We knew that Somoza was a son of American policy. And we were convinced that the Yankees were going to invade our country. This was one of our concerns from the time we were kids. The clear message that an invasion would come was brought by Thomas O. Enders, under secretary of State during the early Reagan years. When he came to Managua in 1981, he told me that the United States was not willing to allow another Cuba on the American continent. Therefore, if we didn’t want to confront the United States, we would have to reject arms from the Soviet Union. I told him that we were a sovereign state. The arms from the Soviets were for the defense of the country. Then Enders told me, “You don’t get anything by arming yourselves, because you’re very small and we’re very big.” The CIA began to conduct covert operations, and when the U.S. trade embargo began, we realized we had to prepare the country.
If the United States had not launched [a] war against Nicaragua, there would not have been a contra revolution. But we triumphed in the 1984 elections. The U.S. government tried to put pressure on various political groups to boycott the election. Ronald Reagan’s idea was to take away the election’s legitimacy because [he] wanted to sweep the revolution away. In 1989 we put tanks in front of the U.S. Embassy here in Managua after U.S. soldiers entered our embassy in Panama. The U.S. invasion there hurt us in the 1990 presidential election. Losing that was a difficult moment. But it did not signify the loss of revolutionary power. The change in this country was so profound that it opened spaces that will make it possible for the Sandinistas to return to power.
My husband was very apprehensive about the rally. He [wondered] whether the crowd would be big enough. [But later] we saw this huge, joyful crowd. It was like a carnival. He didn’t look worried, but [worry] never left my mind. At one point a reporter asked me if my husband was wearing a bulletproof vest. I looked at her and said, “What are you talking about? He never wears a bulletproof vest.” As we were going down the stairs [at the end of the rally], I said to the man in charge of security, “Thank God, everything went well,” meaning that the crowd was safe. And he said to me, “So far.” Two minutes later there were the bullets.
