“Undercover Of The Night” -- Rolling Stones
What can be said of Anastasio Somoza García? An old quip of unknown origin but variously ascribed to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, or some other United States statesman of that era claimed, “He’s a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch.” Actually, son-of-a-bitch might be one of the nicer epithets we could pin on the late Mr. Somoza. Murderer, tyrant, usurper, thief -- all are better fits.
Anastasio Somoza García
1937
In December of 1936, after years of viciously murdering his way to absolute power in Nicaragua with the unfortunate assistance of the United States, Somoza thought to formalize his position by seeking election as his country’s president. He won the popular vote by the improbable margin of 107,201 to 100. Somoza ruled Nicaragua with an iron and bloody fist until September of 1954 when he was fatally shot by the renowned poet and composer Rigoberto López Pérez who thought it worth his life to rid his country of a murderous dictator. But López’s sacrifice did not bring his hopes of a free Nicaragua to fruition. Before the young poet’s bullet penetrated the aging dictator’s chest, Somoza had established what would become a dynasty that would rule, rob, and brutalize Nicaragua’s unfortunate citizenry until July 1979. Resistance to the Somoza family had been consistently and savagely crushed by the ruthless Nicaraguan National Guard made formidable by training, weapons, and support from the United States.
But things change. Murder, torture, theft, and extortion had made the Somoza family obscenely wealthy and powerful, but their reign of brutality would end. Let’s look to the past briefly.
Nearly a century ago, Augusto Nicolás Sandino was one of the most revered men not only in Nicaragua, but across all Latin America. It was he who led Nicaraguan patriots in their struggle to shrug off the occupying United States Marines force, and it was Sandino who agreed to end a popular insurrection in return for democratic reform. But his demands for fairness and an end to military abuses made him less well loved by the National Guard, and the National Guard answered to Anastasio Somoza. As a condition of peace, Sandino pledged loyalty to the new democratically elected president-- the same president Somoza would depose in a coup two years later -- and those rebel soldiers would either accept government command or lay down their arms. On 21 February 1934, the 38-year-old Sandino was inroute to peace negotiations with the president when he was pulled from his car and murdered by National Guardsmen carrying out orders issued by Somoza,. To ensure that they killed the dream as well as the man, National Guard troops would also slaughtered not only Sandino’s advisers, but also hundreds of men, women, and children living living in an agricultural community.
Nearly a century ago, Augusto Nicolás Sandino was one of the most revered men not only in Nicaragua, but across all Latin America. It was he who led Nicaraguan patriots in their struggle to shrug off the occupying United States Marines force, and it was Sandino who agreed to end a popular insurrection in return for democratic reform. But his demands for fairness and an end to military abuses made him less well loved by the National Guard, and the National Guard answered to Anastasio Somoza. As a condition of peace, Sandino pledged loyalty to the new democratically elected president-- the same president Somoza would depose in a coup two years later -- and those rebel soldiers would either accept government command or lay down their arms. On 21 February 1934, the 38-year-old Sandino was inroute to peace negotiations with the president when he was pulled from his car and murdered by National Guardsmen carrying out orders issued by Somoza,. To ensure that they killed the dream as well as the man, National Guard troops would also slaughtered not only Sandino’s advisers, but also hundreds of men, women, and children living living in an agricultural community.
Augusto Nicolás Sandino
1927
Note His Trademark Wide-Brimmed Hat and High Boots
Individuals are easily slain; not so with dreams. The legend of Sandino became larger than was the man over the decades. In the 1960s insurgents seeking to overthrow the Somoza family united under a common banner. In time, they would name their combined movement after Sandino -- the Sandinista National Liberation Front or, as they are more commonly known, the Sandinistas. Sandino’s dream would find fruition on in July 1979. For decades, the United States had steadfastly remained a faithful ally to the Somoza regime. Oh, to be sure, some human rights atrocity or massacre would somehow be reported on the pages of some major US newspaper on rare occasions, and, under Washington's pressure, the Somoza government would implement some purely cosmetic and always temporary reform. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter decided the United States should not be subsidising murder, torture, and extortion. He cut off military funding, giving the Somoza government to either reform or else. Anastasio Somoza Debayle, third son of Anastasio Somoza and military dictator of Nicaragua, selected “else.” Lacking US support, the regime collapsed the following year, and victorious Sandinistas soldiers marched proudly into the capital city of Managua.
