In March 1979, President Carlos Humberto Romero had soldiers crush protests and strikes against his government to prevent a revolution in El Salvador from starting, similar to the revolution in Nicaragua which began the previous year. The eventual overthrow of Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle in September 1979 prompted many military officers to remove Romero and replace him with a stronger government which was able to prevent such a revolution. The military gained the support of the US government and organized itself under Colonels Adolfo Arnoldo Majano Ramos and Jaime Abdul Gutiérrez Avendaño.