Word: somozaism
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...revolution that toppled Nicaragua's dictator, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, twelve months ago sent shock waves through the region. On the one hand, it stirred yearnings for reform and revolt among both students and the disfranchised peasants; on the other, it prompted panic-stricken oligarchs, determined to retain historic power, to harden then-resistance to change. Ironically, while Nicaragua itself has been able to make considerable headway in consolidating its revolution-peacefully, thus far -a spiral of terrorist violence has escalated elsewhere. Lawless gunmen of both the left and right have brought El Salvador and Guatemala to the brink...
...engineered military coup that toppled a reform-minded Guatemalan government in 1954. The Carter Administration seemed to foreshadow a change in policy with its human rights campaign. In 1977 Guatemala angrily rejected U.S. military aid because of the human rights provisions attached to it. In 1978, when Somoza's power was already threatened by the Sandinistas, Washington severed its special military relationship with the high-living Nicaraguan dictator. Soon afterward, the Administration announced a total reversal of previous U.S. policy: a shifting from hearty support of the status quo to a zealous advocacy of economic and political reform. Thus...
...rest of the region, the Sandinista-led revolution has brought a measure of uneasy stability at home. The collective Sandinista leadership, whose ranks include a number of self-proclaimed Marxists, has so far avoided the radical lurch to the left that its critics feared. The revolution that toppled Somoza was followed by no mass executions...
While clearly pleased with this swing back to constitutional government, Washington is concerned that Honduras might be used as a conduit for arms shipped to the Salvadoran guerrillas from Cuba and elsewhere. There have also been reports that thousands of Somoza's former national guardsmen are holed up in Honduras and plotting a counterrevolution against the Sandinistas. Partly to help the Honduran government guard against such in filtration, Washington has offered it a $3.5 million military-aid package...
...been shoved off to one side," but rather that their timing was a "political decision." Earlier, Ramirez had told reporters in the southwestern town of Monimbó that he hoped to see national assembly elections within four years. All parties probably agreed with Ramirez in rejecting "the democracy that Somoza gave us when he bought votes with cheap booze and free meals...