When is Sandinista Revolution Day?
Sandinista Revolution Day is a national holiday in Nicaragua, observed on July 19th each year.
This day commemorates the defeat of the Somoza dictatorship on this day in 1979.
History of Sandinista Revolution Day
Nicaragua is the largest of the republics in Central America.
In 1936, Anastasio Somoza García, the head of Nicaragua’s army deposed the elected President, Juan Bautista Sacasa (who was also Somoza’s uncle), and installed himself as President.
This effectively established a hereditary dictatorship in the country for over 45 years, with two of Somoza’s sons serving as president after Somoza had been assassinated in 1956.
Backed by the US because of their anti-communist stance, the administration brought some reforms to the country, though the Somozas exhibited the usual dictatorial traits of accumulating incredible personal wealth and exiling any potential opponents.
Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the second of Somoza’s sons to be president was seen as particularly dictatorial and was accused of human rights violations.
Not too far in the background of the Somoza rule was the Sandinista National Liberation Front. This was a socialist revolutionary group founded in 1962 and named after Augusto Sandino, a hero of the resistance to U.S. military occupation between 1927 and 1933.
Since their creation, the Sandinistas had steadily built their support base amongst workers, students and peasants. In the 1970s, the political aims spilt over into military attacks on the Nicaraguan government. And although the Somozas retaliated, the revolution was gaining momentum, exploding into direct confrontations between the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan army in 1978.
On July 19th 1979, Sandinista soldiers defeated the National Guard and toppled Somoza, who fled to Paraguay where he was assassinated in 1980.
While the events of July 1979 did not usher in a period of political stability or economic prosperity for Nicaraguans, the removal of such a long-standing dictatorship is reason enough to mark this day with a public holiday.
