Word: somoza
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Fighting back, Nicaragua's longtime dictator last week declared martial law, a familiar tactic of troubled governments (see page 40). Somoza instructed his tough, 8,100-member National Guard to destroy the rebel forces and end the uprising. Guard units set out to rescue the embattled towns; in the south at Sapoá and Peña Blanca, they also violated the Costa Rican border in hot pursuit of Sandinistas. After a week of steady fighting, the conflict had taken on the proportions of a bloodbath, and U.S. diplomats met hastily with the government to speed the evacuation...
Ironically, the civil war erupted just as the country prepared for Independence Day, the annual celebration on Sept. 15 of the break by Nicaragua and other Central American states from Spanish rule in 1821. Somoza, directing the war from a windowless bunker at National Guard headquarters overlooking Managua, marked the day with a champagne reception that U.S. Ambassador Mauricio Solaun declined to attend. The Sandinistas promptly labeled this year's observance Second Independence Day. But neither side could really celebrate a victory in one of the most savage and confusing wars that Central America has ever seen. Each side...
Ominously for the Somoza regime, the Sandinistas were not the only force that had risen. As soon as the guerrillas' well-planned attacks began, they were spontaneously joined by other youths-"los muchachos" (the boys), townspeople called them-and even by older men and women wielding their own hunting rifles and automatic weapons grabbed from the hands of fallen members of the guardia. Copying the Sandinistas, the new rebels tied handkerchiefs over their faces to avoid identification. Their fight, as a result, soon was dubbed "The Revolution of the Scarves...
...least four of the dead were decidedly not civilians. Brigadier General José Ivan Alegrett, 47, the guard's tough chief of operations, who was openly contemptuous of Somoza for having capitulated to the Sandinistas at the National Palace last month, died when the plane he was piloting crashed near the Costa Rican border. Killed with Alegrett were three of half a dozen foreign mercenaries employed by Somoza to train the guard. One of these was an American known in Managua as Mike the Mercenary. When news of the death of the most hated guard officer spread through Managua...
From his bunker, West Point Graduate Somoza, whose favorite pastime is watching war movies, called for more mercenaries. Newspaper ads suddenly appeared in the U.S. Southwest: "ExMarine combat veterans needed to fight Communist takeover in Central America." An Albuquerque recruiter, Guy Gabaldon, quickly signed up his quota of 100 men and asked Managua for permission to enroll more. Somoza also ordered up his own National Guard reserves. Reportedly, he did so with reluctance because of suspicions that they might not otherwise remain loyal and turn over arms to the rebels. In any case, Somoza needed the extra help. His regular...