To those not directly affected by Daniel Ortega and Gerry Adams, the two men have a certain cache. They are talismanic, and like Che Guevara, they are the darlings of the radical chic.
On my most recent visit to Nicaragua, I was struck by how much Ortega and Adams have in common. They are both masters of survival, and the success of their political parties, Sinn Féin and the FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional) is a testament to their consummate political skill.
Ortega and Adams grew up in oppressive, dysfunctional societies. Nicaragua and Northern Ireland, two countries made volatile by conspicuous inequities, became forges for the formation of young rebels. Ortega and Adams went to war against forces of oppression, but they also had to do battle with allies in the relentless leadership contests within their own organizations.
In the 1970s, the Somoza family ruled Nicaragua and owned an outlandish portion of the nation. Nicaragua has abundant natural resources, but the profits from those resources have never equitably trickled down to its beleaguered people. By the 1970s the Somoza family owned over 90% of the country. They were the elite of the elite with the patriarch Anastacio Somoza Debayle in the presidency.
Somoza had his enemies, including Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, the scion of a wealthy family from Granada and the publisher of La Prensa, Nicaragua’s newspaper of record. A man from the northern coffee growing region of Matagalpa, a man with humble origins named Carlos Fonseca, also pledged himself to fighting the Somoza regime. Fonseca became radicalized at the university in León. He became a rebel with a burning cause.
In time Carlos Fonseca assumed the leadership of a loose knit revolutionary movement in Nicaragua. These rebels took their inspiration from a history of homegrown resistance against domestic regimes and the United States. They also looked to the success of the Cuban revolution, to the guerrilla victory of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
Fonseca studied hard in school. He also studied, with growing distress, the crushing poverty of his homeland. Early on he pledged himself to toppling the Somoza regime. He looked to the example of a Nicaraguan hero who cuts across all political lines, who represents the manhood of a small, underdog nation that has been at almost constant war with itself and with the United States. That hero is Augusto César Sandino.
On the highest spot in Managua, Nicaragua, there is a massive metal cutout of Sandino. The crude piece of art casts a shadow over the steep hill where Anastacio Somoza Debayle sent many a dissenter to be tortured in little caverns cut into the hillside. Sandino was a tiny man who took on the U.S. Marines in the 1920s and 30s. Eluding capture, he built up a reputation to rival that of Emiliano Zapata in Mexico. Sandino still casts a long shadow over Nicaragua. Fonseca, searching for a name for his revolutionary group, took Sandino’s surname and added it to a quotidian Latin moniker to form the FSLN: the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional. The Sandinistas for short.
In some ways Sandino resembles several revolutionary figures in Irish history. He could be compared to Padraig Pearse in rhetorical terms or to Michael Collins as an elusive shot caller. But as an operator and guerrilla fighter he more closely resembles Tom Barry, the IRA man from County Cork who with ruthless efficiency took on the Black and Tans during the Irish War of Independence.
Fonseca revered Sandino, much as a young Gerry Adams was taught by his Irish republican family to revere the leaders of the Easter Rising of the original Irish Republican Army. In 1975, Fonseca returned to Nicaragua from Cuba where he had taken instruction from the new godfather of revolution, Fidel Castro. Fonseca hid out in Managua and then traveled north to lead a few small, rather unsuccessful attacks on outposts of the National Guard, an armed force loyal to Somoza.
Fonseca got in a tight spot near the remote settlement of Zinica in northern Nicaragua. He was trapped. Stephen Kinzer is a former New York Times reporter who knows Nicaragua probably better than any other living American. In his seminal book Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua, he writes
Fonseca’s death left a leadership void. Men like Tomás Borge, Jaime Wheelock, and Sergio Ramírez, a Nicaraguan intellectual who returned from Europe to join the Sandinistas, attempted to consolidate power within the FSLN. Two brothers from Managua, Humberto and Daniel Ortega, also vied for power. Huberto rather conspicuously and Daniel more patiently and quietly.
Like Daniel Ortega, Gerry Adams had his spot in a larger family tent, in his case an Irish republican family on both the paternal and maternal sides, the Adams and Hennessey families respectively. Adams grew up in a republican bubble and absorbed an education heavy on the merits of martyrdom and the insoluble perfidiousness of the British establishment.
When Northern Ireland imploded and lurched toward civil war in 1969, Adams was little more than a skinny kid, a puller of pints in city centre Belfast, a Catholic boy who lived where a Bull Ring slides from a mountain. A photograph from the period shows Adams marching in a funeral procession, a black beret on his head and his Buddy Holly specs so clunky they look as if they might dent his face. He does not look like a dangerous man.
