Anti-Imperialist History of Nicaragua:  Statement from Encuentro Sandinista de Solidaridad con Nicaragua (Madrid)

ANTI-IMPERIALIST HISTORY OF NICARAGUA

“The fundamental interest of the Yankee power in Nicaragua is the communication between the seas” Carlos Fonseca Amador (1)

1.- Introduction.

Nicaragua was emancipated from the Spanish Crown 200 years ago. Until then it was one of the many colonies of the extensive Spanish empire whose beginnings date back to the end of the 15th century. Nicaragua today celebrates it as a national, Central American event on September 15, 1821.

The first wave of independence of what we now call Latin America began in 1810 and on September 15, 1821, Nicaragua with her sisters of the isthmus emancipated themselves from the Spanish Crown. Shortly thereafter, on December 2, 1923, President James Monroe in his speech before the US Congress proclaimed the basic principles of Manifest Destiny: the happy and providential development of the United States was a fact and the biblical prophecy that this conquering people would finally find the Promised Land was fulfilled. In order to make these designs a material reality, the slogan “America for the Americans” perfectly summarized the morals of this social class, which warned the European monarchies that the continent no longer belonged to them.

The 19th century saw the take-off that would make the United States a world superpower, ousting the European empires that would eventually be regrouped in an imperialist Atlantic alliance with global ambitions. This total American hegemony will be facilitated by the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. However, America’s absolutist ambitions for international domination have begun to break down with the entry onto the scene of a new group of emerging nations that are constituting a plural and multipolar alternative, facilitated by the irruption of China in the world concert, a multipolar alternative in which Nicaragua has been decisively incorporated.

It is not possible to understand Nicaragua’s anti-imperialist history without bearing in mind these five premises: (1) its particular geographic location and constitution, (2) its proximity to the imperialist American superpower, (3) its historical origin in the Spanish-colonial world, (4) its insertion in the emerging multipolar bloc in the current world situation and (5) the heroic struggle of the people and their heroes who have managed to shape a Sandinista national culture, rooted in indigenist heritage from the pre-colonial period, which today makes it a global symbol of survival as a decisive people. A trajectory characterized by its lucid anti-imperialism that dialectically manages to build its own national emancipatory project, with Nicaraguan characteristics with a socialist and internationalist perspective.

2. The international need to open an interoceanic canal in the Americas.

Nicaragua, since its first emancipation, was involved in an enormous challenge, for having been the country with the best natural conditions to access the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic and break that land barrier that prevents the maritime commercial expansionism of the emerging 19^th century capitalism in Europe and North America. However, since the Panama Canal was built in 1914, the U.S. obsession continues to be to prevent the opening of a second canal through Nicaragua, in order to maintain its geographic hegemony.

3. The attempts of the United States to eliminate Nicaragua as a nation.

The first attempt to take over Nicaragua came with the invasion of the military adventurer William Walker, who disembarked on June 13, 1855, on the Pacific coast with a mercenary army of 300 men and, taking advantage of the civil war that was being waged between conservatives and liberals, made himself President, restoring slavery and the Inquisition. This first victorious war of liberation provoked a great feeling of Central American unity, opening the opportunity to form a federation that was finally frustrated by the Northern power.

A second attempt to eliminate Nicaragua as a nation took place at the beginning of the 20th century, during the Liberal Revolution led by the charismatic leader José Santos Zelaya, who modernized the State with remarkable institutional and social reforms, which undermined the conservative dominance inherited from the Spanish colony. The bourgeois regime of Santos Zelaya received North American investments and some companies were installed with their own personnel. Zelaya proposed the construction of the interoceanic canal with European capital. The landowning class, seeing itself displaced from power, sought the U.S. alliance and after finding military support from Washington rose against the Liberal Revolution, and a new civil war broke out on October 11, 1909. The liberals were defeated and Nicaragua was exhausted and without autonomy. Thus arose the first anti-patriot leaders openly in favor of American tutelage who made a pact with the Yankee Consul Thomas Moffat and the special business agent Thomas Dawson, sent by President William Taft. The “vendepatrias” were the four military chiefs, Juan José Estrada, Luis Mena and Emiliano Chamorro plus the technocrat Adolfo Díaz, all of them conservatives, signatories of the Dawson pacts signed on October 27, 29 and 30, 1910, by which Nicaragua was militarily and administratively converted into a US protectorate. All these four characters became presidents.

The third episode of greater imperialist penetration took place during the so-called Constitutionalist War, whose trigger was the coup d’état carried out by the conservative general Emiliano Chamorro, against the liberal constitutional government, on October 25, 1925, which gave wings to the US intervention. The Constitutionalist War was won by imperialism, but it left an unexpected surprise. On May 4, 1927, after a few months of civil war, General José María Moncada of the liberal side, surrendered to Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of State of the Calvin Coolidge Administration, signing an agreement with the name “Pacto del Espino Negro” by which the liberals surrendered to the occupying army, leaving Nicaragua again as a protectorate of the United States. The surprise was that a man named Sandino, who led a part of the liberal army refused to surrender his weapons and, going into the mountains with his troops, declared war on the United States.

4. Sandino and the first anti-imperialist war of liberation.

The war of liberation, maintained by General Sandino at the head of his Army Defender of the National Sovereignty of Nicaragua lasted five and a half years, between May 4, 1927 (Pact of the Black Hawthorn) until the withdrawal of the Yankee troops on January 2, 1933 (2). Sandino would sign a proclamation to his dear brothers of struggle in which he expresses the decisive role that the patriotic army played in the “complete expulsion of the North American pirates of Nicaragua. (3)

This first war of liberation was, in reality, a prolongation of the Constitutionalist War with the difference that now the historical antagonism between liberals and conservatives becomes a national and international class struggle. With his proclamation, Sandino, with his army defending the sovereignty of the people, he laid bare the essence of Yankee imperialism, creating a new paradigm which is that of the modern class struggle, where the US represents capital and General Sandino and his guerrilla army the working people, representing the entire Nicaraguan nation.  (“only the workers and peasants will go to the end”).

