You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little.
What you brought home, I blew away.
Haggai, 1:9


The study of failed prophecy has become an established area of academic interest within millenarianism scholarship and cases of groups whose expectations spill into the political realm continue to be carefully documented.[1] Similarly, scholars are now vigorously exploring the violent tendencies of chiliastic groups among which are found peripheral religious groups and environmentalists.[2] This paper presents the case of Nicaraguan rebel Augusto Sandino (1895-1934), who failed to defeat the US Marines occupying his country between 1927-1933. I interpret Sandino's peculiar brand of violence as a response to his revolutionary failure and as a means to achieve his eschatological goal. Both go hand in hand for I argue that Sandino used two related methods in his attempt to transform the world in response to failed prophecy: proselytizing and violence.

Sandino was a violent man. But a violent disposition alone can not fully explain the kind of violence he inflicted upon his adversaries. Yet, the literature on Sandino has hardly addressed this issue. While some writers have only brushed the topic, often without an objective framework of reference, Sandino's followers have remained silent, taking for granted that violence is a revolutionary necessity. There is thus a need for a fresh look and this essay seeks to address that need. The paper is divided into three main segments. The first presents the core of the theories about millennialism and the Failure of Prophecy. A discussion of Sandino's messianism, which addresses the experiences, ideas and actions of the guerrilla leader precedes a short conclusion.

The Framework
1. Millenarianism
The term millenarian comes from the word millennium, which literally means a thousand years. Millenarianism refers to an apocalyptic tradition. The Book of Revelations (Rev. 20) states that Christ will return to defeat and imprison the devil. He then will establish the Kingdom of God and rule for one thousand years. At the end of this millennium the devil will be freed, only to be finally destroyed, and this victory will lead to the final redemption of God's people.
Today, the term millenarianism is used to denote an expected age of perfection on earth. Religions that pursue this type of salvation are identified as millenarian. In his ground-breaking piece The Pursuit of the Millennium, Norman Cohn defines millenarianism as the expectation for collective, terrestrial, imminent, total and miraculous salvation.[3] Although the term was initially used to designate religious movements, later studies have shown that the secular ideologies of revolutionary movements may also be millenarian.[4] That Sandino was a millenarian messiah has been demonstrated at length elsewhere, and given the economy of space it will not occupy us here in great detail.[5]

2. The Failure of Prophecy
Augusto Sandino made predictions about the end of the world, but his predictions can not yet be verified. We are a few years from the end he announced for the year 2,000. However, the structure of the failure of prophecy is still applicable to Sandino concerning a more mundane announcement, victory over the American Marines. Sandino predicted their defeat as he developed an increasingly apocalyptic outlook but it never materialised.

So how do individuals react in the face of unfulfilled prophecies or, as it is called, disconfirmation? There are three possible responses. An individual may choose to leave the group in the face of disconfirmation. Second, he may resume proselytising with greater intensity than before. Finally, he may resort to reinterpreting the purposes and doctrines of the movement. This reinterpretation may entail the toning down or the intensifying of the message. The third point does not exclude the second, as the case of Sandino will show. The seminal work in the area is When Prophecy Fails, by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schacter. It is a careful study of the development of a group calling themselves the Seekers, who followed a woman that claimed to receive revelations from extraterrestrials. She announced that the world would be destroyed on a specific date and that believers would be whisked from the earth in a spaceship to avert the catastrophe.[6] The date arrived and nothing changed.

When predicted events do not occur, believers have difficulty leaving the movement, an action that is tantamount to admitting they were wrong. The corpus of millenarian literature has noted the intensity with which people become involved in the activities and the promises of these movements. Not surprisingly, therefore, it is difficult for members to leave, or to admit that they were wrong in the face of the ridiculing comments of those who never accepted the movement.
In their study, Festinger and colleagues examined the conditions under which the Seekers reacted after "disconfirmation." When predictions are not matched by reality, they postulate, there occurs "cognitive dissonance." "Two opinions, or beliefs, or items of knowledge are dissonant with each other if they do not fit together. ...if they are not consistent or, ...if one does not follow from the other."[7] Furthermore, they assume that "dissonance produces discomfort and, correspondingly, there will arise pressures to reduce or to eliminate the dissonance."[8] Given the engaging nature of millenarian beliefs one cannot easily turn away from the discomfort of the dissonance by ignoring it or rationalising it, but it can be reduced, they argue, "if more and more people can be persuaded that the system of beliefs is correct, then clearly it must, after all, be correct.[9] They then resort to proselytising as to win more people over to the "faith."

In essence, Festinger et al. noted that rather than questioning the basis of the belief, followers attempt to reduce the inner conflict by changing the outside features; rather than undergoing personal changes, they attempt to eradicate what causes or reminds them of the conflict. They identified five conditions for this transformation to take place. (1) Beliefs must be held with conviction, (2) there must be a strong commitment to act on that belief, (3) the possibility of disconfirming a belief must exist, (4) the disconfirmation must take place, and (5) the believer must have social support following disconfirmation.[10] When these conditions are present, it is said, believers begin a campaign of conversion around them so that they can re-adapt the environmental conditions to their beliefs and reduce the effect of cognitive dissonance.

The question of reinterpretation of doctrine following failure may be directed toward changes in the date of expectation, for instance, or blaming failure on a misreading of the divine revelation. It may sometimes cause the believers to reinterpret the purpose of their personal lives or their reading of events in history. Let us now turn to Sandino's life.

Prophet and Messiah.
Under the pressures of political life and its many disappointments, Sandino slowly developed from a spiritually yearning individual who became a revolutionary guerrilla commander, to a full blown self-styled messiah who believed himself to be divine incarnation. The transformation in question took place in nearly twelve months.

1. Inflated Expectations
Sandino predicted a crushing victory over the American forces that occupied Nicaragua. One can trace the events setting the stage for Sandino's predictions and failure back to the time that his principal propagandist, Froylán Turcios, left his service in 1928. Turcios' departure was a major setback for Sandino. The Honduran writer had skillfully toiled to get Sandino's message out from the remoteness of the Segovian mountains. He had been his line of "communication with the world." Craving international exposure, Sandino assigned his Mexican "representation" to the Comintern-controlled Comité Manos Fuera de Nicaragua (Hands Off Nicaragua Committee --Mafuenic)[11] but it was not nearly as successful as Turcios. So the rebel decided to go to Mexico to enhance his image and to obtain money, weapons and support for his cause.

