Word: guatemala
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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While Sandinista guerrillas consolidated their positions in 25 towns throughout Nicaragua, President Anastasio "Tacho" Somoza seemed in no hurry to fulfill predictions of his imminent demise. Despite the continuing international pressure that he resign, Somoza secretly flew to Guatemala to confer briefly with other military heads of state in Central America and, presumably, to discuss the resupply of his embattled National Guard...
...settled on a specific city, but he has chosen to make his Caesar a Latin American caudillo, who enjoys wearing his military uniform with its gold braid and rows of campaign service ribbons. Our century is familiar with such personages: Peron in Argentina, Estrada Cabrera and Ubico in Guatemala, Gomez and Perez Jimenez in Venezuela, Vargas in Brazil, Hernandez Martinez in El Salvador, Ibanez in Chile, Stroessner in Paraguay...
Like Caesar, a number of these Latin leaders met their deaths through assassination: Castillo Armas in Guatemala, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, and--within eight years--Carranza, Pancho Villa and Obregon in Mexico. Dictatorship brings with it danger, as today's headlines about Nicaragua's Gen. Somoza Debayle indicate. It is worth recalling that Somoza's father obtained his dictatorial power by assassinating Gen. Sandino, only to be assassinated himself some years later...
...also losing on the diplomatic front. In Washington, the Organization of American States (OAS) rejected a U.S. proposal for an inter-American peace-keeping force to be dispatched to the strife-torn land. Nonetheless, in a 17-to-2 vote from which the military governments in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Chile and Uruguay abstained, the OAS approved a resolution calling for "the immediate and definitive replacement" of Somoza's regime. The resolution cleared the way for the rebel junta to gather more support from anti-Somoza forces both inside and outside the country...
...ready to resist until my death"; not so his long-time mistress, Dinorah Sampson, who flew to one of Somoza's many properties in southern Florida. Although it has suffered heavy casualties, the 12,000-man national guard is getting weapons and ammunition from Honduras and Guatemala, and remains more than a match for the rebels in any conventional shootout. But there are faint stirrings of discontent within the guard, which at this point is the only significant segment of Nicaraguan society that backs the dictator. Said one bitter officer: "The Somoza family is taking the national guard...