captured sandino flag (american marines in nicaragua, stealing bananas)
Augusto César Sandino (May 18, 1895 - February 21, 1934) was a Nicaraguan revolutionary and leader of a rebellion against the U.S. military presence in Nicaragua between 1927 and 1933. Labeled as a bandit by the U.S. government, his exploits made him a hero throughout much of Latin America, where he became a symbol of resistance to U.S. domination. Drawing the U.S. Marines into an undeclared guerilla war, he successfully evaded capture, eventually forcing the United States to withdraw its troops and securing significant concessions from the Nicraguan government. However, he was murdered by General Anastasio Somoza García, who went on to seize power in a coup d'etat two years later, establishing a family dynasty that would rule Nicaragua for almost fifty years. Sandino's legacy was claimed by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which overthrew the (third) Somoza dictatorship in 1979.
Addressed to the American forces in Nicaragua: "Come on you pack of drug fiends, come on and murder us on our own land. I am waiting for you on my feet at the head of my patriotic soldiers, and I don't care how many of you there are. You should know that when this happens, the destruction of your mighty power will make the Capitol shake in Washington, and your blood will redden the white dome that crowns the famous White House where you plot your crimes."
1932 - Rebels, led by the communist party—Socorro Rojo—and Agustín Farabundo Martí, attacked government forces with support that was largely from Indians in the western part of El Salvador. Within three days, they had succeeded in taking control of several towns, disrupting supply lines to many of the country’s towns and villages, and attacking a military garrison. With their superior training and technology, the government troops needed only a few days to defeat the rebels. While the rebels killed less than 100 people, the military retaliated with great force, killing between 10,000 and 40,000 peasants, including Martí.
After three days, the army and militias move in and, in some villages, slaughter all males over age 12. Elsewhere, they summarily execute anyone suspected of having a link to the Communists.
1932 marks the point in Salvadoran history when indigenous people, who survived by abandoning their languages and customs for ladino (non-Indian) ways, largely ceased to exist as an easily identifiable ethnic group. The terror wrought by La Matanza was so pervasive that it effectively silenced political dissent in the country for nearly half a century, until the issues that underlay the event exploded into the civil war that ravaged El Salvador from the late 1970s until 1992.
bit later.. 1980s..
Archbishop Romero spoke out against U.S. military aid to the new government and wrote to President Jimmy Carter in February 1980 warning that increased military aid would "undoubtedly sharpen the injustice and the repression inflicted on the organized people, whose struggle has often been for their most basic human rights". Carter, concerned that El Salvador would become "another Nicaragua", ignored the plea.
While celebrating mass at a small chapel near his cathedral, Romero was shot to death after he gave a sermon in which he called for soldiers to disobey orders that violated basic human rights. He was shot while holding up the chalice for veneration. As he fell back, the chalice fell onto his chest, causing what Catholics consider to be the Blood of Christ to mix with his own. It is believed that his assassins were members of Salvadoran death squads, including two graduates of the U.S.-run School of the Americas. This view was supported in 1993 by an official UN report, which identified the man who ordered the killing as Major Roberto D'Aubuisson, who later founded the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), a political party which came to power in 1989 and still rules today.
on and on.. 1981..
Early the next morning, the soldiers reassembled the entire village in the square. They separated the men from the women and children and locked them in separate groups in the church, the convent, and various houses.
During the morning, they proceeded to interrogate, torture, and execute the men in several locations. Around noon, they began taking the women in groups, separating them from their children and machine-gunning them. Finally, they killed the children. A group of children who had been locked in the church and its convent were shot through the windows. After killing the entire population, the soldiers set fire to the buildings.
The soldiers remained in El Mozote that night. The next day, they went to the village of Los Toriles, 2 km away. Several of the inhabitants managed to escape. The others — men, women and children — were taken from their homes, lined up, and shot.
It has been calculated that the military junta received 1 billion US dollars from the US in military aid to "combat the insurgence".
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