After the continuous military failures in the jungles of Northern Nicaragua, the United States decided to return home, leaving General Sandino and the people with the victory, but the Yankees would control the armed forces of Nicaragua by leaving a native National Guard with the approval of Nicaraguan conservatives and liberals. The US also maintained economic influence over them. On February 21, 1934, Sandino, leaving the presidential palace, at the top of the hill of Tiscapa, after having dinner with President Juan Bautista Sacasa, is treacherously assassinated by a detachment of the National Guard under the order of its chief director, Anastasio Somoza Garcia, with the approval of Washington.

5. Somocismo.

After the assassination of General Sandino, Nicaragua was once again under North American domination, but internally a new fracture persisted between an oligarchic elite (conservatives and liberals) and the people. The oligarchic class became led by Anastasio Somoza García, who held military and political power under the protection and tutelage of the United States. Progressively the Somoza clan would accumulate enormous wealth creating a contradiction within the oligarchy, while the majority of the people worked in conditions of super-exploitation to enrich their masters, who in turn paid tribute to Washington. Imperialism seems to have secured its domination over the nation by sustaining the implacable tyranny of the Somozas, but there remains in the people a deep patriotic feeling, a great moral strength, a mystique that communicates with their ancestors, the mythical indigenous people who heroically resisted the Spanish colonization and above all the memory of Sandino’s deeds together with the contempt towards a corrupt, bourgeois, and traitorous oligarchy.

The three Somozas who succeeded themselves in the Presidency, in elections rigged by the tyranny, over 45 years (1934-1979), automatically held the leadership of the National Guard and all political power. Here imperialism delegated its exploitative and oppressive function to dictators who unscrupulously celebrated the “American friend”. It seemed that Sandino’s rebellion had been suffocated. However, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and the example of Che, but above all the echo of Sandino’s deed, opened the possibility of a new dawn. Groups of young university students, peasants and workers became aware in these long years and took to the mountains organizing guerrilla groups, which led by the most experienced and conscious elaborated the necessary theory based on the anti-imperialist thought of Sandino. As a result of this work, several guerrilla leaders, among them, José Santos López (one of the few survivors of the Ejercito Defensor de la Soberanía Nacional founded by General Sandino), Silvio Mayorga, Faustino Ruiz and Tomás Borge, headed by Carlos Fonseca Amador, met in Honduras and on July 23, 1961, founded the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front). Carlos Fonseca will publish the first “Sandino’s Ideology”, becoming the ideological-practical referent of the FSLN, together with Tomás Borge.

6. The second anti-imperialist war of national liberation: First Stage of the Revolution (1979-1990).

On July 19, 1979, after a growing guerrilla empowerment with audacious acts and ample support from the international left, the power of the tyranny was eroded. Finally the armed people, under the leadership of the FSLN, put an end to the bloodthirsty dictatorship, overthrowing Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Thus, the Government Junta of National Reconstruction was established, formed by five members. Violeta Barrios, an independent member representing the UDEL, the liberal businessman and member of the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement (MDN) Luis Alfonso Robelo Callejas, together with several guerrilla members, such as Moisés Hassan Morales, the intellectual Sergio Ramírez Mercado and Daniel Ortega Saavedra who served as coordinator and president.

At the same time, US imperialism, after gathering in Miami the military, political and business remnants of Somocismo, and supported by a tiny part of the discontented farmers and peasants (the result of the economic crisis itself), launched its strategy of low intensity warfare, encouraging a civil war in Nicaragua, which would allow it to restore its Dictatorship and recompose the National Guard. They tried to displace the FSLN from power by all possible means, but the Revolution – with the support of international solidarity, but above all with the massive national popular support – prevented them from doing so, frustrating the historical project of the neighboring superpower to turn Nicaragua into a protectorate.

7. The neoliberal period (1990-2006).

After nine years of war, the Revolution survived in power. However, the Government, complying with the obligation of the Sandinista Constitution approved in 1986, calls General Elections, in a situation of war, which has destroyed the economy and caused more than 40,000 victims (1% of the population),

At that juncture, imperialism manages to unify all the parties of the right and left, uniting them in an electoral list under the name of UNO (National Opposition Union) and achieves a resounding victory in the elections of February 20, 1990, with the FSLN becoming the main opposition party. There is no space here to analyze the new contradictions that arose (see the Chronology in the ANNEX) or to explain how the FSLN resolved them, but what is certain is that neoliberalism was established in the Government during three legislatures, but not in the Armed Forces, nor in the judiciary, nor in civil society. The first neoliberal government was presided over by Violeta Barrios de Chamorro from April 25, 1990 to January 10, 1997. The second was presided over by Arnoldo Alemán between January 10, 1997 and the third by Enrique Bolaños between January 10, 2002 and January 20, 2007. A large part of the popular social achievements of the 80’s were eliminated.

8. The second stage of the Revolution (2007-2023). The FSLN and the struggle for Peace and Socialism.

The unexpected great victory of the FSLN candidacy “Nicaragua unida triunfa”, headed by Daniel Ortega, in the elections of November 5, 2006, opens again the opportunity to continue the Popular Revolution that Sandinismo had started on July 19, 1979, opening a second Stage, under different conditions than the previous one. Since then, 3 more elections have been held on November 7, 2011, November 6, 2016 and November 7, 2021, with the victory in all of them of the FSLN candidacy “United Nicaragua Triumphs”, with Daniel Ortega as candidate to the Presidency. In the last elections, Sandinismo obtained 75 of a total of 92 seats in the National Assembly, which allows it to carry forward its project of Solidarity, Christian and Socialist revolution.