Sandino invested considerable time and effort in planning his trip to Mexico, especially if one considers that he was in the middle of a jungle guerrilla war. In January 1929 he wrote to Mexican President Emilio Portes Gil to request entry and "protection" in that country so that he could come in person to announce his "far-reaching projects" for Latin America.[12] The Mexican president agreed to receive him and the "invitation" boosted Sandino's opinion of himself. He soon began to write to heads of state as though he were now one among them.
Sandino felt uneasy about abandoning his fight in the mountains, albeit temporarily. He wrote an open letter to US President Herbert Hoover wishing to make it clear that the his impending trip in no way represented an abandonment of his struggle. "Upon reason, justice and right," he wrote, "I have reinforced my stand in opposition to the policy you pursue against my motherland."[13] He also wrote to the presidents of all Central American republics seeking support.[14] He then asked Argentina's President Hipólito Irigoyen to host a conference of Latin American states in Buenos Aires but without waiting to receive a reply from Irigoyen, he invited all Latin American presidents to participate. Sandino chose these letters to reveal his understanding that destiny had selected Nicaragua to lead the cause of a new regional union based on race.

It was written in the destiny of our [Latin American] peoples that our humbled and disgraced Nicaragua would be the one authorized to call us to unity with a brotherly embrace. She is the one who has sacrificed herself, and would gladly allow her entrails to be torn if by this means she might achieve the freedom and absolute independence of our Latin American, continental and Antillean, peoples.[15]

In essence, Sandino's trip to Mexico was a search for more notoriety. It was rooted in high optimism and the barrage of letters he sent to heads of states fed that optimism. The correspondence conveys the enormous expectations Sandino placed upon this trip. These expectations would later be met by a seemingly incessant string of bitter disappointments.

The state honors that Sandino hoped to receive upon arriving in Mexico did not take place, and so the disappointments began. Instead, customs officers humiliated him and then relegated him to Mérida, in Yucatán, far from the political crux of the country. It was a long-established practice in Mexico to "deport" political trouble-makers to the state of Yucatán. In Mérida, he waited, month after long month. In the meantime, while keeping him under close surveillance, the Mexican government handed him a monthly allowance.[16] But the assistance was not enough for an entourage as large as his and he was soon forced to ask for donations from local sympathizers to make ends meet.
Five months after his arrival, worried and impatient, Sandino wrote to Portes Gil complaining that he had "...not seen the smallest sign of fulfillment of the expectations that motivated us to travel to Mexico." He was convinced the president was "secretly denying him an interview."[17] Yet, he must have had some hope to the contrary because he waited. Still, he continued to think there was a conspiratorial plot to lure him and keep him out of Nicaragua.[18]

1.1 Spiritualist Refuge
Sandino's stay in Mexico for nearly a year intensely transformed his life. While anxiously waiting for the expected aid, he continued the esoteric training he had begun in his prior visit to Mexico. He rekindled his relationship with the Freemasons and became an active member of the Magnetic-Spiritualist School of the Universal Commune (EMECU), founded in Argentina by the Basque electrician Joaquín Trincado. Sandino's association with the EMECU had a profound and lasting impact on him.

Trincado constructed an elaborate speculative system of "spiritual magnetism," which he understood as an omnipresent substance consubstantial with the human spirit that governed the universe. He called this doctrine "spiritism of Light and Truth." Sandino read several of Trincado's works. He studied with close attention Los cinco amores, in which Trincado argued the existence of five realms of love, each higher than the other. Trincado thought that men move toward, and would soon reach, the perfect form of love, universal love. At the final stage he envisaged a universal commune where all things would be held in common, the hate caused by religions would disappear and there would exist one single race (the Hispanic race) with one single language (Spanish) in universal brotherhood.[19]

Trincado ardently opposed organized religion and Bolshevik Communism in favor of his own solidarity of the spirit, which would soon replace religion. In his first doctrinal treatise called Filosofía austera racional, he made his point with a rhetoric of violence: "We will save humanity at the cost of destroying all religions," he wrote.[20] Trincado's own millenarian expectations strongly influenced Sandino. For Trincado, the final knowledge to reach perfection in this world had been attained in the knowledge of electromagnetism, whose effects were already at work promoting the advancement of the "New Age."[21]
Sandino became increasingly depressed waiting in Mérida: he felt overwhelmed by humiliation, poverty, uncertainty and deceit. He found some comfort in the affection of his Salvadorian mistress but his mystical-spiritualist sessions and books became his principal refuge.

1.2 The Prophecy
The new religious awakening did not weaken Sandino's resolve and political convictions but neither did it abate his anxiety. His private correspondence betrayed his frustration. He began to think of his trip to Mexico as a mistake and to doubt that he would get any aid from the Mexican government.[22] Although he thought of leaving, he was ashamed to return empty-handed, without "half a penny cut in half, nor a single bullet for the liberating cause of Nicaragua."[23] He would wait and endure more hardship in the hope of fulfilling his promise.
The frustrations did not distract Sandino from his principal goal. He continued to address his supporters waiting in the Nicaraguan mountains through public manifestos. His tone was strong and encouraging, announcing a victorious return. He had made encouraging promises of imminent victory before leaving Nicaragua. "We have arrived at the culminating moment of our liberating war and history will very soon give us the definitive triumph in the cause of our absolute [national] autonomy," he said, shortly after Turcios departure.[24] But he had not yet committed his promises to a specific date. It was only in a message from Mexico that Sandino committed himself to delivering a final victory against the Marines upon his return. "I will soon be with you. ...the hour of liberation is near; ...the hour to put an end to the slavery is near." He assured his countrymen that his temporary absence meant only that "the absolute triumph of Nicaragua's liberty" was at hand.[25]

1.3 The Bitter Cup
The reverses of fortune continued. Toward the end of 1929 Sandino faced more turbulent events. Three factions within his ranks competed for control and he became enmeshed in overwhelming intrigue. In addition, he was accused of betraying the cause of the oppressed.[26] The charge was a tremendous blow to Sandino.

Sandino, always concerned with his image, wrote long letters to Hernán Laborde, Secretary General of the Mexican Communist Party (PCM), vigorously to deny the accusations and to maintain his innocence.[27] Sandino requested a meeting in early February, 1930. Representatives of the three organizations under the Comintern umbrella, which Sandino suspected of being the source of the accusations launched against him, were present.[28] All denied any involvement and politely offered their sympathies.[29] The PCM boss ordered an investigation into the matter.

The episode seemed for a moment to bring a glimpse of hope. At the meeting, Sandino was "invited" to go on a European tour with all expenses paid to promote his and the cause of anti-imperialism. In his continuous quest for recognition, he accepted. Sandino was later cleared of receiving money from the US government, but the accusations of treason to the cause hung over him.
Sandino wished to take full advantage of his contacts in Mexico and was unwilling to burn any bridges. He opted for walking a thin line between two enemies, the Mexican government and the PCM, but he was willing to violate that neutrality if it worked to his advantage. Though Sandino suspected that the Mexican government had deceived him, he still hoped to receive help from them. He expected to receive a shipload of weapons as earlier Nicaraguan rebels had obtained from revolutionary Mexico. Concurrently, he made a deal with the Comintern. He promised to make very critical remarks against the Mexican government's foreign policy in exchange for the public relations tour to Europe.

