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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSandista Day: Nicaragua Vive! 35 Years Since the Triumph of the Sandinista Revolution
July 19, 2014 marks the 35th anniversary of the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua. On that day, the Sandinista troops led by the nine commanders of the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN) entered the capital city of Managua where they were greeted by hundreds of thousands of jubilant Nicaraguans. The triumphant guerrillas found a country in ruins. The previous ruler of the country, dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, had bombed the cities during the final offensive. When he fled the country two days earlier, he took not only the caskets containing his parents remains, but all the money in the national treasury as well. The Sandinistas were left with no money and a $1.9 billion international debt.
Despite these handicaps, the Sandinistas set up a nine member National Directorate and five member Junta de Reconstrucción as the executive branch, and a Council of State which included political parties and popular organizations as the legislature. They launched an ambitious and revolutionary political program. Their Literacy Crusade reduced literacy by 37 percent and was given an award by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for its triumphant success. The Sandinistas also provided citizens with free health care, started farm cooperatives, and used land confiscated from Somoza and his close government and military supporters for state-owned farms. The successful Revolution of Poets, many of the countrys poets were revolutionaries and politicians, made Nicaraguans proud and the social advances made them hopeful for the future.
In 1981 Ronald Reagan took office as president of the United States. The CIA, under his direction, immediately began training former members of Somozas brutal National Guard who had escaped across the border to Honduras. The famous CIA manual taught at the School of the Americas and captured after a battle in Nicaragua, showed how they were trained. They were taught to assassinate teachers, health care workers, and peasant cooperative leaders. There was also a Freedom Fighter Manual authored by the CIA and airdropped into the country which encouraged Nicaraguans sympathetic to the dictatorship to sabotage the Sandinista government and cause social disorder by employing methods such as bombing police stations.
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Five years later, when Ortega ran for re-election in 2011 presidential election, he routed the neoliberal opposition winning 63 percent of the vote and a super-majority in the National Assembly. Nicaragua continued to advance socially and economically. It has already achieved many of the UN Millennium Goals for cutting poverty in half. It also has the fastest growing economy in Central America and has moved past Honduras to no longer be the second poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Today, while child refugees flood the US border from Central America, Nicaraguas children are not among them because they are in school, their parents have jobs, and the whole family has enough to eat. Drug cartels have been unable to gain a foothold because the army and police are those same muchachos and muchachas who defeated a US-backed dictator and aspired to be New Men and New Women. Nicaraguans are astounded at the corruption and brutality of the security forces of their neighbors.
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http://upsidedownworld.org/main/nicaragua-archives-62/4942-nicaragua-vive-35-years-since-the-triumph-of-the-sandinista-revolution
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)newfie11
(8,159 posts)It points out so much and sadly most Americans have no idea any of this happened.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)It's true, most Americans have no idea any of this happened. Many do though, and I speak with a lot of younger people who are aware of it. They oppose American military intervention in other country's domestic affairs. That gives me hope for our future.
Archae
(46,311 posts)From Wikipedia:
Before the general elections on 5 November 2006, the National Assembly passed a bill further restricting abortion in Nicaragua.[78] As a result, Nicaragua is one of five countries in the world where abortion is illegal with no exceptions.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)It started under Jimmy Carter, sad to say, but Reagan turned into the Contra War. The Sandinistas were only three days away from Brownsville, Texas!
DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)...like Dracula's tower.
In the flash of this moment, you're the best of what we are.
Don't let them stop you now, Nicaragua.
For every scar on the wall, there is a hole in someone's heart
Where a loved one's memory lies.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)When I was there, it was a bunker behind rows of razor wire, huge earth berms, and fences with dogs at the gate. Sure looked friendly.
DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)Last edited Sun Jul 20, 2014, 09:08 PM - Edit history (1)
...that for the residents of Managua, the U.S. Embassy had the comfy, cozy feel of something like this:
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)I recall reading a story in the American press that the Sandinistas received a shipment of Soviet MIG fighter jets just as Congress was considering funding for the Contras. I remember thinking, how could they (the Sandinistas) be so stupid? Now Congress is almost certain to renew funding for the Contras!
Turns out I was right about one thing and wrong about another. I was right about Congress. They renewed funding for the Contras. But I was wrong about the Sandinistas. They weren't stupid. The story about their receiving MIG fighters was a complete hoax. A nice piece of home-grown propaganda that worked like a charm.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)We went to Leon, a Sandinista stronghold where there had been battles. We saw the anti-American graffiti, the murals to the battles, and the memorial to those killed by the CIA and our army. We had no idea, and I had no good answer when people asked us why we allowed our government to do that to them. All I could do was tell them how we'd been lied to as well and apologize. Big eye-opener, trust me.