There is a famous saying in Latin America: “History is a whore. She will sleep with whoever is in power.”
Revisionism is rampant everywhere in the world, and Nicaragua is no exception. With that disclaimer in mind, here is our version:
The earliest vestiges of humans in Nicaragua date to 6,000 year old footprints found at a construction site in Managua that has since been turned into the modest Huellas de Acahualinca Museum.
During the pre-Columbian period the Nicaraos, Chortegas, Chontales and Miskitos were some of the native inhabitants of the country. Indigenous people from Mexico immigrated to the country’s Pacific lowlands. Eventually many indigenous groups adopted the Mexican-based Nahuatl culture when the Aztecs moved south during the 15th century to establish a trading colony. The word Nicaragua comes from a Nahuatl word that means “here, next to the water,” or as one other Nahuatlspeaking man translated it: “the end of the line.”
The first contact with Europeans was in 1502 when Columbus sailed down the Caribbean coast. In 1524, with the arrival of Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, the first two cities, Granada and León were founded. The colonial capital of León was moved to Managua in 1851, as a compromise to settle the long dispute between Granada and León.
In 1821 Nicaragua as well as the rest of Central America, was freed from Spanish rule. Complete independence was finally obtained by 1838. Shortly after that, Britain and the U.S. became attracted to Nicaragua in search of a shortcut across the Isthmus via the Río San Juan and Lake Nicaragua. The U.S., led by Cornelius Vanderbilt, were interested in the transisthmian passage to help facilitate the California Gold Rush.
In 1855 the infamous American, William Walker, appeared on the scene and his saga began. Walker, with his band of rag tag mercenaries, declared himself President of Nicaragua for two years and tried to turn Central America into a slave state for the Confederacy. Walker burned down the city of Granada on his way out, and was later shot to death in Honduras.
Different personalities governed the country afterwards. Among them was the dictator José Santos Zelaya. He refused to give the U.S the exclusive right to build a canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Consequently, the U.S. signed a canal treaty with Panama. As the country fell into civil war, the U.S. Marines landed in Nicaragua for the first time in 1912. Fighting continued between the Conservatives and Liberals, and the famed revolutionary icon Gen. Augusto Sandino emerged in the fight against U.S. occupation, which ended in 1933.
Shortly thereafter, General Anastasio “Tacho” Somoza took power as head of the country’s U.S. trained National Guard, and had Sandino shot. After fraudulent elections Somoza became president in 1937.
With only brief interruptions, the Somoza family dynasty ruled Nicaragua as a fiefdom for the next 40 years, amassing a family fortune and land holdings the size of El Salvador. The Somozas owned 50% of the arable land and controlled 65% of the gross domestic product (GDP).
The family’s personal fortune was estimated to be around 50 million dollars by the mid-fifties. General Anastasio Somoza was assassinated in 1956, and his sons took over, with the last in the line, the notorious Gen. Anastasio Somoza Debayle (the third to rule the country), coming to power in 1963.
In 1972, a 6.2-magnitude quake rocked the country and leveled Managua, killing thousands. Somoza quickly funneled the outpouring of international relief aid into his own pockets, and reportedly even sold the blood donated by the Red Cross.
Meanwhile, the Sandinistas insurgents had already formed into three divisions in the mountains and were plotting to overthrown Somoza. Somoza renewed his “presidency” in 1974, further galvanizing the opposition.
On Sept. 9, 1978 the popular insurrection started on the streets of Estelí. Fifty thousand lost lives later, the revolution culminated with the July 19, 1979 ousting of Somoza, who was later assassinated by Sandinista contract killers in Paraguay.
Headed by Comandante Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista ruling directorate came up from Costa Rica and took over the country in 1979. The revolutionary government began government programs to redistribute the land, and launch massive education and literacy and health campaigns. With the help of Cuban brigades of Cuban doctors and educators, the revolution vaccinated the country and reduced illiteracy from 50% to 13%.
Fear spread of Soviet influence through Central America, and the hawkish Reagan administration in the U.S. hysterically warned that the Sandinistas were a “three day march from Texas,” that is if they marched 250 miles an hour. The U.S. set out to destabilize the revolutionary government. U.S. aid was suspended, Nicaragua’s ports were illegally mined, and a economic embargo was implemented. The U.S., in the early 80s, also started to fund and train a group of counterrevolutionaries and filibusters, known as the Contras.
The Contra war lasted eight years, diverting the Sandinista government’s efforts away from health, education and land reform efforts and into defense. The war, which claimed some 20,000 lives, also brought out the worst in the Sandinista government, which implemented a mandatory draft, censured the press and conducted purges and property seizures against its “enemies.”
Nicaraguans agreed to national elections in 1990, and the U.S. strongly reminded voters that a Sandinista victory would ensure the continuance of war and the economic embargo that was strangling the country. With the U.S.’ backing, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, considered a moderate motherly figure, won the elections by a slim margin with an anti-Sandinista alliance called UNO. Ortega and the Sandinistas agreed to cede power, but not before passing some hasty final acts to try to legalize properties they had confiscated, a land-grab known as the piñata.
Chamorro’s government set about to disarm the country and heal deep wounds. Although she may best be known – at least by opponents – for forgiving the U.S. of its debt to Nicaragua.
Chamorro retired from politics in 1997, and was replaced in the casa presidencial by Managua’s right-wing mayor, Arnoldo Alemán of the Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC), who defeated Ortega in the country’s second democratic elections. Alemán reinstated the political tradition of running the country as if it were his own, and now is serving a 20-year jail sentence for corruption and embezzling $100 million in state funds.
Alemán’s government also saw the wrath of Hurricane Mitch, which ripped through Nicaragua, killing thousands and leaving in its wake hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. The natural disaster set Nicaragua even further back, and current day poverty levels are still equivalent to the 1950s.
Alemán’s corruption and greed didn’t help the situation. The incarcerated former President recently made Transparency International’s list of the top 10 most corrupt leaders of all time. He remains the undisputed Liberal party boss from his hacienda jail known as El Chile.
Businessman Enrique Bolaños, who defeated Ortega in the country’s third elections, after running on an anti-corruption campaign, replaced Alemán in 2002.
Bolaños, who won on the PLC ticket, went after Alemán. His efforts landed the former president in jail, but deeply divided the PLC. Bolaños ended up defecting from the PLC in 2004, and joining the upstart Alliance for the Republic (APRE).
Ortega and Alemán, meanwhile, formed a pact between the two in 2002 to divide up the country’s Supreme Court and other state institutions, while preventing minority parties from participating in the country’s first municipal elections in November 2002. Ortega and Alemán renegotiated the infamous pacto in December 2004 to further undermine President Bolaños and pass a series of Constitutional reforms that wrested power away from the Executive Branch and empowered the Legislative Branch.
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