In this second stage imperialism resorts to a new strategy of attack which has a multiple purpose. On the one hand, to isolate Nicaragua internationally, involving the European Union and the corporate media, in a systematic campaign of defamations and lies, for international solidarity with the Revolution. Simultaneously, it is planning the secret organization of a counter-revolutionary civilian plot in Nicaragua itself, investing tens of millions of dollars through USAID and NED, fronts of the CIA, with a view to destabilizing society and institutions and restoring neo-liberalism. To achieve this double objective, imperialism resorts to hybrid warfare, a much more sophisticated variant of the well-known Cold War, which incorporates new communication technologies, fake news, insurgency, psychological warfare, gaslighting, the establishment of a state of economic plunder through the manipulation of the dollar, economic sanctions, delegitimization and demonization to facilitate the moral lynching of leaders, etc.

Imperialism launched this operation in April 2018, on the occasion of some protests, which were skillfully manipulated by the corporate press. The Nicaraguan opposition (Washington’s fifth column) set in motion its destabilizing plan and using various material means (armed and financial), psychological and social means (gangs of lumpen youths, a result of an unfinished battle against poverty) were provoking a terrorist spiral, encouraged by international media, especially in Spain (media sector), aimed at a coup d’état. The attempt, which was active between April 18 and July 18, 2018, devastated the country’s economy, but was finally put down by the police and the organized people (4). A new victory for the Peoples Sandinista Revolution and a great defeat for the Empire.

Having overcome this episode, the FSLN, aware that imperialist pressure aimed at destroying the Sandinista Revolution is already looming over Nicaragua, through the threat of a continuous coup d’état promoted by the sell-out Opposition, deploys a whole legal-constitutional force to confront it by legal means. Throughout 2020, the National Assembly passed a series of laws in defense of national sovereignty (see Chronology). Let us point out two of the most important: Law 1040, October 15, 2020, on the Regulation of Foreign Agents and Law 1055, December 21, 2020, on the Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination for Peace.

Year 2021. Election year in compliance with the Constitution (elections every 5 years). Between April and November, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, in application of the legislation approved in defense of the National Sovereignty, dismantles the entire coup plot disguised under two counterrevolutionary social movements that have been operating with impunity in the country. The State, through the Public Prosecutor’s Office, arrested more than 300 citizens involved in serious crimes of money laundering, serious disturbance of public order, terrorist acts and conspiracy to overthrow the constitutional Government. The political parties that violate Law 1055 in defense of the Homeland and did not comply with the electoral regulations were outlawed. Thus the law. In summary, the Gobierno de Reconciliación y Unidad Nacional (GRUN) manages to prevent the coup d’état and wins the elections with the support of five other loyal parties. In December 2021, Nicaragua breaks with Taiwan and renews its relationship with the Peoples Republic of China.

Years 2022 and 2023. The offensive and harassment of the Revolution, far from stopping, has intensified. The imperialist aggression against Nicaragua continues, mainly in the media field. The Western media are very coordinated and spread constant fake news, in a systematic campaign of psychological warfare. Supported by the mainstream media, they have been creating a gigantic ideological device aimed at delegitimizing the Revolution, isolating Nicaragua internationally, with consequences on those with less conscious Solidarity, causing two effects: loss of support in the social left and strengthening the rejection of imperialism by those with greater political awareness.

NOTES:

(1) CARLOS FONSECA, OBRAS, Volume 2, VIVA SANDINO. Editorial Nueva Nicaragua 1985. Pág. 40

(2) “President Franklin Delano Roosevelt finally decided to give the order for his marines to leave Nicaragua, on December 26, 1932”, says Carlos Fonseca Amador in CRONOLOGIA DE LA RESISTENCIA SANDINISTA (CHRONOLOGY OF THE SANDINIST RESISTANCE). CARLOS FONSECA. WORKS. All 2, Pg.143, Editorial Nueva Nicaragua, 1985.

(3) CHRONOLOGY OF THE SANDINISTA RESISTANCE, (note 9) volume 2, page 144.

(4) A situation of unusual aggressiveness against the Government was created, which was growing day by day, with terrorist actions by informal groups, aimed at provoking hatred, encouraged by the opposition media, with news aimed at generating animosity, in coordination with the European corporate media -particularly newspapers such as EL PAÍS actively participated, with statistics of daily death toll blaming the Government, which were psychologically manipulated extolling the rebellion which was legitimized as an act of liberation from the oppressor, manipulating the defense of Human Rights, with the participation of local social networks controlled by the right and the extreme right, with the big employers, united to the rebellion, calling for a general strike, with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church instigating the insurrection from the pulpits of the Churches, with the collaboration of hundreds of NGOs that had been operating in a plot whose financial feeder, for years, was the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation for Reconciliation and Democracy, which acted as the head of a rain of tens of millions of dollars received from USAID and NED, as revealed years later by the US portal The GrayZone. The Government and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, in applying Law 1040, on the regulation of Foreign Agents, discovered serious financial irregularities and massive money laundering in the Chamorro Foundation and other NGOs, which led to the prosecution of its president, Cristiana Chamorro, its accountant and financial director, along with three other prominent members of this powerful family and a list of more than 250 accomplices. The losses caused by these three months of destruction amounted to more than $100 billion, the economy that year fell 10% of GDP, when the average annual growth rate had been since 2011 of 4 and 5% of GDP, according to IMF reports. See documentary WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE. https://youtu.be/4JSR8pUNXYA

ANNEX: CHRONOLOGY OF THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST HISTORY OF NICARAGUA

Some key dates to understand the war unleashed by the United States against Nicaragua.

