i Patrick W. Staib Anthropology This dissertation is approved, and it ...

In an ironic turn of events, the Sandinista administration confiscated land from the
Somoza family and their allies beginning in 1981 in order to redistribute it to those who
had previously worked the land or in many cases to the urban poor. In the end, as shown
in Chapter Three, mid-level bureaucrats and functionaries were able to acquire that land
from the campesinos who had received it through the revolutionary reform. Many ex-
Sandinista officials have since accumulated large tracts through coercive measures that
forced campesinos to sell to them, practicing the very evil they had fought against.
It is no coincidence that San Juan del Río Coco supplied many of the troops and
sympathizers for the clandestine anti-Somoza movement that began in 1960. After
Sandino’s assassination in 1934, his troops likely returned to work and family life, only
to rise again as the insurrection began to gain appeal in the 1960s. Cantagallo, a
community near Condega, south of Palacagüina, was the secret training grounds for
Sandinista insurgents prior to the revolutionary triumph. Danilo pointed this place out
each time we drove out of San Juan towards Telpaneca:“Allí queda Cantagallo donde
prepararon a los mas potentes compañeros del la guerra (There’s Cantagallo, where they
trained the strongest fighters in the war),” he would say.
This area was significant during the Contra War as well. 27 Frequently, as I walked
through remote stretches of farmland, my companions would point into the distance and
tell of battles that occurred along certain ridges along El Lechón, or standoffs that
happened on the trail to El Malacate peak. There are still minefields that have not yet
been cleared.
27 Contra (“against”) is an abbreviated name for the counterrevolution, or
contrarevolución, waged against the Sandinista government. The Contra War, 1981–
1988, was a U.S.- funded counteroffensive comprising several anti-Sandinista factions
and former Somoza Guardia Nacional (Kinzer 2007).
63