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Nicaragua The End of the Anastasio Somoza Debayle Era
United States support for President Somoza waned after
1977,
when the administration of United States President Jimmy
Carter
made United States military assistance conditional on
improvements in human rights. International pressure,
especially
from the Carter administration, forced President Somoza to
lift
the state of siege in September 1977. Protests and
antigovernment
demonstrations resumed although the National Guard
continued to
keep an upper hand on the FSLN guerrillas.
During October 1977, a group of prominent Nicaraguan
businesspeople and academics, among then Sergio Ramírez
Mercado--known as Los Doce (the Group of Twelve)--met in
Costa
Rica and formed an anti-Somoza alliance. Los Doce
strengthened
the FSLN by insisting on Sandinista representation in any
post-Somoza government. Nevertheless, opposition to the
dictatorship remained divided. Capital flight increased,
forcing
President Somoza to depend on foreign loans, mostly from
United
States banks, to finance the government's deficit.
The dictatorship's repression of civil liberties and
the lack
of representative institutions slowly led to the
consolidation of
the opposition and armed resistance. The Somoza regime
continually threatened the press, mostly the newspaper
La
Prensa and the critical editorials of its publisher
and Udel
leader, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal. The final act in
the
downfall of the Somoza era began on January 10, 1978, when
Chamorro was assassinated. Although his assassins were not
identified at the time, evidence implicated President
Somoza's
son and other members of the National Guard. The
opposition held
the president and his guards responsible for Chamorro's
murder,
thus provoking mass demonstrations against the regime. The
Episcopate of the Nicaraguan Roman Catholic Church issued
a
pastoral letter highly critical of the government, and
opposition
parties called for Anastasio Somoza Debayle's resignation.
On
January 23, a nationwide strike began, including the
public and
private sectors; supporters of the stride demanded an end
to the
dictatorship. The National Guard responded by further
increasing
repression and using force to contain and intimidate all
government opposition. Anastasio Somoza Debayle,
meanwhile,
asserted his intention to stay in power until the end of
his
presidential term in 1981. The general strike paralyzed
both
private industry and government services for ten days. The
political impasse and the costs to the private sector
weakened
the strike, and in less than two weeks most private
enterprises
decided to suspend their participation. The FSLN
guerrillas
launched a series of attacks throughout the country, but
the
better-equipped National Guard was able to maintain
military
superiority.
Indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population and
abuses
of human rights by National Guard members further
tarnished the
international image of the Somoza government and damaged
the
economy. In February 1978, the United States government
suspended
all military assistance forcing Somoza to buy weapons and
equipment on the international market. The Nicaraguan
economy
continued its decline; the country suffered from increased
capital flight, lack of investment, inflation, and
unemployment.
Although still fragmented, opposition to the Somoza
regime
continued to grow during 1978. In March, Alfonso Robelo
Callejas,
an anti-Somoza businessman, established the Nicaraguan
Democratic
Movement (Movimiento Democrático Nicaragüense--MDN). In
May 1978,
the traditional Conservative Party joined Udel, Los Doce,
and the
MDN in creating the Broad Opposition Front (Frente Amplio
de
Oposición--FAO) to try to pressure President Somoza for a
negotiated solution to the crisis. Although the FSLN was
not
represented in the FAO, the participation of Los Doce in
the FAO
assured a connection between the FSLN and other opposition
groups. The FSLN responded to the FAO in July by
establishing a
political arm, the United People's Movement (Movimiento
del
Pueblo Unido--MPU). The MPU included leftist labor groups,
student organizations, and communist and socialist
parties. The
MPU also promoted armed struggle and a nationwide
insurrection as
the only means of overthrowing the Somoza dictatorship.
The FSLN strengthened its position on August 22, 1978,
when a
group of the Third Way faction, led by Edén Pastora Gómez
(also
known as Commander Zero--Comandante Cero), took over the
National
Palace and held almost 2,000 government officials and
members of
Congress hostage for two days. With mediation from
Archbishop
Miguel Obando y Bravo, as well as from the Costa Rican and
Panamanian ambassadors, the crisis was solved in two days.
The
results of the negotiations favored the insurrection and
further
tarnished the government's image. President Somoza had no
alternative but to meet most of the rebels' demands,
including
the release of sixty FSLN guerrillas from prison, media
dissemination of an FSLN declaration, a US$500,000 ransom,
and
safe passage for the hostage takers to Panama and
Venezuela. The
attack electrified the opposition. The humiliation of the
dictatorship also affected morale within the National
Guard,
forcing Anastasio Somoza Debayle to replace many of its
officers
to forestall a coup and to launch a recruitment campaign
to
strengthen its rank and file. Fighting broke out
throughout the
country, but the National Guard, despite internal
divisions, kept
recapturing most of the guerrilla-occupied territories.
By the end of 1978, the failure of the FAO to obtain a
negotiated solution increased the stature of the
insurrection
movement. In October, Los Doce withdrew from the
negotiation
process when the FAO persisted in seeking a negotiated
settlement
with the dictator, and many of FAO's members resigned in
protest
over the negotiations with Somoza. The insurrection
movement,
meanwhile, gathered strength and increased the fighting.
The
Somoza regime was further isolated and discredited when in
November the Organization of American States (OAS)
Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights published a report charging the
National Guard with numerous violations of human rights.
The
report was followed by a United Nations (UN) resolution
condemning the Nicaraguan government. In December 1978,
the FSLN
was further strengthened when Cuban mediation led to an
agreement
among the three FSLN factions for a united Sandinista
front.
Formal unification of the FSLN occurred in March 1979.
Data as of December 1993
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