Information on Nicaragua--S. Flores
Political History of Nicaragua (also Iran-Contra Affair) FLORES
(the following information is quoted from Microsoft Encarta 96)
Government
In 1979 the newly formed Government of National Reconstruction abrogated Nicaragua's 1974 constitution and issued a bill of rights. Elections in November 1984 brought a return to civilian rule. A new constitution came into effect in 1987; it was amended in 1995.
Executive
Executive power is vested in a president elected to a five-year term. The president is the head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief. The president is assisted by a vice president. Suffrage is universal for those age 16 and older. Nicaragua was governed by a junta from 1979 to 1984.
Legislature
The 1987 constitution provided for a National Assembly comprised of 92 deputies elected to six-year terms. This body was first assembled in 1990. Prior to 1990, Nicaragua's legislature was the 47-member Council of State.
Political Parties
In the 1980s Nicaragua's leading political party was the Sandinista National Liberation Front, founded in 1962. Most other parties that contested the 1984 elections were Sandinista allies; some opposition groups boycotted the voting. In the elections of February 1990, an anti-Sandinista coalition, the National Opposition Union (UNO), won a decisive victory.
Judiciary
The highest tribunal of Nicaragua is the Supreme Court, which sits in Managua. The country also has several lower courts.
Defense
In the early 1990s Nicaragua had an army of about 13,500, a navy of about 500, and an air force of about 1200. The anti-Sandinista government elected in 1990 began reducing the nation's troop strength as guerrillas demobilized. As a part of that process, conscription was ended.
History
The coast of Nicaragua was sighted by Christopher Columbus in 1502, but the first Spanish expedition, under Gil González Dávila, did not arrive until 1522; it established several Spanish settlements. A second conquistador, Francisco Fernández de Córdoba, founded Granada in 1523 and León in 1524.
Colonial Times
Nicaragua was governed by Pedrarias Dávila from 1526 to 1531, but later in the century, following a period of intense rivalry and civil war among the Spanish conquerors, it was incorporated into the captaincy-general of Guatemala. Colonial Nicaragua enjoyed comparative peace and prosperity, although freebooters, notably English navigators such as Sir Francis Drake and Sir Richard Hawkins, continually raided and plundered the coastal settlements. In the 18th century the British informally allied themselves with the Miskito-a Native American people intermarried with blacks-severely challenging Spanish control. For a period during and after the middle of the century the Mosquito Coast was considered a British dependency. The so-called Battle of Nicaragua at the time of the American Revolution (1775-1783), however, ended British attempts to win a permanent foothold in the country.
Independence
Agitation for independence began at the beginning of the 19th century, and Nicaragua declared itself independent of Spain in 1821. A year later it became part of the short-lived Mexican empire of Agustín de Iturbide, and in 1823, after Iturbide's downfall, it joined the United Provinces of Central America (with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Costa Rica).
Factional strife between the Liberals, centered in the city of León, and the Conservatives, centered in Granada, became characteristic of Nicaraguan politics. The Liberals fought to establish an independent nation and in 1838 declared Nicaragua an independent republic. Civil strife continued, however, and in 1855 William Walker, an American adventurer with a small band of followers, was engaged by the Liberals to head their forces. He captured and sacked Granada in 1855 and in 1856 became president of Nicaragua. By seizing property belonging to a transport company controlled by American industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt, Walker incurred the latter's enmity. Vanderbilt backed the Conservative opponents of Walker, who was forced to leave the country in 1857 by a united Central American army assisted by the British.
