Pensamientos de Sandino 5 (Cuadernos Sandinistas) (Spanish Edition)
(Este es el volumen continuación de Pensamientos de Sandin...)
Este es el volumen continuación de Pensamientos de Sandino #4. En este volumen se transcriben todos los documentos, manifiestos, partes de guerra, y correspondencia del heroe nicaraguense Gral. Augusto C. Sandino, durante 1931-1934.
Leyendo a Sandino en su propia voz es más fácil entender las relaciones problemáticas entre las intervenciones norteamericanas en América Latina y los movimientos de resistencia de los patriotas latinoamericanos.
Sandino es considerado hoy en día como un heroe de estatura continental y el modelo e inspiración del Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), que en 1979 condujo una guerrilla victoriosa que condujo al pueblo nicaraguense a una victoria sobre el Somocismo, una de las dictaduras más cruentas de América.
Augusto C. Sandino, also known as Augusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino, was a Nicaraguan revolutionary and leader of a rebellion between 1927 and 1933 against the U. S. military occupation of Nicaragua.
Background
Augusto Calderón (later he adopted César for his middle name) Sandino was born in the village of Niquinohomo on a date variously given but probably May 18, 1894, to Gregorio Sandino and Margarita Calderón, a servant girl. For several years Gregorio neglected his illegitimate son, who lived with his mother in poverty. At age 11 Augusto went to live in the house of his father, who had married América Tíffer.
Education
He attended primary school in his village and an institute in Granada, Nicaragua.
Career
After school he became a produce merchant. When he had trouble with a local political chief he left home for Honduras and Guatemala, eventually arriving in Mexico in 1923, where he worked in the oil industry around Tampico.
Sandino returned to Nicaragua in 1926 during the political disturbances following Conservative Emiliano Chamorro's ouster of President Carlos Solorzano and Vice President Juan B. Sacasa (supported by the Liberals). He worked briefly for an American-owned gold mine, where he talked with workers about the need for a government to protect them from exploitation by captialists and foreign-owned companies.
Sandino's decision to take up arms may have been influenced initially by his strong Liberal background reacting against Conservative control as much as by a reaction against the intervention. When his attempt at independent military action in the revolution against the Conservatives failed, he decided to join forces with the Liberals headed by Juan B. Sacasa, a claimant for the presidency who had returned from forced exile and set up a government on Nicaragua's east coast. Sandino's relationship with the Liberal military and political leadership was not close, but according to his own account he gave valuable service to the cause, even at one time preventing rout of the main Liberal force.
In April 1927 Henry L. Stimson, special representative of President Calvin Coolidge, arrived in Nicaragua to stop the fighting and, through threatened forcible disarmament, arranged a settlement in talks at Tipitapa with General José María Moncada, Sacasa's minister of war. The settlement provided for United States supervision of the next presidential election to meet the Liberal complaint that revolution was the only way for them to regain power since Conservative-controlled elections would not be fair. Despite general Liberal acceptance of the Tipitapa terms, Sandino refused them and escaped with a few followers to northern Nicaragua, where he launched a guerrilla campaign against U. S. Marines and the Nicaraguan government. Trying to hold his small force together, Sandino moved to San Rafael del Norte, where, on May 18, 1927.
At first Sandino's moves did not cause alarm because most of the revolutionaries surrendered their arms and the American military did not believe the others would offer effective resistance. Sandino's failure to stop Marine and Nicaraguan national guard occupation of northern towns seemed to confirm this view. Nonetheless, Sandino's attack on the Marine garrison at Ocotal on July 16, 1927, alarmed Washington and brought international attention to the Nicaraguan nationalist who might have won the battle but for the timely intervention of U. S. warplanes. Sandino's attack on a well-fortified enemy was a mistake and led his followers, the Sandinistas, to develop more refined methods of guerrilla warfare. Although the guerrilla leader was unable to prevent American supervision of the Nicaraguan elections of 1928, 1930, and 1932 or formation of an American-trained national guard, he was never captured and was able to win support in Latin America and the United States as he continued his hit and run tactics. Sandino's activities led Washington to reconsider the issue of military intervention and helped lay the groundwork for the principle of nonintervention in the Good Neighbor policy.
During Sandino's resistance, the Communists looked upon him as an important leader in the anti-imperialist struggle and sought to influence him. The relationship, one of convenience only, was strained when Sandino temporarily left for Mexico (1929-1930) and later, when Sandino made peace with Managua, there were charges of betrayal.
After U. S. Marines withdrew from Nicaragua in January 1933, Sandino and the newly-elected Sacasa government reached an agreement by which he would cease his guerrilla activities in return for amnesty, a grant of land for an agricultural colony, and retention of an armed band of 100 men for a year. There followed a growing hostility between Sandino and Anastasio Somoza Garcia, chief of the national guard, which led to Sandino's abduction and death during a visit to Managua on February 21, 1934. Sandino's death removed a major block to Somoza's drive for power and a Somoza family dictatorship which lasted from 1937 to 1979. Years later, Sandino's anti-imperialism influenced opposition to the Somozas and inspired formation of the Sandinista Front of National Liberation, which brought the downfall of the dictatorship in 1979.
Achievements
Augusto C. Sandino was the leader of a Nicaraguan guerrilla movement which opposed United States Marine intervention in that country from 1927 to 1933. His opposition galvanized anti-American feeling throughout Latin America and helped convince U. S. policy makers that military intervention was often self-defeating.
Sandino became a hero to many in Nicaragua and much of Latin America as a Robin Hood figure who opposed domination from wealthy elites and foreigners, such as the United States. His opposition to U. S. control was tempered by the love he said he felt toward Americans like himself. His picture and silhouette, complete with the oversized cowboy hat, were adopted as recognized symbols of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, founded in 1961 by Carlos Fonseca and Tomás Borge, among others, and later led by Daniel Ortega.
Sandino has been idolized by notable Latin American figures including Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. His brand of guerrilla warfare was effectively used by Castro, FARC in Colombia, the Sandinistas, and the FMLN in El Salvador.
In 2007, President Daniel Ortega renamed again the airport in honor of Sandino. Nicaraguan artist Róger Pérez de la Rocha has created many portraits of Sandino—whose image was banned by the Somoza dictatorship—and of his associates, adding to the country's iconography.
In Mexico he observed Mexican nationalism, and when Mexicans chided Nicaraguans for their lack of patriotism he began thinking about United States interference in his native land. He formed a social and political philosophy that Nicaragua's problems lay in politicians and American imperialism.
According to one account he told, he was not a Communist but a socialist.
Views
Quotations:
In an address delivered on July 1, 1927 (now referred to as the San Albino Manifesto) to the people of Nicaragua and to the American armed forces stationed in Nicaragua at that time:
"Come, you pack of morphine addicts; come to kill us in our own land, and I will await you standing strong at the head of my patriotic soldiers, not caring about how many of you there are; bear in mind that when this happens, the destruction of your greatness will shake the Capitol in Washington, with your blood reddening the white sphere crowning your famous White House, the cavern where you plot your crimes. "
"The sovereignty of a people is not to be debated but to be defended with a weapon in hand. "
Connections
Sandino married Blanca Aráuz, a young telegraphist of the village of San Rafael del Norte, Jinotega. She was related to Ambrosia Ubeda of the same village.
In 1979 Somoza's son, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, was overthrown by the Sandinistas, political descendants of Sandino.
Father:
Gregorío Sandino
He was a wealthy landowner of Spanish descent.
Mother:
Margarita Calderón
She was an indigenous servant with the Sandino family.