Nor did Daniel Ortega in 1979 when Nicaragua devolved into complete mayhem. Early that year a group of Somoza thugs went out on a murder mission that would forever alter the course of Nicaraguan history. They followed the car of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, the editor of La Prensa. Though wealthy, members of the Chamorro family from Granada had established themselves as critics of corruption unbridled greed, and torture as a tool of coercion. Chamorro’s relentless attacks on Somoza won him a place on the dictator’s hit list.
Somoza instructed his killers to hunt down Chamorro. They pulled up alongside the editor’s car, fired multiple rounds through the windshield, and Chamorro, mortally wounded, lost control of the car as it ran off the road and rammed into a pole. He was dead at the scene. The majority of Nicaraguans simply lost it. They could take no more.
Chamorro’s murder fomented support for the Sandinistas. In the barrios of Managua and throughout the country, FSLN guerrillas clashed with members of the National Guard. The Sandinistas, much like the guajiros (rural workers) in Cuba who flocked to Castro, were predominantly poor Nicaraguans, people long accustomed to deprivation and struggle. But they were not the only ones drawn to the Sandinista cause. Many in the much smaller professional class were also incensed by the editor’s murder. In her short history of the times titled “Sueños de una Revolución” (“Dreams of a Revolution”) Marlene Rivas writes, “In January 1978, the murder of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro . . . ended up putting the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie against the ruling family and on the side of the FSLN.”
The Sandinista revolution that rocked Nicaragua in 1979 was a cataclysmic event in the history of the country. Although it was far more violent and costly than the events in Northern Ireland in 1969, those times of uproar had the shared effect of thrusting young men into a struggle for survival and political dedication. Ortega and Adams were two such men.
Ortega fought a guerrilla war in the rubble of a national capital still showing the signs of a terrible earthquake in 1972. A decade earlier Adams joined a revived Irish Republican Army as it defended Catholic enclaves against Protestant mobs and the security forces. Adams eventually joined the Provisional IRA after the split from the more left leaning faction known as the Official IRA, or the Sticks. Adams would eventually encourage a sympathy for left wing politics within the Provisionals and its political arm, Sinn Féin. According to Eddie O’Neill and Mark Hayes in Socialist Voice:
Separated by a vast ocean, Ortega and Adams still became birds of a feather. Their rise to power has required a great deal of shape shifting. Today they are the men most associated with the FSLN and Sinn Féin, two parties that wield immense influence in their respective lands. Next time we will explore how these men consolidated power, how they alienated many of their former supporters, and where they stand now. For many they remain the ultimate rebels. For others they are rogues who have betrayed the revolution, broken spirits, and destroyed lives.
➽ Michael Shaw Mahoney (MA Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast) is a free-lance writer from Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Ortega and Adams grew up in oppressive, dysfunctional societies. Nicaragua and Northern Ireland, two countries made volatile by conspicuous inequities, became forges for the formation of young rebels. Ortega and Adams went to war against forces of oppression, but they also had to do battle with allies in the relentless leadership contests within their own organizations.
In the 1970s, the Somoza family ruled Nicaragua and owned an outlandish portion of the nation. Nicaragua has abundant natural resources, but the profits from those resources have never equitably trickled down to its beleaguered people. By the 1970s the Somoza family owned over 90% of the country. They were the elite of the elite with the patriarch Anastacio Somoza Debayle in the presidency.
Somoza had his enemies, including Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, the scion of a wealthy family from Granada and the publisher of La Prensa, Nicaragua’s newspaper of record. A man from the northern coffee growing region of Matagalpa, a man with humble origins named Carlos Fonseca, also pledged himself to fighting the Somoza regime. Fonseca became radicalized at the university in León. He became a rebel with a burning cause.
In time Carlos Fonseca assumed the leadership of a loose knit revolutionary movement in Nicaragua. These rebels took their inspiration from a history of homegrown resistance against domestic regimes and the United States. They also looked to the success of the Cuban revolution, to the guerrilla victory of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
Fonseca studied hard in school. He also studied, with growing distress, the crushing poverty of his homeland. Early on he pledged himself to toppling the Somoza regime. He looked to the example of a Nicaraguan hero who cuts across all political lines, who represents the manhood of a small, underdog nation that has been at almost constant war with itself and with the United States. That hero is Augusto César Sandino.
On the highest spot in Managua, Nicaragua, there is a massive metal cutout of Sandino. The crude piece of art casts a shadow over the steep hill where Anastacio Somoza Debayle sent many a dissenter to be tortured in little caverns cut into the hillside. Sandino was a tiny man who took on the U.S. Marines in the 1920s and 30s. Eluding capture, he built up a reputation to rival that of Emiliano Zapata in Mexico. Sandino still casts a long shadow over Nicaragua. Fonseca, searching for a name for his revolutionary group, took Sandino’s surname and added it to a quotidian Latin moniker to form the FSLN: the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional. The Sandinistas for short.