13-June-1855. After the request of the liberals, with their capital in Leon, who are in civil war with the conservatives with their capital in Granada, the conquistador adventurer William Walker disembarks in the port of Realejo (Pacific coast of Nicaragua) with a group of filibustering merchants. He prevails in the war and is elected president of Nicaragua, restoring slavery as a “social sanitation measure” according to his conservative program.

12-September-1856. Liberals and conservatives agree on internal peace and sign the so-called Providential Pact, with the external support of the sister countries of Central America that have organized a Central American Allied Army.

14-September-1856. Battle of San Jacinto.

1-May-1857. Walker, defeated, abandons Nicaragua and continues his adventure in Honduras where he will be executed by popular anger on Sept. 12, 1860.

11-July-1893. The liberal revolution breaks out in Leon, which will triumph on July 25 with the Battle of La Cuesta and will last 16 years.

25-July-1893. General José Santos Zelaya President (his liberal mandate will continue in several elections until 17-December-1909, when he will be overthrown by the USA after the KNOX Note of 1-December-1909.

November 18, 1903. Signing of the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty by the new governor of Panama, Philippe Buneau-Villa. The U.S. is now authorized to continue construction of the Panama Canal. Work begins on May 4, 1904 and ends on August 15, 1914.

11-October-1909. Conservative armed uprising led by General Juan José Estrada who is a liberal-submissive to the United States. He has the full support of the powerful Conservative Emiliano Chamorro, who has already obtained U.S. military tactical support.

1-December-1909. Note KNOX. As a consequence of the execution of two Yankee mercenaries, Cannon and Grove by the liberals, the first Yankee troops begin to intervene. José Santos Zelaya is forced to relinquish the presidency, but is replaced by General José Madriz, elected president by the Liberal-dominated National Assembly of Zelaya. The civil war continues, under the command of José Madriz, with the particularity that now the conservative side has direct U.S. military support.

1909-1926. Armed occupation of Nicaragua by U.S. forces.

20-August-1910. With U.S. military support, General Juan José Estrada (liberal pacifist), who leads the conservative military forces, manages to defeat President José Madriz in Bluefields. Juan José Estrada becomes de facto president, but the United States has succeeded in creating a power structure that also includes the administrative manager Adolfo Díaz together with generals Emiliano Chamorro and Luis Mena, all conservatives.

27-30 October 1910. The DAWSON Pacts are signed. Juan J. Estrada, Adolfo Díaz, Adolfo Díaz and Generals Emiliano Chamorro and Luis Mena. On the U.S. side, Thomas C. Dawson (special agent appointed by President Taft) and Consul Thomas P. Moffat. Customs, the Bank of Nicaragua, the railroads, the currency are placed under U.S. control. Nicaragua is forced to borrow $1.5 million. The Embassy will even control elections and candidates. A Conflict Commission of three persons, one Nicaraguan and two Americans, is created.

July 9, 1911. President, Adolfo Díaz, his mandate will be until January 1, 1917.

5-August-1914. Signing of the Chamorro-Bryan Treaty. E. Chamorro, minister plenipotentiary of the Díaz Government, on behalf of Nicaragua cedes to the United States the exclusive right, in perpetuity, to open the inter-oceanic canal in Nicaragua.

January 1, 1917. President, Emiliano Chamorro, with mandate until January 1, 1921.

January 1, 1921. President, Diego Manuel Chamorro Bolaños. His term ends on October 12, 1923, due to death.

October 12, 1923. President, Don Bartolomé Martínez. The previous 4-year term ends on January 1, 1925. During this mandate two positive changes for Nicaragua take place: the pact between liberals and conservatives to constitute “transitional presidencies” and the departure of the U.S. intervention troops is agreed upon.

January 1 – 1925. President Carlos José Solorzano (Conservative), Vice President, Juan Bautista Sacasa (who by the “Transitional Pact” must be the President of the following legislature).

25-January-1925. Contingents of U.S. Marines leave the country.

25-October-1925. General Emiliano Chamorro takes over the military power (“El Lomazo”) initiating a coup d’état, which will make Carlos Solórzano abandon the Presidency on March 14, 1926.

March 14, 1926. E. Chamorro, holding military power, will occupy the office of the Presidency, but the USA does not recognize him because of a social crisis that will explode into civil war. After 8 months of the case, the United States forced him to resign, but instead of replacing Juan Bautista Sacasa, to whom it corresponds by law, he handed over the presidency to Adolfo Diaz, on November 14, 1926. Civil war breaks out.

May 2, 1926. In the midst of abuse by the conservatives, the worker Luís Beltrán Sandoval leads the action through which $400,000 are recovered from the Bank of Blue Fields, which are destined to obtain the necessary supplies for the armed struggle against the anti-popular conservative government of Nicaragua.

26-October-1926. Sandino of liberal patriotic ideas, in view of the critical situation returns from Mexico to the gold mines of San Albino (Las Segovias) where he had worked, groups several of the workers on strike and joins the liberal army.

November 15, 1926. As soon as he assumed the Presidency, Diaz requests the Department of State of the United States, in the same way as in 1912, to “deign” to send a landing party to his own country. To the civil war is added the armed action of imperialism.

