The Strategic Retreat from Managua to Masaya June 1979

Jorge Capelan, Managua con Amor, July 5th 2019
http://www.tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/6815

translation Nan McCurdy
 

Saturday July 6, the people of Nicaragua celebrated the strategic retreat to Masaya with a mobilization that for 40 years has been characterized by two things: its massiveness and its organizational demands, given that it consists of a march or caravan of thousands and thousands of people from the capital to the city of Masaya. At the same time, it is an expression of popular joy for the pending arrival of July 19, the day of victory over the Somoza tyranny.

The retreat to Masaya was a feat that, according to scholars, is still a subject of study in the world's military academies today. A group of Sandinista guerrillas evacuated thousands of civilians, including women, children, the elderly, the wounded and people with disabilities, in front of the Somoza National Guard who was prepared to assassinate them en masse.

In June 1979, Nicaragua was in flames. The insurrection against the Somoza dictatorship and a huge general strike, led to war in all major cities. Masaya, León, Chinandega, Estelí, Matagalpa, and many other cities were insurrected.

Southern Nicaragua burned with fierce combats against the National Guard. The dictatorship was becoming more and more isolated and the United States was looking for a replacement at the same time that the New Governing Board of National Reconstruction was proclaimed and other countries were beginning to recognize it. These were crucial moments in which the future of the country's history was decided. Would the United States be able to marginalize the Sandinista Front by imposing a "somocismo sin Somoza" (somocism without Somoza) or would Nicaragua find the keys to its national independence?

This whole juncture was largely possible because the people of Managua rose up against the dictatorship and for most of June effectively swamped the National Guard, preventing it from drowning the revolt in the rest of the country. For at least 17 days, from 10 to 27 June, Managua witnessed bloody battles against the Guard. There were several massacres by the Guard in Batahola, Kilombo, El Paraisito and Colina 110 (Managua barrios).

By the end of June, two things were clear: The first is that the great goal of bogging down the Guard had been achieved and the second, that after intense fighting munitions were scarce and supply lines had to be re-established. From a military point of view, a retreat was imposed.

In eastern Managua, the strongest point of the insurrection, the Guard was preparing to launch a scorched earth operation against guerrilla forces that did not have bullets to respond. Moreover, there were thousands of people there who, if only the guerrilla columns had withdrawn, would have been killed, not only by land but also from the Somoza air strikes. This is how the Strategic Retreat to Masaya arose.

On the night of June 27, 1979, six thousand people in three columns, men, women, children, the elderly and wounded led by a group of guerrillas, disappeared as if by magic hours before the National Guard hurled itself at them in the eastern neighborhoods of Managua.

Walking along paths, it took them almost a day and a half to reach the insurrected Masaya, "free territory," not before being discovered halfway by the Guard and bombed. There were several very dangerous passageways very close to the well-armed Guard. Many people died, perhaps a hundred, but six thousand lives were saved.

Comandante William Ramírez during the strategic retreat to Masaya (Foto: teleSUR)

From the strictly military point of view, the Sandinista Front could have withdrawn without the civilian population, but then something in its relationship with the people would have been broken. More importantly, how could the Sandinista guerrillas act against their own nature as social fighters and let people die like that? No. That's not Sandinista politics. Never let the people die. Maneuver on a large scale with the people. Gain the wisdom to interpret the right moment. That is Sandinista politics at its best. That is the legacy of the Strategic Retreat to Masaya.

The Retreat was possible thanks to the organizational capacity and the leadership of the cadres, but above all it was possible because of the mutual trust between the people and the leadership of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a trust that in turn translates into discipline and the ability of thousands and thousands of people to act collectively.

Without this mutual trust, it would not have been possible to design the 1980 National Literacy Crusade, just months after the overthrow of the dictatorship. Young people from the cities and their families, peasants, workers, churches, for months mobilized with military discipline to put an end to the most nefarious inheritance of the dictatorship: 50.35% illiteracy, one of the highest rates in Latin America.

Without that mutual trust between the people and the Sandinista leadership in the 1980s, neither the Militias, nor the Patriotic Military Service, nor the Health Days, nor many other great battles that the people fought at that time, would have worked. The right wing has been in charge of falsifying much of the history of those years, but the truth is that it was a time of massive popular participation at all levels.

Only this mutual trust between the revolutionary party and the people allowed the Sandinista Front to promote the Autonomy of the Atlantic Coast in the midst of the war, trusting in the people who had historically been seen as strangers in their own homes and thus laying the foundations of modern Nicaragua today, the one that left behind the barracks enclave at the service of the United States in which the various factions of the oligarchy had converted it since independence.

Many other examples of that philosophy can be found even after 1990. The entire peace process promoted before and after 1990 was an exercise in mutual trust between the people and the revolutionary leadership. Even maneuvers such as the so denigrated "pact" allowed the Sandinista Front to divide the right and ensure the conditions that would allow it to return to power; although not understood by broad sectors at the time, the truth is that they had the support of a large mass of Sandinistas who were the ones who voted for the Front to win the 2006 elections.

The defeat of the attempted coup perpetrated against our people last year was another example of the legacy of the Strategic Retreat to Masaya. What would have happened if from the first days of the coup violence the Sandinista Front had irresponsibly ordered the police and the entire militancy to respond to the violence with violence? Today, not only in Nicaragua, but in all of Central America, we would be at war.

The discipline of the Sandinista masses, the faith of the people in the FSLN, deceived the coup plotters, who believed they had support that they did not have. Thus the days and weeks passed and the initial support that through lies and fake news had accumulated was rapidly deflating as the coup plotters revealed themselves in all their criminal and murderous character. Then came the democratic institutions of the people, together with the people themselves, to remove the roadblocks and restore the democratic order of the people.

The Strategic Retreat this year is very special because it is the 40th anniversary of the final offensive and overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship and it coincides with the first anniversary of the great popular movement that defeated the coup plan of 2018. Beginning this year, along with the fallen of 1979, we also pay homage to the many Sandinistas killed in 2018.

Liberation cost blood and, we cannot forget it, it continues to cost blood.

Yesterday the enemy was a criminal and genocidal caste. Today they are a group that represents the last rales of an oligarchy that since the independence has only known how to kill the people and sell the country for their financial gain.

Yesterday the people destroyed the genocidal Somoza dictatorship and created a constitution that laid the foundations for a Nicaragua for all and not just for the elites. Today the people strengthen democratic power, claim their rights and take on an important economic role.

We still have many offensives and many retreats ahead of us, always together, always for more victories.