title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Contras operated out of camps in the neighboring countries of Honduras to the north and Costa Rica (see Edén Pastora cited below) to the south. As was typical in guerrilla warfare, they were engaged in a campaign of economic sabotage in an attempt to combat the Sandinista government and disrupted shipping by planting underwater mines in Nicaragua's Corinto harbour, an action condemned by the International Court of Justice as illegal. The U.S. also sought to place economic pressure on the Sandinistas, and, as with Cuba, the Reagan administration imposed a full trade embargo.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Contras also carried out a systematic campaign to disrupt the social reform programs of the government. This campaign included attacks on schools, health centers and the majority of the rural population that was sympathetic to the Sandinistas. Widespread murder, rape, and torture were also used as tools to destabilize the government and to "terrorize" the population into collaborating with the Contras. Throughout this campaign, the Contras received military and financial support from the CIA and the Reagan Administration. This campaign has been condemned internationally for its many human rights violations. Contra supporters have often tried to downplay these violations, or countered that the Sandinista government carried out much more. In particular, the Reagan administration engaged in a campaign to alter public opinion on the Contras that has been termed "white propaganda". In 1984, the International Court of Justice judged that the United States Government had been in violation of International law when it supported the Contras.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: After the U.S. Congress prohibited federal funding of the Contras through the Boland Amendment in 1983, the Reagan administration continued to back the Contras by raising money from foreign allies and covertly selling arms to Iran (then engaged in a war with Iraq), and channelling the proceeds to the Contras (see the Iran–Contra affair). When this scheme was revealed, Reagan admitted that he knew about Iranian "arms for hostages" dealings but professed ignorance about the proceeds funding the Contras; for this, National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Oliver North took much of the blame.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Senator John Kerry's 1988 U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations report on links between the Contras and drug imports to the US concluded that "senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems". According to the National Security Archive, Oliver North had been in contact with Manuel Noriega, the US-backed president of Panama. The Reagan administration's support for the Contras continued to stir controversy well into the 1990s. In August 1996, "San Jose Mercury News" reporter Gary Webb published a series titled "Dark Alliance", linking the origins of crack cocaine in California to the CIA-Contra alliance. Webb's allegations were repudiated by reports from the "Los Angeles Times", "The New York Times", and "The Washington Post", and the "San Jose Mercury News" eventually disavowed his work. An investigation by the United States Department of Justice also stated that their "review did not substantiate the main allegations stated and implied in the Mercury News articles". Regarding the specific charges towards the CIA, the DOJ wrote "the implication that the drug trafficking by the individuals discussed in the "Mercury News" articles was connected to the CIA was also not supported by the facts". The CIA also investigated and rejected the allegations.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Contra war unfolded differently in the northern and southern zones of Nicaragua. Contras based in Costa Rica operated on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, which is sparsely populated by indigenous groups including the Miskito, Sumo, Rama, Garifuna, and Mestizo. Unlike Spanish-speaking western Nicaragua, the Caribbean Coast also has lots of speakers of indigenous languages and English-based creoles, and was largely ignored by the Somoza regime. The "costeños" did not participate in the uprising against Somoza and viewed Sandinismo with suspicion from the outset.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: While the Sandinistas encouraged grassroots pluralism, they were perhaps less enthusiastic about national elections. They argued that popular support was expressed in the insurrection and that further appeals to popular support would be a waste of scarce resources. International pressure and domestic opposition eventually pressed the government toward a national election. Tomás Borge warned that the elections were a concession, an act of generosity and of political necessity. On the other hand, the Sandinistas had little to fear from the election given the advantages of incumbency and the restrictions on the opposition, and they hoped to discredit the armed efforts to overthrow them.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: A broad range of political parties, ranging in political orientation from far-left to far-right, competed for power. Following promulgation of a new populist constitution, Nicaragua held national elections in 1984. Independent electoral observers from around the world—including groups from the UN as well as observers from Western Europe—found that the elections had been fair. Several groups, however, disputed this, including UNO, a broad coalition of anti-Sandinista activists, COSEP, an organization of business leaders, the Contra group "FDN", organized by former Somozan-era National Guardsmen, landowners, businessmen, peasant highlanders, and what some claimed as their patron, the U.S. government.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Although initially willing to stand in the 1984 elections, the UNO, headed by Arturo Cruz (a former Sandinista), declined participation in the elections based on their own objections to the restrictions placed on the electoral process by the State of Emergency and the official advisement of President Ronald Reagan's State Department, who wanted to de-legitimize the election process. Among other parties that abstained was COSEP, who had warned the FSLN that they would decline participation unless freedom of the press was reinstituted. Coordinadora Democrática (CD) also refused to file candidates and urged Nicaraguans not to take part in the election. The Independent Liberal Party (PLI), headed by Virgilio Godoy Reyes, announced its refusal to participate in October. Consequently, when the elections went ahead the U.S. raised objections based upon political restrictions instituted by the State of Emergency (e.g., censorship of the press, cancellation of habeas corpus, and the curtailing of free assembly).