Sandino finally met Portes Gil (who was no longer the president) at the end of February 1930. The meeting should have been a positive event, considering that it was the reason Sandino traveled to Mexico and for which he waited nearly a year. But Sandino's high expectations contributed once again to more disappointments. The help he obtained was as humiliating as it was disappointing: a couple of guns, a few bullets and money for his expenses. Furthermore, Sandino's revolutionary sensibility was offended. Adding insult to injury, Portes Gil invited Sandino to remain in Mexico offering land for the rebel and his men to settle and work.

The fiasco with Portes Gil left Sandino with the PCM card to play but the conditions had changed. The meeting with the former president angered the PCM, who were instead expecting Sandino to denounce the government and did not receive well Sandino's continued postponement of the declarations he had promised to make against the government. Sensing betrayal, they retaliated by leaking news about Sandino's critical position toward his host government. After the leak Sandino feared for his security and made hasty plans to leave Mexico.

Sandino was a poor political strategist who did not react well to crisis or adversity. Farabundo Martí, Sandino's most trusted advisor but loyal only to his Communist sponsors, returned to his country. His departure was yet another heavy disappointment for Sandino, who once again felt betrayed and he became more withdrawn and suspicious than before. He had wondered earlier if there was not a treasonous plot to keep him in Mexico. "What occurred? Why so many dissimulations? Are we in effect, victims of treachery?" he asked.[30] He was homesick and disoriented, overwhelmed by intrigue and humiliation, betrayal and disappointment. Trapped waiting in Mexico, Sandino defined his suffering in a letter to his trusted lieutenant, Pedrón. He interpreted his own suffering as divine martyrdom.

My dear brother: bear in mind [...] that I am simply nothing but an instrument of divine justice to redeem this nation and that if I need some of the miseries that exist in this earth, it is because I had to come before you also born of a woman and offer myself to you full of the same human miseries as we all are in this earthly world, because otherwise you would not have been able to believe me if I had not spoken and been the same as you.[31]

2. The Prophet Emerges 2.1 Reinterpreting Failure
Sandino fled Mexico at the end of April 1930 and reached the Segovias by May 16. He was glad to put his failed trip behind but the sequence of misfortunes and disappointments endured. A month after his arrival he was seriously wounded in battle and was bedridden for several weeks. His wife Blanca was put out of reach, deported from San Rafael to León. In August, several members of Pedrón's family were killed in combat. Far from mistress and wife, Sandino had to nurse himself back to health and his recovery was a lengthy one. After his injury, he kept away from battle, preferring to spend his time studying his spiritualist books. During the convalescence he became even more mystical and he wrote numerous letters and messages with an increasingly stronger apocalyptic content.

Sandino had resolutely believed that his return to the motherland would deliver him from the disappointments in Mexico but it was not the case. Although he was silent about the victory he had promised to deliver upon his return, he did not become discouraged. On the contrary, his fantasies grew bigger. He reinterpreted his failures and disappointments and discovered renewed meaning in them:

 

There have been curious things in my life. I myself did not know that [in my travels] I was learning the secrets of human perversity, so that later I could manifest the truth to our brothers, not only in Nicaragua, but in all the terrestrial globe.[32]

Unable to deliver the predicted final blow to the enemy, Sandino thus reinterpreted his trip. Its major purpose became the learning of a lesson about evil so that he could come to recognise the truth and proclaim it, no longer just to his compatriots but to the entire world. With this reinterpretation of his failed trip and of his mission, Sandino asserted his universal prophetic authority and resolved to proselytise his view of the world, the mystical underpinnings of his fight, his understanding of the relations among men and his eschatological vision. In the months that followed his return, his mystical beliefs intensified and in February 1931, once again, Sandino reiterated to Pedrón that he was God-incarnate.[33]

The Message and its Propagation
2.2.1 Theosophical Sources
Sandino's message was peculiar. Much of his new religious understanding was adopted from Trincado, although he liberally borrowed what satisfied his needs. He embraced the pantheistic idea of magnetic energy as a manifestation of the Divine. "It is natural and logical that even in the most imperceptible atom in the universe exists an electron of love, because God is everywhere," Sandino asserted to Abraham Rivera, wishing to attract him to his beliefs.[34] He also professed the school's concept of a triune constitution of man. For Trincado, "Creator, nature and spirit" composed "the trinity of the macrocosm," which in turn "engendered the second trinity of the microcosm or man: spirit, soul and body."[35] Only with the discovery of the spirit as one's third component, could one become enlightened. Sandino spoused this belief. "If you have the fortune of having discovered your trinity and in your spirit there is the spark of love and justice, you will find no inconvenience in supporting my revolutionary movement," he told Nicaraguan politician Enoc Aguado.[36] Enlightenment and revolution, in his understanding, went hand in hand.

The Segovias became a centre of spiritual activity. Sandino claimed that its peacefulness enabled him to contact something "beyond everything that is human."[37] He was convinced that the mountains were a sacred place, that their height brought him physically closer to God[38] and told Trincado that the peak of El Chipote, his favourite hideout, was an altar where a voice spoke to him.[39] The region's inhabitants were called to a special mission. Sandino continuously repeated: "Dios hablará por los Segovianos," which means God will speak for the Segovianos,[40] teaching his followers to understand themselves as God's elect. But if it were so, why was Sandino, an outsider, their leader? Sandino offered the explanation that "it was so that [he] could have knowledge of all places and in order not to be disadvantaged by people who might consider [him] a localist,"[41] echoing Jesus' message in Nazareth: "No prophet is accepted in his hometown."[42] Sandino thought of himself as the chosen one leading the elect toward final redemption.

In keeping with his esoteric training, Sandino was cautious fully to reveal his beliefs only to those toward whom he felt a "magnetic affinity." He was convinced that he communicated through magnetic waves with those most attuned to him[43] and he claimed to have had experiences with supernatural forces on "various occasions."[44] He confided to Belausteguigoitia that the receptacle of these magnetic powers was "the back of the head."[45] Similar beliefs determined other serious aspects of Sandino's life. In one instance Sandino pardoned a man he himself was about to execute because the revolver misfired, leading him to conclude that the alleged traitor was innocent.[46] Sandino's hold over people was thus not limited to military discipline and went far beyond his own troops. His followers, including his own brother Sócrates, believed in and were dazzled by his mystical-magical powers. Like beauty, miracles may also be in the eye of the beholder. Women and children followed him to touch him or took things he had touched as relics. Peasants developed such reverence for Sandino that on one occasion they claimed to have seen a rainbow extend above his head.[47]

