Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Enter the USA
In 1893 a Liberal general named José Santos Zelaya deposed the Conservative president
and became dictator. Zelaya soon antagonized the US by seeking a canal deal with Ger-
many and Japan. Encouraged by Washington, which sought to monopolize a transisthmian
canal in Panama, the Conservatives rebelled in 1909.
After Zelaya ordered the execution of two US mercenaries accused of aiding the Conser-
vatives, the American government forced his resignation, sending marines as a coercive
measure. Thus began a period of two decades of US political intervention in Nicaragua - it
installed presidents it favored and ousted those that it didn't, using the marines as persua-
sion, leading
Foreign Policy
magazine to label governments of this era 'US surrogate re-
gimes'. In 1925 a new cycle of violence began with a Conservative coup.
The Conservative regime was opposed by a group of Liberal rebels including Augusto C
Sandino, who recruited local peasants in the north of the country and eventually became
leader of a long-term rebel campaign resisting US involvement.