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Daniel Ortega and Sergio Ramírez were elected president and vice-president, and the FSLN won an overwhelming 61 out of 96 seats in the new National Assembly, having taken 67% of the vote on a turnout of 75%. Despite international validation of the elections by multiple political and independent observers (virtually all from among U.S. allies), the United States refused to recognize the elections, with President Ronald Reagan denouncing the elections as a sham. According to a study, since the 1984 election was for posts subordinate to the Sandinista Directorate, the elections were no more subject to approval by vote than the Central Committee of the Communist Party is in countries of the East Bloc. Daniel Ortega began his six-year presidential term on January 10, 1985. After the United States Congress turned down continued funding of the Contras in April 1985, the Reagan administration ordered a total embargo on United States trade with Nicaragua the following month, accusing the Sandinista government of threatening United States security in the region.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The elections of 1990, which had been mandated by the constitution passed in 1987, saw the Bush administration funnel $49.75 million of 'non-lethal' aid to the Contras, as well as $9 million to the opposition UNO—equivalent to $2 billion worth of intervention by a foreign power in a US election at the time, and proportionately five times the amount George Bush had spent on his own election campaign. When Violeta Chamorro visited the White House in November 1989, the US pledged to maintain the embargo against Nicaragua unless Violeta Chamorro won.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: There were reports of intimidation and violence during the election campaign by the contras, with a Canadian observer mission claiming that 42 people were killed by the contras in "election violence" in October 1989. Sandinistas were also accused of intimidation and violence during the election campaign. According to the Puebla Institute, by mid-December 1989, seven opposition leaders had been murdered, 12 had disappeared, 20 had been arrested, and 30 others assaulted. In late January 1990, the OAS observer team reported that “a convoy of troops attacked four truckloads of UNO sympathizers with bayonets and rifle butts, threatening to kill them."


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Years of conflict had left 50,000 casualties and $12 billion of damages in a society of 3.5 million people and an annual GNP of $2 billion. After the election, a survey was taken of voters: 75.6% agreed that if the Sandinistas had won, the war would never have ended. 91.8% of those who voted for the UNO agreed with this (William I Robinson, op cit). The Library of Congress Country Studies on Nicaragua states:


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Despite limited resources and poor organization, the UNO coalition under Violeta Chamorro directed a campaign centered around the failing economy and promises of peace. Many Nicaraguans expected the country's economic crisis to deepen and the Contra conflict to continue if the Sandinistas remained in power. Chamorro promised to end the unpopular military draft, bring about democratic reconciliation, and promote economic growth. In the February 25, 1990, elections, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro carried 55 percent of the popular vote against Daniel Ortega's 41 percent.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: In 1987, due to a stalemate with the Contras, the Esquipulas II treaty was brokered by Costa Rican President Óscar Arias Sánchez. The treaty's provisions included a call for a cease-fire, freedom of expression, and national elections. After the February 26, 1990 elections, the Sandinistas lost and peacefully passed power to the National Opposition Union (UNO), an alliance of 14 opposition parties ranging from the conservative business organization COSEP to Nicaraguan communists. UNO's candidate, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, replaced Daniel Ortega as president of Nicaragua.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Reasons for the Sandinista loss in 1990 are disputed. Defenders of the defeated government assert that Nicaraguans voted for the opposition due to the continuing U.S. economic embargo and potential Contra threat. Others have alleged that the United States threatened to continue to support the Contras and continue the civil war if the regime was not voted out of power.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: After their loss, the Sandinista leaders held most of the private property and businesses that had been confiscated and nationalized by the FSLN government. This process became known as the "piñata" and was tolerated by the new Chamorro government. Ortega also claimed to "rule from below" through groups he controls such as labor unions and student groups. Prominent Sandinistas also created nongovernmental organizations to promote their ideas and social goals.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Ortega remained the head of the FSLN, but his brother Humberto resigned from the party and remained at the head of the Sandinista Army, becoming a close confidante and supporter of Chamorro. The party also experienced internal divisions, with prominent Sandinistas such as Ernesto Cardenal and Sergio Ramírez resigning to protest what they described as heavy-handed domination of the party by Daniel Ortega. Ramírez also founded a separate political party, the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS); his faction came to be known as the , who favor a more social democratic approach than the "ortodoxos", or hardliners. In the 1996 Nicaraguan election, Ortega and Ramírez both campaigned unsuccessfully as presidential candidates on behalf of their respective parties, with Ortega receiving 43% of the vote while Arnoldo Alemán of the Constitutional Liberal Party received 51%. The Sandinistas won second place in the congressional elections, with 36 of 93 seats.