne Rienner.
*Dodson, Michael, and Laura Nuzzi O'Shaughnessy (1990). ''Nicaragua's Other Revolution: Religious Faith and Political Struggle''. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press.
*
*Schmidli, William Michael, "'The Most Sophisticated Intervention We Have Seen': The Carter Administration and the Nicaraguan Crisis, 1978–1979," ''Diplomacy and Statecraft,'' (2012) 23#1 pp 66–86.
*Sierakowski, Robert. ''Sandinistas: A Moral History.'' University of Notre Dame Press, 2019.
Primary sources
*Katherine Hoyt, ''Memories of the 1979 Final Offensive'', Nicanet, Retrieved November 2009. This is a first-hand account from Matagalpa; also contains some information on the general situation. Has photograph showing considerable damage to Matagalpa
News and Information
*Salvador Martí Puig "Nicaragua. La revolución enredada" Lirbos de la Catarata: Madrid.
*Oleg Ignatiev, "The Storm of Tiscapa", in Borovik and Ignatiev
Progress Publishers, 1979; English translation, 1980.
Further reading
*Meiselas, Susan. ''Nicaragua: June 1978 – July 1979''. Pantheon Books (New York City), 1981. First Edition.
*"Nicaragua: A People Aflame." '' GEO'' (Volume 1 charter issue), 1979.
*Teixera, Ib. "Nicarágua: A Norte de um pais." '' Manchete'' (Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...
). 7 July 1979.
External links
*Library of Congress (United States)
''Country Study:Nicaragua''
especially Chapter 1, which is by Marisabel Brás. Retrieved November 2009.
*Louis Proyect
Retrieved November 2009.
Nicaragua : Whose Side Are We On?
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Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
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20th century in Nicaragua
20th-century revolutions
Cold War conflicts
Communism-based civil wars
Communist revolutions
History of Nicaragua
Revolution-based civil wars
Proxy wars