December 2, 1926. Juan Bautista Sacasa, from Puerto Cabezas proclaims himself legitimate President in accordance with the “Transitional Pact”, he already has weapons and financing from the Mexican government of Plutarco Elías Elías.

Mexican Government of Plutarco Elías Calles, who supports the liberals. He appoints General José María Moncada as Minister of War.

6-January-1927. U.S. military forces arrive in Managua, including 3,900 soldiers, 865 marines and 215 officers, who had been transported to the port of Corinto in 16 U.S. war ships. “The convoying war elements were so substantial that the entire night of the 6th to the 7th was spent moving from the railroad station to Mars Field.”

4-May-1927. The Constitutionalist war between the two Presidents, Diaz and Sacasa deepens, but Diaz counts on the North American intervention and finally Moncada will end up surrendering, signing with the Secretary of State H. L. Stimson, the Pact of the Black Hawthorn. The United States lays the foundations for the creation of the National Guard. Nicaragua loses the opportunity for national freedom and is once again in the clutches of imperialism.

May 8, 1927. President Diaz asked for the appointment of a North American officer to train and command the National Guard.

26-May-1927. General José María Moncada, head of the liberal side and the conservative government forces of President Adolfo Díaz surrender their weapons to the North American interventionists. One of the combatants of the liberal side, General Augusto C. Sandino, refuses to surrender his weapons, declares Moncada a deserter and founds the Army for the Defense of the National Sovereignty of Nicaragua, which now focuses its combat against the forces of the occupying Imperialism.

1-July-1927. Sandino signs his manifesto of the San Albino Mine, in which he exposes the reasons that have forced him to take the lead in the patriotic struggle against the American interventionists and where he declares “I judge Moncada before History and before the Homeland as a deserter from our ranks, with the aggravating circumstance of having gone over to the enemy”.

July 17, 1927. Sandino signs a declaration in which he blames the President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, for what is happening in Nicaragua, expressing at the same time that the Nicaraguan patriots prefer to die, “rather than be slaves”.

3-January-1928. The U.S. State Department publishes a statement in which it expresses: “… General Sandino, to whom certain elements have since been added who have continued to commit depredations… these men are considered as common bandits…”.

4-Jan-1928. Henry L. Stimson, U.S. Secretary of State, declares in Washington: “that by the Monroe Doctrine, the United States is responsible… for peace in the Western Hemisphere,” adding: “that the Panama Canal and the projected Nicaraguan Canal are of military interest to the United States…”

10-June-1928. Sandino writes a message addressed to the magazine Ariel proposing unity of the peoples of Latin America.

July 31, 1928. Sandino signs a message addressed to the Spanish politician Luis Araquistain in which he proposes the unity of all the peoples of Latin America in the struggle for freedom.

February 19, 1929. The agreement creating the National Guard is amended and approved by both chambers, and signed by J. M. Moncada, who has just assumed the Presidency on January 1. It is said that the original agreement was altered by the Nicaraguan Congress to make it unacceptable to the United States, and the National Guard continued to be governed by presidential decrees.

4-March-1929. The presidential term of Hebert Hoover is inaugurated in the United States, who would refer to Sandino, who continues to fight at the head of the Nicaraguan National Sovereignty Defense Army, calling him an “international criminal”.

23-June-1929. It is reported from Honduras that Sandino has left Nicaragua; he crosses the border near Malacate, and heads for Mexico, where he will try to promote solidarity in the exterior towards Nicaragua.

9-January-1930. Sandino signs a document in which he expresses his pride in confronting U.S. policy, and his decision to do his duty by adjusting his conduct to moral principles.

4- February-1930. A report of the Sandinista chief Miguel Angel Ortez is published in which he refers to combats sustained in Palacagüina, Totogalpa, Somoto, Río Negro, San Lucas, San Juan de Limay, Yalí, Telpaneca, Yalagüina. San Francisco de Cuajiniquilapa and Los Robles (Associated Press cable from Tegucigalpa).

26-February-1930. Sandino signs a message addressed to the workers, particularly those of Nicaragua, in which he calls on them to strengthen the ranks of the left-wing Confederación Sindical Latinoamericana.

May 20, 1930. The U.S. official Alfred W. Johnson, already appointed by President Hoover, is named to superintend the President Hoover, to supervise the congressional elections in Nicaragua in 1930.

January 1931. Popular sectors revolt in the “Nicaraguan Caribbean coast and two commissaries of the United Fruit Company were assaulted, several commercial centers were set on fire…”; “at the same time there was much hunger on the coast, especially in the banana regions. It was also reported that some harvesters accused of communism were jailed for refusing to sell their fruit at 30 cents a bunch….”

15-February-1931. Sandino signs a manifesto addressed to the members of “Our Army Defender of the National Sovereignty of Nicaragua”, in which he refers to the struggle of all the oppressed peoples of the world and foresees for the future a “proletarian explosion”….

April 18, 1931. H. L. Stimson, who became Hoover’s secretary of state, refers in Washington to the problem of “putting an end to Sandino’s bandit parties” (Associated Press cable from Washington).

April 21, 1932. Student Octavio Oviedo Reyes, originally from the city of Chinandega, is killed in combat in Quisalaya, who some time before had joined the Sandinista guerrillas.

June 15, 1932. The North American C. B. Matthews, is named chief director of the National Guard.

18-July-1932. It is reported: “The Sandinistas attacked the properties of United Fruit”. The gringo multinational, founded on March 30, 1899, has a growing presence in Central America.

27-August-1932. Sandino signs a circular to the Sandinista civil authorities, in which he enunciates the project of organizing workers and peasants cooperatives in Nicaragua.