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Ortega was re-elected as leader of the FSLN in 1998. Municipal elections in November 2000 saw a strong Sandinista vote, especially in urban areas, and former Tourism Minister Herty Lewites was elected mayor of Managua. This result led to expectations of a close race in the presidential elections scheduled for November 2001. Daniel Ortega and Enrique Bolaños of the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) ran neck-and-neck in the polls for much of the campaign, but in the end the PLC won a clear victory. The results of these elections were that the FSLN won 42.6% of the vote for parliament (versus 52.6% for the PLC), giving them 41 out of the 92 seats in the National Assembly (versus 48 for the PLC). In the presidential race, Ortega lost to Bolaños 46.3% to 53.6%.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Daniel Ortega was once again re-elected as leader of the FSLN in March 2002 and re-elected as president of Nicaragua in November 2006.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: In 2006, Daniel Ortega was elected president with 38% of the vote (see 2006 Nicaraguan general election). This occurred despite the fact that the breakaway Sandinista Renovation Movement continued to oppose the FSLN, running former Mayor of Managua Herty Lewites as its candidate for president. However, Lewites died several months before the elections.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The FSLN also won 38 seats in the congressional elections, becoming the party with the largest representation in parliament. The split in the Constitutionalist Liberal Party helped to allow the FSLN to become the largest party in Congress. The Sandinista vote was also split between the FSLN and MRS, but the split was more uneven, with limited support for the MRS. The vote for the two liberal parties combined was larger than the vote for the two Sandinista parties. In 2010, several liberal congressmen raised accusations about the FSLN presumably attempting to buy votes in order to pass constitutional reforms that would allow Ortega to run for office for the 6th time since 1984. In 2011, Ortega was re-elected as president.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Ortega was allowed by Nicaraguan Supreme Court to run again as president, despite having already served two mandates, in a move which was strongly criticized by the opposition. The Supreme Court also banned the leader of the Independent Liberal Party Eduardo Montealegre from running in the election. Ortega was re-elected as president, amid claims of electoral fraud; data about turnout were unclear: while the Supreme Electoral Council claimed a turnout of 66% of voters, the opposition claimed only 30% of voters actually went to the polls.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The year 2018 was marked by particular unrest in Nicaragua that had not been seen in the country in three decades. It came in two different phases, with initial unrest in the context of a fire at the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve in the Río San Juan department (which came to an end when rain abruptly put the fire out), leading on to an outbreak of violence a few weeks later after social security reforms were announced by the government.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: During this unrest there were many deaths linked to the violence, as well as many instances of torture, sexual assaults, death threats, ransacking and burning of buildings and violence against journalists. Opposition figures argued that the government was responsible for the violence, a view supported by some press outlets and NGOs such as Amnesty International. Many opposition figures and independent journalists have been arrested and police raids of opposition forces and independent media have occurred frequently.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: On September 29, 2018, President Ortega declared that the protests were illegal, stating that demonstrators would "respond to justice." The United Nations condemned the actions as being a violation of human rights regarding freedom of assembly.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Carlos Fernando Chamorro, son of former president Violeta Chamorro and editor of "Confidencial", left the country after his office was subject to police search in December 2018.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: In December 2018, the government revoked the licenses of five human rights organizations, closed the offices of the cable news and online show "Confidencial", and beat journalists when they protested.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Confidential newspaper and other media were seized and taken by the government of Daniel Ortega Several service stations of the Puma brand were closed on the afternoon, December 20, by representatives of the Nicaraguan Energy Institute (INE), a state entity that has the mandate to regulate, among others, the hydrocarbons sector.　Puma Energy entered the Nicaraguan oil and fuel derivatives market at the end of March 2011, when it bought the entire network of Esso stations in Nicaragua, as part of a regional operation that involved the purchase of 290 service stations and eight storage terminals of fuel in four countries of Central America.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: On December 21, 2018, the Nicaraguan police raided the offices of the 100% News Channel. They arrested Miguel Mora, owner of the Canal; Lucía Pineda, Head of Press of 100% Noticias and Verónica Chávez, wife of Miguel Mora and host of the Ellas Lo Dicen Program. Subsequently, Verónica Chávez was released. Miguel Mora and Lucia Pineda were accused of terrorist crimes and provoking hatred and discrimination between the police and Sandinistas.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: On January 30, 2019, the FSLN was expelled from the Socialist International, which cited "gross violations of human rights and democratic values committed by the government of Nicaragua". The ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party of Panama, also a member of the Socialist International, rejected the expulsion of the FSLN and threatened to leave the International, saying that it has abandoned its principles and made a decision regarding Latin America without consulting the Latin American parties, and referred to a "history of brotherhood in the struggle for social justice in Central America" between the two parties .