2.2.1 Biblical Sources
Sandino emphatically denied that he had religious beliefs for he considered, like Trincado, that religions were for people of backward minds. Asked about his religious convictions, he answered: "Religions are a thing of the past. We are guided by reason."[48] From the EMECU he learned to think of his own beliefs in terms of "science" and to scorn religions as enemies of human evolution.
In addition to portraying himself as divine messiah, Sandino appropriated biblical imagery. For instance, he closed some of his teachings by repeating Jesus' known phrase: "He who has ears, let him hear."[49] Some of these references have led some to affirm, erroneously, that he was a pious Christian.[50] Sandino did not believe in the divinity of Christ. Rather, he thought Jesus had simply been the incarnation of one of the 29 missionary spirits sent to renew the earth and the revolutionary fighter who introduced mankind to "the concept of liberty." He claimed that "Jesus of Nazareth" had been a "communist and a revolutionary" who "entered into open battle against Jerusalem's bankers one March 22, and having Prince Ur as military chief."[51]

Sandino narrated his rebellion by evoking imagery that is particular to the life of Christ. His decision on a hill, surrounded by his men in the midst of sorrow, where he claimed to have opted for a likely martyrdom rather than surrender his weapons, reminds us of Jesus at the "holy mountain."[52] His forty-day descent to the inclement heat of the Atlantic coast to find weapons and Moncada's alleged offer of money and power if he gave up his struggle are a reminder of Jesus' temptations in the desert.[53] Sandino talked about his "sacred ire" and about throwing out the Americans from Nicaragua as Christ had done with the merchants at the Temple.[54] Finally, at his arrival in Jinotega riding his mule in the company of his 29 men Sandino claimed to have been welcomed with palms and flowers (symbols of victory) is also evocative of Jesus' triumphal entrance into the Holy City.[55] The most significant of these was his self-understanding as divine incarnation.

Sandino believed that Columbus had housed the spirit of Aaron, brother of Moses, who cast the Golden Calf. The Wall Street bankers, who in Sandino's eyes controlled American politics, descended of the adorers of the Golden Calf. He thought that the 30 pieces for which Judas sold Christ had miraculously appeared in the vaults of Wall Street as a curse.[56] Sandino confused Aaron with Joshua, who led the Jews into Canaan, for he also believed that the American continent, discovered by Columbus was the new promised land and from the mixture of the chosen Spanish travellers and the Indians had emerged the new chosen Indo-Hispanic race.[57] Wall Street bankers were thus an obstacle in the march of the new Levites toward the Promised Land as were their ancestors in the desert.[58]

2.2.3 Cosmogony and Eschatology
Sandino offered more than revolutionary rhetoric; he presented a fairly sophisticated overarching web of ideas that incorporated cosmogony, cosmology and eschatology --understanding of the origin, nature and end of the universe. This web was imbued with the scientistic speculations of the EMECU. He believed, for instance, that "ether was the first substance of the universe," which was preceded by "a great will, Love eternal and origin of all things." This great will was God, who had one daughter: Divine Justice[59] (whose incarnation he claimed to be). In a circle of cosmic development and transmigration of spirits, the earth was a penal colony to which its present inhabitants were banished from Neptune after the last judgement there. Adam, Eve and twenty-seven "missionary spirits" were sent to regenerate the earth and they are still here working for human redemption through transmigratory cycles. Sandino professed that the "29 missionary spirits" were now members of his army and that his wife Blanca was the Virgin Mary.[60]

Sandino's eschatology announced the time of arrival and outlined the nature of the promised land he envisioned. According to Sandino, the earth's evolution would reach its final point, freedom and the "the kingdom of perfection," in the year 2,000.[61] He anticipated that the chosen would be redeemed and they would remain in the earthly paradise forever while the others would be purged and banished to less evolved planets.

The earth was a world of expiation where for million of centuries Divine Justice held millions of refractory spirits to the divine law, but today the earth has accomplished its regeneration, and those refractory spirits will be cast upon other planets that are less advanced than the earth. In such a way, injustice will disappear from the earth and justice alone will triumph.[62]

The revolutionary commander also believed in a connection between natural and social events, a relationship that can be summarised in one sentence: natural disasters precede or are connected to social upheaval. Thus, he thought that a series of catastrophes would inaugurate the final period. According to him, the March 1931 earthquake that devastated Nicaragua's capital was a clear sign.[63] He envisioned a new deluge where the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans would meet covering everything but the volcanic peaks over Nicaraguan territory.[64] Sandino became convinced that these were signs of an impending "world conflagration"[65] and that "the principal motive for the next world war [was] in Nicaragua,"[66] although he did not identify that motive. "This century," he predicted, "will see extraordinary things."[67]

In his 1931 manifesto "Light And Truth" the guerrilla rebel turned theosophist announced and defined the end of the present era. He predicted the "destruction of injustice on this earth" and the coming of "the reign of the Spirit of Light and Truth, that is, Love." As basis for those predictions, he reinterpreted the Biblical Apocalypse of Saint John, setting aside the notion of a transcendent paradise and dismissing the idea that "the world will explode and sink."

What will happen is the following,... [he said.] The oppressed people will break the chains of humiliation... The trumpets that will be heard will be the bugles of war, intoning the hymns of the freedom of the oppressed peoples against the injustice of the oppressors. The only thing that will sink forever is injustice.[68]

His eschatological promise was coloured with political violence. The imminent war would be class warfare of global proportions where the oppressor and oppressed would fight to the death, and the oppressed proletariat would emerge victorious.[69] The existent sinful social and economic structure would be replaced. "Be certain, be very certain, be perfectly certain that soon we will have our triumph in Nicaragua," he said, brought about by the lighting of the "Explosión Proletaria against the imperialists of the earth." The approaching catastrophe would happen in Nicaragua because it had been "chosen by Divine Justice to commence the judgement on the unjust of the earth."[70] In Sandino's mind it was clear that the beginning of both holocaust and paradise would take place in Nicaragua.

2.3 The Birth of a Prophet
It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine precisely when Sandino began believing that he was endowed with his world-redemptive mission. Such beliefs usually develop over time. Typically, however, there is a pivotal moment in the life of charismatic leader that he interprets, almost always in hindsight, as the one when he receives the revelation of his mission. Sandino conveyed his understanding of such a moment to two of his interviewers. He explained to Román (in 1933) that in 1926 he had been pulled from Mexico to Nicaragua by a force outside himself. "Without a fixed idea, without a determined purpose, dragged by a blind and irresistible magnetic force, I took the steam ship 'Méjico,'" he said.[71] He mentioned to Belausteguigoitia that it was after his rejection of the Espino Negro (Black Thorn) Accord[72] that he received his revelation. "I came to understand that I was the one called to protest the treachery against my motherland and against the Nicaraguan ideals."[73] Sandino thought that this day, May 4, should have been declared a "national holiday because on that day it was proven that our national honour cannot be humiliated."[74]

The goal of Sandino's self-proclaimed mission, therefore, became far greater than is found in conventional accounts, namely the expulsion of the American Marines from Nicaraguan soil. While it is true that Sandino was engaged in a war of national liberation, it is also true that not every national liberation movement has promised eternal spiritual and earthly salvation, nor claimed to carry out the work of God, nor has every revolutionary leader claimed to be God incarnate. Sandino's goal was not simply the earthly end to rid his country of the American troops but a wide-ranging eschatological one. This is precisely what sets Sandino apart from many of the nationalist revolutionists with whom he is often classified.

