Nicaraguan Revolution

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Map of Nicaragua

The Nicaraguan Revolution marks a period in Nicaraguan history in which the dictatorship of the Somoza clan was overthrown with numerous victims. The fighting took place in 1978 and 1979. Often, however, the Nicaraguan Revolution is also used to describe the subsequent period of social upheaval, which took place until 1990. The latter period is marked by the contra war .

Anastasio Somoza Debayle's second term

Even before Anastasio Somoza Debayle's second term in office on December 1, 1974, construction workers went on strikes in 1973 and 1974, which were also followed by other professions. In December 1974 the bourgeois opposition joined forces in the Unión Democrática de Liberación (UDEL, German "Democratic Union for Liberation"), which was led by Pedro Chamorro . The UDEL strove for mild reforms: For example, it demanded the removal of Somoza, but not the dissolution of the National Guard .

On December 27, 1974 at 11 p.m., some members of the FSLN (Omar Halleslevens, Leticia Herrera, Hilario Sánchez, Javier Carrión, Joaquín Cuadra, Alberto Ríos, Róger Deshon, Eduardo Contreras, Germán Pomares , Hugo Torres, Olga Avilés, Eleonora Rocha and Félix Pedro Picado) armed a ceremony in the house of the government minister Dr. José María Castillo Quant in the Colonia Los Robles in Managua . Castillo Quant, a former director of the Banco Nacional de Nicaragua , refused to let the FSLN in and was shot. US Ambassador Turner Shelton and General José R. Somoza had already left the party with their bodyguards. About 20 guests were still present, including the ambassador of the Organization of American States , Noel Pallais, the ambassador of Chile accompanied by his military attaché and a general of the Carabineros, the mayor of Managua, Luis Valle Olivares, cabinet members such as Alejandro Montiel Arguello. At the party, the group secured the release of eight FSLN prisoners, including Daniel Ortega with half a million United States dollars and a flight to Havana on December 30, 1974. Monseñor Miguel Obando Bravo brokered the exchange . At the party was Guillermo Sevilla Sacasa, the husband of Lillian Somoza Debayle - a sister of Anastasio Somoza Debayle . Anastasio Somoza Debayle then declared a 33-month state of emergency, under which civil liberties in Nicaragua were suspended until September 19, 1977. Raids by the FSLN on the barracks of the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua followed. The Somoza clan disappeared suspects. There have been several places where the bodies of victims of this enforced disappearance practice have been found. These included the crater of the Momotombo volcano ; dead bodies were also washed ashore; the victims had been thrown alive from helicopters over the open sea. From 1977 at the latest, Somoza waged an undifferentiated dirty war against the civilian population of Nicaragua.

Between October 12 and 17, 1977, a wing of the FSLN, the Terceristas , launched an offensive against the Guardia Nacional by using guerrilla tactics against the army in the north of the country from Honduras and armed the population in support of them. The offensive was unsuccessful in military terms. In the aftermath, however, the Terceristas used them successfully to propagate the revolution they were pursuing.

Politically, the Terceristas opened up to conservative and liberal opposition groups and organizations in the second half of 1977. They initially canceled Marxist goals and postponed these goals to a phase that was to follow after the democracy to be established first.

On January 10, 1978, the “Crown Prince” of the dictatorship, Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero , murdered the publisher and coordinator of the conservative anti-Somoza association UDEL , Pedro Chamorro . His newspaper " La Prensa " had become a mouthpiece for the opposition. Protest demonstrations by tens of thousands of people, an economic boycott by opposition entrepreneurs, a riot that lasted several days in Monimbó, the indigenous quarter of Masaya, and strikes were the result of his murder. The protests were increasingly directed against the Somozas regime. Street fighting broke out between demonstrators and the Guardia Nacional. In response, Venezuela imposed an oil export ban to Nicaragua.