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Through the media and the works of FSLN leaders such as Carlos Fonseca, the life and times of Augusto César Sandino became its unique symbol in Nicaragua. The ideology of Sandinismo gained momentum in 1974, when a Sandinista-initiated hostage situation resulted in the Somoza government adhering to FSLN demands and publicly printing and airing work on Sandino in well known newspapers and media outlets.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: During the struggle against Somoza, the FSLN leaders' internal disagreements over strategy and tactics were reflected in three main factions:


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Nevertheless, while ideologies varied between FSLN leaders, all leaders essentially agreed that Sandino provided a path for the Nicaragua masses to take charge, and the FSLN would act as the legitimate vanguard. The extreme end of the ideology links Sandino to Roman Catholicism and portrays him as descending from the mountains in Nicaragua knowing he would be betrayed and killed. Generally however, most Sandinistas associated Sandino on a more practical level, as a heroic and honest person who tried to combat the evil forces of imperialist national and international governments that existed in Nicaragua's history.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: For purposes of making sense of how to govern, the FSLN drew four fundamental principles from the work of Carlos Fonseca and his understanding of the lessons of Sandino. According to Bruce E. Wright, "the Governing Junta of National Reconstruction agreed, under Sandinista leadership, that these principles had guided it in putting into practice a form of government that was characterized by those principles." It is generally accepted that these following principles have evolved the "ideology of Sandinismo". Three of these (excluding popular participation, which was presumably contained in Article 2 of the Constitution of Nicaragua) were to ultimately be guaranteed by Article 5 of the Constitution of Nicaragua. They are as follows:


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Bruce E. Wright claims that "this was a crucial contribution from Fonseca's work that set the template for FSLN governance during the revolutionary years and beyond".


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Beginning in 1967, the Cuban General Intelligence Directorate, or DGI, had begun to establish ties with Nicaraguan revolutionary organizations. By 1970 the DGI had managed to train hundreds of Sandinista guerrilla leaders and had vast influence over the organization. After the successful ousting of Somoza, DGI involvement in the new Sandinista government expanded rapidly. An early indication of the central role that the DGI would play in the Cuban-Nicaraguan relationship is a meeting in Havana on July 27, 1979, at which diplomatic ties between the two countries were re-established after more than 25 years. Julián López Díaz, a prominent DGI agent, was named Ambassador to Nicaragua. Cuban military and DGI advisors, initially brought in during the Sandinista insurgency, would swell to over 2,500 and operated at all levels of the new Nicaraguan government.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Cubans would like to have helped more in the development of Nicaragua towards socialism. Following the US invasion of Grenada, countries previously looking for support from Cuba saw that the United States was likely to take violent action to discourage this.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The early years of the Nicaraguan revolution had strong ties to Cuba. The Sandinista leaders acknowledged that the FSLN owed a great debt to the socialist island. Once the Sandinistas assumed power, Cuba gave Nicaragua military advice, as well as aid in education, health care, vocational training and industry building for the impoverished Nicaraguan economy. In return, Nicaragua provided Cuba with grains and other foodstuffs to help Cuba overcome the effects of the US embargo.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: According to Cambridge University historian Christopher Andrew, who undertook the task of processing the Mitrokhin Archive, Carlos Fonseca Amador, one of the original three founding members of the FSLN had been recruited by the KGB in 1959 while on a trip to Moscow. This was one part of Aleksandr Shelepin's 'grand strategy' of using national liberation movements as a spearhead of the Soviet Union's foreign policy in the Third World, and in 1960 the KGB organized funding and training for twelve individuals that Fonseca handpicked. These individuals were to be the core of the new Sandinista organization. In the following several years, the FSLN tried with little success to organize guerrilla warfare against the government of Luis Somoza Debayle. After several failed attempts to attack government strongholds and little initial support from the local population, the National Guard nearly annihilated the Sandinistas in a series of attacks in 1963. Disappointed with the performance of Shelepin's new Latin American "revolutionary vanguard", the KGB reconstituted its core of the Sandinista leadership into the ISKRA group and used them for other activities in Latin America.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: According to Andrew, Mitrokhin says during the following three years the KGB handpicked several dozen Sandinistas for intelligence and sabotage operations in the United States. Andrew and Mitrokhin say that in 1966, this KGB-controlled Sandinista sabotage and intelligence group was sent to northern Mexico near the US border to conduct surveillance for possible sabotage.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: In July 1961 during the Berlin Crisis of 1961 KGB chief Alexander Shelepin sent a memorandum to Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev containing proposals to create a situation in various areas of the world which would favor dispersion of attention and forces by the US and their satellites, and would tie them down during the settlement of the question of a German peace treaty and West Berlin. It was planned, inter alia, to organize an armed mutiny in Nicaragua in coordination with Cuba and with the "Revolutionary Front Sandino". Shelepin proposed to make appropriations from KGB funds in addition to the previous assistance $10,000 for purchase of arms.