There is a question for which we will never know the answer: had the U.S. not launched the Contra war to overthrow the Sandinista government, would they have succeeded in bringing socioeconomic justice to the people of Nicaragua?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
No one will ever be able to say what the comandantes would have done with their historic opportunity in Nicaragua if they had not been confronted with civil war.
During the 1980s, international interest in the Nicaraguan war was intense. No conflict since the Spanish civil war had provoked such passion around the world. It was a classic good-versus-evil war.
The people of Nicaragua were suffering oppression. This made us develop an awareness which eventually led us to commit ourselves to the struggle against the domination of the capitalists of our country in collusion with the U.S. government, i.e. imperialism.
The CIA created, armed and financed the Contras. My father backed them with everything he had. It was my father's war, and almost everyone in Nicaragua has lost somebody as a result of it. I couldn't go down there, being his daughter, and expect not to feel those people's wrath.
I think the difference between El Salvador and Nicaragua is that in Nicaragua you had a popular insurrection, and in El Salvador you had a revolution.
The Sandinista government became consumed with fighting a war of survival. They were up against the biggest superpower in the world.
I think for the U.S. government the Sandinistas represented a threat to their dominance of Latin America.
In 1983, most Nicaraguans had still not fallen to the depths of deprivation and despair which they would reach in later years, but many were already unhappy and restive.
The U.S. embargo imposed on Nicaragua, rather than weakening the Sandinistas, actually maintained them in power.
Nicaragua dealt with the problem of terrorism in exactly the right way. It followed international law and treaty obligations. It collected evidence, brought the evidence to the highest existing tribunal, the International Court of Justice, and received a verdict - which, of course, the U.S. dismissed with contempt.