Sandino: “I will not surrender and here I wait for you”

Sandino: “I will not surrender and here I wait for you”
ABN 22/02/2008
Caracas,

Caracas, Feb 21 ABN (Lena Jahn).- His slogan was “Free nation or death.” He talked on behalf of justice, of a sovereignty which “must not be discussed, but defended with gun in hand.” He died as a rebel in order to “not live as a slave”. In his words, always pronounced in the context of the nationalist struggle, he left the irrefutable trace of the spirit that drove him: freedom.


Following these precepts lived Augusto Cesar Sandino; a farmer, patriot and revolutionary man called the “General of free men” due to his iron resistance to the US military presence in Nicaragua and to his constant effort to achieve the peace in his land.


This heir of Liberator Simon Bolivar validated the Monte Sacro Oath (the oath Simon Bolivar undertook while upon Italy's Monte Sacro) in his Political Manifesto, issued on July 1927 in Nueva Segovia mountains, in which he swore to the nation and history that his sword would defend “the national propriety” and that it would be “redemption for the oppressed.” And so was it. Plenty of blood had to run, including his; but so was it.


Treason to the redeemer


What started as a civil war among liberal and conservative groups, further on took a different meaning and turned into a war among patriots and US invaders, who due to their meddling policy started to take over Nicaraguan strategical lands, so the internal political combat was put aside.


Unity gave strength: more than six thousand men and some women -headed by Sandino- made up the Army for the Defense of the National Sovereignty, which defeated many times the US marines, who were not used to fight at the thick rainforest. On January 1^st 1933, the invader forces abandoned Nicaraguan lands, without eliminating or capturing their enemy, and far from it, defeating him.


Once the US marines retired, Sandino sent a peace proposal to the new liberal president, Juan Bautista Sacasa, which he accepted. On February 2^nd 1933, the war officially ended up and the Sandinista army was disarmed, except for a shelter group of 100 people. Those days, Anastasio Somoza Garcia -chief director of the Nicaraguan National Guard, an army trained, equipped and financed by the United States and commanded by officials of this country- desired to take over the total control of the country, an objective only feasible with the physical disappearance of that one who offered his life in order to give back the sovereignty of the country, by principle inherent to it.


On February 21^st 1934, Sandino and his father, Sofonias Salvatierra (Minister of Land) and generals Estrada and Umanzor, attended a dinner at the Presidential Palace, invited by Sacasa. After the dinner, the
vehicle in which they traveled was stopped and a corporal on guard, who was actually a disguised major, drove them up to the El Hormiguero jail.


Sandino, Estrada and Umanzor were taken to a mountain called La Calavera, in Managua, and around 11 in the night, the battalion watching over the prisoners opened fire and killed the three generals.


The following day, soldiers from the National Guard destroyed the cooperatives established by Sandino and killed or made prisoners its inhabitants.


Two years later, Anastasio Somoza García, who affirmed to have received orders from US ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane to kill Sandino, took the power of the country and overthrew President Sacasa.


Moved by the Latin American unity


Augusto Sandino considered Simon Bolivar as one of those spirits who guide humanity. This was affirmed by Ramon Belausteguigoitia, Basque journalist who had the opportunity to interview the Nicaraguan leader on February 1933.


“Bolivar's great dream is still in perspective. The great ideals, all the ideas, go through conception and improvement stages until achieving its realization. I do not know when all of this can be achieved, but we
will keep uniting the stones,” said Sandino to answer a question made by Belausteguigoitia, in which he asked him about his movement and the conviction he had regarding the Spanish-American ideals.


In fact, the thread of his action always answered to a very nationalist motivation; besides, he always worked with a expansionist and unifier great spirit, considering Latin America as a whole. Completely inspired by the bolivarian thought, “Plan for the Realization of Bolívar's Supreme Dream' is an example of Sandino's fervent desire to materialize a dream.


The ambassador of the Nicaraguan Republic to Venezuela, Ramon Leets, explains that, according this plan, it was conformed a permanent assembly. This assembly would carry out periodic lectures with representatives specifically from the denominated Latin American Nationality, rejecting other nations' meddling, in order to establish an alliance among Latin and Caribbean nations to achieve the sovereignty of these territories. It would also be constituted the Latin American Court of Justice and an Army for the defense and to sustain such sovereignty.


Likewise, Leets indicates Carlos Aponte, a Venezuelan who performed as lieutenant colonel at the Army for the Defense of the National Sovereignty, might have taken part in the writing of the document presented by Sandino. He also says that Gustavo Machado, Aponte's compatriot who introduced the Marxist thought in Venezuela during the first decades of the XX century, was close collaborator of the Nicaraguan revolutionary leader.


Among proclaims and verses


“The bigs would say I am too small for the work I have undertaken, but my insignificance is overwhelmed by the pride of my patriot heart,” said Sandino in his Political Manifesto. Almost all his essays, charged of great literary aesthetic, show huge sensitivity and express one of its main muse: poet Ruben Dario.


Ode to Roosevelt, a work which verses severely condemns the US meddling policy, was one of the main Sandino's inspirations.


“Bolivar and Ruben Darío were decisive for Sandino, they highly influenced in his actions,” affirmed the Nicaraguan ambassador, who thinks that nationalism and socialism were the trends which shaped his ideology.


“His main objective was to take out the US invaders, which placed him in a nationalist position; but, at the same time, he worked with the people and for their benefit, which made him a socialist man,” Leets added.


Sandino himself said once at an interview with Belausteguigoitia, different words but with the same meaning, “This movement is national and anti imperialist. We keep the freedom flag for Nicaragua and for the whole Hispanic America. Thus, on the social field, this is a people's movement and we promote a sense of progress in social aspirations.”


For Sandino's compatriots and for the whole Latin America, his example is his best legacy. Loyalty to the nation and tireless fight were the people's banner on century XXI, which keep united on the complete conquest of their sovereignty. In other words, to always answer as the Nicaraguan leader answered to Gilbert Hatfield, US captain who asked him to lay down his weapons and give up, “I will not surrender and here I wait for you (...) I am not afraid of you; I count with the patriotism of those who accompany me. Nation and Freedom.”

Translated by Felitza Nava