On July 19, 1979 a guerrilla army led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) swept into Managua and overthrew the Nicaraguan dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, initiating a revolutionary process that lasted for several years.
In addition to democracy, the revolution brought a number of important improvements to the country, including nutrition and literacy programs. Because many of its leaders identified as revolutionary socialists, however, it quickly became a target for the US ruling class.
The Nicaraguan people overwhelmingly returned the Sandinistas to power in the next national elections, held in 1984. Because this wasn't the outcome desired by the US capitalist rulers, their controlled politicians and press depicted the elections as illegitimate, although independent observers judged them to be free and fair.
Over the next six years, an increasingly murderous campaign of counterrevolutionary terrorism was conducted by "Contra" guerrillas organized and financed by the United States, with President Reagan declaring that he aimed to make the Nicaraguan people "cry uncle." He got his wish with the second national elections in 1990, when Nicaraguans succumbed to this political blackmail by voting the Sandinistas out of office, ending the revolutionary process.
The FSLN subsequently returned to office, but they no longer run or govern on a revolutionary program. They've become just another capitalist party, and are now managing an increasingly repressive neoliberal regime similar to many others.
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