Word: tachito
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...with authorities for survival, the geological tragedy became a human one. Shooting broke out frequently between troops and bands of looters who roamed the savaged city. Emergency hospitals set up to care for quake victims treated at least 32 Managuans for bullet wounds. In a radio broadcast, General Anastasio ("Tachito") Somoza, 47, the strongman head of the family that has ruled Nicaragua for more than 30 years, despairingly said that his capital's biggest immediate problem was not hunger or the threat of disease but the "abominable beings" scouring the dead city...
There was no doubt as to who would make the final decisions. Earthy Tachito Somoza, whose only title at present is National Guard commander, had stepped down from the presidency last May and turned his powers over to a figurehead three-man junta only because he could not succeed himself under the Nicaraguan constitution. He had planned to stay on the sidelines until late 1974, when he would run for a second certain five-year term as President. Now, with his country in crisis, it seemed likely that the strongman would be flexing his muscles a lot sooner...