U.S. Intervention
In 1893 a successful revolution brought the Liberal leader José Santos Zelaya to power. He remained president for the next 16 years, ruling as a dictator. Zelaya was forced out in 1909, after Adolfo Díaz was elected provisional president. Following a revolt against his government in 1912, he asked the United States for military aid to maintain order, and U.S. marines were landed. According to the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty of 1916, the United States paid $3 million to Nicaragua for the right to build a canal across the country from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, to lease the Great and Little Corn islands, and to establish a naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca. The agreement aroused protest in several Central American countries and resulted in anti-American guerrilla warfare in Nicaragua. A force of American marines remained in Nicaragua until 1925. Rebellions began when the marines left, and the American force returned in 1926. An election was held under American supervision in 1928, and General José María Moncada, a Liberal, was chosen president. One Liberal leader, however, Augusto César Sandino, engaged in a guerrilla war against U.S. forces for several years. The marines were withdrawn in 1933, leaving Anastasio Somoza commander of the National Guard. Somoza had Sandino killed and was elected president in 1937. Over the next 40 years, Somoza and his family maintained control of Nicaragua.
Somoza Family Rule
Nicaragua entered World War II on December 9, 1941. In June 1945 it became a charter member of the United Nations (UN). Nicaragua joined the Organization of American States in 1948 and the Organization of Central American States, created to solve common Central American problems, in 1951. In 1956 Anastasio Somoza, who had resumed the presidency, was assassinated. He was succeeded by his son, Luis Somoza Debayle, who first served out his father's term and was then elected in his own right. For four years after the end of his tenure, close associates, rather than the Somozas themselves, held the presidency. Then, in 1967, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, younger son of the former dictator, was elected president. A military-minded autocrat, he repressed opposition with the aid of the National Guard.
In August 1971 the legislature abrogated the constitution and dissolved itself. In elections to a constituent assembly in February 1972, Somoza's Liberal party won decisively. In May, Somoza stepped down to the post of chief of the armed forces; political control was assumed by a triumvirate of two Liberals and one Conservative. On December 23, 1972, the city of Managua was virtually leveled by earthquake; about 6000 were killed and 20,000 injured. Martial law was declared, and Somoza in effect became chief executive again. He was formally elected president in 1974.
Sandinista Revolt
In early 1978 Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, editor of the Managua newspaper La Prensa and long the most vocal of Somoza's opponents, was assassinated. Somoza was accused of complicity in the act, and the country was plunged into a period of violence that became a virtual civil war. The anti-Somoza forces were led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a guerrilla group formed in 1962 and named for Augusto Sandino. By April 1979 the country was in chaos. Trying to prevent another Communist regime (in addition to Cuba) in the hemisphere, the United States urged Somoza to resign in favor of a moderate coalition. He stepped down on July 17, flying to exile first in Miami, Florida, then in Paraguay, where he was assassinated in 1980.
The Sandinistas named a junta to govern the country. Facing enormous difficulties, they tried, initially with U.S. aid, to stimulate the economy, but the United States soon became wary of their left-wing policies and, accusing them of abetting rebels in El Salvador, cut off its aid in 1981 and began to support an anti-Sandinista guerrilla movement, known as the contras. In 1982, Nicaragua signed an aid pact with the USSR. In elections held in November 1984, the Sandinista presidential candidate, Daniel Ortega Saavedra, won by a large margin. In October 1985 he declared a yearlong state of emergency under which civil rights were suspended. U.S. military aid to the guerrillas was voted down in the Congress of the United States in 1985 and was not resumed until October 1986. In November 1986, however, it was reported that the contras had benefited from funds diverted from payments made for secret arms sales to Iran by the United States while official military aid to the contras was suspended (see Iran-Contra Affair). In March 1988 at their first face-to-face peace talks, the contras and the Sandinistas agreed to a temporary truce.
Nicaragua in the 1990s
In internationally supervised elections in February 1990, a U.S.-backed anti-Sandinista coalition, the National Opposition Union (UNO), won a majority in the National Assembly, and the UNO's Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, was elected president, succeeding Ortega. Inaugurated in April, she launched a program of reconstruction that included demobilization of the contra rebels, a gradual reduction in government troop strength, and currency reform. The high rate of inflation subsided, but economic growth remained low, and unemployment soared.