Occupation of the National Palace

National Palace, Managua

On August 22, 1978, a group of 26 members of the FSLN, led by Edén Pastora Gómez , Hogo Torres and Dora María Téllez , occupied the National Palace in Managua and took the parliament present as well as several ministers and family members of Somoza, a total of 1,500 people, hostage. The FSLN members belonging to the Tercerists wore the uniforms of a newly founded infantry school of the National Guard and called themselves the command group " Rigoberto López Pérez ". With the hostage-taking they managed to free 60 prisoners, including Tomás Borge , and to gain a lot of media attention. The Sandinista demands included the release of a general amnesty for all political prisoners, the printing of the Sandinista demands in newspapers and reading them out on radio and television, a total of 10 million US dollars for the FSLN and other guerrilla organizations in Central America and the provision of an escape plane. Negotiations with the government on the part of the Sandinista were almost exclusively Dora María Téllez. Except for the general amnesty and payment of the money (of which Somoza only paid US $ 500,000), all other demands were met and the FSLN members fled to Panama and Venezuela after two days.

The hostage-taking provoked a strong reaction from the Nicaraguan media and was thus a decisive humiliation for Somoza. The moderate tone of the self-portrayal of the FSLN published in the mass media promoted its legitimacy in the population and the charismatic pastora personified the movement in the minds of many Nicaraguans. The Frente Amplio de Oposición (FAO), a peaceful opposition alliance to which many left and liberal parties and organizations belonged, called for a general strike on August 28, 1978. Daily mass demonstrations across the country and spontaneous uprisings grew to a general uprising on September 9, 1978, which the National Guard responded with the greatest brutality, air strikes and tank operations: around 5,000 civilians were killed and 10,000 wounded. Thousands of Nicaraguans fled to Costa Rica and Honduras .

Civil war

Further uprisings, such as the temporary capture of Matagalpa by 400 young people from August 27, 1978, spread across the country. With their September offensive, the Terceristas planned the systematic conquest of the five most important cities in Nicaragua. They worked with the other wings of the FSLN and armed citizens. With the exception of Managua, four of the cities could be captured within a very short time. Their defense, however, was not possible against the technical and numerical superiority of the National Guard. The cities fell back to Somoza between September 12 and 20.

The beginning of the civil war made the eyes of the world public turn to Nicaragua. At the UN , Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and Colombia strongly condemned the genocide carried out by Somoza. Other democracies and parties then turned against Somoza. US President Jimmy Carter distanced himself from Somoza and made the granting of further military aid for the regime dependent on the observance of human rights. As a result, he cut his military and economic aid in order to finally stop it later. The US special envoy William Bowdler, appointed by US President Jimmy Carter, met with a mediation commission of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Managua. The Socialist International publicly sided with the Sandinista. However, the International Monetary Fund granted Somoza an additional $ 66 million in credit.

At the national level, many different civil opposition groups played a role during this period: the Liberation Theological Church under the leadership of a few bishops, the human rights organization Organismos de los Derechos Humanos and the women's association Asociación de Mujeres ante la Problemática Nacional (AMPRONAC) were the most important among them . The opposition Archbishop Miguel Obando Bravo demanded that the government immediately stop the "misdeeds of the National Guard" against the civilian population. The opposition alliance FAO called for Somoza's unconditional resignation and the formation of a provisional government of all anti-Somozist groups. However, the FAO lost because of its split into a bourgeois majority, which agreed to a coalition government with Somoza's "Liberal Party" excluding the Sandinista, and a minority quickly lost in importance and disintegrated. The mediation efforts between government and opposition failed.

Insurrección de Estelí

Since December 1978 the FSLN, split into three parts ( tendencias ) since 1975, has been negotiating a reunification. In the course of the negotiations the three Tendencias came closer to one another under the strategy of the Terceristas, which consisted of working with oppositionists from all camps. Although the military command was divided equally among the Tendencias, Humberto Ortega (brother of the later President Daniel Ortega ) was de facto the main commander of all subsequent operations. The agreement reached in March 1979 gave rise to an organization that soon unleashed an open-ended general strike across the country and, from the end of May, conquered around 20 cities within three weeks. Somoza declared a state of emergency and had additional units set up under the direction of foreign mercenaries. His attempt to obtain diplomatic and military relief through a meeting in Guatemala with the partners of the Central American Defense Council CONDECA, which also included Nicaragua, El Salvador , Guatemala and Honduras, ended with disappointingly low arms deliveries to his National Guard for Somoza. After a call on Radio Sandino in June to counter the repression of the National Guard again with violence, war raged across the country. In mid-July the Sandinista succeeded in taking Managua.

