Background
The first armed intervention by the United States in Nicaragua occurred under President Taft. In 1909, he ordered the overthrow of Nicaraguan President José Santos Zelaya. During August and September 1912, a contingent of 2300 U.S. Marines landed at the port of Corinto and occupied León and the railway line to Granada. A pro-U.S. government was formed under the occupation. The 1914 Bryan-Chamorro Treaty granted perpetual canal rights to the U.S. in Nicaragua and was signed ten days before the U.S.-operated Panama Canal opened for use, thus preventing anyone from building a competing canal in Nicaragua without U.S. permission.
In 1927, under Augusto César Sandino, a major peasant uprising was launched against both the U.S. occupation and the Nicaraguan establishment. In 1933, the Marines withdrew and left the National Guard in charge of internal security and elections. In 1934, Anastasio Somoza García, the head of the National Guard, ordered his forces to capture and murder Sandino. In 1937, Somoza assumed the presidency, while still in control of the National Guard, and established a dictatorship that his family controlled until 1979.
The downfall of the regime is attributed to its embezzlement of millions of dollars in foreign aid that was given to the country in response to the devastating 1972 earthquake. Many moderate supporters of the dictatorship began abandoning it in the face of growing revolutionary sentiment. The Sandinista (FLSN) movement organized relief, began to expand its influence and assumed the leadership of the revolution. A popular uprising brought the FSLN to power in 1979. The United States had long been opposed to the socialist FSLN (communist in the 1980's), and after the revolution the Carter administration moved quickly to support the Somocistas with financial and material aid. When Ronald Reagan took office, he augmented the direct support to an anti-Sandinista group, called the Contras, which included factions loyal to the former dictatorship. When Congress prohibited further funding to the Contras, Reagan continued the funding through arms sales that were also prohibited by Congress.
There have been no reported cases of Nicaraguan armed intervention against the United States.
Read more about this topic: Nicaragua V. United States
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