even from
             moderate elements of Nicaraguan society, who joined with the FSLN to
             overthrow the Somoza regime. When the regime collapsed, Somoza flew off to
             Miami with what was left of the Nicaraguan national treasury, and the
             National Guard collapsed. The Carter administration flew Guard commanders
             out of the country in planes with Red Cross markings (a war crime), and
             began to reconstitute the Guard on Nicaragua's borders, renaming them
             Contras, or freedom fighters (Chomsky, 1993, p. 56).
             The Sandinistas marched victoriously into Managua on 19 July 1979. They
             inherited a poverty-stricken country with high rates of homelessness and
             illiteracy and very rudimentary health care. The new government
             nationalized the lands of the Somozas and established farming cooperatives
             on them. They waged a massive education campaign that reduced illiteracy
             from 50% to 13%, and introduced an immunization program that eradicated
             polio and reduced infant mortality to a third of the rate it had been
             before the revolution ("Amigos De Nicaragua: History", 2002).
             However, the United States government, which had supported the Somozas, was
             ...