Triumph of the Sandinistas

It was high noon in Managua. A strong wind off Lake Managua brought some relief from the scorching heat, but ice cream vendors did their usual brisk trade as people arrived to pay their taxes at the lakeside National Palace. Suddenly 24 soldiers in olive green fatigues and black berets, the uniform of the National Guard training school, drew up in trucks. "Make way. Here comes el Hombre," snapped one of the soldiers as he ran to a side entrance and opened a path in the crowd. Bystanders expected to see General Anastasio ("Tacho") Somoza, Latin America's most notorious strongman. But the soldiers, as it soon became clear, were not National Guardsmen at all. They were commandos of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a leftist guerrilla organization dedicated to the overthrow of the feudalistic Somoza dynasty. They were about to launch one of the most spectacular--and most successful--terrorist raids in recent history. So successful was the outcome, in fact, that many of Somoza's countrymen now believed that his government might never fully recover.

As they entered the three-story, salmon-colored palace, the Sandinistas started shooting. Six guards and two civilians were killed, and 15 other people, including one commando, were wounded. Within moments, the guerrilla raiders were in command of the National Palace. Inside were more than 1,500 people--probably the largest number of hostages ever held captive in a terrorist operation.

On the second floor of the building, a meeting of the Chamber of Deputies was under way. The session, dealing with taxes, was being covered by 24 reporters. "Suddenly we heard shooting coming from outside," Journalist Luis Manuel Martinez recalled later. Martinez, a Cuban exile and a well-known antiCommunist, regularly covers the legislature for Novedades, the official newspaper of the Somoza regime. "A few minutes later, a man dressed in a uniform walked into the middle of the room carrying a submachine gun. Without warning, he fired into the ceiling and shouted: 'Everyone on the floor!' We all dived down. We could see there were eight other armed men and one woman who had come in after him and taken up positions."

The 49 Deputies remained on the floor for 20 minutes while the guerrillas took their names, tied them up, and began photographing them with a Polaroid camera. When the woman commando asked Martinez his name, she shouted: "Cero! Cero! Martinez is here!" Cero,* later identified by authorities as a "militant" named Eden Pastora, 42, turned to Martinez and said: "If the Somoza forces attack, you will be the first shot."

Elsewhere in the building, other commandos rounded up government employees and officials. Among those caught: Interior Minister Jose Antonio Mora, his chief assistant, and several relatives of Somoza, including Luis Pallais, publisher of Novedades. Somoza had never bothered to occupy the presidential offices, preferring more secure quarters in his bunker on the grounds of the nearby National Guard training center. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Managua, Miguel Obando y Bravo, and the bishops of Leon and Granada, who earlier in the month had demanded Somoza's resignation, immediately offered their services as mediators. So did the ambassadors of Costa Rica and Panama. They quickly reported back with the guerrillas' demands: 1) the release of 59 political prisoners; 2) $10 million; 3) repeated broadcasts over government radio of an almost two-hour-long Sandinista communique; and 4) Venezuelan, Mexican or Panamanian planes to escort them from the country.

Somoza decided early on to negotiate. He had little alternative: the Sandinistas not only were controlling events, but more important, were reflecting a widespread public mood. As the discussions dragged on through the night and into the next day, conditions in the overcrowded, ill-equipped palace became intolerable. Hostages who could not wait to use any of the four toilets in the palace found relief in wastebaskets behind the speaker's lectern in the Chamber of Deputies. During the first night, 300 people escaped by pushing out an air conditioner and climbing out a window. The guerrillas later released all children and most of the women. That still left more hostages than even the guerrillas seemed to have bargained for.

By evening of the second day, the radio began broadcasting the commandos' communique, calling for National Guardsmen to arrest their superiors or flee with their arms. Next morning, 45 hours after it began, the siege ended peacefully. A bus drew up to the National Palace and one by one the Sandinistas walked out, leaving their captives behind, and clambered aboard. "With the black-and-red Sandinista flag flying from the bus and the guerrillas waving their rifles, it looked like a victory parade," reported TIME Mexico City Bureau Chief Bernard Diederich from the scene. "All along the eight-mile route, thousands of Nicaraguans assembled to catch a glimpse and cheer them on like conquering heroes. 'Down with Somoza!' and 'Viva Sandinista!' they shouted. Thousands of others waited at the terminal. 'Yes, they are our heroes,' said one youth. 'To hell with Somoza!' " At the airport, the commandos, who had settled for $500,000 after winning their other demands, armed their newly released comrades with weapons taken from the Deputies' bodyguards at the National Palace. Then, along with the bishops and ambassadors who had mediated, they took off for Panama aboard two airliners. Cero, the last to enter the plane, turned and waved his rifle, and the crowd sent up a wild cheer as the planes took off. Said a youth: "They'll be back, be sure of that."

Few doubted that they would. The seizure of the palace was only the latest and most dramatic episode in a relentless civil war waged between the oppressive Somoza government--which has usurped the country's riches, denied it political freedom and brooked few critics--and a mostly unarmed population weary of Somoza family rule. The still unsolved murder last January of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, a prominent newspaper editor and a leading critic of the regime, helped to unite a widely factionalized opposition. Despite official denials, suspicions persist that Chamorro's assassination was ordered by Somoza.

In July international pressure forced Somoza to allow the return of "the Twelve," a group of intellectuals, businessmen and churchmen who had signed a document in Costa Rica calling for the government's ouster. The Catholic hierarchy's call a month later for a pluralistic "national government" to replace Somoza was immediately seconded by every major business organization in the country. The businessmen were worried by Nicaragua's growing fiscal problems, mounting foreign debt and Somoza's proposal for new taxes. Said William Baez, executive secretary of the Nicaraguan Institute of Development: "Somoza foments Communism solely by remaining in power."

The determined dictator, 52, has vowed time and again to stay on until his current six-year term expires in 1981. At a press conference following the Sandinista assault, Somoza, under obvious strain, insisted that he did not intend to change his mind. He said he had capitulated "to save human lives," and warned that "ideologies other than traditional ones" threatened to divide his country "into democratic and Communist peoples." But concern is growing that his failure to step down will provoke more strife. At week's end his political opponents launched a nationwide general strike that they hoped would continue until Somoza resigned or was ousted. Somoza's sarcastic response: "I wish them lots of luck." Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, who heads one of the few democratic governments in Latin America, called on the Organization of American States for "cordial intervention" in Nicaragua "to seek a process of democratization and avert further useless bloodshed. No one has the right, no matter how powerful he is or how many weapons he has, to sacrifice the life of his nation."

Last week's events suggested that Somoza may yet have his mind made up for him. In Panama, safe, sound and almost delirious with triumph, the Sandinistas, with their newly released comrades, were no doubt preparing for some new victories. Cero assured his captives when he bade them goodbye: "We'll be back in two months."

* The Sandinistas, who take their name from Augusto Cesar Sandino, a guerrilla leader assassinated on orders of Somoza's father in 1934, identify each other by numbers during terrorist operations. The commander is always cero (zero).

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