Part 6 - The ‘General of Free Men’ Rises
The illegitimate son of a wealthy landowner of Spanish descent and an Indigenous servant of the Sandino family, young Sandino was the definition of the mestizo identity in Latin America. From an early age, he saw and lived the disparities between the wealthy elites and the working-class people of his country.
Although he lived with his mother until nine years old, his father then took into his home and arranged his education and well being. As a young adult, Sandino witnessed the U.S. invasion of Nicaragua in 1912 and the power struggle between the conservative elites. But it was at the age of 26 in 1921 that his life took a turn, as he tried to kill the son of a rich conservative townsman who had insulted his mother. Afterward, he had to flee and went to Honduras, Guatemala and eventually settled in Mexico. Influenced by the ideals of the Mexican Revolution, during his three-year stay in Tampico, Mexico, Sandino acquired a strong sense of Nicaraguan nationalism, strongly embraced his Indigenous heritage and took on an anti-imperialist stance.
In 1926, his father urged him to come back, Sandino returned and settled in the northern department of Nueva Segovia. He took a job at the San Albino gold mine owned by a U.S. firm, where he organized the mine workers and taught them about social inequalities and the need to change the political system and soon after the civil war erupted. Parallel to Moncada’s liberal army, Sandino organized a rebel force consisting mostly of peasants and workers to fight against the conservative regime of Chamorro for the liberals. After the U.S. intervention ended the war with the Pact of Espino Negro, Sandino refused to order his followers to surrender their weapons and returned with them to the Segovia Mountains.
Sandino, called Moncada a traitor vendepatria (nation-seller) and denounced the foreign intervention, reorganized his forces as the Army for the Defense of Nicaraguan Sovereignty (Ejercito Defensor de la Soberanía de Nicaragua-EDSN) and led a new counter-offensive against the ruling elite and the U.S. empire that backed them. He declared war on the U.S., which he called the "the enemy of our race," referring to the Latin Americans.
"I will not abandon my resistance until the...pirate invaders...assassins of weak peoples ...are expelled from my country...I will make them realize that their crimes will cost them, dear...There will be bloody combat...Nicaragua shall not be the patrimony of Imperialists," Sandino said in 1928.
As the general and his forces gained international notoriety, the U.S. grew more annoyed by the fact that they couldn’t capture him. On Jan. 20 1928 Rear Admiral David F. Sellers, Commander of the U.S. Special Service Squadron operating against the forces of Sandino in Nicaragua, wrote to the general demanding his surrender, arrogantly ordering him to stop the fighting in the Nueva Segovia department, especially against U.S. forces and mining companies from the U.S., alluding to the Espino Negro accords and the fact the U.S. would intervene in Nicaragua based on the agreements.
“The only way to put an end to this struggle is the immediate withdrawal of the forces invading our country, at the same time replacing the current President with a Nicaraguan citizen who is not among the candidates for the Presidency and that representatives from Latin America supervise the elections instead of North American marines,” Sandino proudly responded.
With the popular and rural support, Sandino’s forces grew both in number and strength, inflicting important losses to the U.S. Marines who never captured the ‘General of Free Men’. But most importantly showing the world that a group of peasants could face the "Colossus of the North," as he referred to them. After a year-long exile in 1929 in Mexico, where he desperately looked for foreign support, he returned to Nicaragua to continue his fighting to face an internal enemy as well.
As the support within the U.S. for the Nicaragua occupation faded and the Great Depression (1929) made overseas military expeditions too costly for the U.S in January 1931 Henry Stimson, then-Secretary of State announced that all U.S. soldiers in Nicaragua would leave following general elections and that newly created and U.S.-commanded Nicaraguan National Guard would take over responsibility for the fighting. In the 1932 elections liberal and former vice president, Juan Bautista Sacasa won and was installed as head of state on Jan. 2, 1933.
As the U.S. withdrawal loomed close, the U.S. Ambassador Matthew Hanna and General Moncada had their trusted ally Anastasio Somoza Garcia named as director of the National Guard, the most important power in Nicaragua’s political scene. Somoza Garcia was born in Nicaragua’s elite, being the son of a rich coffee landowner. He attended school in Philadelphia and was trained by U.S. Marines, thus developing strong ties with the military, economic, and political figures of the U.S.
Source:
https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/sandino-us-imperialism-making-20200219-0029.html
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