Samuel Johnson, reflecting on the hypocrisy of the fanatically pro-slavery Confederate States during the American Civil War, mordantly observed, "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" Had the great Dr. Johnson lived in the 1980s, he might also have expressed his cynical disdain for the pronounced hypocrisy of Ronald Reagan. We shall return to this topic.
To be sure, the Sandinistas were not flawless. Governments born of war rarely -- no, never are. The men and women of the Sandinista National Liberation Front had spent their entire lives in war. Even as children, the violence was inescapable. They had seen their parents, children, lovers, spouses, siblings, and friends murdered, tortured, or killed in combat. Take, for example, the leading surviving Sandinista leader, Daniel Ortega. As a boy, his mother was arrested by the National Guard: Her love letters were alleged to have been coded messages of some sort. A brother was killed in combat against the National Guard. At the age which American children are learning to cope with high school, Ortega was arrested for being political. Still a teen-age, he received military training. Soon he was raising money for the revolution by robbing banks. Arrested once again, he was severely tortured. Sometimes, his jailors would chain him to the bars where he would be viciously beat. It is possible he would have been slain had he not been freed as part of a fortuitous hostage exchange. Ortega’s history were similar to those of many other Sandinistas. Men and women with such backgrounds, knowing more of rifles and fighting than of books are ill suited to lead a nation. Even so, they did far more fairly, far more humanely, and far more democratically than did the Somoza family. There were no government ordered massacres, the nation’s treasury was not looted, and opposition parties were not banned or slaughtered. They held free elections, and when the Sandinistas eventually lost the national elections, they peacefully handed over control of the government and the military to their conservative opponents.
To be sure, the Sandinistas were not flawless. Governments born of war rarely -- no, never are. The men and women of the Sandinista National Liberation Front had spent their entire lives in war. Even as children, the violence was inescapable. They had seen their parents, children, lovers, spouses, siblings, and friends murdered, tortured, or killed in combat. Take, for example, the leading surviving Sandinista leader, Daniel Ortega. As a boy, his mother was arrested by the National Guard: Her love letters were alleged to have been coded messages of some sort. A brother was killed in combat against the National Guard. At the age which American children are learning to cope with high school, Ortega was arrested for being political. Still a teen-age, he received military training. Soon he was raising money for the revolution by robbing banks. Arrested once again, he was severely tortured. Sometimes, his jailors would chain him to the bars where he would be viciously beat. It is possible he would have been slain had he not been freed as part of a fortuitous hostage exchange. Ortega’s history were similar to those of many other Sandinistas. Men and women with such backgrounds, knowing more of rifles and fighting than of books are ill suited to lead a nation. Even so, they did far more fairly, far more humanely, and far more democratically than did the Somoza family. There were no government ordered massacres, the nation’s treasury was not looted, and opposition parties were not banned or slaughtered. They held free elections, and when the Sandinistas eventually lost the national elections, they peacefully handed over control of the government and the military to their conservative opponents.
Daniel Ortega
Taking Presidential Oath of Office
1985
Let’s returned to President Reagan and his hypocrisy. Reagan is remembered by his followers as a man who loved freedom, republican principles, and moral values. I suspect he believed himself to be such a man. But those who followed his foreign policy witnessed a Reagan seemingly devoid of scruples. Perhaps he actually believed a murderous right wing dictatorship displaying fascists tendencies somehow more morally acceptable than he did a democratically elected, if slightly corrupt, leftist government.