In some ways Sandino resembles several revolutionary figures in Irish history. He could be compared to Padraig Pearse in rhetorical terms or to Michael Collins as an elusive shot caller. But as an operator and guerrilla fighter he more closely resembles Tom Barry, the IRA man from County Cork who with ruthless efficiency took on the Black and Tans during the Irish War of Independence.
Fonseca revered Sandino, much as a young Gerry Adams was taught by his Irish republican family to revere the leaders of the Easter Rising of the original Irish Republican Army. In 1975, Fonseca returned to Nicaragua from Cuba where he had taken instruction from the new godfather of revolution, Fidel Castro. Fonseca hid out in Managua and then traveled north to lead a few small, rather unsuccessful attacks on outposts of the National Guard, an armed force loyal to Somoza.
Fonseca got in a tight spot near the remote settlement of Zinica in northern Nicaragua. He was trapped. Stephen Kinzer is a former New York Times reporter who knows Nicaragua probably better than any other living American. In his seminal book Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua, he writes
Fonseca tried to cover his retreat by firing his .12-gauge shotgun, but he ran out of cartridges as Guardsman advanced . . . the founder and guiding light of the Sandinista Front was cut down by rifle fire.
Like Daniel Ortega, Gerry Adams had his spot in a larger family tent, in his case an Irish republican family on both the paternal and maternal sides, the Adams and Hennessey families respectively. Adams grew up in a republican bubble and absorbed an education heavy on the merits of martyrdom and the insoluble perfidiousness of the British establishment.
When Northern Ireland imploded and lurched toward civil war in 1969, Adams was little more than a skinny kid, a puller of pints in city centre Belfast, a Catholic boy who lived where a Bull Ring slides from a mountain. A photograph from the period shows Adams marching in a funeral procession, a black beret on his head and his Buddy Holly specs so clunky they look as if they might dent his face. He does not look like a dangerous man.
Nor did Daniel Ortega in 1979 when Nicaragua devolved into complete mayhem. Early that year a group of Somoza thugs went out on a murder mission that would forever alter the course of Nicaraguan history. They followed the car of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, the editor of La Prensa. Though wealthy, members of the Chamorro family from Granada had established themselves as critics of corruption unbridled greed, and torture as a tool of coercion. Chamorro’s relentless attacks on Somoza won him a place on the dictator’s hit list.
Somoza instructed his killers to hunt down Chamorro. They pulled up alongside the editor’s car, fired multiple rounds through the windshield, and Chamorro, mortally wounded, lost control of the car as it ran off the road and rammed into a pole. He was dead at the scene. The majority of Nicaraguans simply lost it. They could take no more.
Chamorro’s murder fomented support for the Sandinistas. In the barrios of Managua and throughout the country, FSLN guerrillas clashed with members of the National Guard. The Sandinistas, much like the guajiros (rural workers) in Cuba who flocked to Castro, were predominantly poor Nicaraguans, people long accustomed to deprivation and struggle. But they were not the only ones drawn to the Sandinista cause. Many in the much smaller professional class were also incensed by the editor’s murder. In her short history of the times titled “Sueños de una Revolución” (“Dreams of a Revolution”) Marlene Rivas writes, “In January 1978, the murder of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro . . . ended up putting the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie against the ruling family and on the side of the FSLN.”
Ortega fought a guerrilla war in the rubble of a national capital still showing the signs of a terrible earthquake in 1972. A decade earlier Adams joined a revived Irish Republican Army as it defended Catholic enclaves against Protestant mobs and the security forces. Adams eventually joined the Provisional IRA after the split from the more left leaning faction known as the Official IRA, or the Sticks. Adams would eventually encourage a sympathy for left wing politics within the Provisionals and its political arm, Sinn Féin. According to Eddie O’Neill and Mark Hayes in Socialist Voice:
In this period Adams not only criticized capitalism, he was fond of quoting Connolly, while Sinn Féin explicitly identified itself with the ANC, PLO, and Sandinistas. Some commentators even detected the influence of Marxism; and though this was hugely exaggerated, there was a sense in which Sinn Féin identified itself as an integral part of a global ‘left’ movement.
Separated by a vast ocean, Ortega and Adams still became birds of a feather. Their rise to power has required a great deal of shape shifting. Today they are the men most associated with the FSLN and Sinn Féin, two parties that wield immense influence in their respective lands. Next time we will explore how these men consolidated power, how they alienated many of their former supporters, and where they stand now. For many they remain the ultimate rebels. For others they are rogues who have betrayed the revolution, broken spirits, and destroyed lives.
➽ Michael Shaw Mahoney (MA Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast) is a free-lance writer from Louisville, Kentucky, USA
