Anastasio Somoza Debayle - Fall

Fall

In 1975 Somoza Debayle launched a campaign to crush the Sandinistas; individuals suspected of supporting the Front were targeted. The Front, named after Augusto César Sandino (a Nicaraguan rebel leader in the 1920s), began its guerrilla war against the Somozas in 1963 and was funded by Cuba under Fidel Castro and the Soviet Union. Support for the Sandinistas ballooned after the earthquake, especially when U.S President Jimmy Carter withdrew American support for the regime for human rights reasons.

At this point, the opposition to the Somozas included not only Sandinistas, but other prominent figures such as Pedro Chamorro (assassinated on January 10, 1978). Israel was the last supplier of weapons to the Somoza regime, because during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, Somoza's father provided substantial financial support for Israel. Carter forced the Israeli government to call back a ship carrying weapons vital to the survival of the Somoza regime.

Because of his status, most of his family members were forced to flee into Honduras, Guatemala, and the United States, it is uncertain where the remaining Somozas live given the fact that they changed their names to protect their own lives.

In July 1979, Somoza resigned the presidency and fled to Miami in a converted Curtiss C-46. He was denied entry to the U.S. by President Carter. He later took refuge in Paraguay, then under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. He bought a ranch and a gated house at Avenida de España no. 433 in Asunción. Somoza's regime only survived him by a day, when the Sandinistas captured Managua.