Word: matagalpa
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...ravaged capital of Managua. In effect, he was trying to buy bargaining time with firepower, but without much success. Early in the week, guerrilla forces added the strategic highway town of Sebaco to their growing list of occupied places. They also destroyed the last national guard garrison in Matagalpa and closed in on Chinandega, one of two major cities in northern Nicaragua not controlled by the rebels. In a desperate attempt to break the Sandinista noose that was tightening around Managua, Somoza launched a major attack against Masaya, 20 miles south of the capital; the government offensive included heavy bombing...
...weaponry, Somoza's 12,000 national guardsmen have been severely strained by the extent of the fighting, which has involved virtually every city and town in the country. To retain control of his capital, Somoza pulled in troops from the countryside, thereby allowing Leon and parts of Matagalpa, Esteli and Masaya to fall into rebel hands...
...Palace, the Sandinistas took 1,500 hostages and forced Tacho to ransom them back for $500,000 in cash and the release of 59 political prisoners. Next, the well-armed Marxist guerrillas staged a pitched battle against Somoza's National Guard in the coffee and cattle town of Matagalpa. Finally the Sandinistas raised the stakes to civil war by launching coordinated attacks against guard posts in widely scattered cities and towns: in the capital itself, Managua; in Masaya, 20 miles southeast of the capital; in the pleasant coffee town of Diriamba, 28 miles south; in León, Nicaragua...
From his bunker in Managua, Somoza defended the Guard's actions in Matagalpa. The general, a graduate of West Point who speaks English fluently, compared the rebels to "Bronx street gangs-just juvenile delinquents." While admitting that the general strike had grown worse, he insisted he would not resign before his term ends in 1981. To do otherwise, he said, would "betray the aspirations of the people of Nicaragua to live in a free society...
...only answer, many people now feel, is a genuinely free election -and not the usual ballot-stuffing kind in which votes are bought by handing out five córdobas (about 70?) and a bottle of guaro (cheap rum) to the poor and illiterate. Failing that, they fear that Matagalpa is likely to be remembered as only one in a chain of bloody rebellions...