And to be sure, problems certainly existed within the Sandinista ranks. The new leaders were slow in accepting that the press should be free to criticize the revolution. Many of the Sandinistas too often equated political dissent with criminal conduct. Some of the leading Sandinistas took up residence in upscale homes once possessed by wealthy Somoza supporters.
Far more alarming to the United States, the Sandinistas passed weapons and advice across the Golfo de Fonseca to insurgents in neighboring El Salvador. The brutality of the El Salvadoran National Guard was, astonishingly, even more severe than that of Somoza’s uniformed thugs. They were sons-of-a-bitch, if I might borrow the term, but like Anastasio Somoza, they were our sons-of-a-bitch. It was the United States who trained the El Salvadoran National Guard, equipped them, and whitewashed their crimes.
Reagan saw in the Sandinistas not a population reacting to decades of institutionalized human rights abuses. Rather, he saw evidence of International Communism acquiring a foothold on the Central American Isthmus from which it would spread across the entire hemisphere, eventually threatening the United States itself. He even predicted that unless checked, Sandinistas might eventually bring all Central America, from the border of Texas to Panama under Communist dominion. If one looks hard enough for a communist conspiracy, he or she will always find it, and Reagan looked very hard indeed. In those people fighting to protect their lives, their children, and their homes from murderous dictators, Reagan never recognized the victims. Just as he had during the McCarthy “Red Scare” and the United States Civil Rights Movement, he imagined Communist plots unfolding. “This Communist subversion poses the threat that a hundred million people from Panama to the open border of our South could come under the control of pro-Soviet regimes.”
Reagan’s White Knight in his war against the Sandinistas was the Contras, an umbrella term which eventually came to include former Somoza loyalists, anti-Communists, mercenary opportunists, various bandit groups, and even a few disaffected former Sandinistas, all sharing a common ambition of overthrowing and replacing the Sandinistas. Reagan thought the Contras to be the vehicle with which he could undermine a Communist conquest of Central America. American intelligence agencies had been in contact with and frequently aiding the Contras almost since they sprouted following the revolution like poisonous mushrooms after a spring rain.
And so, on 4 January 1982, Reagan would sign into effect National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), a top secret order making Contra success a foreign policy objective of United States the United States government. Now the Contras belonged to the CIA. The boys from Langley eventually united -- theoretically -- the splintered Contras into a confederation of sorts, at least nominally. In reality, any supposed unity existed more in word more than fact. Like predators circling potential prey, each kept a wary eye on the others. Any action threatening the political ambitions of some other Contra leader could and sometimes did prove fatale. But Reagan found in them something grand and noble: “They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance.” Unfortunately, to follow this analogy, you must imagine the Founding Fathers or French Resistance kidnapping and torturing then murdering civilians including children, bombing health clinics, widespread rape, executing humanitarian aid workers, and all sorts of war crimes. The Contras carried out no fewer than 1,300 documented terrorist attacks. The Reagan Administration sought to discredit reports of human rights abuse originating in both Nicaragua and El Salvador, even going so far as to slander the reputation of journalists publishing accurate accounts of the conflicts.
Reagan’s White Knight in his war against the Sandinistas was the Contras, an umbrella term which eventually came to include former Somoza loyalists, anti-Communists, mercenary opportunists, various bandit groups, and even a few disaffected former Sandinistas, all sharing a common ambition of overthrowing and replacing the Sandinistas. Reagan thought the Contras to be the vehicle with which he could undermine a Communist conquest of Central America. American intelligence agencies had been in contact with and frequently aiding the Contras almost since they sprouted following the revolution like poisonous mushrooms after a spring rain.