November 5, 1932. Matthew E. Hanna, U.S. Minister in Nicaragua, in the presence of the Conservatives Adolfo Díaz and Emiliano Chamorro and the Liberal Juan B. Sacasa, Matthew E. Hanna, US Minister in Nicaragua, imposes an agreement by means of which the National Guard is structured as a colonial army of occupation, once the Yankee troops have withdrawn. Carlos Fonseca will qualify this day as “the maneuver that would end up precipitating Nicaragua into the abyss.”

15-November-1932. Nicaraguan university students sign a document in which they express: “General Augusto C. Sandino in the mountains, is nothing more than national decorum, honor, dignity. He does not pursue profit and advantages, he does not aspire to public posts, nor does he seek perks in his struggle. General Sandino is not a bandit. We say so and the majority of the Nicaraguan people say so. Will you allow, Doctor Sacasa [Juan Bautista Sacasa is the candidate for the Presidency in the electoral farce of November 16, 1932, for which the Yankees, who control the vote count, reserve victory for him], to continue to slander the only one who kept the flag of the homeland pure and clean?”

26- December-1932. It is reported in Washington: “The last Yankee soldier will leave Nicaragua next January 2”.

1-January-1933. Sandino signs the document entitled “Interrogatorio” (Interrogation), in which he refers to the fundamental points that he will take into consideration in the discussions with the government of J. B. Sacasa, and which refer to the realization of a “political program” for the good of the nation, to dispense with “foreign interference in the finances of Nicaragua”, to the policy to be followed with respect to “the so-called National Guard”, to the elimination of “pacts… signed with the North American interveners”.

2- January 1933. The U.S. military forces withdraw from Nicaragua. Sandino would issue a proclamation to his dear brothers in the struggle in which he expresses the decisive role played by the patriotic army in the “complete expulsion of the North American pirates from Nicaragua”.

2- February 1933. First trip. Sandino arrives in Managua in the “Tomochio” airplane: “The countryside is deserted; only a worker appears there who recognizes General Sandino and cannot stop a sonorous “viva” from his lips”. President J. B. Sacasa does not go to the airport and in his place the head director of the National Guard, A. Somoza

May 20, 1933. Second trip. Sandino makes a second trip to Managua in which he insists on guarantees in favor of the former members of the patriotic army.

Late November 1933. Third trip. Sandino makes a third trip to Managua, with the objective of verifying new steps in favor of the fulfillment of the agreements in force.

February 16, 1934. Fourth trip. After appointing Ramón Raudales as head of the force that remains in Wiwilí, seat of the central section of the “Río Coco Cooperative”, Sandino travels for the fourth time to Managua, to meet with President Juan Bautista Sacasa.

21-February-1934. The Yankee ambassador Bliss Lane communicates directly with Somoza on two occasions. On the same day Bliss Lane meets with José María Moncada. At midnight the crime is perpetrated. Augusto Cesar Sandino and his brothers in arms, Francisco Estrada and Juan Pablo Umanzor, are assassinated.

Assassination of Sandino. A. Somoza García summons the National Guard officers to a meeting for six o’clock in the afternoon at his residence, with the purpose of holding a “Great Council of Officers,” and warns those summoned that it is about “a very important thing,” A. Somoza appears at the meeting at half past seven in the evening, “early in the evening”, he says, and proceeds to communicate the plan to “eliminate” Sandino. As revealed by former G.N. Abelardo Cuadra, a participant in the meeting and months later in revolt against Somoza: “Somoza drew up the minutes; with this he aspired to make us all responsible for the act that was going to be carried out. No one made any objection before signing the document. I signed it myself. There was nothing else I could do”.

June 20, 1934. At a banquet offered to A. Somoza G. in the city of Granada, he declares, in the presence of Emiliano Chamorro and José María Moncada, his participation in the assassination of Sandino.

25-August-1934. Liberals and Conservatives, in common agreement, decree an amnesty in favor of those implicated in the assassination of General Sandino.

June 6, 1936. Juan B. Sacasa resigns his decorative role, and Somoza becomes the principal agent of imperialism. Although a few months would pass, used in keeping up appearances of legality and in preparing an electoral farce, in which the hired assassin would be nominated as head of government, a position he would occupy on January 1, 1937.

January 1, 1937. Anastasio Somoza García, for the Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC) is elected Head of Government of Nicaragua, remaining in power for 10 years and 4 months, as if he were its viceroy.

May 1-May 1, 1947. President Leonardo Argüello, whose mandate lasts only 6 days, victim of the military harassment to which he is subjected by Anastasio Somoza who controls the National Guard.

May 27, 1947. Somoza succeeds in getting the Assembly to designate Benjamín Lacayo Sacasa, a friend of his, as President. The scandal is so great, even outside Nicaragua, that his government is not even recognized by the United States. Nor does the OAS accept it.

3-August-1947. To get out of the crisis, the Congress, through Somoza, convokes, on this date, a Constituent Assembly.

15-August-1947. The Constituent Assembly meets and elects Manuel Román Reyes, Somoza’s uncle, as President. The presidency ends before his term ends due to his death on May 6, 1950.

May 21, 1950. President Anastasio Somoza García, 2nd term until September 29, 1956.

September 21, 1956. In the middle of the electoral campaign, the young poet Rigoberto López Pérez, in a prepared action, shoots all five bullets from his revolver at President Anastasio Somoza, being seriously wounded by four of them and dies on September 29, 1956.

29-September-1956. President Luis Somoza Debayle, with mandate until 1-May-1963.

January 1, 1959. The Cuban Revolution triumphs. In this year, Carlos Fonseca leaves the University and joins the “Rigoberto López Pérez” column, under the command of Comandante Rafael Somarriba, which has the support of the Cuban government, through “Ché”, in the struggle against the Somoza dictatorship.