Trincado's doctrines provided Sandino with a framework that explained all levels of physical and spiritual, scientific and political reality. His beliefs filled the guerrilla's spiritual inclinations and fuelled his political expectations in such a way that they became the firm ground on which to base new interpretations of himself and of his mission in even more radical millenarian hopes. Sandino's failed political mission in Mexico contributed to his new interpretation of himself. More importantly, his attempt to change his environment by convincing more people of his cause, his proselytising, set the stage for a more radical transformation of that environment through violence.

3. Modus Operandi
3.1 The Man and his Followers
Sandino's army was a reflection of its commander. He gave himself different titles at different stages of his life. He enjoyed formalities because they made him feel important. Originally the Chief of the Mountaineers, he later appears as General and then elevated himself to Generalissimo and Supreme Commander of the EDSN. After the peace was concluded in 1933, he gave himself the new title of Supreme Commander of the Autonomista Army, ruler of Central America. But his most important title was "César," not signifying not only the image of a great military commander and ruler but also that of the imperial god. It was more than a title. As a name it was a part of who he became. Although Sandino did not refer to himself as a prophet or messiah, it is clear from his writings that he thought of himself as a prophet or messiah, or both. In this sense the imperial title "César" Augusto joined his religious understanding to his military and secular ambitions of power and conquest.

Unwilling to meet the fate of Caesar, he surrounded himself with a personal guard, a tight unit composed of about thirty men who watched him day and night. He chose for the task boys as young as thirteen, in the hopes of shaping their minds and hearts. "They guard me, love me and obey me like a father. They form a fraternal organisation among themselves," he said.[75]

Sandino thought in the early days that his peasant band was the see of sovereign authority in the country, but that understanding also changed with the passage of time, as had his conception of himself and of his mission. Sandino now thought that his army moved by "divine inspiration" and argued that it was "the first moral authority of the republic,"[76] "called by destiny to a great task."[77] In fact, the change in his understanding of the EDSN mirrored his own self-understanding as the incarnation of the greater spirit that commanded them. He taught that he and his army were spiritually one. "Our Supreme Command of the Ejército Defensor de la Soberanía Nacional de Nicaragua, that is to say its spirit, is found inside a physical matter that is known by the name of Augusto C. Sandino," he proclaimed.[78]

The remarkable discipline demanded of Sandino's men mirrored their strong-willed commander, who did not smoke, drink nor gamble. He initially ordered his men "not to commit injustices in order to [continue to] enjoy God's protection."[79] All black market activities and the traffic of animals were prohibited, and no one was allowed to have more than two horses.[80] Those who disobeyed the rules, abused peasants, stole or raped were executed. However, as the war progressed the general attitude toward rules loosened and much undesirable activity went on behind Sandino's back.

3.2 Sandinista Justice and Violence
Sandino became master of a large territory and ran a "government by extortion," forcing people to pay him war taxes.[81] Stern measures were applied to those who resisted and Sandinista collectors were instructed to make examples of them by taking or killing cattle, by burning houses and fields and by taking hostages. He justified the looting and the abuses by arguing that it was "unjust that the men [who] struggled for the liberation of Nicaragua [had to] wear rags."[82]

Less fortunate were those executed. The executions performed by the Sandinistas are as famous for their lethal skill as they are for their gruesome originality. As Sandino's official seal shows, the tool of Sandinista (divine) justice was the machete. Decapitations were the order of the day, but it was not considered enough to behead a condemned man; rather, they administered cortes (cuts) that ranged from laceration to odious mutilating combinations, causing death after extended suffering.

The most famous was the corte de chaleco, the "vest cut": the offender's head was lopped off with a machete, after which his arms were severed at the shoulders and a design was etched on his chest with machete slashes. Pedrón invented the "vest cut" and applied it often until he tired of it in 1930 and ordered that all "traitors" receive the corte de cumbo instead, ...the "gourd cut." An expert machete man sliced off [the top] portion of the victim's skull, exposing his brain and causing him to loose his equilibrium [suffering through] hours of agony and convulsions before death. Less sophisticated was the corte de bloomers, by which the victim's legs were chopped off at the [back of the] knees, eventually producing death through bleeding. These three cortes were the most popular among the guerrillas, but there were ...others that were ...applied to the bodies of dead enemies: the [corte de corbata] "tie cut," by which the subject's throat was cut and his tongue pulled through the slit, and the [corte de puro] "cigar cut," by which the victim's penis was amputated and placed in his mouth.[83] Another corte consisted in slashing open the abdomen of a decapitated man and then placing the head in the abdominal cavity.[84] The word corte, coincidentally, also means legislature, or court of law.

The atrocities were initially directed at the Marines and they may have began as early as 1927.[85] Sandino claimed that the Marines began beheading Nicaraguans first, so in retaliation he ordered their heads to be placed on sticks by the side of mountain trails as an act of vengeance.[86] Moreover, a regiment of Sandinista youngsters, possibly the same who guarded Sandino, had the task of swarming the battlefields with machetes in order to finish off wounded Marines and to collect their equipment and possessions.[87] The marauders received a name that concealed their macabre activity, "el coro de angeles (the Choir of Angels)."

Nicaraguans who were considered traitors were also executed. In November 1927, Sandino issued a decree identifying the "traitors to the motherland." It fingered anyone giving or receiving help or protection from the occupiers and anyone who dealt with them or represented them.[88] Anyone against Sandino would be for the enemy and anyone for the enemy would be against Sandino. Sandino publicly urged his men to be fair in collecting taxes from landowners, to employ minimum force and to remove and burn doors and windows from the homes of the uncooperative so as "to make the punishment humorously visible."[89] For a while, he denied that his men committed crimes. Later, he argued the crimes were committed by impostors using the name of his cause.
Privately, however, he encouraged the executions.[90] Indeed, Sandino's only known objection to the decapitations was procedural and he was unconcerned with the killings themselves. In his congratulatory letter to Marcial Rivera, he wrote:

The traitors to whom you have administered "cortes de chaleco" in your last tour are justly executed, and this [supreme] command has no comment to that effect, except that for next time you are prohibited from going about putting little pieces of paper on the corpses announcing that you have executed them. In future, you will not write those papers giving account of anything.[91]

The definition of treason, already quite loose, became even looser toward the end of 1930 as Sandino became more and more intolerant of those who did not abide by his decrees. He gave orders to execute for treason any merchant refusing "to share" his salt or medicine with the peasants, as well as any peasant refusing to take a share of the stolen goods from Sandino's men.[92] Neutrality became a dangerous luxury when he declared that it was "a crime to cross one's arms before the liberating struggle" of his army.[93]

Sandino seemed undisturbed by the carnage throughout. "My conscience is clear," he boasted, "I enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done [and] I sleep like a healthy baby."[94] In one instance, he even claimed to have derived enjoyment from a scene of bodies shredded by machetes. "It was a beautiful picture," he exclaimed, "worthy of showing it to the whole world as an example."[95]

3.3 Purification through Death
That people die in wars is a truism, but there can be no simple explanation for the savagery of Sandinista executioners. Why were people killed with such sanguinary methods? Two explanations are considered here. The first reason was entirely functional. The Sandinistas lacked more effective killing methods and their techniques were developed because of their utility, Sandino said, as a means of conserving bullets.[96] The second, more substantial reason may be found in Sandino's beliefs.

