Sandino, Augusto César

Sandino, Augusto César (ougs`tō sā`sär sändē`nō), 1895–1934, Nicaraguan revolutionary general. A farmer and a mining engineer, he joined the liberal revolution (1926) against the conservative government headed by Adolfo Díaz and Emiliano Chamorro. He protested against the new U.S. intervention in Nicaragua in 1926 and rejected the Stimson-Moncada agreement for the elections of 1927. On this score Sandino broke with the liberal leader, José María Moncada, and conducted vigorous guerrilla campaigns (1927–33) against the U.S. marines. Never captured but finally reconciled after the withdrawal of the marines, he headed a cooperative farming scheme. In 1934 he was invited to meet with Gen. Anastasio Somoza, and when he did so, he was seized and executed. It is from his name that the Nicaraguan revolutionary group, the Sandinistas, derives its name.

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Sandino, Augusto César 

Born May 18, 1895, in Ni-quinohomo, Masaya Department; died Feb. 21, 1934, in Managua. National hero of the Nicaraguan people. General (1926). Son of a peasant.

Sandino changed his occupation many times, and in search of work he left his native land. He worked in mines in Honduras and Guatemala and in oil fields in Mexico. Upon returning to his homeland in 1926, he joined the national liberation struggle against the American imperialists and reactionary forces within the country. The partisan struggle that he led in mid-1927 against the US troops that were occupying Nicaragua grew into a civil war, and led to the liberation of the country from the occupation forces in January 1933. In February 1934, Sandino, who had been summoned to Managua for official talks with the government on ending the civil war, was treacherously killed.

REFERENCE

Gonionskii, S. A. Sandino. Moscow, 1965.