Word: sandinistas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...townspeople did not succeed in bringing down the regime. But the fact that it had occurred at all was symptomatic of the troubles facing Somoza's government. Following on the audacious capture the week before of Managua's National Palace, after which members of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front won the release of 59 political prisoners and received safe passage to Panama, the Matagalpa rebellion raised the real likelihood that the days of the Somoza dynasty may be numbered...
...family has ruled Nicaragua since 1933. Somoza's monopoly of much of the country's industry and business and the National Guard's brutalization of the rural population have served to unite the opposition, which now ranges from the extreme left to extreme right. After the Sandinista assault on the palace, the Broad Opposition Front, a coalition of political and business groups, called a general strike to last until Somoza resigned...
...reception room with machine-gun fire. Four people, including the hotel owner's wife and a maid, were killed. Though none of them had been armed, the Guard later claimed the four were extremistas. To justify their killings, the Guard mounted a pathetic Exhibit A, consisting of Sandinista poems, a box of nails and Gerber baby-food jars (often used to make bombs), and several shotgun shells. Witnesses said the patrol had shot up the hotel because no one responded to their knocking when they sought refuge from sniper fire...
...evening of the second day, the radio began broadcasting the commandos' communiqué, calling for National Guardsmen to arrest their superiors or flee with their arms. Next morning, 45 hours after it began, the siege ended peacefully. A bus drew up to the National Palace and one by one the Sandinistas walked out, leaving their captives behind, and clambered aboard. "With the black-and-red Sandinista flag flying from the bus and the guerrillas waving their rifles, it looked like a victory parade," reported TIME Mexico City Bureau Chief Bernard Diederich from the scene. "All along the eight-mile route, thousands...
...determined dictator, 52, has vowed time and again to stay on until his current six-year term expires in 1981. At a press conference following the Sandinista assault, Somoza, under obvious strain, insisted that he did not intend to change his mind. He said he had capitulated "to save human lives," and warned that "ideologies other than traditional ones" threatened to divide his country "into democratic and Communist peoples." But concern is growing that his failure to step down will provoke more strife. At week's end his political opponents launched a nationwide general strike that they hoped would continue...