Overthrow of the Somoza regime

Mexico broke off its diplomatic relations with Somocist Nicaragua, followed by Brazil , Costa Rica , Grenada and Panama . The members of the Andean Pact followed suit and pledged to the neutral, pacifist Costa Rica to come to the rescue in the event of an attack from Nicaragua. They recognized the FSLN as a belligerent power. Attempts by the United States in the OAS, which is very interested in Central America , to send a Pan-American intervention force to Nicaragua failed. A US plan to form a transitional government was also rejected on all sides.

Somoza fled to Florida on July 17, 1979 with his family and the General Staff of the National Guard. On July 19, 1979, the Sandinista celebrated their victory.

Although Somoza had reached an agreement with the United States that his brother-in-law Francisco Urcuyo, as interim president, would only sign the armistice and hand over power to the five-member government junta, the latter called on the Sandinista to lay down their arms and accept him as president until 1981. 36 hours later, on July 19, 1979, Urcuyo also fled after more and more units of the now leaderless, lacking ammunition and disbanding National Guard surrendered to the Sandinista. This fight cost the lives of 20,000 to 30,000 people, and an even greater number were injured; the number of refugees was estimated at 150,000 people. On September 17, 1980, Anastasio Somoza Debayle was assassinated in Asunción , Paraguay .

Transitional government

As early as June 16, 1979, Daniel Ortega , Sergio Ramírez and Moisés Hassan Morales from the FSLN, as well as the entrepreneurs Alfonso Robelo and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, formed a government junta that took power on July 19. The junta passed new laws and initiated agrarian reform. The alliance of the many different opposition groups broke up very quickly after the victory against the common enemy. After Barrios de Chamorro and Robelo left the junta, which was dependent on the Sandinista leadership ( Dirección Nacional Sandinista ) in August , the FSLN prevailed over other groups and retained power. Western governments repeatedly asked the new rulers to hold elections; the threatened non-recognition remained rhetoric . With significant support from the US government, a guerrilla group emerged in neighboring Honduras around the core of the former Somozas National Guard . These " Contras " operating from the border area tried to destabilize and overthrow the government through sabotage and murders. The "Contras" were initiated under cover by the US government by Ronald Reagan and financed through illegal arms deals in Iran, which became known through the Iran-Contra affair . Between 1981 and 1990 the Contra War killed around 60,000 Nicaraguans.

The revolution was supported by many intellectuals and artists in Nicaragua and around the world. One of the best-known supporters was the priest and writer Ernesto Cardenal , who was appointed minister of culture after the fall of Somoza and held this office until 1987.

In 1984 presidential, local and parliamentary elections were held in Nicaragua.

Nicaraguan Revolution

10th anniversary of the Nicaraguan Revolution in Managua, 1989

The "revolution" in Nicaragua today is usually the time of the first rule of the Sandinista from 1979 to 1990 when the FSLN government enforced compulsory schooling for children between the ages of 6 and 13 through free schools in 1979. The national literacy campaign that followed in 1980 and 1981 reduced the proportion of illiterate people in the population from 50 percent (1979) to 12 percent.

The "revolution" ended with the surprising election victory of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro on February 25, 1990 as the opponent of Daniel Ortega.

International solidarity with Nicaragua

Postage stamp of the GDR from 1983, MiNr 2834
"Nicaraguan coffee" to support the coffee farmers, as it was sold in the 1980s

Soon, volunteers came from all over the world who made their work available for development projects. In western cities, political leftists and church world trade groups, among others, traded in directly imported Nicaragua coffee under the theme of Third World in order to provide the country with foreign currency and the coffee farmers a better income and to educate them about what is happening in Nicaragua.

