Revolution in Nicaragua 19 July 1979

Eventually Samoza realised the war was over, fleeing with his family to Miami, Florida on the 17th of July, 1979. The National Guard collapsed and by the 19th of July the Sandinistas held power. Hundreds of thousands of jubilant Managuans greeted the ragtag Sandinista rebels in celebrating the overthrow of the hated Somoza and the Guard. However, no sooner had the revolutionaries come to power than their old foe was plotting moves against them.In 1980 Ronald Reagan won office partly on the back of a renewed anti-communist foreign policy. All aid was cut to Nicaragua, economic sanctions were imposed and loans from the World Bank and the Inter American Development Bank were effectively halted. Worse though than the economic strangulation was the CIA-guided formation of the contras, a counterrevolutionary force comprised largely of former National Guard officers.By late 1981 the Contras were terrorising peasants living in the northern areas bordering Honduras. These incursions continued throughout the early 1980s, leading former CIA director, Stansfield Turner, to describe the Contras' behavior as 'state sponsored terrorism'. Indeed, in light of the current 'war on terrorism' it is interesting to note that in 1985 the International Court of Justice at the Hague ruled that the United States was guilty of terrorism against Nicaragua, estimating that the Americans owed the Nicaraguans some $14 billion for damages.In 1985 the US Congress voted to cut aid to the Contras. However, by this stage the CIA could not let go and continued to fund the Contras though secret arms sales to Iran. The Sandinistas continued to defeat the Contras on the battleground but incurred a steady drain of resources and loss of human life for their struggle. By the late 1980s, with their superior source of funding, the Contra strategy was to fight a war of attrition.The strategy worked. In 1985 elections the Sandinistas' won 60% of the vote but the result reversed in 1990 elections, with some 60% of the votes going against them. In the face of the protracted war, Nicaraguans had lost their enthusiasm for revolutionary ideals and their stomach for continued violence. Washington's candidate, Violeta Chamorro, had won power for the Liberal party.Subsequent elections held in 1996 and 2001 saw the Liberals retain power. Nicaguan voters understandably had no desire to provoke the Americans with the wrong election result, despite the fact that Sandinista policies have undergone major changes. No longer do the Sandinistas denounce the US as the "enemy of humankind", rather they have gone out of their way to convince Washington that a future Sandinista government would play by their rules, promising prompt debt repayment, strict adherence to structural adjustment programs, a commitment to free enterprise and the desire for swift integration into the Free Trade Area of the Americas scheme. Huge US flags even decorated the Sandinistas closing 2001 campaign rally. Reminiscent of a repentant Winston Smith feeling love for Big Brother at the end George Orwell's novel 1984, the back of the Nicaraguan revolutionary struggle has been broken, with the Sandinistas proclaiming their love for their big neighbour to the north.