Background information - Somoza and the Sandinista Revolution

Under the Somoza dictatorship, the lands of Nicaragua were divided into large estates, often owned by foreingers or people of foreign decent, supporters of the Somoza dictatorship, or members of the Somoza family themselves. 80% of the airable land in Nicaragua made up these large estates.

When the Sandinistas took power in 1979 many things changed. Through argicultural reform, the lands of the Somoza family and their associates were confiscated. Many large land owners, fearing the same would happen to their property, left Nicaragua for their countries of origin, or the United States. The land they left behind, and other lands confiscated, where turned into state farms, peasant co-operatives, and other small farms owned by individual campesinos (peasant farmers). This was the Sandinista way of returning the lands of Nicaragua back to the Nicaraguan people.

When the Sandinistas lost power in 1990, Violeta Chamorro was elected and the rules of land distribution changed yet again. Should the peasants now occupying the land, in many cases without formal titles, be considered the owners? Or should Somoza era landlords be allowed to reclaim the lands lost or left behind in 1979?

Chamorro´s government pay reparations to many landowners of the Somoza era. But in many cases, with the help of the United States, Somoza era landlords were able to reclaim what they had lost. The peasants owners and peasants working on state farms and co-operatives where therefore forced to return to the status of low paid workers on large privately owned estates.

In many cases they were not able to cultivate crops for local consumption. The land was converted back into large export crop plantations, where cash crops such as coffee are grown. Using the campesinos as cheap labor, the landlord can sell the coffee on the international market and make a large profit. Without local crops to rely on, the campesino is forced to try to feed his family with the meager wage of about $1 per day. Today, 80% of Nicaraguans live in poverty.