Nicaragua Network

By Katherine Hoyt (National Co-Coordinator, Nicaragua Network/Alliance for Global Justice)

Right after Bayardo [Dr. Bayardo Gonzalez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua] and I were married in 1967, my father had told us, “When ‘comes the revolution,’ you send us the kids!” At that time, the Somoza family looked well entrenched in power with no revolution in sight and we certainly had no kids. But, of course, the revolution did come and we did send the kids.

We kept their Pan American tickets ready and their passports with exit visas stamped in them. We listened to "Radio Sandino" every night at 11:00 pm for the announcement of the "final general strike." We also received instructions on how to build air raid shelters and what supplies to have on hand.

By now the three FSLN tendencies, into which the Front had divided beginning in 1975, had reunited and, as Humberto Ortega later said, three other very important factors were present which made possible the vistory:

1) The people were prepared and ready for a massive popular uprising;
2) The private sector was completely fed up with Somoza and was ready to support another general strike; and most importantly,
3) The FSLN, in a culmination of its eighteen years of struggle, was politically and militarily ready to lead the offensive.