Carlos Fonseca - Taking Up Arms

Taking Up Arms

Fidel Castro and the 26th of July Movement took power in Cuba on January 1, 1959. The Cuban Revolution was a major event all over Latin America and sparked both great concern and a sense of possibility in Nicaragua. The Cuban Revolution was a central event in Fonseca's political evolution as it "convinced that revolution was possible and that a new organization was needed to lead it". Just as the Cuban revolution "had been organized outside the framework of the Cuban Communist Party", a Nicaraguan revolutionary movement could be created outside of the PSN and other pre-existing groups.

The rebel victory in Cuba was mirrored by an increase in armed anti-Somoza actions in Nicaragua. Fonseca took part in one such uprising in 1959. In February of that year, Fonseca, as well as many other more prominent Nicaraguan radicals, traveled to Cuba.

In mid-1959, Fonseca joined a Nicaraguan guerrilla brigade which had a training camp in southern Honduras. On June 24, 1959, the brigade was ambushed by Honduran and Nicaraguan troops in Honduras, ending in the death of several rebels and the wounding and capturing of many others, including Fonseca.

This incident marks the end of Fonseca's relationship with the PSN. Whereas Fonseca's revolutionary zeal increased in the aftermath of the ambush, the PSN became convinced that a revolution in Nicaragua was "impossible". Labelling Fonseca and other Nicaraguans who fought in the brigade as too "guerrilla-ist," the PSN expelled Fonseca and the others.

It is a bit unclear how (it has been rumored that his father Fausto Amador pulled strings to free him), but Fonseca managed to leave the military hospital in Honduras where he was taken after the June 24th ambush and went to Cuba. It is at this point that Fonseca "began a serious study of Sandino". Fonseca also began to host political meetings in a small apartment in the Miramar section of Havana. The meetings were frequented by people who would later become part of the FSLN.