Nicaraguan Revolution - Background: Sandino and Somoza

Background: Sandino and Somoza

Nicaragua's Sandinista movement takes its name from Augusto César Sandino, a Nicaraguan who worked in the 1920s and 1930s to improve the conditions of the rural poor and end the United States military occupation of his country which had begun in 1909. Sandino assembled a guerrilla army of peasants, miners, workers, and artisans which began fighting the occupying forces in mid 1927. Confronted with an increasingly costly operation, the U.S. military prepared the Nicaraguan National Guard to take over security operations in the country and withdrew in 1933. Appointed as head of the Guard was Anastasio Somoza García, U.S.-educated, a former diplomatic translator for the U.S., close friend of the previous Nicaraguan president, Moncada, and nephew of the current president, Sacasa.

Sandino had promised to cease fighting if the U.S. withdrew, did so, and entered negotiations with Sacasa, who offered amnesty and land for Sandino's followers. Somoza, however, kidnapped and murdered Sandino at the negotiations, set the National Guard to massacre his unwary guerrillas and their families, and then in 1936 ousted Sacasa in a coup and had himself elected president by a remarkable vote of 107,201 to 108. Somoza and a small circle of family and close associates were soon running virtually every institution in Nicaragua, from the police and courts to the post office and railway. He used his power to enrich himself in business: within a decade he had fifty-one cattle ranches, was Nicaragua's largest coffee producer with forty-six coffee plantations, and owned numerous other enterprises including the merchant marine lines, the airline (Lanica), various mills, and the country's only pasteurised milk facility. By the 1970s, the Somozas controlled forty percent of the Nicaraguan economy and thirty percent of all arable land.

Somoza maintained himself in power by a combination of ruthless suppression at home and compliance toward the United States. With ninety percent of its exports going to the United States, Nicaragua was in some respects an economic appendage of the larger country. Somoza protected U.S. business interests in Nicaragua and was vociferously anti-communist. The United States sent the Somozas military assistance until 1978, one year before their demise. After his death in 1956, Somoza was succeeded by his sons Luis and Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Their methods of government were similar to their father's. The younger of the two, Anastasio, was director of the National Guard from 1956 and president from 1967.