They instituted literacy programs, nationalization, land reform, and devoted significant resources to healthcare, but came under international criticism for human rights abuses, including mass execution and oppression of indigenous peoples.

In 1957 Carlos Fonseca Amador, Silvio Mayorga, Tomás Borge, Oswaldo Madriz y Heriberto Carrillo formed the first cell of the Nicaraguan Revolutionary Committee who identified with the issues of the proletariat.

The guerrilla fighters "Rigoberto López Pérez"[45] under the command of Rafael Somarriba (in which Carlos Fonseca was integrated) was found and annihilated by the Honduran Army in coordination with the intelligence services of the Nicaraguan National Guard.

[55] In December 1974, a guerrilla group affiliated with FSLN directed by Eduardo Contreras and Germán Pomares seized government hostages at a party in the house of the Minister of Agriculture in the Managua suburb Los Robles, among them several leading Nicaraguan officials and Somoza relatives.

The GPP was based on the "accumulation of forces in silence": while the urban organization recruited on the university campuses and robbed money from banks, the main cadres were to permanently settle in the north central mountain zone.

On January 10, 1978, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, the editor of the opposition newspaper La Prensa and leader of the "Democratic Union of Liberation" (Unión Democrática de Liberación – UDEL), was assassinated.

[75] Upon assuming power, the FSLN's official political platform included nationalization of property owned by the Somozas and their supporters; land reform; improved rural and urban working conditions; free unionization for all workers, both urban and rural; price fixing for commodities of basic necessity; improved public services, housing conditions, education; abolition of torture, political assassination and the death penalty; protection of democratic liberties; equality for women; non-aligned foreign policy; and formation of a "popular army" under the leadership of the FSLN and Humberto Ortega.

His administration authorized the CIA to begin financing, arming and training rebels, most of whom were the remnants of Somoza's National Guard, as anti-Sandinista guerrillas that were branded "counter-revolutionary" by leftists (contrarrevolucionarios in Spanish).

As was typical in guerrilla warfare, they were engaged in a campaign of economic sabotage in an attempt to combat the Sandinista government and disrupted shipping by planting underwater mines in Nicaragua's Corinto harbour,[85] an action condemned by the International Court of Justice as illegal.

[90] When this scheme was revealed, Reagan admitted that he knew about Iranian "arms for hostages" dealings but professed ignorance about the proceeds funding the Contras; for this, National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Oliver North took much of the blame.

Contras based in Costa Rica operated on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, which is sparsely populated by indigenous groups including the Miskito, Sumo, Rama, Garifuna, and Mestizo.

[103] Consequently, when the elections went ahead the U.S. raised objections based upon political restrictions instituted by the State of Emergency (e.g., censorship of the press, cancellation of habeas corpus, and the curtailing of free assembly).

[110] The Library of Congress Country Studies on Nicaragua states: Despite limited resources and poor organization, the UNO coalition under Violeta Chamorro directed a campaign centered around the failing economy and promises of peace.

Ramírez also founded a separate political party, the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS); his faction came to be known as the renovistas, who favor a more social democratic approach than the ortodoxos, or hardliners.

[120] The Confidential newspaper and other media were seized and taken by the government of Daniel Ortega[121] Several service stations of the Puma brand were closed on the afternoon, December 20, by representatives of the Nicaraguan Energy Institute (INE), a state entity that has the mandate to regulate, among others, the hydrocarbons sector.

The ideology of Sandinismo gained momentum in 1974, when a Sandinista-initiated hostage situation resulted in the Somoza government adhering to FSLN demands and publicly printing and airing work on Sandino in well known newspapers and media outlets.

Generally however, most Sandinistas associated Sandino on a more practical level, as a heroic and honest person who tried to combat the evil forces of imperialist national and international governments that existed in Nicaragua's history.

Once the Sandinistas assumed power, Cuba gave Nicaragua military advice, as well as aid in education, health care, vocational training and industry building for the impoverished Nicaraguan economy.

According to Cambridge University historian Christopher Andrew, who undertook the task of processing the Mitrokhin Archive, Carlos Fonseca Amador, one of the original three founding members of the FSLN had been recruited by the KGB in 1959 while on a trip to Moscow.

This was one part of Aleksandr Shelepin's 'grand strategy' of using national liberation movements as a spearhead of the Soviet Union's foreign policy in the Third World, and in 1960 the KGB organized funding and training for twelve individuals that Fonseca handpicked.

Left-wing Nicaraguan priests replaced the traditional imaginery of 'New Jerusalem' with 'New Havana', and argued for the necessity of embracing the option for the poor and committing onself to Marxist revolution in order to be a 'true Catholic'.

[165] During the revolution, the Catholic Church's relationship with the Sandinistas grew so close that even sacraments acquired a revolutionary meaning - one priest reportedly baptized a newborn girl by saying: “Let all selfishness, capitalism, Somozism, go out of this little girl.”[168] Numerous Christian base communities (CEBs) were created in which lower level clergy and laity took part in consciousness raising initiatives to educate the peasants about the institutionalized violence they were suffering from.

Analyzing the conflict, John M. Kirk concluded: “For their part, the Sandinistas can be criticized for their lack of sensitivity to the hierarchy’s concerns — for it should have been obvious that education had long been regarded as the bailiwick of Church leaders.

[170] Phillip Berryman concludes that the growing tension between the Sandinistas and the Catholic Church was a result of constant misinterpretations and misunderstanding between both sides, combined with interference of foreign conservative clergymen.

But the FSLN has turned against Archbishop Obando, calling him an anti-Christ, because he has challenged their human rights violations and their systematic elimination of the political opposition.The Sandinistas' relationship with the Church deteriorated as the Contra War continued.

The Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (Nicaraguan Human Rights Center, Cenidh) said that the Church had been the victim of 24 attacks since April 2018,[175] including a fire that began in the Immaculate Conception Cathedral when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a sacred image of the Blood of Christ on July 31, 2020.

In their report, the delegation organized by the Division of Overseas Ministries of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States concluded that there is 'no basis for the charge of systematic religious persecution'.

The CIIR was critical of the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (PCHR or CPDH in Spanish), claiming that the organisation had a tendency to immediately publish accusations against the government without first establishing a factual basis for the allegations.

The CIIR report also questioned the independence of the Permanent Commission on Human Rights, referring to an article in The Washington Post which claims that the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization funded by the US government, allocated a concession of US$50,000 for assistance in the translation and distribution outside Nicaragua of its monthly report, and that these funds were administered by the Committee for Democracy in Central America (Prodemca), a US-based organization which later published full-page advertisements in The Washington Post and The New York Times supporting military aid to the Contras.

In the report, Laverty observes that: "The entire board of directors [of the Permanent Commission], are members of or closely identify with the 'Nicaraguan Democratic Coordinating Committee' (Coordinadora), an alliance of the more right wing parties and COSEP, the business organization."