In 1991 Chamorro retained Humberto Ortega, the brother of Daniel Ortega, as chief of the army, angering contra supporters and prompting some contra forces to rearm. The crisis escalated in 1993 as contra forces took 38 hostages in an attempt to force Ortega's resignation. Sandinista supporters responded by kidnapping the country's vice president and 32 others. Although all the hostages had been released by August 1993, Chamorro's promise to remove Ortega in 1994 further reduced her support among the Sandinistas. Positive developments in 1994 included an agreement reached between a faction of re-armed contra guerrillas and the government. The "re-contras" as they were called, agreed to disarm and join the national police force. In January 1994, the National Assembly met for the first time in two years after accusations of bribery divided the legislators. In May it was announced that Humberto Ortega would retire as the country's commander in chief in February 1995. In December Joaquin Cuadra Lacayo was named as his replacement. Ortega left office in February as planned, the first peaceful transfer of the top military post in Nicaragua's history.
Iran-Contra Affair, American political scandal of 1985 and 1986, in which high-ranking members in the administration of President Ronald Reagan arranged for the secret sales of arms to Iran in direct violation of existing United States laws. Profits from the $30 million in arms sales were channeled to the Nicaraguan right-wing "Contra" guerrillas to supply arms for use against the leftist Sandinista government. This, too, was in direct violation of U.S. policy. The chief negotiator of these deals was Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, a military aide to the National Security Council. North reported his activities initially to National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane, the council's head, and subsequently to his successor, Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter. The sale of arms to Iran was initiated at the suggestion of the Israeli government with the dual goal of bettering relations with Iran and of obtaining the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by pro-Iranian terrorists. North was instrumental in setting up a covert network for providing support to the Contras, with its own ship, airplanes, airfield, and secret bank accounts.
In November 1986 a Lebanese magazine disclosed that the United States government had negotiated an arms deal with Iran. Later that month Attorney General Edwin Meese verified that millions of dollars from these sales had been sent to the Contras in direct violation of the Boland Amendment, which Congress had passed in 1984 and which prohibited direct or indirect U.S. military aid to them. As new details of the widening scandal emerged, a series of congressional and legal investigations began. In February 1987 the Tower Commission, a special panel headed by former U.S. Senator John Tower of Texas, issued a report castigating President Reagan and his advisers for their lack of control over the National Security Council. The Congressional Joint Investigative Committee collected more than 300,000 documents, conducted more than 500 interviews and depositions, and listened to 28 witnesses in 40 days of public hearings. In November 1987 the committee reported that the president bore the ultimate responsibility for the implementation of his administration's policies but found no firm evidence that he had known of the diversion of funds to the Contras. In May 1989 North was tried and convicted of obstructing Congress and unlawfully destroying government documents, but his conviction was subsequently overturned. A guilty decision on Poindexter's actions was also later reversed. The scandal's reverberations concerning the ultimate responsibility for the operation continued into the 1990s. In December 1992 President George Bush, who had been vice president under Reagan and who had also been implicated, but not charged, in the scandal, issued pardons to many of the top government officials who had been charged or convicted for their role in the Iran-Contra affair. Independent prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh published his final report on the investigation of the affair in January 1994. Walsh concluded that there was no evidence that Reagan had broken the law, but he noted that Reagan may have participated, or known about, a cover-up.
Somoza Debayle, Anastasio (1925-80), Nicaraguan president (1967-72, 1974-79), the younger son of the dictator Anastasio Somoza. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he served as commander of the National Guard from 1955 to 1967. He succeeded his brother, Luis, to the presidency. In power, he immediately tightened the political control that had been relaxed under his brother, used the guard to silence or outlaw his opponents, and enriched himself at the country's expense. A broad-based opposition, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew him in 1979. He was assassinated in Asunción, Paraguay, the following year.
