28 JUNE 1979 – This is what I witnessed as I drove over back roads early on the morning of 28 June 1979 to drop a colleague off at the airport. Hundreds of Sandinista fighters and supporters retreated from Managua because, as one of them said, the civilian population was being hammered by government forces’ […]
25 JUNE 1979 — A tenuous lull in fighting erupts into gunfire between members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) (above) and the National Guard of Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza. The image making and storytelling skills I acquired during this conflict are the foundation of my role today as backpack journalist. As we mark […]
25 JUNE 1979 — Sandinista fighters occupying Managua during the “Ofensiva Final” against the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship defend positions built with paving stones ripped out of the northern highway leading to the Nicaraguan International Airport. The image making and storytelling skills I acquired during this conflict are the foundation of my role today as backpack […]
25 JUNE 1979 — Sandinista insurgents like this one occupy slums ringing the Nicaraguan capital. Government planes shoot rockets and dump explosives on their positions, causing horrific civilian casualties. Those of us in the press corps who remain in Nicaragua after Bill Stewart’s execution and subsequent media evacuation witness the spread of the conflict, quite […]
It was this time of year three decades ago, in the sweltering heat of a Nicaraguan summer, that I covered conflict for the first time. The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) ousted the U.S.-backed family dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in a war that left some 30,000 dead. That’s Somoza above, outside his bunker in Managua, […]