http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiqUNQkx8b0

This news report from July 20, 1979 covers the day that the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in Managua, Nicaragua. Reporter Ike Seamans describes the national guard under Somoza surrendering to the Sandinistas. Seamans describes chaos in the streets of Managua as the Sandinista rebels–composed primarily of the country’s poorest people–raided the presidential palace and other government buildings in Nicaragua’s capital. There was anarchy following the FSLN victory but soon afterwards, they set up a revolutionary government and struggled to gain control of Nicaragua. But throughout the 1980s, they found this to be a difficult task especially because they were fighting the U.S.-backed Contras, who opposed Sandinista rule. Fighting between the Contras and the FSLN lasted until 1990 when democratic elections were held leading to many anti-Sandinista parties gaining power in the Nicaraguan government.

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News Report From the Day the Sandinistas Overthrew the Somoza Regime appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr85gDq_Zj4

Esmeralda, a Sandinista rebel during the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1978-1979, describes what the country was like during the time when the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was trying to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship. The overthrow of the Somoza regime was a bloody and violent affair, but Esmeralda justifies the revolution because she says that “the system under Somoza completely suppressed” the Nicaraguan people. She describes the Somoza regime taking people from their homes and killing them and says that the Nicaraguan people “lived in a system of terror.” The FSLN eventually ousted the Somoza dictatorship from power and then consequently struggled to govern the country from 1979 to 1990 while at the same time, fighting against the U.S.-backed Contras. The war with the Contras was considered to be a proxy war of the Cold War with the United States supporting the Contras and the Soviet Union backing the Sandinistas.

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Nicaraguan Woman Remembers Her Part in the Sandinista Revolution appeared first on Witnify.