The Sandinista National Liberation Front (, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto César Sandino, who, in the 1930s, led the resistance against the country's occupation by the United States.History Matters "To Abolish the Monroe Doctrine": Proclamation from Augusto César Sandino Retrieved 29/09/12
The FSLN overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle in the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution, ending the Somoza family's political control of Nicaragua, and established a revolutionary government in its place.The Cuban Revolution and Its Extension: Resolution of the Socialist Workers Party. Page 74States, Ideologies, and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of Iran, Nicaragua, and the Philippines by Misargh Parsa for Cambridge University Press. Page 224. Having seized power, the Sandinistas ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first as part of a Junta of National Reconstruction. Following the resignation of centrist members from this Junta, the FSLN took exclusive power in March 1981. They instituted literacy programs, nationalization, land reform, and devoted significant resources to healthcare, but came under international criticism for human rights abuses, including mass execution and oppression of indigenous peoples. They were also criticized for their management of the economy and inflation.
A US-backed group, known as the Contras, was formed in 1981 to overthrow the Sandinista government and was funded and trained by the Central Intelligence Agency.ICJ (Nicaragua v. United States of America) June 27, 1986, Retrieved 26/09/12 The United States sought to place economic pressure on the Sandinista government by imposing a full trade embargo and by planting underwater mines in Nicaragua's ports. In 1984, free and fair elections were held,1984: Sandinistas claim election victory, BBC – On This Day but were boycotted by three opposition parties. The FSLN won the majority of the votes, and those who opposed the Sandinistas won approximately a third of the seats. The civil war between the Contras and the government continued until 1989. After revising the constitution in 1987, and after years of fighting the Contras, the FSLN lost the 1990 election to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro in an election marked by US interference, but retained a plurality of seats in the legislature.
The FSLN is now Nicaragua's dominant party. Since the 2006 Nicaraguan general election when Daniel Ortega was reelected President of Nicaragua, Ortega and the FSLN have centralized power and overseen democratic backsliding in Nicaragua. In October 2009, the Supreme Court, with a majority of Sandinista judges, overturned presidential term limits that were set by the constitution. Ortega and the FSLN were reelected in the presidential elections of 2011, 2016, and 2021, although these elections have been denounced by international observers. The party is firmly controlled by Ortega.
History
Origin of the term Sandinista The Sandinistas took their name from Augusto César Sandino (1895–1934), the leader of Nicaragua's nationalist rebellion against the US occupation of the country during the early 20th century (ca. 1922–1934). The suffix "-ista" is the Spanish equivalent of "-ist".
Sandino was assassinated in 1934 by the Nicaraguan National Guard (), the US-equipped police force of Anastasio Somoza, whose family ruled the country from 1936 until they were overthrown by the Sandinistas in 1979.
Precursor to Revolution (1933–1961) The second U.S. intervention in Nicaragua ended when Juan Bautista Sacasa of the Liberal Party won the elections. By 1 January 1933 there wasn't a single US soldier left on Nicaraguan soil; however, in 1930, the US had formed a group for national security known as the National Guard. The National Guard remained after the exit of the U.S. under the leadership of Anastasio Somoza Garcia who was supported by the US. On 21 February 1934, Somoza, using the National Guard, assassinated Sandino, who opposed and fought against US intervention. This was the first act of a series that Somoza, with help from the US, would take, that would culminate in his election as president in 1936. The result of his election was the start of the US-sponsored dictatorship of the Somoza family.
During the 1960s, leftist ideas began spreading worldwide, sparking independence movements in different colonial territories. On 1 January 1959 in Havana, Cuban revolutionaries fought against dictator Fulgencio Batista. In Algeria the Algerian National Liberation Front was founded to fight against French colonial control. In Nicaragua, different movements that opposed the Somoza dynasty began to unite, forming the Nicaraguan National Liberation Front, which would later be renamed the Sandinista National Liberation Front.
The economic situation of Nicaragua in the mid-20th century had deteriorated as the prices of agricultural exports such as cotton and coffee dropped. Politically, the conservative party of Nicaragua split, and one of the factions, the Zancudos, began collaborating with the Somoza regime.
Anastasio Somoza Garcia was assassinated by poet Rigoberto Lopez Perez in 1956.
In 1957 Carlos Fonseca Amador, Silvio Mayorga, Tomás Borge, Oswaldo Madriz y Heriberto Carrillo formed the first cell of the Nicaraguan Revolutionary Committee who identified with the issues of the proletariat. Later that October, the Mexican cell was formed with members such as Edén Pastora Gómez, Juan José Ordóñez, Roger Hernández, Porfirio Molina y Pedro José Martínez Alvarado.
In October 1958 Ramon Raudales began his guerrilla war against the Somoza dynasty, beginning the armed conflict.