23-July-1961. Several guerrilla leaders, José Santos López (one of the few survivors of the Ejercito Defensor de la Soberanía Nacional founded by General Sandino), together with Silvio Mayorga, Faustino Ruiz and Tomás Borge, headed by Carlos Fonseca Amador, meet in Honduras and found the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional). Carlos Fonseca will publish the first “Ideario de Sandino”.

May 1, 1963. René Schick Gutiérrez, president, with mandate until August 3, 1966. Anastasio Somoza Debayle becomes head of the National Guard.

4-August-1963 Lorenzo Guerrero Gutiérrez, president, with mandate until May 1, 1967. Anastasio Somoza Debayle is the head of the Directorate of the GN, the key to power.

January 22, 1967. Massacre of January 22, on Roosevelt Avenue in Managua. National Guard troops shoot at a massive demonstration of some 5,000 people called by an electoral coalition promoted by the conservative party against Somoza. It is estimated that there were between 1,000 and 1,500 victims.

1-May-1967. Anastasio Somoza Debayle is elected president, with a mandate until May 1, 1972.

March 28, 1971. Kupia-Kumi Pact between the liberals led by Somoza and the conservatives led by Fernando Agüero, to form a General Government Junta to lead the country out of the crisis.

1- May-1972. Puppet presidencies of Somoza, represented by the triumvirate formed by the general of the National Guard, Roberto Martinez Lacayo and the liberal Alfonso Lovo Cordero plus the conservative Fernando Agüero Rocha, which ended with the earthquake of December 23, 1972.

23- December-1972. An earthquake destroys the urban center of Managua.

Subsequently, the second triumvirate is installed, formed by the conservative Fernando Agüero Rocha and Edmundo Paguagua Irías.

December 1, 1974. Anastasio Somoza Debayle, who was again elected in the elections of September 1, 1974, assumes his second presidential reelection, which he does not manage to finish, when he is overthrown by the popular Revolution led by the FSLN and its guerrillas.

December 27, 1974. An FSLN commando assaults the house of José María Castillo Quant, with ambassadors, several members of the presidential team and a brother-in-law of Somoza. The commando demands the release of 8 Sandinista prisoners, among them Daniel Ortega, 8 million dollars and the publication in the media of the outrages and repression suffered by the Nicaraguan population.

November 8, 1976. Comandante Carlos Fonseca Amador, born on June 23, 1976, dies in combat. Born on June 23, 1936.

10-January-1978. The director and owner of the newspaper LA PRENSA, Pedro-Joaquín Chamorro, a member of Nicaraguan high society, is shot to death while driving his car.

11-August 1978. Some 25 armed Sandinista guerrilla fighters storm the National Palace, seat of Congress, in a spectacular action that hastened the overthrow of Somoza.

19-July-1979. The Popular Sandinista Revolution triumphs.

9-March-1980. President Reagan signs the presidential decree that unleashes the secret war against Nicaragua. During the next 9 years Reagan, who has declared himself a “contra”, gets from Congress and the illegal operations of arms and drug trafficking, in charge of the CIA, funding for several hundred million dollars, for the purchase of contra mercenaries, who protected themselves in the US military base of Palmerola in Honduras and with a civilian ex-somocista participation from Miami, to sow terror in the North of Nicaragua, committing all kinds of atrocities, destroying infrastructures, cutting off supplies, undermining ports and other covert terrorist actions aimed at destroying the economy of Nicaragua, annihilating the value of its currency, to suffocate the economy that will reach 20,000% per annum in 1989. But the Sandinista Revolution counted on a growing international Solidarity movement and financial aid from countries such as France and the USSR, and managed to survive.

March 24, 1980. The National Literacy Crusade begins. Farewell ceremony of the People’s Literacy Army (EPA) in the Plaza de la Revolución.

19-May-1980. The Government Junta of National Reconstruction issues a decree declaring General Sandino “Father of the Popular Anti-imperialist Revolution”.

4-November-1984. First democratic elections to elect the President of the Republic and to constitute the National Assembly. The FSLN obtains 61 seats out of 96. Daniel Ortega elected President for the 1985-1990 period. The US refuses to release the results.

June 27, 1986. The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled in favor of Nicaragua, but the United States refused to respect the Court’s decision, arguing that the Court had no jurisdiction over the case. Following the Court’s decision, the U.S. Government withdrew its declaration that it would accept the Court’s jurisdiction. Nicaragua based its complaint on the fact that as of 1989 the damages were 38,000 fatal victims of the counterrevolutionary war promoted by the United States and a loss of $17 billion, in terms of destruction of infrastructure (bridges, electricity transmission towers, dams, health, education and agricultural production centers, etc.) and its economic consequences.

5- October 1986. The Sandinista Popular Army (EPS) shoots down an American transport plane of the Air Force of the Republic of El Salvador piloted by Eugene Hasenfus loaded with American weapons and cocaine for the Contras. Hasenfus, a former Marine, was arrested by the EPS and declared to be a CIA collaborator, causing a new international scandal as Hasenfus was linked to the sale of arms to Iran.

3- November 1986. A Lebanese weekly published that the US secretly sold arms to Iran, a country against which there was an arms embargo decreed by the US itself, as well as the use of drug trafficking to finance the armed groups created and organized by the US itself, known as contras. From the operation 57 million dollars were obtained which were partly destined to finance the contras at war with Nicaragua.

9-January-1987. Nicaragua’s first democratic Constitution is approved on November 9, 1986 by the National Assembly and published in LA GACETA DIARIO OFICIAL on Friday, January 9, 1987.