Attitude of the Federal Republic of Germany

While the social-liberal government of the Federal Republic of Germany Helmut Schmidt was coming Nicaragua numerous economic and development assistance, the conservative-liberal government froze Helmut Kohl 1983 during the reign of Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero approved development cooperation with a volume of 40 million German marks a, did not make their approval dependent on elections.

Movie and TV

See also

Publications

  • Hannes Bahrmann : Nicaragua. The privatized revolution , Berlin (Ch. Links Verlag) 2017. ISBN 978-3-86153-965-0
  • Perry Kretz : Barefoot to Victory - Nicaragua. Salzburg, Hannibal-Verlag 1980
  • Michael Rediske: Change in Nicaragua. The emergence of the revolution from the collapse of bourgeois rule. 2nd edition Berlin-West 1985.
  • Ariel C. Armony: Argentina, the United States, and the anti-communist crusade in Central America, 1977-1984 , Athens, Ohio (Ohio University Center for International Studies) 1997. ISBN 0-89680-196-9
  • Mónica Baltodano: Memorias de lucha sandinista , Tomo III: El camino a la unidad y al triunfo: Chinandega, Frente Sur, Masaya y la toma del Búnker ( Memories of the Sandinista Struggle , Volume III: The Path to Unity and Triumph: Chinandega , South Front, Masaya and the capture of the bunker ) Managua (IHNCA-UCA) 2010. ISBN 978-99924-986-8-2
  • Rolf Niederhauser : Requiem for a revolution. Diary Nicaragua , Frankfurt am Main (Luchterhand) 1990. ISBN 3-630-61962-2
  • Hans Scheulen: Transitions of Freedom. The Nicaraguan Revolution and its historical-political scope . With a foreword by Fernando Mires , Wiesbaden (DUV) 1997. ISBN 3-8244-4242-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Antonio Esgueva Gómez: Conflictos y paz en la historia de Nicaragua. Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica (ed.), Talleres de Historia. Cuadernos de apoyo para la docencia, Managua, 1999, pp. 83f.
  2. ↑ El Nuevo Diario December 27, 2008, A 34 años del golpe en la casa de Chema Castillo ( Memento of December 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ David Nolan: The ideology of the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Revolution. University of Miami. Institute of Interamerican Studies (Ed.), 1984, p. 86.
  4. ^ David Nolan: The ideology of the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Revolution. University of Miami. Institute of Interamerican Studies (Ed.), 1984, p. 87.
  5. ^ A b Antonio Esgueva Gómez: Conflictos y paz en la historia de Nicaragua. Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica (ed.), Talleres de Historia. Cuadernos de apoyo para la docencia, Managua, 1999, p. 86.
  6. ↑ El Nuevo Diario August 17, 2008, Recuerdan asalto al Palacio Nacional ( Memento of October 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ FSLN Army Report of August 22, 1978 . In: Antonio Esgueva Gómez: Conflictos y paz en la historia de Nicaragua. Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica (ed.), Talleres de Historia. Cuadernos de apoyo para la docencia, Managua, 1999, pp. 87-88.
  8. ^ David Nolan: The ideology of the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Revolution. University of Miami. Institute of Interamerican Studies (Ed.), 1984, p. 92.
  9. ^ A b David Nolan: The ideology of the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Revolution. University of Miami. Institute of Interamerican Studies (Ed.), 1984, pp. 93f.
  10. ^ A b Antonio Esgueva Gómez: Conflictos y paz en la historia de Nicaragua. Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica (ed.), Talleres de Historia. Cuadernos de apoyo para la docencia, Managua, 1999, p. 90.
  11. ^ David Nolan: The ideology of the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Revolution. University of Miami. Institute of Interamerican Studies (Ed.), 1984, pp. 97f.
  12. ^ Antonio Esgueva Gómez: Conflictos y paz en la historia de Nicaragua. Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica (ed.), Talleres de Historia. Cuadernos de apoyo para la docencia, Managua, 1999, p. 97.