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AdiÓs Muchachos is a candid insider’s account of the leftist Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. During the 1970s, Sergio RamÍrez led prominent intellectuals, priests, and business leaders to support the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), against Anastasio Somoza’s dictatorship. After the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979, RamÍrez served as vice-president under Daniel Ortega from 1985 until 1990, when the FSLN lost power in a national election. Disillusioned by his former comrades’ increasing intolerance of dissent and resistance to democratization, RamÍrez defected from the Sandinistas in 1995 and founded the Sandinista Renovation Movement. In AdiÓs Muchachos, he describes the utopian aspirations for liberation and reform that motivated the Sandinista revolution against the Somoza regime, as well as the triumphs and shortcomings of the movement’s leadership as it struggled to turn an insurrection into a government, reconstruct a country beset by poverty and internal conflict, and defend the revolution against the Contras, an armed counterinsurgency supported by the United States. AdiÓs Muchachos was first published in 1999. Based on a later edition, this translation includes RamÍrez’s thoughts on more recent developments, including the re-election of Daniel Ortega as president in 2006.
List of contents
Preface to the Spanish Edition, Published in 2007 / The Shadow of the
Caudillo xi
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction 1
1. Partial Confession 5
2. Saintly Living 17
3. The Age of Innocence 35
4. The Swan over the Burning Coals 49
5. The Age of Malice 65
6. Monkey on a Leash 81
7. Manifest Destiny 93
8. The Likely Number Thirteen 113
9. Heaven on Earth 127
10. The Year of the Pig 143
11. Rivers of Milk and Honey 159
12. The Palace at Last! 173
13. Saturn's Jaws 191
Epilogue 207
Chronology, 1979-1990 211
Glossary 223
Index 229
Summary
Sergio Ramírez, Vice President of Nicaragua from 1984 to 1990, offers his memoir of the turbulent years that toppled the Samoza dictatorship in 1979 and the triumphs and shortcomings of the Sandinista National Liberation Front that was charged with national reconstruction and social transformation in a country besieged by internal conflicts and foreign aggression.