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Khrushchev sent the memo with his approval to his deputy Frol Kozlov and on August 1 it was, with minor revisions, passed as a CPSU Central Committee directive. The KGB and the Soviet Ministry of Defense were instructed to work out more specific measures and present them for consideration by the Central Committee.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Other researchers have documented the contribution made from other Warsaw Pact intelligence agencies to the fledgling Sandinista government including the East German Stasi, by using recently declassified documents from Berlin as well as from former Stasi spymaster Markus Wolf who described the Stasi's assistance in the creation of a secret police force modeled on East Germany's.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Cuba was instrumental in the Nicaraguan Literacy Campaign. Nicaragua was a country with a very high rate of illiteracy, but the campaign succeeded in lowering the rate from 50% to 12%. The revolution in Cuban education since the ousting of the US-backed Batista regime not only served as a model for Nicaragua but also provided technical assistance and advice. Cuba played an important part in the Campaign, providing teachers on a yearly basis after the revolution. Prevost states that "Teachers were not the only ones studying in Cuba, about 2,000 primary and secondary students were studying on the Isle of Youth and the cost was covered by the host country (Cuba)".


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The goals of the 1980 Literacy Campaign were socio-political, strategic as well as educational. It was the most prominent campaign with regards to the new education system. Illiteracy in Nicaragua was significantly reduced from 50.3% to 12.9%. One of the government's major concerns was the previous education system under the Somoza regime which did not see education as a major factor on the development of the country. As mentioned in the Historical Program of the FSLN of 1969, education was seen as a right and the pressure to stay committed to the promises made in the program was even stronger. 1980 was declared the "Year of Literacy" and the major goals of the campaign that started only 8 months after the FSLN took over. This included the eradication of illiteracy and the integration of different classes, races, gender and age. Political awareness and the strengthening of political and economic participation of the Nicaraguan people was also a central goal of the Literacy Campaign. The campaign was a key component of the FSLN's cultural transformation agenda.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The basic reader which was disseminated and used by teacher was called "Dawn of the People" based on the themes of Sandino, Carlos Fonseca, and the Sandinista struggle against imperialism and defending the revolution. Political education was aimed at creating a new social values based on the principles of Sandinista socialism, such as social solidarity, worker's democracy, egalitarianism, and anti-imperialism.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Health conditions in Somoza era Nicaragua were abysmal according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Vaccine coverage of babies under a year old was 88% immunised against polio and 78% against measles in 1983. Despite the turmoil caused by the Contra War under-fire mortality was reduced by approximately half during this period.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: In this area Cuba played a role by again offering expertise to Nicaragua. Over 1,500 Cuban doctors worked in Nicaragua and provided more than five million consultations. Cuban personnel were essential in the elimination of polio, the decrease in whooping cough, rubella, measles and the lowering of the infant mortality rate. Gary Prevost states that Cuban personnel made it possible for Nicaragua to have a national health care system that reached the majority of its citizens.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Cuba has participated in the training of Nicaraguan workers in the use of new machinery imported to Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan revolution caused the United States to oppose the country's government; therefore the Sandinistas would not receive any aid from the United States. The United States embargo against Nicaragua, imposed by the Reagan administration in May 1985, made it impossible for Nicaragua to receive spare parts for US-made machines, so this led Nicaragua to look to other countries for help. Cuba was the best choice because of the shared language and proximity and also because it had imported similar machinery over the years. Nicaraguans went to Cuba for short periods of three to six months and this training involved close to 3,000 workers. Countries such as the UK, sent farm equipment to Nicaragua.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Cuba helped Nicaragua in large projects such as building roads, power plants and sugar mills. Cuba also attempted to help Nicaragua build the first overland route linking Nicaraguas Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The road was meant to traverse 420 kilometres (260 mi) of jungle, but completion of the road and usage was hindered by the Contra war, and it was never completed.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Another significant feat was the building of the Tipitapa-Malacatoya sugar mill. It was completed and inaugurated during a visit by Fidel Castro in January 1985. The plant used the newest technology available and was built by workers trained in Cuba. Also during this visit Castro announced that all debts incurred on this project were absolved. Cuba also provided technicians to aid in the sugar harvest and assist in the rejuvenation of several old sugar mills. Cubans also assisted in building schools and similar projects.