Sandino believed that traitors "had no right to live."[97] They were hindrances to the liberation of the motherland and he emphasised that "the purity of the cause [had] to be maintained at any price."[98] Fittingly, in a 1927 communiqué, he explained his reasons, claiming that traitors and invaders had been marked by fate as terrible offenders. Such persons [had] to be punished with slow agony to make them more conscious of the necessity to expiate their dark fault.[99] He instilled in his men the belief that they themselves were an instrument of divine punishment. "We have been sent to serve as whip and punishment for their [the Americans' and the traitors' unrestrained crimes," he declared.[100]
In the killings Sandino linked his campaign for national sovereignty against the United States with his plan for world redemption, for he believed that the executions were carried out "with the maximum love of liberty," claiming only to eliminate "those who commit[ted] offences against liberty and [those who] sought to impose slavery upon us."[101] He admitted that these were "drastic," [but necessary] measures for the benefit and health of the nation."[102] Such was "the price of liberty,"[103] he argued.

The rebel leader believed that injustice originated in envy, which in turn resulted from ignorance. He felt that justice would only triumph over injustice "when the majority of mankind [came] to know that they live[d] by the spirit."[104] Ignorance, therefore, was but a transient stage in human development, and one that the enlightened were duty-bound to combat in order to increase their own numbers and become the majority. This might be achieved by proselytising; another way was the direct elimination of the unbelievers. Then the time for what he called the "judgement of the majority" would have arrived. Relishing in the thought of ruling Nicaragua and in the expectation that a clean-up would follow, Sandino told Abraham Rivera: then, "we will sweep with brooms made of bayonets everything that obstructs human progress."[105]

Whatever or whoever became identified as an obstacle for "progress" acquired the character of an evil to be removed at all costs. Sandino's explanation was that "divine justice is rigorously cold, and when it is detained by evil, it becomes agitated and transforms itself into electric energy that melts evil and opens the way."[106] All of this was, according to Sandino, a predestined cosmic battle for control of the universe, a war between good and evil. "Spirits battle incarnated or not incarnated," he often repeated, in the understanding that the battle for Nicaragua was part of that universal war.[107] Elsewhere, he made his point more succinctly:

The practices of our army and those used by the enemy in the White House are about the same, but the difference is that the spirits of light protect our army [whereas] the spirits of darkness are those that favour the so-called White House.[108]

"Life is never over because the spirit always survives,"[109] Sandino thought, and hence his remorselessness. He thought that human lives and individual goodness or evil were predetermined and since it was in the fate of a man to be wicked, his execution might have been the deliverance of his condition, a liberating chance that he may re-enter the cycle of reincarnation at a higher plane. This understanding was extrapolated to the social context when he said that "revolution is synonymous with purification."[110]

Sandino believed that the Marines were representatives of the Wall Street bankers, worshippers of the Golden Calf. Typically, those who have preached violence in the name of God have often compared themselves to Moses at the head of the Levites. At his descent from Mount Sinai Moses said: "Whoever is for the Lord, come to me." He then echoed God's command: "Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbour. You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day."[111]

III. Conclusion
Sandino's situation corresponds to Festinger and colleagues' analysis and it fits the five conditions they outlined to test disconfirmation.[112] Sandino held his beliefs in earnest and was convinced that the expected Mexican aid would enable him to eject the Americans from Nicaragua, giving him victory. He was apprehensive about leaving the battlefield for Mexico but committed himself and many of his men to the trip because he believed in the eventual payoff. He willingly endured exile, accusations of treason, hunger, poverty and, even more costly still, sacrificed his pride in the attempt to achieve his goal. As a theosophist in Mexico he became a more committed revolutionary. Similarly, those who stayed and fought on during his absence believed in the promise of victory. His actions were committed to his beliefs. He repeatedly announced the coming victory at his return, opening the possibility for disconfirmation, and when he returned humiliated, empty-handed and unable to deliver the final blow against the Marines the disconfirmation was verified. Finally, Sandino was not abandoned and he continued to enjoy the unwavering support and encouragement of his followers.

Sandino's promise was contingent upon the expected massive monetary aid and weapons and as he became aware that he might not get his wish, he began to experience the discomfort and pain of dissonance well before he arrived in Nicaragua. Before his return, foreseeing the outcome of his trip, he reinterpreted his personal role, thinking of himself as a suffering messiah rather than admitting the prospect of failure both of his trip and of his predictions, rather than facing the thought that he might have been unworthy of all the honours he thought he deserved. As his predictions began to weigh on him and disconfirmation approached, Sandino moved to cover the gap of "cognitive dissonance" by reinterpreting his message, by adopting a more radical eschatology and by trying to win more believers to his faith.

Sandino reinterpreted his trip and announced that it had been destined to fail so that he would become exposed to the evil and corruption of the world, likely referring to what he thought was the betrayal of the Mexican government and of his former Communist friends.[113] Armed with a new ideology, he proceeded to alter his surroundings by converting his men to the new faith. Rather than de-eschatologising his mission, however, Sandino preached a more intensely eschatological message. He now announced a new date for final victory and the fulfilment of the new message. This time, however, it would be the final cosmic victory of good over evil. He resumed his war with greater intensity than ever and he preached with vigour in letters and manifestos that had to be read aloud to the peasant soldiers. His soldiers were urged to call one another "brother" as his troops became daring zealots with methods more violent than ever, an army of God challenging an enormous military power. The pattern of Sandino's response to the failure of his prophecy conforms to the reaction predicted by Festinger and his colleagues and it has been my added contention that his renewed violent methods were a part of a two-pronged strategy to deal with his failure: the conversion or elimination of the unbelievers.

No implication of causality should be read into our arguments about Sandino's life. Sandino elected to respond to circumstances in the way that he did. The failure of his predictions could have prompted him to abandon his fight. But instead he became more engulfed in it and adopted more violent methods than before. The EMECU's theosophy provided an essential framework that encompassed both Sandino's this-worldly concerns and his spiritual thirst in one single and yet fairly sophisticated system of thought that even offered its own theories of genesis and eschatology, its own cosmogony and cosmology but it did not determine his personal choices.

