August C. Sandino (pictured below) is a legend in Nicaragua for standing up to US political and military involvement in Nicaragua, and fighting for the rights and freedom of the poor. Sandino’s guerillas – Sandinistas – fought the US-trained Guardia Nacional led by Anastasio Somoza Garcia (a nasty piece of work).
Sandino was brutally murdered by Somoza having been invited to dinner for a peace conference in February 1934. The US and CIA supported Somoza’s regime in Nicaragua, a regime that achieved very little except make the Somoza family incredibly rich and the rest of the country very poor, until, in 1979,the revolution finally succeeded when the Sandinistas marched into Managua victorious.
The rest is history, the US had a tantrum, illegally sold weapons to Iran & ploughed the proceeds into the ‘Contras’ (Somoza’s ex Guardia Nacional now in exile) resulting in the infamous Iran-Contra Affair.
You don’t have to spend long in Nicaragua to understand that Sandino’s spirit very much lives on…
[This photo was taken at the Sandino Lives exhibition in Managua, Nicaragua]