And so, on 4 January 1982, Reagan would sign into effect National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), a top secret order making Contra success a foreign policy objective of United States the United States government. Now the Contras belonged to the CIA. The boys from Langley eventually united -- theoretically -- the splintered Contras into a confederation of sorts, at least nominally. In reality, any supposed unity existed more in word more than fact. Like predators circling potential prey, each kept a wary eye on the others. Any action threatening the political ambitions of some other Contra leader could and sometimes did prove fatale. But Reagan found in them something grand and noble: “They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance.” Unfortunately, to follow this analogy, you must imagine the Founding Fathers or French Resistance kidnapping and torturing then murdering civilians including children, bombing health clinics, widespread rape, executing humanitarian aid workers, and all sorts of war crimes. The Contras carried out no fewer than 1,300 documented terrorist attacks. The Reagan Administration sought to discredit reports of human rights abuse originating in both Nicaragua and El Salvador, even going so far as to slander the reputation of journalists publishing accurate accounts of the conflicts.
President Ronald Reagan's Equating
the Contras With the American Founding Fathers
Generated Considerable Ridicule
(David Horsey, 1987)
All those murders, all those rapes, all those war crimes boostered by Reagan’s best efforts availed the Contras nothing. Their attacks failed to topple the Sandinista government, and, unsurprisingly, their tactics only alienated the population of Nicaragua. Finally, in October of 1984, Congress, sickened by the steady flow of reports, reporting yet one atrocity after another, banned any further funding.
Reagan’s desire to find a new source of revenue for these vicious men he deemed somehow to be freedom fighters would lead him into the foreign policy blunder that would forever tarnish his name. To secure additional funding, he illegally sold weapons to Iran, then at war with Iraq, and passed the profits on to the Contras. Additional monies were raised by drug dealing by the Contras and their supporters, an activity which the Reagan Administration turned a blind eye.
But that is a story for another day. Now we have music.
By 1982, US trained and funded Death Squads roamed El Salvador and, to a lesser extent, Nicaragua, slaughtering huge numbers of suspected Communists or those thought to be supporters. Sometimes, entire villages were eradicated. In response, the Sandinistas far too frequently, often understandably but never exclusively, escalated the tensions. In one of their rare political songs, the Rolling Stones expressed their disapproval at the inhumanity on display.
By 1982, US trained and funded Death Squads roamed El Salvador and, to a lesser extent, Nicaragua, slaughtering huge numbers of suspected Communists or those thought to be supporters. Sometimes, entire villages were eradicated. In response, the Sandinistas far too frequently, often understandably but never exclusively, escalated the tensions. In one of their rare political songs, the Rolling Stones expressed their disapproval at the inhumanity on display.
“Undercover Of The Night” -- Rolling Stones
Hear the screams from Center 42
Loud enough to bust your brains out
The opposition's tongue is cut in two
Keep off the streets 'cause you're in danger
One hundred thousand disparos
Lost in the jails in South America
Curl up baby
Curl up tight
Curl up baby
Keep it all out of sight
Undercover
Keep it all out of sight
Undercover of the night
The sex police are out there on the streets
Make sure the past laws are not broken
The race militia has got itchy fingers
All the way from New York back to Africa
Curl up baby
Keep it all out of sight
Curl up baby
Sleep with all out of sight
Curl up baby
Keep it all out of sight
Undercover
Undercover
Undercover
Keep it all out of sight
Undercover of the night
All the young men they've rounded up
Sent to camps back in the jungle
And people whisper, people double-talk
At once their fathers act so humble
All the young girls they have got the blues
They're heading on back to Center 42
Keep it undercover
Keep it out of sight
Keep it undercover
Keep it out of sight
Undercover
Keep it out of sight
Undercover
Keep it out of sight
Undercover of the night
Down in the bars, the girls are painted blue
Done up in lace, done up in rubber
The john's are jerky little G.I. Joe's
On R&R from Cuba and Russia
The smell of sex
The smell of suicide
All these things I just can't keep inside
Undercover
Keep it all out of sight
Undercover of the night
Undercover of the night
Undercover of the night
Undercover of the night
Undercover
Undercover, undercover the night
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