Artigo Revisado por pares

Nicaragua: An Interim Assessment

1982; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 37; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/002070208203700106

ISSN

2052-465X

Autores

James Nelson Goodsell,

Tópico(s)

Legal and Labor Studies

Resumo

Time finally ran out for Anastasio Somoza Debayle in September 1980 when an assassin's attack in Asuncion, Paraguay, shattered the former Nicaraguan dictator's Mercedes-Benz. It was an anticlimactic end for the man whose dictatorship had been snuffed out fourteen months earlier. The death of General Somoza set the seal on the era of Somoza family rule in Nicaragua which had lasted nearly fortyfive years. But as Nicaragua's new leaders, the Sandinistas, struggled to overcome the legacy of the Somoza years, the past was still very much with them a haunting reminder of the way in which General Somoza and his father, Anastasio Somoza Garcia, had ruled. It remains unclear who or what group carried out the attack on General Somoza. What is certain, however, is that he and his family, and his cronies, had over the years aroused the hatred and bitter passions of thousands upon thousands of Nicaraguans and others many of whom had ample reason to rejoice over his demise. For 'Tacho' Somoza had failed the very Nicaraguans he had so frequently professed to love during his dictatorship. That dictatorship had ended 17 July 1979, when the left-leaning Sandinista guerrillas took over the agriculturally rich, but civil-war-ravaged Central American nation.

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