On August 27th 1967, the struggle against Somoza took a bad turn when a column of guerrilla’s using a farm known as Hacienda Washington, and led by Silvio Mayorga, found themselves under attack by Somoza’s National Guard at Pancasán Hill in the Department of Matagalpa.
As a result of the attack, 12 guerrillas’ were killed on the hill and another (who was captured and tortured) was killed later by the National Guard.
Every year the men of Pancasán are remembered during commemoration ceremonies which honor those who lost their lives during an attack that is recognized as changing the way the Sandinista National Liberation Front, the FSLN (originally founded in 1961) continued the guerrilla struggle against Somoza.
Pancasán and the Mountains in the North
The FSLN had been recruiting from the farming communities since 1966. In the following year, they decided to increase guerrilla actions to mirror what had been taking pace in Managua and the larger cities. This involved moving a lot of men up to the mountains and establishing a guerrilla base in the central mountainous area of Nicaragua.
The events leading up to the Pancasán Hill attack started with a young guerilla losing some ammunition that he was hiding at strategic points. The ammunition was found and the Somoza National Guard set out to find the guerrillas.
Attempts were made to alert the column of guerillas, however the reason the area was chosen by the FSLN, also worked against them in this task and before they could physically warn them, the National Guard came across the column and with far superior fire power ambushed and killed almost all of them.
After the Attack
The incident marked a turning point and the start of a new phase in the history of the battle against Somoza. After the attack, a two part decision was made to honor those killed at Pancasán Hill by deciding to continue the fight against Somoza and to take that fight to the enemy with the ultimate goal of an insurrection led by the FSLN.
The FSLN used the preparation they had been making in the mountains to continue the armed struggle against Somoza. They worked to raise awareness of the plight of the Nicaraguan farmers and peasant workers, strengthen those mountain groups as well as include women and youth in the process. University students strengthened the “Revolutionary Student Front” in solidarity with the guerrillas.
Pancasán, a small dot on the map of Nicaragua, hidden by dense mountain jungle and inhabited by a few poor, hardy and angry “Campesinos” had reacted to a force with an equal or greater force and honored their fallen men by continuing their fight.
It might have taken a little over 12 years, however, on July 19th 1979, the decision made in 1967, following the Pancasán attack and the actions that followed resulted in Somoza abandoning Nicaragua after the Peoples Revolution came to fruition.
