Word: somozaism
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...Anti-Somoza rebels resume their offensive...
Practically every Nicaraguan, from Dictator Anastasio ("Tacho") Somoza Debayle to his opponents in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, usually tries to go on vacation in Holy Week. The traditional holiday was shattered last week by a bloody eruption of the country's sputtering civil war. Discarding a truce they had announced for the week before Easter, 100 battle-hardened guerrillas took up positions in trenches and behind concrete barricades in the city of Esteli (pop. 25,000), where hundreds died in the bloodiest fighting of last September's Sandinista uprising. They were quickly joined by young protesters...
From Managua, a heavily armed column of Somoza's National Guardsmen, equipped with tanks and supported by rocket-firing airplanes, laid siege to the rebel positions. In the savage fighting that followed, hundreds died and more than 15,000 sought refuge in the surrounding villages. Predicted one guerrilla: "Only the dead will remain here. We will die, but we will take a lot of Guardsmen with...
...Somoza was vacationing in Florida with his children. The country he had left behind was in chaos: teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, unable to secure loans from international banking organizations, bitterly estranged from its onetime supporters in Washington. Despite the ruthlessness with which Somoza's Guardsmen had suppressed last year's rebellion, in which at least 2,000 people were killed, he has been unable to contain the guerrillas. In the past few weeks, rebels have wiped out a small government garrison in El Jicaro and shot down an armed C-47. In response, the dictator beefed...
Whether or not Somoza manages to solve his financial woes, it is doubtful that he can survive politically in his authoritarian position until the next scheduled presidential "election" in 1981. Before then, both he and the United States government which supported him for so long will have to make some difficult choices about the future of Nicaragua. Somoza must decide whether his privileged position is worth the continued destruction of his nation. The Americans must figure out whether they can afford to witness this destruction as a result of their own unrealistic and ambiguous policies...