José Daniel Ortega Saavedra is a Nicaraguan politician who has served as the 58th president of Nicaragua since 2007. Previously he was leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first as Coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction from 1979 to 1985, and then as the 54th President from 1985 to 1990. During his first term, he implemented policies to achieve leftist reforms across Nicaragua. In later years, Ortega's left-wing radical politics cooled significantly, leading him to pursue pro-business policies and even rapprochement with the Catholic Church. However, in 2022, Ortega resumed repression of the Church, and has imprisoned prelate Rolando José Álvarez Lagos.
Nicaragua is a nation in Central America. It is located about midway between Mexico and Colombia, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. Nicaragua ranges from the Caribbean Sea on the nation's east coast, and the Pacific Ocean bordering the west. Nicaragua also possesses a series of islands and cays located in the Caribbean Sea.
The Sandinista National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto César Sandino, who led the Nicaraguan resistance against the United States occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930s.
Gioconda Belli is a Nicaraguan-born novelist and poet known for her contributions to Nicaraguan literature.
Edén Atanacio Pastora Gómez was a Nicaraguan politician and guerrilla who ran for president as the candidate of the Alternative for Change (AC) party in the 2006 general elections. In the years prior to the fall of the Somoza regime, Pastora was the leader of the Southern Front, the largest militia in southern Nicaragua, second only to the FSLN in the north. Pastora was nicknamed Comandante Cero.
Omar Cabezas Lacayo is a Nicaraguan author, revolutionary and politician. He was a commander in the guerrilla war against Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and prominent Sandinista party member. He wrote a personal account of his days as a guerrilla fighting the Somoza dynasty entitled Fire From the Mountain.
Herty Lewites Rodríguez was a Nicaraguan politician. He was Mayor of Managua and a candidate for president in the 2006 Nicaraguan general election when he died suddenly.
The Junta of National Reconstruction was the provisional government of Nicaragua from the fall of the Somoza dictatorship in July 1979 until January 1985, with the election of Sandinista National Liberation Front’s Daniel Ortega as president.
Carlos Mejía Godoy is a Nicaraguan musician, composer and singer-songwriter and one of the main representatives of the testimonial song or new song of his country.
Tomás Borge Martínez, often spelled as Thomas Borge in American newspapers, was a cofounder of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua and was Interior Minister of Nicaragua during one of the administrations of Daniel Ortega. He was also a renowned statesman, writer, and politician. Tomás Borge also held the titles of "Vice-Secretary and President of the FSLN", member of the Nicaraguan Parliament and National Congress, and Ambassador to Peru. Considered a hardliner, he led the "prolonged people's war" tendency within the FSLN until his death.
The Sandinista Popular Army (SPA) was the military forces established in 1979 by the new Sandinista government of Nicaragua to replace the Nicaraguan National Guard, following the overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle.
Dora María Téllez Argüello is a Nicaraguan historian known for her involvement in the Nicaraguan Revolution. As a young university medical student in León in the 1970s, Téllez was recruited by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). Téllez went on to become a comandante and fought alongside later president Daniel Ortega in the revolution that ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979. In the subsequent FSLN government, she served as Health Minister under Ortega and has also been an advocate for women's rights. She ultimately became a critic of repression and corruption under President Ortega and left the FSLN in 1995 to found the party Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS), later renamed Unamos. Along with several other opposition figures, she was arrested in June 2021 by the Ortega government.
Jaime Wheelock Román is a Nicaraguan politician. Member of The Sandinista Liberation Front from 1967, he was named as a member of the National Directorate in 1973. Wheelock graduated as lawyer and sociologist by University of Chile and FLACSO, Chile. He was the leader of the "Proletarian Tendency" in the 1970s, and one of the nine commanders of the Nicaraguan Sandinista Revolution that overthrew the Somoza regime. After 1979 he became minister for agriculture and agrarian reform in the Sandinista government of the 1980s. After 1990 he obtained a master's degree in public administration at Harvard University. Wheelock has written several books: Imperialismo y Dictadura, Raíces Indígenas de la Lucha anticolonialista en Nicaragua, Diciembre Victorioso, El Desarrollo Economico de Nicaragua, and La Reforma Agraria Sandinista, amongst other publications. Since 1996 he has been the President of the NGO Instituto para el Desarrollo y la Democracia IPADE.
