Sandinista National Liberation Front

:Sandinista! is also the name of a popular music album by The Clash.

Opposition to Somoza (1961–1979)

The FSLN was formally organised on July 23, 1961 by Carlos Fonseca Amador, Tomás Borge Martínez and Silvio Mayorga. It eventually became Marxist-aligned, and like many Communist groups began to present its struggle as a "movement for national liberation"; they claimed that the old government was oppressing and exploiting the Nicaraguan people and violating their rights, and promised to remedy these injustices.

Related Topics:
July 23 - 1961 - Carlos Fonseca Amador - Tomás Borge Martínez - Silvio Mayorga

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The Sandinistas took their name from Augusto César Sandino (1895-1934), a leader in the country's nationalist rebellion against the United States military occupation of Nicaragua in the 1920s and early 1930s until his assassination by the U.S.-created Guardia Nacional (National Guard) enabled Somoza to seize control of the country.

Related Topics:
Augusto César Sandino - 1920s - 1930s - Assassination - Guardia Nacional

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Inspired and supported by the Cubans, the FSLN tried with little success to organise guerrilla warfare against Somoza in the 1960s. In the 1970s, it began to attract significant support from the country's increasingly politicised peasantry and from other sectors of the population in response to the U.S.-supported dictatorship's brutality and corruption, especially after the earthquake that levelled the capital city, Managua, on 23 December 1972. The earthquake killed 20,000 of the city's 400,000 residents and left another 250,000 homeless. Somoza's National Guard embezzled much of the international aid that flowed into the country to assist in reconstruction, and several parts of downtown Managua were never rebuilt. This overt corruption caused even people who had previously supported the regime, such as business leaders, to turn against Somoza and call for his overthrow.

Related Topics:
Cuba - Guerrilla warfare - 1960s - 1970s - Peasant - Corruption - Earthquake - Managua - 23 December - 1972

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During the long struggle against Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the FSLN leaders' internal disagreements over strategy and tactics were reflected in three main factions:

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• The guerra popular prolongada ("prolonged popular war") faction was rural-based and sought long-term "silent accumulation of forces" within the country's large peasant population, which it saw as the main social base for the revolution.
• The tendencia proletaria ("proletarian tendency"), led by Jaime Wheelock, reflected an orthodox Marxist approach that sought to organise urban workers.
• The tercerista ("third way") faction, led by Humberto and Daniel Ortega Saavedra, was ideologically eclectic, favouring a more rapid insurrectional strategy in alliance with diverse sectors of the country, including business owners, churches, students, the middle class, unemployed youth and the inhabitants of shantytowns. The terceristas also helped attract popular and international support by organising a group of prominent Nicaraguan professionals, business leaders, and clergymen (known as "the Twelve"), who called for Somoza's removal and sought to organise a provisional government from Costa Rica.

On 10 January 1978, the assassination of Pedro Chamorro, who edited the anti-Somoza newspaper La Prensa, sparked a broad uprising against the regime, with the Sandinistas leading a combination of general strikes, urban uprisings and rural guerrilla attacks that increasingly demoralised the National Guard. With a moral and material help of many Latin American countries, Sandinistas launched liberation war from Costa Rica territory. Despite an overwhelming superiority in arms and ruthless tactics that included the aerial bombardment of Nicaraguan cities, Somoza's army disintegrated; he fled the country on 17 July 1979, and was later assassinated in Paraguay. Two days after Somoza's departure, the Sandinistas entered Managua and were greeted by huge crowds as national liberators.

Related Topics:
10 January - 1978 - Pedro Chamorro - General strike - 17 July - 1979 - Paraguay

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