Word: somozaism
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Earlier this year Congress approved a $12 million loan and the State Department sent $25,700 in military grants and $400,000 in grants for training the military and police. In June, President Carter sent Somoza a letter commending his human rights record...
...that time Anastasio Somoza Garcia, father of Anastasio Somoza Debayle, was dictator. Somoza was brought to power by the marines in the early '30s and enjoyed Washington's consistent support. Somoza, a fervent capitalist who, like his son, never hesitated to use the state apparatus to augment his personal fortune, was logically enough fervently anti-communist. Given Somoza's anti-communism, Nicaragua's strategic position in the heart of Central America, and the possibility of building a second transisthmian canal through Nicaraguan territory, the U.S. was more than happy to prop up the Somoza regime both militarily and economically...
...What has Somoza done for Washington in exchange? Aside from repressing any domestic movement for popular power, the Somozas have had a strong regional anti-communist consciousness. In 1954, for example, the elder Somoza lent his private estate for CIA training of right-wing Guatemalan exiles led by Castillo Armas, and allowed U.S. bombers supporting the exiles to take off from Nicaragua. After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the Somozas began to develop tighter relations with right-wing Cuban exiles who, with the CIA, were plotting to overthrow the Castro government. In 1961, the Somozas' private lands were used...
...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...