Sofía Montenegro Alarcón is a Nicaraguan journalist, social researcher, and feminist. Montenegro's family were militarily aligned with the Somoza forces, but her feminist and Marxist studies moved her to join with the opposition to the regime. She fought in the Sandinista Revolution and though initially supportive of the Sandinista Party, later became an outspoken critic, saying it had moved to the right. She served as an editor of various divisions of the official Sandinista newspaper, Barricada, until 1994, when she founded the Center for Communication Research (CINCO) as an independent research organization free of government influence. She has written broadly on power, gender, and social interaction.
Camilo Ortega Saavedra was a Nicaraguan revolutionary with the Sandinista National Liberation Front who was killed in the struggle to overthrow the Somoza regime. He was the younger brother of eventual Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega and Nicaraguan Minister of Defense Humberto Ortega.
Leticia Herrera Sánchez is a Nicaraguan politician and former guerrilla leader. She was one of the first women commanders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) against the dictatorial government of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua from 1974 to 1979.
Cristiana Chamorro Barrios is a Nicaraguan journalist, nonprofit executive and political candidate. Vice-president of La Prensa, she was an aspiring presidential candidate in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election until the Ortega government disqualified her from running and ordered her arrest in early June 2021.
Hugo Torres Jiménez was a Nicaraguan Sandinista guerrilla and military leader who was a brigadier general in the Nicaraguan Armed Forces. During the Sandinista National Liberation Front effort to overthrow the Somoza family regime, Torres was the only guerrilla who participated in both the 1974 Christmas party raid that freed future President Daniel Ortega among other prisoners, and the 1978 raid on the National Palace, freeing another 60 political prisoners. In the late 1990s he became a critic of Ortega, leaving the FSLN to join the Sandinista Renovation Movement and later its successor the Democratic Renewal Union, serving as vice-president of both parties. In June 2021 he was part of a wave of arrests of opposition figures by the Ortega administration. He died the following February.
Jaime Chamorro Cardenal was a Nicaraguan newspaper editor and publisher. A civil engineer by training, journalism was the family business, as his father owned the newspaper La Prensa. Chamorro joined La Prensa in 1974, where he worked for 47 years and served as publisher for 28, from 1993 until his death in 2021.
The Piñata sandinista is a case of corruption and appropriation of public and private property by Nicaraguan Sandinista leaders before leaving power in 1990. In the period between the electoral defeat of 25 February 1990 and the inauguration of their adversary Violeta Chamorro on 27 April of the same year, the Sandinistas transferred the ownership of a large amount of real estate and public property, some previously expropriated, to their related organizations and, mostly, personally to their leaders such as President Daniel Ortega himself, his brother Humberto and the leader Tomás Borge. Other assets were nominally taken over by the FSLN but later passed into the private hands of Ortega's relatives and collaborators. The two main laws that implemented the piñata were those known as Law 85 and Law 86. En el periodo entre la derrota electoral del 25 de febrero de 1990 y la toma de posesión de su adversaria Violeta Chamorro el 27 de abril del mismo año, los sandinistas transfirieron la propiedad de gran cantidad de inmuebles y bienes públicos, algunos previamente expropiados, a sus organizaciones afines y, mayoritariamente, personalmente a sus dirigentes como el mismo presidente Daniel Ortega, su hermano Humberto y el dirigente Tomás Borge. Los familiares y personas próximas al presidente se apropiaron de empresas y tierras, otros bienes, se pasaron nominalmente a manos del FSLN pero posteriormente pasaron en manos privadas de los familiares y colaboradores de Ortega. Las dos leyes principales que aplicaron la piñata fueron las conocidas como ley 85 y ley 86.