In June 1959 an event known as "El Chaparral" occurred in Honduran territory bordering Nicaragua. The guerrilla fighters "Rigoberto López Pérez" under the command of Rafael Somarriba (in which Carlos Fonseca was integrated) was found and annihilated by the Honduran Army in coordination with the intelligence services of the Nicaraguan National Guard.
After "El Chaparral", several more armed rebellions took place. In August the journalist Manuel Díaz y Sotelo died; in September Carlos "Chale" Haslam died; in December Heriberto Reyes (Colonel of the Defensive Army of National Sovereignty) died. The following year, events known as "El Dorado" (February 28, 1960) took place, leading to several deaths including Luis Morales, Julio Alonso Leclair (head of the September 15 column), Manuel Baldizón, and Erasmo Montoya.
The conventional opposition, up to that point led by the Nicaraguan Socialist Party, had not been able to form a common front against the dictatorship. The opposition to the dictatorship was established around various student organizations. Among its leaders in the early 1960s was Carlos Fonseca Amador.
At the start of 1961, the New Nicaragua Movement (NNM) was founded by prominent leaders in education, such as Fonseca, Silvio Mayorga, Tomás Borge, Gordillo, Navarro y Francisco Buitrago; prominent leaders on workers issues such as Jose Benito Escobar; countryside leaders like Germán Pomares, and small business leaders such as Julio Jerez Suárez. Legendary guerrilla veteran Santos Lopez, who fought with Augusto Cesar Sandino, also participated in the NNM.
The New Nicaragua Movement was established in three cities: Managua, Leon and Estelí; however, they were generally stationed in Honduras. Their first public activity was held in March 1961, in support of the Cuban revolution and in protest of the position that the Nicaraguan government held with Cuba. The NNM later dissolved to make way for the National Liberation Front.
The New Nicaragua Movement soon dissolved with its members forming the National Liberation Front, FLN.
Founding (1961–1970) The FSLN originated in the milieu of various oppositional organizations, youth and student groups in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The university of Léon, and the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) in Managua were two of the principal centers of activity.Library of Congress, Country Study, Chapter 1 >> "Rise of the FSLN"; and Ignatiev, Chapter 4, "Sandinista Revival". Inspired by the Revolution and the FLN in Algeria, the FSLN was founded in 1961 by Carlos Fonseca, , Tomás Borge, Casimiro Sotelo and others as The National Liberation Front (FLN).The FSLN official website may once have named the following as founders: Santos López (former Sandino fighter), Carlos Fonseca, Silvio Mayorga, Tomás Borge, Germán Pomares Ordonez, Jorge Navarro, Julio Buitrago, Faustino Ruiz, Rigoberto Cruz, Casimiro Sotelo, José Benito Escobar Pérez. The original citation, dated March 30, 2009, was to "History of Nicaragua's FSLN." The page no longer lists the names shown above, and appears to be a commercial site, not the FSLN's site (November 2009). Only Borge lived long enough to see the Sandinista victory in 1979.
A congress or assembly is not formed between all the prominent leaders of the various groups as the preparation would have required a prior theoretical process in order to create them. As a result, the FSLN was not prepared for its own formation. Different discussions took place within the group as they came to a consensus on political ideas. Even in 1963, while still under the name of FLN, there was a lack of internal coherence in political ideas (this can be seen in the publication of the newspaper Trinchera). The first few years were carried by some basic shared values of all the forces that were being integrated. Some of these basic shared ideas was to imitate the success of the Cuban Revolution, the ineffectiveness of the conventional opposition to the Somoza regime and the need to remain independent of them (referring to the conservative, liberal and communist parties), the need for a revolutionary movement that would use the armed struggle as opposition to the Somoza dictatorship, and after some discussion, identification with Sandino's struggle. It was not until 1969 that any programmatic document was published.
The Sandinista National Liberation Front was supposedly founded in a meeting in Tegucigalpa (Honduras) between Carlos Fonseca, Tomás Borge, and Silvio Mayorga. It's even been said that the meeting was held on July 19, 1961. In reality, there is no documentary reference that supports this affirmation, with the first news of this meeting and date surfacing after the revolutionary triumph of 1979.
The term "Sandinista" was adopted two years later, establishing continuity with Sandino's movement, and using his legacy to develop the newer movement's ideology and strategy. : Resurrection and Reappropriation: Political Uses of Historical Figures in Comparative Perspective By the early 1970s, the FSLN was launching limited military initiatives.
Rise (1970–1976) On December 23, 1972, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake leveled the capital city, Managua. The earthquake killed 10,000 of the city's 400,000 residents and left another 50,000 homeless. About 80% of Managua's commercial buildings were destroyed.BBC News: 1972: Earthquake wreaks devastation in Nicaragua President Anastasio Somoza Debayle's National Guard embezzled much of the international aid that flowed into the country to assist in reconstruction, and several parts of downtown Managua were never rebuilt. The president gave reconstruction contracts preferentially to family and friends, thereby profiting from the quake and increasing his control of the city's economy. By some estimates, his personal wealth rose to US$400 million in 1974.