Killer Cartoons

Between the spring of 1986 and the fall of 1987, the presidents of five Central American states came together in Esquipulas, Guatemala in order to find a solution to the region’s military conflicts. The cartoon above shows the five presidents who signed the Esquipulas Peace Agreement, or Esquipulas II. From left to right, the signers of the peace agreement were: Vinicio Cerezo of Guatemala, José Napoleón Duarte of El Salvador, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, José Azcona Hoyo of Honduras, and Óscar Arias Sánchez of Costa Rica. The cartoonist apparently believed that Cerezo, Duarte, and Azcona were using the peace process as a means of hiding their misdeeds, while Arias organized the meeting out of his own vanity and desire for a peace prize. The cartoonist’s bias is quite evident considering Ortega stands with nothing to hide. However, the indigenous peoples of the Miskito coast might have disagreed with this portrayal. After the Sandinistas came to power they sought to incorporate the Miskito people of Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast, who had historically enjoyed a large amount of autonomy. This led to a Miskito revolution against the Sandinistas, which culminated in the return of Miskito sovereignty in 1987. Ironically many who supported the Sandinistas in their struggle against the United States, such as Gabi Gottwald, also supported the Miskito Indians in their struggle against the FSLN, revealing that for many connected to the solidarity movement a conviction to supporting human rights often trumped political considerations.

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Merry Christmas from Nicaragua via Deutscheland

Nicaragua‘s resistance of U.S. imperialism in Central America, as well as its call for international solidarity, took many forms. In the 1980s Roger Sanchez‘s political cartoons challenged the United States, drawing international attention to the increasingly bloody situation in Nicaragua. Sanchez was the official cartoonist of Barricada, the daily newspaper of the Sanidinistas. He satirized the United States, often depicting the U.S. as a meddling and ill-willed Uncle Sam intent on killing Nicaraguans and overthrowing the FSLN. Solidarity organizations from Europe and North America published collections of Sanchez’s cartoons to raise funds for those affected by the U.S. embargo and the war against the Contras. The cartoon above is from a collection published by the German solidarity group Informationsburo Nicaragua, which published many documents about the plight of Nicaragua. Solidarity groups in the United States and Great Britain also published similar collections.

Although he worked at the official Sandinista newspaper, Sanchez called attention to the failures of the FSLN government. For example, Sanchez highlighted the overwhelming political influence of the Sandinistas in a cartoon featuring an enormous runner with FSLN on his jersey preparing to run against three much smaller runners representing the nation’s opposition parties. Sanchez also commented on Nicaraguan social inequality, represented in the cartoon above. Whether he spoke out against the United States, the FSLN, or poverty in Nicaragua, Sanchez proved to be one of the most influential voices to come out of the Nicaraguan Revolution.