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: After the Nicaraguan revolution, the Sandinista government established a Ministry of Culture in 1980. The ministry was spearheaded by Ernesto Cardenal, a poet and priest. The ministry was established in order to socialize the modes of cultural production. This extended to art forms including dance, music, art, theatre and poetry. The project was created to democratize culture on a national level. The aim of the ministry was to "democratize art" by making it accessible to all social classes as well as protecting the right of the oppressed to produce, distribute and receive art. In particular, the ministry was devoted to the development of working class and "campesino", or peasant culture. Therefore, the ministry sponsored cultural workshops throughout the country until October 1988 when the Ministry of Culture was integrated into the Ministry of Education because of financial troubles.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The objective of the workshops was to recognize and celebrate neglected forms of artistic expression. The ministry created a program of cultural workshops known as, "Casas de Cultura and Centros Populares de Cultura". The workshops were set up in poor neighbourhoods and rural areas and advocated universal access and consumption of art in Nicaragua. The ministry assisted in the creation of theatre groups, folklore and artisanal production, song groups, new journals of creation and cultural criticism, and training programs for cultural workers. The ministry created a Sandinista daily newspaper named "Barricada" and its weekly cultural addition named "Ventana" along with the "Television Sandino, Radio Sandino" and the Nicaraguan film production unit called the INCINE. There were existing papers which splintered after the revolution and produced other independent, pro-Sandinista newspapers, such as "El Nuevo Diario" and its literary addition "Nuevo Amanecer Cultural". Editorial Nueva Nicaragua, a state publishing house for literature, was also created. The ministry collected and published political poetry of the revolutionary period, known as testimonial narrative, a form of literary genre that recorded the experiences of individuals in the course of the revolution.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The ministry developed a new anthology of Rubén Darío, a Nicaraguan poet and writer, established a Rubén Darío prize for Latin American writers, the Leonel Rugama prize for young Nicaraguan writers, as well as public poetry readings and contests, cultural festivals and concerts. The Sandinista regime tried to keep the revolutionary spirit alive by empowering its citizens artistically. At the time of its inception, the Ministry of Culture needed, according to Cardenal, "to bring a culture to the people who were marginalized from it. We want a culture that is not the culture of an elite, of a group that is considered 'cultivated', but rather of an entire people." Nevertheless, the success of the Ministry of Culture had mixed results and by 1985 criticism arose over artistic freedom in the poetry workshops. The poetry workshops became a matter for criticism and debate. Critics argued that the ministry imposed too many principles and guidelines for young writers in the workshop, such as, asking them to avoid metaphors in their poetry and advising them to write about events in their everyday life. Critical voices came from established poets and writers represented by the "Asociacion Sandinista de Trabajadores de la Cultura" (ASTC) and from the "Ventana" both of which were headed by Rosario Murillo. They argued that young writers should be exposed to different poetic styles of writing and resources developed in Nicaragua and elsewhere. Furthermore, they argued that the ministry exhibited a tendency that favored and fostered political and testimonial literature in post-revolutionary Nicaragua.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The new government, formed in 1979 and dominated by the Sandinistas, resulted in a socialist model of economic development. The new leadership was conscious of the social inequities produced during the previous thirty years of unrestricted economic growth and was determined to make the country's workers and peasants, the "economically underprivileged", the prime beneficiaries of the new society. Consequently, in 1980 and 1981, unbridled incentives to private investment gave way to institutions designed to redistribute wealth and income. Private property would continue to be allowed, but all land belonging to the Somozas was confiscated. By 1990 the agrarian reform had affected half of the country's arable land benefiting some 60% of rural families.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: However, the ideology of the Sandinistas put the future of the private sector and of private ownership of the means of production in doubt. Although under the new government both public and private ownership were accepted, government spokespersons occasionally referred to a reconstruction phase in the country's development, in which property owners and the professional class would be tapped for their managerial and technical expertise. After reconstruction and recovery, the private sector would give way to expanded public ownership in most areas of the economy. Despite such ideas, which represented the point of view of a faction of the government, the Sandinista government remained officially committed to a mixed economy.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Sandinista government also significantly expanded workers rights in particular the right to form a union and collective bargaining. Some trade union rights however, like the right to strike were suspended during the Contra War, but strikes still occurred throughout the 1980s, most labour strikes were settled through dialogue with the FSLN.