Sandinistas, leftist Nicaraguan rebel group that in 1979 toppled the 43-year-old Somoza dynasty dictatorship. Formed in the early 1960s and named for guerrilla leader Augusto Sandino, the Sandinistas were nearly wiped out by the National Guard late in the decade. They revived in the early 1970s, staging dramatic raids in 1974 and again in 1978 that not only netted them large sums of money for their operations and the release of captured comrades but also profoundly embarrassed the Somoza regime. By late 1978 the Sandinistas were in open rebellion. When the United States withdrew backing from the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, it promptly collapsed, and the Sandinistas formed a national government.
Chamorro, Violeta Barrios de (1929- ), president of Nicaragua (1990- ) and newspaper publisher, born in Rivas, Nicaragua and educated in the United States. In 1950 she married Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal, who in 1952 took over his family-owned newspaper La Prensa and turned it into a leading opposition voice to the dictatorial and repressive Somoza regime. Pedro Chamorro was repeatedly jailed; in 1957 he was sent into exile, joined by Violeta. Returning after amnesty in 1960, he suffered further harassment, and in 1978 he was assassinated. Violeta Chamorro then took over the management of La Prensa, continuing its anti-Somoza policy. The paper was influential in overthrowing the Somoza dictatorship and in establishing the Sandinista government in 1979. Chamorro joined the five-member executive within the Government of National Reconstruction but resigned less than a year later, disillusioned with the growing Marxist orthodoxy of the ruling party. Her newspaper became the leader in attacking the government and its policies. In 1986 the government closed down the paper but allowed it to resume uncensored publication in 1987.
Civil war against the government raged until President Daniel Ortega agreed to allow free elections. The Sandinistas nominated Ortega, while a coalition of 14 parties put up Chamorro. Although Ortega was leading in all polls, Chamorro won resoundingly and in February 1990 became president of Nicaragua. As president she worked to reform the military and to improve Nicaragua's poor economy. In 1992, Chamorro was criticized by the United States for allegedly retaining Sandinistas in the government and in the military and for her handling of the return of properties seized during the Somoza regime.
Further Reading
Angel, Adriana and Macintosh, Fiona. The Tiger's Milk: Women of Nicaragua. Holt, 1987. Powerful text and photographs provide a voice for female survivors.
Cabezas, Omar. Fire from the Mountains: The Making of a Sandinista. Crown, 1985. New American Library, 1986. The process of becoming a revolutionary and a guerrilla.
Christian, Shirley. Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family. Random, 1985. Eyewitness account of the fall of Somoza, the rise of the Sandinistas, the continuing conflict.
Crawley, Eduardo. Dictators Never Die: A Portrait of Nicaragua and the Somoza Dynasty. St. Martin's, 1979. From the conquest by Montezuma to rise of Somoza family and its dictatorial regimes.
Dematteis, Lou, ed. Nicaragua: A Decade of Revolution. Norton, 1991. Chronological photo essays.
Dickey, Christopher. With the Contras. Simon & Schuster, 1985. "A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua" (titlepage).
Elman, Richard. Cocktails at Somoza's: A Reporter's Sketchbook of Events in Revolutionary Nicaragua. Apple-Wood, 1981. Personal observations during and after the Sandinist revolution.
Kinzer, Stephen. Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua. Putnam, 1991. Based on extensive interviews.
Meiselas, Susan. Nicaragua, June 1978-July 1979. Pantheon, 1981. Author-photographer's view of Nicaraguan people during revolution.
Ruchwarger, Gary. People in Power: Forging a Grassroots Democracy in Nicaragua. Bergin & Garvey, 1987. Analyzes the makeup and impact of local organizations.
A Few More Suggestions from Dale Graden (Dept. of History)
Robert Conrad, Sandino: The Testimony of a Nicaraguan Patriot, 1921-1934
Peter Rosset et.al. eds., Nicaragua: Unifinished Revolution
Omar Cabezas, Fire from the Mountain: The Making of a Sandinista (the most
famous book to come out of the Revolution)
Other books worth noting include a journalist's account of the Revolution
by Stephen Kinzer, and a Harvard historian's analysis of recent Central
American history, author John Coatsworth.
Go to Stephan Flores' Home Page.