Given that Sandino believed that his troops were populated by quasi-divine spirits, he had no reason to wait for God to transform the world. In fact, their mission was to accomplish God's work. In that sense Sandino, a mechanic by training, is the homo faber, the maker of worlds who will help the millennium arrive at any cost. Sandino was the typical twentieth-century millenarian revolutionist who, like his European contemporaries, was prepared to destroy the world in order to save it. The issue of prophecy remains a problem for committed millenarians as their predictions prove unfulfilled. And if the case of Sandino teaches us anything, it teaches us that the failure of predictions, as Festinger and colleagues foresee, can be the spark of a greater divorce from reality and of renewed zealous activity, but it particularly shows us that in some circumstances the renewed zealotry, aided by the infusion of a more radically eschatologically-oriented message, can also lead into an horrific path of terror and destruction as a means to bridge the gap of dissonance.

---

[1.]^.See for instance Tom Flanagan and Martha Lee, "From Social Credit to Social Reform: The Evolution of an Ideology," Prairie Forum 16 (1990), pp.140-156; and Tom Flanagan and Martha Lee, "The Black Muslims and the Fall of America: An Interpretation Based on the Failure of Prophecy," Journal of Religious Studies XVI (1990), pp.140-156.
[2.]^. Michael Barkun, "Understanding Millennialism," Terrorism and Political Violence 7 (1995), pp.1-9; Martha Lee, "Violence and the Environment: The Case of Earth First!," Terrorism and Political Violence 7 (1995), pp.109-127; Jeffrey Kaplan, "Absolute Rescue: Absolutism, Defensive Action and the Resort to Force," Terrorism and Political Violence 7 (1995), pp.128-165.
[3.]^. Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Oxford University Press 1970 [1957]), p.15.
[4.]^. Michael Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986 [1974]).
[5.]^. See Marco A. Navarro-Génie, Augusto "César" Sandino: A Modern Millenarian Leader The University of Calgary, Master Thesis, 1993.
[6.]^. Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, Stanley Schacter, When Prophecy Fails (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966).
[7.]^. Festinger et al., When Prophecy Fails, p.25.
[8.]^. Ibid., p.26.
[9.]^. Ibid., p.28.
[10.]^. Ibid., p.4.
[11.]^. Augusto C. Sandino, "Proclamation Granting Representation to the Hands Off Nicaragua Committee," 18 January 1929, in El Pensamiento Vivo, Volume I (Managua: Editorial Nueva Nicaragua, 1981), p. 310.
[12.]^. Augusto C. Sandino to Emilio Portes Gil, 6 January 1929, in Somoza García, El verdadero Sandino (Managua: Litografia Robelo, 1936), p.122.
[13.]^. Sandino, "Open Letter to Herbert Clark Hoover," 6 March 1929 (note 12), pp.324-328.
[14.]^. Sandino, "Letter to Central American Presidents," 12 March 1929 (note 12), p.332.
[15.]^. Sandino, "Letter to All Heads of State of the Americas," 20 March 1929 (Note 12), pp.338-340.
[16.]^.Gregorio Urbano Gilbert, Junto a Sandino (Santo Domingo: Editora Alfa y Omega, 1979), p.282.
[17.]^. Sandino to Emilio Portes Gil, 4 December 1929 (note 12), pp.404-407.
[18.]^. Somoza García claimed that the United States had made a deal with Mexican authorities to keep Sandino in Mexico. (note 13), p.244.
[19.]^. Joaquín Trincado, Los cinco amores: ética y sociología (Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos Preusche & Eggelin, [1922] 1955). The first four forms of love were the love of family, civic love (friendship), the love of one's region and national love.
[20.]^. Joaquín Trincado, Filosofía austera racional, p.764. Cited by Donald Hodges, Intellectual Foundations of the Nicaraguan Revolution (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992), p.41.
[21.]^. (note 20), pp.181.
[22.]^. Augusto C. Sandino to Gustavo Alemán Bolaños, 4 August 1929, in Alemán Bolaños, Sandino el libertador (Mexico, D.F.: Ediciones del Caribe, 1952), pp.71-73.
[23.]^.Sandino to Gustavo Alemán Bolaños, August 1929, in Ibid., p.77.
[24.]^.Sandino to Carlos Salgado and Miguel Angel Ortez," 9 February 1929 (note 12), pp.313-317.
[25.]^. Sandino, "Manifesto to Nicaraguans," 6 September 1929, in Alemán Bolaños (note 23), p.77-80.
[26.]^. Hodges, Intellectual Foundations (note 21) p.100; and Neil Macaulay, The Sandino Affair (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1967), pp.157-158.
[27.]^. Sandino to Hernán Laborde, 2 January 1930 in El Pensamiento vivo de Sandino Volume II (Managua: Editorial Nueva Nicaragua, 1981), pp. 25-39, and to Hernán Laborde, 8 January 1930 (note 12), pp.41-42.
[28.]^. The PCM, MAFUENIC and the Anti-Imperialist League.
[29.]^. Enrique Rivera Bertrán to Pedro J. Zepeda," 9 June 1930, in Marco A. Navarro-Génie "Revolutionary Triangle: Sandino, Martí and the Comintern," presented at the Canadian Political Science Association annual meetings at the University of Calgary, June 1994.
[30.]^. Sandino to Pedro José Zepeda, 25 January 1930 (note 28), pp.51-56.
[31.]^. Sandino to Pedro Altamirano, January 1930 (note 13), pp.147-148. Sandino's words may be compared to Jesus' on the road to Emmaus: "Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" See Luke, 13:26.
[32.]^. Sandino to Abraham Rivera, 22 February 1931, (note 13) pp.208-210.
[33.]^. Sandino to Pedro Altamirano, 3 February 1931 (note 13) pp.200-201.
[34.]^. Augusto C. Sandino to Abraham Rivera, 21 November 1931 (note 13), pp.186-188.
[35.]^. (note 30), p.200.
[36.]^. Sandino, to Enoc Aguado, 26 October 1930 (note 28), pp.150-153.
[37.]^. Augusto C. Sandino in Román, Maldito país (Managua: Editorial El Pez y la Serpiente, 1979), p.79.
[38.]^. Augusto C. Sandino in Ramón Belausteguigoitia, Con Sandino en Nicaragua (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1934), p.144.
