Backpack Journalism Blog

8 JULY 1979 — Unlike the September 1978 insurrection that briefly rocked the country, the 1979 Final Offensive was an all-or-nothing slugfest, and most Nicaraguans seemed to understand this. The Sandinistas poured everything they had into steering, and staying ahead of, the popular insurrection to topple the Somoza regime. And the regime fought back with all the might it could muster.

With the insurgents gaining ground across the country, the increasingly desperate Somoza, his National Guard and civilian vigilantes lashed out at their enemies – both real and perceived. In the picture above, a Nicaraguan Red Cross official examines bodies of young men dumped like garbage off the side of a road leading out of the capital. The official was looking for hospital workers who had been abducted, presumably by government-backed death squads, for suspected collaboration with “the enemy.”

It was a terribly dangerous time for all Nicaraguans.

The final days of the Somoza regime remind me of something that Dr. Alberto Baca Navas once told me. A brilliant Nicaraguan attorney and father of my first wife, Claudia, Dr. Baca Navas said: “Los últimos coletazos de una ballena herida son los mas peligrosos.” Or, “The last flailing of a wounded whale is the most dangerous.”

As I re-watch the slow, violent demise of one of Latin America’s most notorious dictatorships, I know that he was right.

The image making and storytelling skills I acquired during this conflict are the foundation of my role today as backpack journalist. As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, I’m posting scans of some of the original images I made for UPI during that war, and explaining their significance. I do this in recognition and gratitude to the country and people who have given me so much. Thank you.

8 JULY 1979 — Thirty years ago, this image impressed upon me the profound disconnect between what a country’s armed forces contended to be and what they actually were. Three decades after I made this picture, that impression is the same. What is most sad about this image, I think, is that the National Guard member pictured in it was probably as trapped by circumstance as were the poor young boys in his grasp.

Poverty. Illiteracy. Misery. Not exactly ingredients for enlightenment.

Just moments after I made this image, the commanding officer of the patrol expelled me from the group. I think he understood what I saw.

The image making and storytelling skills I acquired during this conflict are the foundation of my role today as backpack journalist. As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, I’m posting scans of some of the original images I made for UPI during that war, and explaining their significance. I do this in recognition and gratitude to the country and people who have given me so much. Thank you.

7 JULY 1970 — It was clear to most observers at this point in the conflict that the Somoza regime had lost the hearts and minds of the Nicaraguan population. Somoza’s National Guard had become an occupying force in its own land, and most ordinary Nicaraguans regarded its members with profound fear and loathing. And the tactics displayed in the photograph above only hardened the hearts of a people that had endured the abuses of the National Guard for far too long.

Check this blog later today for an image that speaks volumes about the extraordinary disconnect between a people and the armed force that was supposed to serve and protect them.

The image making and storytelling skills I acquired during this conflict are the foundation of my role today as backpack journalist. As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, I’m posting scans of some of the original images I made for UPI during that war, and explaining their significance. I do this in recognition and gratitude to the country and people who have given me so much. Thank you.

7 JULY 1979 — National Guardsmen sweep the village of Nindiri as part of their push to re-take the nearby city of Masaya. The look of exhaustion and apprehension on the young guardsman pictured above reflects the cumulative toll that weeks of fighting are exacting from us all.

The image making and storytelling skills I acquired during this conflict are the foundation of my role today as backpack journalist. As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, I’m posting scans of some of the original images I made for UPI during that war, and explaining their significance. I do this in recognition and gratitude to the country and people who have given me so much. Thank you.

6 JULY 1979 — Nicaragua by this time had become a land disrupted. Normal life no longer existed. Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans had either fled the country or taken refuge away from their homes to stay clear of the violence. The poor, of course, are always the most victimized in these conflicts, because their alternatives are so few.

So conspicuous in these photos, especially as I look at them today, is the absence of young men among the civilian population. Teenage boys and young men feared that the National Guard would accuse them of collaboration with the Sandinistas, which could be a death sentence. So they disappeared.

The image making and storytelling skills I acquired during this conflict are the foundation of my role today as backpack journalist. As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, I’m posting scans of some of the original images I made for UPI during that war, and explaining their significance. I do this in recognition and gratitude to the country and people who have given me so much. Thank you.

6 JULY 1979 — The civilian population in any conflict suffers the most, and the conflict in Nicaragua was no exception. Caught in the middle of two armed forces, civilians struggle for the basics to survive. Food. Water. Shelter.

And they struggle not to incur the suspicion or the wrath of the contending forces. Human rights organizations around the world accused Somoza’s National Guard of routine, summary executions of Nicaraguan boys and men suspected of collaborating with Sandinista insurgents. As the war dragged on, we documented the civilian population fleeing their homes to take cover anywhere they could.

On the road to the city of Leon myself and colleagues stopped at a school that had turned into a refugee camp run by American nuns. The nuns told us that the National Guard had come by a number of times looking for Sandinista insurgents hiding out among the refugees. And government planes had been flying overhead, a little too close for comfort. These were the same small planes that Somoza had been using to rocket and bomb poor “barrios” in Managua. The nuns were worried.

That night, back at the hotel where the foreign press corps was staying, I called President Somoza’s bunker — and actually got him on the line. I told him that I had visited the school, that there were no Sandinistas hiding out there, and that the nuns were concerned for everybody’s safety.

“We won’t bother them if they don’t bother us,” the president of Nicaragua told me.

A few days later I returned to the school to pass on Somoza’s message. The nuns were elated. After the war one of the nuns sent me a copy of her order’s internal publication, in which she had written about the incident and mentioned me by name.

I had sporadic contact with the nuns after that, as some of them stayed on in Nicaragua after the war, but we eventually lost track of each other.

The image making and storytelling skills I acquired during this conflict are the foundation of my role today as backpack journalist. As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, I’m posting scans of some of the original images I made for UPI during that war, and explaining their significance. I do this in recognition and gratitude to the country and people who have given me so much. Thank you.

27 JUNE 1979 — Members of President Anastasio Somoza’s National Guard fire at Sandinista insurgents during heavy fighting along the contested northern highway leading from the capital of Managua to the international airport. As in too many of these conflicts, this war pitted neighbor against neighbor, family against family, brother against brother. While reviewing these images that I made three decades ago, I am struck by how much the combatants from opposite sides of the firing line resemble each other.

One of the defining characteristics of this, and other conflicts in Central America, was the fact that journalists like myself were able to move across battle lines from one group of combatants to another, allowing us to cover both sides of the conflict. This also made our job exceedingly dangerous, as this fluidity also meant that we sometimes were caught in the line of fire between the two. And this is how too many of my colleagues were killed.

The image making and storytelling skills I acquired during this conflict are the foundation of my role today as backpack journalist. As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, I’m posting scans of some of the original images I made for UPI during that war, and explaining their significance. I do this in recognition and gratitude to the country and people who have given me so much. Thank you.