Wednesday, January 13, 2010

More Nicaraguan Graffiti

More photos from my 1986 stay in Nicaragua. The first installment can be seen here.


"Carcela los Somocistas, Libertad a los reos comunistas. CAUS" from the Communist-lead trade union federation CAUS, "Jail the Somozists, Free the Communists" on a wall in Masaya, I think.


You wouldn't know it, but this was evidence of a battle over gay liberation in Managua. One day on a cement fence out by government ministries appeared the shocking slogan "GAY LIBRE" ("Free Gay" or "Gay Freedom"). It stayed up only a couple days before "GAY" was obliterated by the ugly splotch of paint and "PATRIA" written to the left to change it to "FREE HOMELAND."


Managua was destroyed by an earthquake in 1972. Dictator Somoza absconded with rebuilding funds; in 1986 much of the central city was still a neglected ruin. Here's competing FSLN and Maoist MAPML graffiti on some of the few large buildings left more or less standing downtown.


Graffiti and stencils for the Maoist/Hoxhaist Movimiento de Accion Popular Marxista-Leninista (MAPML-People's Action Movement Marxist-Leninist) and its Juventud Marxista-Leninista de Nicaragua (JML-Marxist Leninist Youth).


"No a la Constitucion Burguesa - Central Sindical FO": "No to the Bourgeois Constitution - Workers Front Trade Union" from the Maoist MAPML's trade union group.


Competing graffiti in Masaya from the Communist Party and the MAPML. The MAPML says "Obreros y Campesinos Al Poder!," "Workers and Peasants to Power!"


From a wall in Rivas, a logo from AMNLAE, the FSLN run women's federation, the Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women named after the first Sandinista woman to fall in the revolution against Somoza.


Competing graffiti in Masaya from the Socialist Party (PSN) and the PCD, the right-wing Conservative Democratic Party, whose slogan was "Vote Verde" or "Vote Green" after the Party's color and in opposition to the red and black of the Sandinistas.

2 comments:

  1. Fascinating! A shame the sandinista's deteriotated eventually.

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  2. Yeah; well, Ortega was not from the more leftwing side of the FSLN. And it has to be said that the US spent an awful lot of money trying to get them out of power. When the FSLN was voted out (before their current return) even most of their left opposition sided with the rightwing to get rid of them.

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