2-20-March-1988. Operation DANTO88 begins. It will last 18 days. It is a military offensive by the Sandinista Popular Army, which hit the Contras hard and allowed them to sit down at the negotiating table and reach the SAPOA Agreements (March 23).

April 25, 1990. The FSLN loses the General Elections. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, also known as Violeta Chamorro, head of the list of the UNO (National Opposition Union) wins the presidency of the Republic of Nicaragua. UNO was also the candidate financed and endorsed by the United States.

xx-sept-1992. During the presidency of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, Nicaragua withdrew its claims before the Court, forgiving the debt of the US Government.

(The chronology of the neoliberal period ending on November 5, 2006 has not been completed).

The FSLN candidate for the Presidency, Daniel Ortega wins the elections of November 5, 2006. The 2nd Stage of the Revolution begins (since then 3 more elections have been held with the victory of the FSLN, with Daniel Ortega as head of the list). The UNIDOS TRIUNFA candidacy obtains 70 seats out of a total of 92.

18-April-2018. The attempted “civic” coup d’état, long gestated from Washington, with financing from USAID, the action of an extensive plot of hundreds of NGOs and Foundations aligned in opposition to Sandinismo, with ideological support orchestrated from the Western media power, after leaving a trail of dozens of institutional buildings burned and razed, roads destroyed to form hundreds of barricades, and hundreds of dead, is finally defeated in July 2018.

31-May-2018. Resolution No. 4, of the European Parliament expressing its support for the coup d’état that has been spreading through Nicaragua since its outbreak on April 18, threatening economic reprisals and seriously interfering in Nicaragua’s domestic politics in favor of regime change. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-8-2018-0238_ES.html

14-March-2019. Resolution No. 5 of the European Parliament again defending the coup plotters and their organizations, seriously interfering in Nicaraguan politics by defending the “political opposition that led last year’s protests”. The Parliament resorts to the politicization of human rights to condemn the Government of Nicaragua, contributing to the destabilization of the country, without taking into account the violent acts and the unleashed terrorism that destroyed part of the Nicaraguan economy. In turn, it irresponsibly imposes sanctions on Sandinista leaders in accordance with the Council Conclusions of January 21, 2019, https://www.europarl. europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-8-2019-0219_EN.html.

Year 2020. While the destroyed economy is being restored, at the end of this year, the National Assembly passes five important laws: (1) Law 1040, October 15, 2020, on the regulation of Foreign Agents; (2) Law No. 1042, October 27, 2020, against CYBERCRIMES;

(3) Law 1055, December 21, 2020, on the Defense of the People’s Rights to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination for Peace; (4) Law 1057, January 18, 2021, reforming Art. 37 of the Political Constitution against Hate Crimes; and (5) Reform of Law 842, March 4, 2021, on the Protection of the Rights of Consumers.

8-October-2020. Resolution No. 7 of the European Parliament, condemning that the National Assembly has approved the Law on the Regulation of Foreign Agents of Nicaragua. https://www.euro- parl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2020-0259_EN.html.

Year 2021. Between April and November, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, in application of the legislation in force, arrests nearly 250 citizens involved in serious crimes of money laundering, disturbance of public order, terrorist acts and conspiracy to overthrow the constitutional government. Illegalization of political parties that violate Law 1055 and do not comply with electoral regulations. Likewise, the Ministry of the Interior withdraws the legal personality of hundreds of NGOs for non-compliance with the law.

November 7, 2020. Victory of Daniel Ortega. The FSLN obtains 75 seats out of a total of 92.  The rest of the seats are distributed among the following parties: Partido Liberal Constituciona- list (PLC), Camino Cristiano de Nicaragua (CCN), Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense (ALN), Alianza por the Republic (APRE) and the Independent Liberal Party (PLI).

10-December-2021. Nicaragua, after 31 years, breaks off relations with Taiwan and reestablishes them with the People’s Republic of China.

December 16, 2020. Resolution of the European Parliament, rejecting the results of the November 7 elections and regretting the opening of relations with China, which it accuses of being a totalitarian state. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0513_ES.html

19-Aug-2022 Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who participated with conspiratorial appeals to his parishioners to overthrow the Government (see video “war against the people”), during the April 2018 crisis, is arrested. Evidence gathered He will be tried for his crimes and will have a first sentence of 23 years at home and then in prison.

15-September-2022. Resolution No. 11 of the European Parliament, condemning Nicaragua, for the arrest of the coup bishop Rolando Álvarez https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/ TA-9-2022-0322_EN.html.

9-February-2023. Nicaragua expatriates 222 prisoners linked to the coup network that failed during the April2028 coup attempt and sends them to the US on a US chartered plane. Bishop Rolando Alvarez, number 223, decides at the last minute to stay in Nicaragua.

February 8, 2023. The Criminal Chamber One of the Court of Appeals of Managua issues a resolution/sentence on the deportation of 222 traitors to the Homeland.

February 15, 2023. Statement by the presiding magistrate of the Court of Appeals of Managua regarding the indictment of 94 traitors to the Homeland,

15-June-2023. Resolution No. 12 of the European Parliament against Nicaragua, condemning the decision to expatriate the 222, calling for proof that the Bishop imprisoned for urging and calling the population to overthrow the government and other attacks on National Sovereignty. https:// http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2023-0248_ES.html.

15-August-2023. The State of Nicaragua, through the Tenth Criminal District Court of the District of Managua, in charge of Judge Gloria María Saavedra Corrales, notifies ex officio the seizure of real estate, furniture, money in national or foreign currency of the immobilized bank accounts, financial products in national or foreign currency property of the Central American University, private property of the Jesuits.