page_title: Anastasio Somoza Debayle
section_title: Assassination
hierarchical_section_title: Anastasio Somoza Debayle / Assassination
caption_attribution_description: English: The grave of the Somoza family in Miami, Florida. Español: Tumba de la familia Somoza en Miami, Florida.
context_page_description: Anastasio "Tachito" Somoza Debayle was a Nicaraguan dictator and officially the President of Nicaragua from 1 May 1967 to 1 May 1972 and from 1 December 1974 to 17 July 1979. As head of the National Guard, he was de facto ruler of the country between 1972 and 1974 even during the period when he was not the de jure ruler.
  Somoza Debayle succeeded his older brother in office. He was the last member of the Somoza family to be president, ending a dynasty that had been in power since 1936. After being overthrown in an insurrection in 1979 led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, Somoza fled Nicaragua. Power was ceded to the Junta of National Reconstruction. He was assassinated in 1980 while in exile in Paraguay.
context_section_description: Little more than a year later, Somoza was assassinated near Asunción on September 17, 1980. He was 54 years old. He was ambushed by a seven-person Sandinista commando team (four men and three women). The action was known as "Operation Reptile".
  The Sandinista team were armed with two Soviet-made machine guns, two AK-47 assault rifles, two automatic pistols, and an RPG-7 rocket launcher, with four anti-tank grenades and two rockets. The leader was Argentinian Marxist revolutionary Enrique Gorriarán Merlo (code named "Ramon"), an ex-Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo member. One of the team members said: "We cannot tolerate the existence of millionaire playboys while thousands of Latin Americans are dying of hunger. We are perfectly willing to give up our lives for this cause."
  For more than six months the Sandinista team had researched and planned their assault. The team studied Somoza's movements via a team member who was staked out at a newspaper kiosk near the estate. They waited in ambush for Somoza in Avenida España. Somoza was often driven about the city in a sedan, which was believed to be unarmored. Team member Oswaldo, disguised as a paper boy, watched Somoza exit the estate and signaled when he was leaving at 10:10 A.M.
  Once in position, Hugo Irurzún (Capitán Santiago) readied the RPG-7. He tried to fire an anti-tank rocket at the car, but the RPG-7 misfired. Ramon shot the chauffeur while Irurzún quickly reloaded the RPG with a new rocket. The second rocket directly hit the sedan. Accounts said that the Mercedes' engine kept running after the rocket explosion. Previously the commando team had considered the possibility that Somoza's vehicle might be equipped with armor panels in front. Worried that it could deflect the rocket projectile, they chose to make a lateral attack on the vehicle. Somoza was killed instantly and burned, along with his new driver, César Gallardo, and Somoza's financial advisor, Colombian citizen Jou Baittiner . Later media reports in Paraguay said that Somoza's body was so unrecognizable that forensics had to identify him through his feet.
  Of the seven assassins, six escaped. Irurzún was captured, identified because of his distinctive blonde beard, and was executed.
  Somoza was buried in Miami, at Woodlawn Park Cemetery and Mausoleum. (His father, Somoza Garcia, was buried in Nicaragua.) A few months before Somoza's murder, his memoirs, Nicaragua Betrayed, were published. He blamed the Carter administration for his downfall. His son, Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero, went into exile in Guatemala.
  Brian Latell, a former US National Intelligence Officer for Latin America and Cuba, argues in his book, After Fidel, that the plan to assassinate Somoza was devised in Havana, with direct input from Fidel Castro. According to him, the Sandinistas had won power in July 1979 with the assistance of massive, covert Cuban military aid. Fidel and his brother Raúl Castro purportedly developed a complex, multinational covert action to provide the Sandinistas with huge quantities of modern armaments. Latell claims Cuban intelligence and paramilitary advisors poured into Nicaragua along with the equipment. He says the evidence indicated that Somoza's assassination was similar to other such operations in which Cuban intelligence had been involved. He says that Somoza was a long-time nemesis of Castro after having provided critical support to the U.S. in preparing for the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in April 1961. Jorge Masetti, a former Argentine guerrilla working with Cuban intelligence services, describes the Somoza assassination and also asserts that Cuba had a direct role in planning it in his memoir, In the Pirate's Den (2002).
  Somoza's funeral attracted numerous wealthy Nicaraguan and Cuban exiles in South Florida, who protested the left-wing governments of Nicaragua, led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and Cuba, led by the Communist Party of Cuba. But some commentators noted that the exiles in Miami were also relieved at Somoza's death. The newly founded Contra army, which consisted of man
caption: Somoza family mausoleum
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