Somoza, Sandinistas, And The Ever-Changing Government Of Nicaragua

The three decades that passed between 1970 and the new millennium represented a period of significant change in Nicaragua. At the center of this transformation lay the government and its constant turnovers in leadership. As a result of these vicissitudes, a considerable modification in general attitude is seen as well. Gioconda Belli’s life has been nothing short of a whirlwind, but appropriately, the country to which she has dedicated all of her efforts has also demonstrated a tumultuous history in the past century. Through the accounts of this period in Belli’s memoirs, The Country Under my Skin, the details of these decades, the transformation of the government, and subsequently the military of Nicaragua are described parallels to her life.

Nicaragua went through three distinct stages during this time period. The first stage was a severe sense of uncertainty resulting from the massacre that occurred upon the Conservative Party’s efforts to overthrow the Somoza dynasty. This stage also encompassed feelings of desperation, as the general public felt that the Sandinistas were the �only chance for Nicaragua’ (Belli, 23) and the Sandinistas followed their leaders blindly in order to achieve what they believed could rescue their country from Somoza’s chokehold. The subsequent stage was activity. Nicaraguans, mainly the Sandinistas as they are the central group represented in Belli’s memoir, engaged in fervent activities to assist and help to change the government to one which they accepted. The final, and most recent stage, was disappointment, that was succeeded by appeasement and acceptance for the new government after the fall of the Sandinistas. Through each of these stages, a firsthand account is presented in Belli’s memoir, and her boredom, fear, excitement, passion, hatred, and love are all somehow fueled or quelled by these phases of leadership.

For almost a century, the government of Nicaragua has been an unstable one. Conflicting groups within the country have fought each other for years to gain power, and these altercations have often ended in bloodshed, or even death. The government of Nicaragua has flip flopped between socialism and dictatorships, and the government, until the 1990s, was ruled by one of two groups: the Somoza dynasty, or the Sandinistas. Even prior to Belli’s lifetime, Augusto CÐ"©sar Sandino, the basis of the Sandinista movement, was assassinated by Anastasio Somoza GarcÐ"­a, and at this point, we realize the constant and ongoing rift between these two groups. In 1967, Nicaragua held an election, which was rigged, leaving Anastasio Somoza Debayle, son of GarcÐ"­a, the new president. His brother, Luis, was in charge of the National Guard, but he died shortly after Anastasio was elected. Anastasio was now President of Nicaragua, but also the leader of the National Guard, giving him absolute political and military control of the country. The public was disappointed and disapproving of Anastasio’s administration. Social conditions deteriorated significantly, as the illiteracy and poverty rates in the country increased as a sickening rate. It was at this point that stage one came into effect. Nicaraguans, most specifically the young adults around Belli’s age, began to feel “trapped in a kind of uneasy resignation.” (Belli, 24) since they so clearly disagreed with Somoza Debayle’s actions, yet they also did not agree with the Conservative Party’s pact with Somoza, there only alternative lay in the Sandinistas. The Sandinistas were hardly an alternative, as they were by no means a type of government. They were guerillas who defied the government, rather than create it. Yet they were socialists, they were people for the people, and they were successors of Sandino’s legacy, one that rivaled Somoza. As the Arab proverb says, вЂ?an enemy of my enemy is my friend’, and therefore the people began to see the Sandinistas as a substitute, however hesitantly.

Belli describes herself as one of the youths who felt trapped. Through her story, we can see this sense of uneasiness and desperation escalate. She describes her feelings about the Sandinistas, saying that they commanded the youth’s respect, but “we still considered them dangerous, subversive communists. Their operations were shrouded in secrecy, and people avoided any mention of them. We all feared them.” (Belli, 24) The fear that the Sandinistas instated within this generation created uneasiness, because although they were dangerous and frightening, they were the future. As winding and unpredictable as the future of Nicaragua appeared, Belli’s life channeled that path and was just as unexpected as the country. Eager to be a part of what would surely intensify and intensify her somewhat mundane life, Belli followed as the phases changed, and her life directly heeds the changes occurring in Nicaragua.

The second stage, represented by an increase in productivity and effort by the Sandinistas is the stage that most accurately represents the person that Belli is and the type of life she lived in Nicaragua. Her boredom with domestic life escalated, and although she had first rejected the idea of the Sandinistas and their ideals, she was overjoyed at the idea of joining the underground movement. Her time spent with the poet and his �artsy circles’ led to a higher regard, respect and admiration for the Sandinistas than she had formerly possessed. (Belli, 34) As Belli began to discover herself as a poet, she began to realize that she fit more accurately with people like the Poet, the Ortega brothers, and the Sandinista movement than the upper class that she had been raised in. During this time, Belli slowly but definitely became an active member of the Sandinistas. The danger that this presented only reaffirmed her reasons for doing it. The passion and effort that was the basis for this second stage was what Belli lived for, because she demanded the contrast between her dangerous, secret life and her routine married life. Although Gioconda Belli, a well-educated, upper class woman from Managua, was an unlikely choice for a revolutionary, she was dedicated to the future of Nicaragua, and her

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