Word: somozaism
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...question no longer began with an if or a maybe. Last week even his top advisers were asking themselves not whether but on what day President General Anastasio ("Tacho") Somoza Debayle would step down; rumor swirled throughout war-torn Nicaragua that his leave-taking was hardly hours away. Finally, Somoza himself spoke. "I am like a tied donkey righting with a tiger," he said in a subdued voice at week's end, referring to his war with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (F.S.L.N.). "Even if I win militarily, I have no future." He thus went ahead and placed...
...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 and strafing as well as the deployment of hundreds of troops from the capital...
Farther to the south, rebel forces nearly captured the town of Rivas before Somoza ordered an additional 300 troops airlifted in from Managua. Rivas, only 22 miles from the Costa Rican border, is of particular importance to the Sandinistas since they favor it as their provisional capital. If they succeeded in seizing the city, 1,000 government troops would be trapped between Rivas and the Costa Rican border, where an equally large contingent of guerrillas is entrenched. At week's end the Sandinistas had also captured the city of Jinotepe, and were battling for control of Esteii and Granada...
Meanwhile, the Carter Administration continued its scramble to devise a political solution that would be acceptable to both Somoza and the Sandinista-sponsored Junta of the Government of National Reconstruction. Washington's major worry about the junta, which set up temporary headquarters in a bungalow in San José, Costa Rica, is that two of its five members are leftists who may want to establish a Cuban-style Marxist regime in Managua. Hoping to ensure a more broad-based, and thus more democratic, future government for Nicaragua, Washington two weeks ago sent its new ambassador, Lawrence Pezzullo, to Managua...
...Administration last week offered yet another plan, and also changed its tactics. Still hoping to balance better the five-member junta, Washington dispatched Assistant Secretary of State Viron Vaky to Venezuela, a country that would welcome the downfall of Somoza. Officials in Caracas compiled a list for Vaky of five respected Nicaraguans...