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Economic growth was uneven in the 1980s. Restructuring of the economy and the rebuilding immediately following the end of the civil war caused the GDP to rise about 5 percent in 1980 and 1981. Each year from 1984 to 1990, however, showed a drop in the GDP. Reasons for the contraction included the reluctance of foreign banks to offer new loans, the diversion of funds to fight the new insurrection against the government, and, after 1985, the total embargo on trade with the United States, formerly Nicaragua's largest trading partner. After 1985 the government chose to fill the gap between decreasing revenues and mushrooming military expenditures by printing large amounts of paper money. Inflation rose rapidly, peaking in 1988 at more than 14,000 percent annually.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Measures taken by the government to lower inflation were hampered by natural disaster. In early 1988, the administration of Daniel José Ortega Saavedra (Sandinista junta coordinator 1979–85, president 1985–90) established an austerity program to lower inflation. Price controls were tightened, and a new currency was introduced. As a result, by August 1988, inflation had dropped to an annual rate of 240 percent. The following month, however, Hurricane Joan cut a path directly across the center of the country. Damage was extensive, and the government's program of large spending to repair the infrastructure destroyed its anti-inflation measures.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: In its eleven years in power, the Sandinista government never overcame most of the economic inequalities that it inherited from the Somoza era. Years of war, policy missteps, natural disasters, and the effects of the United States trade embargo all hindered economic development. Despite these problems however, the Nicaragua economy saw a transformation in a direction to satisfy the needs of Nicaragua's poor majority.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The women of Nicaragua prior to, during and after the revolution played a prominent role within the nation's society as they have commonly been recognized, throughout history and across all Latin American states, as its backbone. Nicaraguan women were therefore directly affected by all of the positive and negative events that took place during this revolutionary period. The victory of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1979 brought about major changes and gains for women, mainly in legislation, broad educational opportunities, training programs for working women, childcare programs to help women enter the work force and greatly increased participation and leadership positions in a range of political activities. This, in turn, reduced the burdens that the women of Nicaragua were faced with prior to the revolution. During the Sandinista government, women were more active politically. The large majority of members of the neighborhood committees (Comités de Defensa Sandinista) were women. By 1987, 31% of the executive positions in the Sandinista government, 27% of the leadership positions of the FSLN, and 25% of the FSLN's active membership were women.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Supporters of the Sandinistas see their era as characterized by the creation and implementation of successful social programs which were free and made widely available to the entire nation. Some of the more successful programs for women that were implemented by the Sandinistas were in the areas of education (see: Nicaraguan Literacy Campaign), health, and housing. Providing subsidies for basic foodstuffs and the introduction of mass employment were also contributions of the FSLN. The Sandinistas were particularly advantageous for the women of Nicaraguan as they promoted progressive views on gender as early as 1969 claiming that the revolution would "abolish the detestable discrimination that women have suffered with regard to men and establish economic, political and cultural equality between men and women". This was evident as the FSLN began integrating women into their ranks by 1967, unlike other left-wing guerilla groups in the region. This goal was not fully reached because the roots of gender inequality were not explicitly challenged. Women's participation within the public sphere was also substantial, as many took part in the armed struggle as part of the FSLN or as part of counter-revolutionary forces.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Nicaraguan women organized independently in support of the revolution and their cause. Some of those organizations were the Socialist Party (1963), Federación Democrática (which support the FSLN in rural areas), and Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women (, AMNLAE). However, since Daniel Ortega, was defeated in the 1990 election by the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO) coalition headed by Violeta Chamorro, the situation for women in Nicaragua was seriously altered. In terms of women and the labor market, by the end of 1991 AMNLAE reported that almost 16,000 working women—9,000 agricultural laborers, 3,000 industrial workers, and 3,800 civil servants, including 2,000 in health, 800 in education, and 1,000 in administration—had lost their jobs. The change in government also resulted in the drastic reduction or suspension of all Nicaraguan social programs, which brought back the burdens characteristic of pre-revolutionary Nicaragua. The women were forced to maintain and supplement community social services on their own without economic aid or technical and human resource.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Between 2007 and 2018 under Sandinista administrations, Nicaragua has advanced from 62nd to 6th in the world in terms of gender equality, according to the Global Gender Gap Report from the World Economic Forum.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Roman Catholic Church's relationship with the Sandinistas was extremely complex. Initially, the Church was committed to supporting the Somoza regime. The Somoza dynasty was willing to secure the Church a prominent place in society as long as it did not attempt to subvert the authority of the regime. Under the constitution of 1950 the Roman Catholic Church was recognized as the official religion and church-run schools flourished. It was not until the late 1970s that the Church began to speak out against the corruption and human rights abuses that characterized the Somoza regime.