July 19,1979

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After a long struggle against the American-supported dictatorship of the Somozas, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, the FSLN, liberated Nicaragua in July 1979.

The U.S. had a long history of subversion and intervention in Nicaragua. With American money and weapons and Marines the Nicaraguan oligarchy was able to hold on to power and finally defeat a guerrilla movement led by Augusto César Sandino, whom U.S. soldiers eventually captured and killed in 1934. By that time American investment in Nicaragua had reached $13 million, triple the amount of U.S. money in the country in 1914.

From that point on, the Somoza family ruled Nicaragua with an iron fist and American aid. Anastasio “Tacho” Somoza Garcia, president until 1956, was the prototypical Latin American dictator of the era, lauded by Franklin Roosevelt, who said “sure he’s a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” After that his two sons led Nicaragua. While there had always been opposition to the Somozas, it became more organized around 1960 with the establishment of the FSLN, a coalition of groups opposed to the Somoza dictatorship, with a base among workers, peasants, and students.

In 1972, a massive earthquake hit Managua, and the Somozas, rather than rebuild from the damage, pocketed much of the relief aid, and thus exacerbated the popular uprising and armed struggle. By 1978, the FSLN was in a strong position to oust the government and was engaging in military battles with the army, and in 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter, fearing Sandinista victory, tried to get the Organization of American States to intervene to prevent the FSLN from taking power in Nicaragua.

Carter’s efforts failed, and the FSLN marched into Managua and celebrated the revolution. However, the American empire did not go quietly, and within a year Carter was providing covert aid to anti-Sandinista Nicaraguans who would become known as the “contras” and become a key to Ronald Reagan’s vicious subversion of people’s movements throughout Latin America in the 1980s.