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Sandino lives, the struggle goes on!
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Born in Niquinohomo on May 18, 1895, Augusto César Sandino was a political leader who fought his whole life for Nicaraguan sovereignty and against United States intervention.
His cause, which was anti-imperialist and defended the people's right to land, found much support inside and outside Nicaragua. During the years when Nicaragua was subject to Yankee interventions he kept the invaders on the run.
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For seven years Sandino’s army fought the 12,000 U.S. invaders and the Nicaraguan National Guard. They weren’t destroyed by the firepower of the Marines or by the bombs from airplanes.
After many years of struggle, on February 21, 1934 the dictator Anastasio Somoza gave the order to assassinate Sandino.
But the ideas and the practical example of Sandino continue to inspire the people of Latin America in their struggle for freedom.
Next we present the man, Augusto César Sandino, in his own words.
Autobiography of Sandino (fragment)
In summary, from the knowledge I have acquired I deduce that man will never be able to live with dignity if he is directed away from sane reason and the laws of honor.
Therefore, seeing that the United States of North America, whose only right is brute force, is trying to take from us our Homeland and our Freedom, I have accepted the unjustified goal of giving sovereignty to our land. For my acts I am responsible to History. To remain inactive and indifferent like the majority of my fellow citizens would mean adding to the grotesque masses of our homeland's sellouts.
My acts will justify me, as my ideals are situated in the wide horizon of internationalism.
I love justice and for her I will go to my sacrifice. Material treasures do not exercise any power whatsoever over my person; the treasures I seek to possess are spiritual.
Letter to Froylán Turcios
El Chipote
April 1, 1928
Brief history of
the events leading up to the struggle,
the struggle, and the example of the FSLN
At the beginning of the twentieth century the United States government had many economic interests in Central America. They also desired to build a canal that would allow quicker passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
With this in mind the U.S. Army invaded Nicaragua in 1912 and stayed in their territory 21 years.
The U.S. Army trained the Nicaraguan National Guard to maintain control of the people after the end of the intervention. Among the people trained was General Anastasio Somoza.
In 1934 Somoza was put in power as Dictator. His government repressed the large majorities and appropriated the material and economic goods of Nicaragua.
In this way, as he and the Nicaraguan elite got even richer, the investment in areas such as health care and education were practically nil.
The Somoza family had mechanisms of pursuing and assassinating anyone who resisted them. Sandino, who fought against the U.S. intervention in Nicaragua, was murdered by the Somoza dictatorship after an order by the United States.
Somoza controlled Nicaragua until he himself was assassinated in 1956. He was succeeded first by his son Luis and then by another son, Anastasio Somoza, Jr.
The resistance
The Somoza family had instituted a system of terror. Yet this did not impede the growing anxiousness for freedom and transformation.
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In 1956 Carlos Fonseca joined the Socialist Party of Nicaragua that had been formed in the early 1940s.
As a member of the radical wing of the party, Fonseca became one of the principal figures in this political movement.
For Fonseca, the study of struggles in other countries against interventionalist policies was fundamental. He also realized that a proposal for social transformation should rise from Nicaragua’s own history of resistance. For that reason he returned to the ideas of Sandino, the ideas that would inform his revolutionary action. |
Who was Carlos Fonseca? Here he is described by Commander Tomás Borge Martínez, a childhood friend and companion in struggle:
"We cannot speak of Carlos Fonseca in the abstract. We have to refer to the time when he was called upon to forge the revolutionary process and be the principal founder of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.... But Carlos was not a man of yesterday. He is a man of today and of the future. Carlos was not a man from Nicaragua; he was a man from Latin America. He was a man of worldwide dimensions....
"...Carlos was a man of his people and a man of his era. He was a man who always knew how to help us share his indestructible faith in victory, even in the most difficult moments. From him we learned that every revolutionary must be profoundly human; he was the example of giving one's all for the people, for the Revolution. Throughout his life Carlos demonstrated that the revolutionary principles are never sold out..."
(Commander Tomás Borge Martínez, article published in "Barricada": "Carlos Fonseca: Synthesis of man and people.")
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Carlos Fonseca was the principal founder of the movement that came into being in the 1960s in Nicaragua, celebrating the legacy Sandino had left. In Sandino’s honor the movement was named the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). |
The FSLN fought against the dictatorship of the Somoza family, creating a practice and program that sought democratization and the liberation of Nicaragua.
The FSLN organized wide sectors of Nicaraguan life. It organized high school and university students, important worker sectors, circles of small farmers, intellectuals and even large landowners.
One of the most important aspects of the Front was the formation of its leaders. It sought for its leaders to have the capacity to maintain in daily life the principles and values of justice, love and freedom toward those whom they were fighting with and for. They put a great deal of importance on knowing Nicaragua's historical reality so they could identify the causes generating the relationships of injustice they lived in.
The FSLN took power on July 19, 1979 after its triumphal entry into Managua, the capital of Nicaragua.
The FSLN profoundly transformed Nicaragua: they took back what the Somoza family and friends had stolen from the people; they undertook sweeping agrarian reforms; they nationalized the mines, the fishing industry and the natural resources; they reduced the illiteracy rate from 53 percent to 12 percent; they undertook health care and cleanup campaigns; they provided education for all; granted access to a university education to all sectors; and created conditions for development and participation of children, adolescents, women, farmers and workers.
We have much to learn from the experience of Nicaragua. Seeing the integration of so many sectors in the struggle for freedom continues to be a source of inspiration for those of us who work for the construction of a society based on justice, solidarity and peace.
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