Sandinista National Liberation Front

 http://www.internationalist.demon.co.uk/NIC.html

 

The FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional) is a human rights guerilla revolutionary movement that was established in 1961, based in Nicaragua.  Student activists, from the school of National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, in Managua, formed the beginning stages of this organization in the late fifties.  The early group members struggled against imprisonment, but by the early 1970’s, enough  peasants and student activists had joined the FSLN to constitute various defense mechanisms against their violent oppressors.

 The FSLN mission:
Universal suffrage, End racial discrimination, A Democratic government, Political pluralism, Food for the poor, Take control of land, create a non-violent government, and to enforce human rights.

 The FSLN was recognized as a national revolutionary movement on December 27, 1974 when the guerillas kidnapped Nicaraguan officials hoping to remove 14 Sandinistan prisoners from prison.  The operation proved to be a success when the FSLN received a ransom of 1 million US dollars. In addition, the Nicaraguan government read a declaration over the radio concerning the Sandinistan prisoners.
 

 

 The FSLN may have had a victory against the Nicaraguan government, but the  government retaliated by murdering, threatening, and torturing the group members.  In the resulting violence, one of the founders of the FSLN was killed, bringing national and international attention to the Nicaraguan government.  In an attempt to defeat the group, the Nicaraguan government launched extreme anti-FSLN campaigns.  This proved that peaceful negotiations would not be possible.

 In 1975 the group was growing so rapidly that it had to split into three different groups. Each developed different motives for change.

Proletarians- concentrated on organizing poor people (developed on the basis of Marxist theory)
Prolonged Popular War- organized peasants and labor movements (developed on the basis of Mao ZeDong’s movement)
Third Way- pluralism (members of a diversely oriented social group maintain an autonomous partnership in the development of their traditional culture)

The climax of the Nicaraguan Revolution happened on July 19, 1979 when the FSLN entered Managua.  50,000 people were killed and many left homeless, but the people overthrew the Nicaraguan government and took control of the capital.

The FSLN is still a growing group trying to create a state free of social, political, and economic inequalities, a state that concentrates on the right of the nation's people.  The FSLN will not give up until they achieve victory.

 
  
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