The People Take the Lead

Monimbo, 1978

Pedro Joaquin Chamorro

In the town of Masaya is the Indian barrio (neighborhood) called Monimbo. Speak the name Monimbo these days and you speak the name resistance. Benjamin “El Indio” Zeledon died there in 1912, at the hands of the U.S. troops. A few miles away is Niquinohomo, the birthplace of Sandino.

The people begin organizing masses and demonstrations protesting the death of La Prensa newspaper editor Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, assassinated by Somoza. On February 21, thousands take to the streets to mark the anniversary of the death of Sandino. The National Guard launches an aerial attack on the crowd marching to the cemetery.

A series of sporadic attacks occurs in the next few days. The people erect barricades in the streets and Monimbo becomes a sea of red and black Sandinista flags. The make and throw bombas de contacto, weapons that will pas into the folklore of the revolution as symbols of the ingenuity and determination of a people.

As the days pass, a single barrio takes on the accumulated power of the whole National Guard. Tanks, armored cars, helicopters, and heavy machine guns attach the people. They fight back with machetes, sticks, contact bombs, and stones. The National Guard attack some boys carrying Sandinista flags and cut off their hands with bayonets. Other children and adults cry out Vive el frente Sandinista! The Guard cuts their tongues out. The Guard attacks with brand-new rifles, M-16’s given to them by the United States. Some of the Guard, ashamed of the killing, go to the side of the people. At the end of the battle, two hundred people—including children, lie dead.

Within days another barrio peopled by the Subtiava Indians erupts in insurrection.

The indigenous are leading the people.

See George Black, Triumph of the People, 113-114

Chinandega, 1978: Seizing the Land

The mobilization of the people is becoming a way of life. Rebellion spreads throughout Nicaragua. In Tonala in the far north, the people seize the land. A peasant says,

This land is ours and we’ve taken it… so that we can work, so that we can live. The poison dust from the fumigation of the cotton fields is killing our pigs and chickens. At night, the place is alive with mosquitoes from the Standard Fruit Company’s banana plantations… They poison us… women, children and old people. Either God will save Tonala or we’ll save it ourselves. Tonala will be Nicaragua’s second Monimbo. It is.

George Black, Triumph of the People, 123

Managua, 1978: Strike at the Heart

Insurrection and the possibility of insurrection are everywhere. But the Sandinistas feel they need some bold action to galvanize the resistance. Keeping the tightest secrecy, three people plot “Operation Pigsty,” the taking of the National Palace in broad daylight and holding members of the House of Deputies hostage. With a total force of only twenty-six people, they choose the best combatants, who happen to average eighteen or nineteen years of age. They disguise themselves as National Guard troops, enter the National Palace, and pretend that Somoza himself is coming. The people inside hide in fear of the dictator, and before they realize that they have been tricked, the Sandinistas capture the whole House of Deputies. Somoza rings the building with Guard troops and orders a helicopter to fire on the building. When he learns some of his friends are inside he stops. The Sandinistas demand the release of their companeras in Somoza’s prisons, many of whom are being tortured. The siege lasts for forty-five hours. Somoza meets the demands. As the Sandinistas leave the National Palace, thousands of Nicaraguans line the streets, while others form a motorcade of cars, trucks and motorcycles. The red and black Sandinista banderas are everywhere.

In Matagalpa, the daring action has already had an effect. The city erupts in a spontaneous insurrection.

George Black, Triumph of the People, 124-126