Word: somoza
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Anti-Somoza forces increasingly turned to armed struggle in the 1950s. But the invasions of 1948, 1954, 1958, 1959 and 1960 all resulted in military defeat. The Cuban Revolution inspired many popular guerrilla movements throughout Latin America. The 1962 founding of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) represented a new and greater threat to the Somoza regime. The Sandinistas, many of whom were young intellectuals, soon began to work among the peasants of the north, where they began to gradually build a mass base...
...counter the new wave of armed opposition, the U.S. stepped up its military aid to Latin American governments in the early 1960s. A few statistics help illustrate the extent to which U.S. aid has propped up the Somoza dynasty over the years...
...stepped up again following the 1972 earthquake that destroyed Managua. At Somoza's request, 600 marines were flown to Managua the next day to protect lives and property and stabilize the Somoza regime. The determination of successive administrations to keep Somoza in power is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that the U.S. government continues to violate its own laws in order to funnel aid to Somoza. Specifically, the 1974 Foreign Assistance Act prohibits aid to foreign police forces--but the National Guard is Nicaragua's police force. (It is also the army. But there is no real threat...
...While Somoza has clearly served as Washington's puppet, he is also motivated by his own greed, which has resulted in the alienation of much of the bourgeoisie in recent years. In past years U.S. officials have had to intervene on the diplomatic level to overcome differences between the wealthy Conservatives, for years the only legal opposition party, and Somoza's National Liberal Party. The main U.S. concern has been for the bourgeoisie to present a united front against the Sandinistaled popular threat...
...present the State Department is again trying to mediate between Somoza and certain elements of the bourgeois opposition, and again the U.S. government is betraying the interests and aspirations of the Nicaraguan people. The people rise up in armed struggle precisely because they know that Somoza and the system of exploitation that he represents are their enemy and the principal obstacle to the possibility of any real democratic change in Nicaragua. Those most enthusiastic about negotiations are the business and financial sectors that have a vested interest in seeing certain aspects of the present social disorder preserved, while the people...