[39.]^. Sandino to Joaquín Trincado, 22 June 1931 (note 13), pp.238-240.
[40.]^. To be sure, the expression precedes Sandino's rebellion in Nicaragua. It was common among the inhabitants of the Segovias, who were often sneered at by the more urbane people of León and Granada. In Sandino's lips, it rang closely to José Vasconcelos' motto for the Mexican National University (UNAM), "the spirit will speak for my race." It should be pointed out that the preposition "for" can also be translated as "through." In this case, it would mean "the Spirit will speak through the Segovians." Either formula indicates divine predilection but the latter also signals prophetic authority.
[41.]^. Sandino to José Hilario Chavarría, 12 May 1931 (note 13), pp.227-231. See also (note 39), p.192.
[42.]^. Luke, 4:24.
[43.]^. (note 39), p.177.
[44.]^. Ibid., 175.
[45.]^. (note 44)
[46.]^. (note 27), p.213.
[47.]^. (note 39), p.145.
[48.]^. Ibid.,172.
[49.]^. Matthew, 11:15, and Revelations, 2:7. See. Sandino, "Supreme Proclamation of Central American Union," 16 August 1933 (note 28), pp.347-350.
[50.]^. El Tayacán, Historia de la iglesia de los pobres en Nicaragua (Managua: Privately printed, [1983] 1987).
[51.]^. Sandino to Hilario Chavarría," 12 May 1931 (note 13), pp.227-231.
[52.]^. See 2 Peter, 1:16-18; Matthew, 17:5; Mark,9:2-13; and Luke, 9:28-36.
[53.]^. See Matthew, 4:1-11; Mark, 1:12-13; Luke, 4:1-13.
[54.]^. Sandino, "Manifesto to the People of Latin America," 24 May 1929 (note 12), pp.362-363. See Matthew, 21:12-17; Mark, 11:15-19: Luke, 19:45-48; and John, 2:14-17.
[55.]^. See Matthew, 21:4-9; Mark, 11:7-10; Luke, 19:35-38; and John 12:12-15.
[56.]^. Sandino, "Segovian Tale," 10 March 1929 (note 12), p.331.
[57.]^. (note 39), p.200
[58.]^. Sandino, "Manifesto to the Peoples of the World and Particularly the People of Nicaragua," 13 March 1933 (note 29), 303-327.
[59.]^. Sandino, "Manifesto Light and Truth," 15 February 1931 (note 13), pp.206-208.
[60.]^. Sandino to Abraham Rivera" 22 February 1931; to Abraham Rivera," February 1931 (note 13), pp.208-210,and pp.205-206, respectively, and (note 34). See also (note 39), p.172.
[61.]^. (note 60).
[62.]^. Sandino to Abraham Rivera," 14 October 1930 (note 13), pp.175-177.
[63.]^. Sandino to José Idiáquez," 26 April 1931 (note 13), pp.223-225.
[64.]^. (note 39), p.178. In spite that there are higher mountains and volcanoes in Central America.
[65.]^. Sandino to Gustavo Alemán Bolaños," 9 August 1931 (note 13), p.253. See Jesus' warnings in Matthew, 24:6-8.
[66.]^. (note 64).
[67.]^. (note 39), p.197
[68.]^. (note 60).
[69.]^. Sandino to Alemán Bolaños 9 August 1931 (note 13), pp. 253; and (note 64).
[70.]^. (note 60).
[71.]^. (note 38), p.50.
[72.]^. These were the Accords that brought an end to the Constitutionalist War in May 1927, a civil war between the Conservatives and the rebelling Liberals, under the auspices of the United States representative Colonel H. L. Stimson.
[73.]^. (note 39), p.91.
[74.]^. Sandino in Selser, Sandino Volume I (Managua: Talleres Litográficos Maltez. 1980 [1934]), p.204.
[75.]^. (note 38), p.182.
[76.]^. Sandino to Enoc Aguado, 26 October 1930 (note 28), pp.150-153.
[77.]^. Sandino to José Idiáquez, 11 March 1939 (note 28), pp.96-98.
[78.]^. (note 34).
[79.]^. Sandino to José León Díaz, 1 December 1927 (note 12), pp.195-196.
[80.]^. Sandino, "Decree," November 1927 (note 12), pp.190-191.
[81.]^. Eduardo Crawley, Nicaragua in Perspective (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981), p.62.
[82.]^. Sandino, "Communiqué," 20 October 1931 (note 28), pp.200-201.
[83.]^. Macaulay, (note 27), pp.212-13.
[84.]^. Augusto C. Sandino, in Maraboto, Sandino ante el coloso (Veracruz, Mexico: Privately Printed, 1929), 16. For more on Sandino's unique brand of violence see (note 12), pp.129, 173, 226, 235, 252, 320; (note 28), pp. 61, 122, 148, 149, 173, 181, 185, 187, 200, 203, 205, 216, 217, 218, 237, 244, 247, 255, 262, 311, 329; Belausteguigoitia (note 39), pp.188-190; Gilbert (note 17), p.55; and Román (note 38), p.162.
[85.]^. Sandino, "War Bulletin," 2 November 1927, in Selser (note75) pp.271-273.
[86.]^. (note 38 ), p.162.
[87.]^. Diego de la Texera and Alfredo Matilla Rivas, Sandino: crónica de la guerra sandinista (Managua: Privately printed, 1978), p.266.
[88.]^. Sandino, "Decree Identifying the Traitors to the Motherland," 14 November 1927 (note 12), pp.174-175.
[89.]^. (note 83).
[90.]^. Sandino, "Regulations About Wood Cutting," 8 July 1930 (note 13), pp.166-168.
[91.]^. Sandino to Marcial Rivera Zeledón, 9 February 1932 (note 13), pp.306-307.
[92.]^. Sandino to all the Expeditionary Chiefs, 16 October 1930 (note 13), pp.177-178.
[93.]^. (note 92).
[94.]^. Sandino, "Manifesto," 28 July 1931 (note 23), pp.111-115.
[95.]^. Sandino to José Idiáquez, 15 July 1931, in Somoza (note 13), p.245.
[96.]^. (note 38), p.80.
[97.]^. Sandino to Félix Pedro Zeledón, 21 October 1927 (note 12), pp.165-166. See also "Interview With Two Sandinista Youths," La Prensa (Managua, Nicaragua), 19 February 1933, p.1.
[98.]^. (note 38), p.79.
[99.]^.. Sandino, "War Bulletin," 2 November 1927 (note 75); pp.271-273.
[100.]^. Sandino to New York World, 28 January 1930 (note 28), pp.57-58.
[101.]^. (note 95).
[102.]^. Sandino, "Manifesto," 15 November 1931, in Somoza (note 13), pp.280-282.
[103.]^. (note 39), p.188.
[104.]^. (note 60).
[105.]^. (note 33).
[106.]^. (note 64).
[107.]^. (note 39), p.177.
[108.]^. Sandino to Abraham Rivera, 21 February 1931, in Somoza, (note 13), pp.202-203.
[109.]^. (note 39), p.172.
[110.]^. Sandino to Francisco Paguaga et al., 21 October 1927; and to Félix Pedro Zeledón, 21 October 1927 (note 12) pp.163-164 and 165-166, respectively.
[111.]^. Exodus, 32:26-29.
[112.]^. (note 7), p.4.
[113.]^. (note 33).