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Catholic hierarchy initially disapproved of the Sandinistas' revolutionary struggle against the Somoza dynasty. The revolutionaries were perceived as proponents of "godless communism" that posed a threat to the traditionally privileged place that the Church occupied within Nicaraguan society. Nevertheless, the increasing corruption and repression characterizing the Somoza rule and the likelihood that the Sandinistas would emerge victorious ultimately influenced Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo to declare formal support for the Sandinistas' armed struggle. Throughout the revolutionary struggle, the Sandinistas had the grassroots support of clergy who were influenced by the reforming zeal of Vatican II and dedicated to a "preferential option for the poor" (for comparison, see liberation theology). Numerous Christian base communities (CEBs) were created in which lower level clergy and laity took part in consciousness raising initiatives to educate the peasants about the institutionalized violence they were suffering from. Some priests took a more active role in supporting the revolutionary struggle. For example, Father Gaspar García Laviana took up arms and became a member of FSLN.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Soon after the Sandinistas assumed power, the hierarchy began to oppose the Sandinistas government. The Archbishop was a vocal source of domestic opposition. The hierarchy was alleged to be motivated by fear of the emergence of the 'popular church' which challenged their centralized authority. The hierarchy also opposed social reforms implemented by the Sandinistas to aid the poor, allegedly because they saw it as a threat to their traditionally privileged position within society. In response to this perceived opposition, the Sandinistas shut down the church-run Radio Católica radio station on multiple occasions.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Sandinistas' relationship with the Roman Catholic Church deteriorated as the Contra War continued. The hierarchy refused to speak out against the counterrevolutionary activities of the contras and failed to denounce American military aid. State media accused the Catholic Church of being reactionary and supporting the Contras. According to former President Ortega, "The conflict with the church was strong, and it costs us, but I don't think it was our fault. ... There were so many people being wounded every day, so many people dying, and it was hard for us to understand the position of the church hierarchy in refusing to condemn the contras." The hierarchy-state tensions were brought to the fore with Pope John Paul II 1983 visit to Nicaragua. Hostility to the Catholic Church became so great that at one point, FSLN militants shouted down Pope John Paul II as he tried to say Mass. Therefore, while the activities of the Catholic church contributed to the success of the Sandinista revolution, the hierarchy's opposition was a major factor in the downfall of the revolutionary government.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: On August 23, 2020, Bishop Silvio Báez, who had been outside of Nicaragua for reasons of security since April 23, 2019, accused President Ortega of being a dictator. The "Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos" (Nicaraguan Human Rights Center, Cenidh) said that the Catholic Church had been the victim of 24 attacks since April 2018, including a fire that began in the Immaculate Conception Cathedral when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a sacred image of the Blood of Christ on July 31, 2020.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: "Time" magazine in 1983 published reports of human rights violations in an article which stated that "According to Nicaragua's Permanent Commission on Human Rights, the regime detains several hundred people a month; about half of them are eventually released, but the rest simply disappear." "Time" also interviewed a former deputy chief of Nicaraguan military counterintelligence, who stated that he had fled Nicaragua after being ordered to kill 800 Miskito prisoners and make it look like they had died in combat. Another article described Sandinista neighbourhood "Defense Committees", modeled on similar Cuban Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, which according to critics were used to unleash mobs on anyone who was labeled a counterrevolutionary. Nicaragua's only opposition newspaper, La Prensa, was subject to strict censorship. The newspaper's editors were forbidden to print anything negative about the Sandinistas either at home or abroad.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Nicaragua's Permanent Commission on Human Rights reported 2,000 murders in the first six months and 3,000 disappearances in the first few years. It has since documented 14,000 cases of torture, rape, kidnapping, mutilation and murder.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in a 1981 report found evidence for mass executions in the period following the revolution. It stated: "In the Commission's view, while the government of Nicaragua clearly intended to respect the lives of all those defeated in the civil war, during the weeks immediately subsequent to the Revolutionary triumph, when the government was not in effective control, illegal executions took place which violated the right to life, and these acts have not been investigated and the persons responsible have not been punished." The IACHR also stated that: "The Commission is of the view that the new regime did not have, and does not now have, a policy of violating the right to life of political enemies, including among the latter the former guardsmen of the Government of General Somoza, whom a large sector of the population of Nicaragua held responsible for serious human rights violations during the former regime; proof of the foregoing is the abolition of the death penalty and the high number of former guardsmen who were prisoners and brought to trial for crimes that constituted violations of human rights."


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: A 1983 IACHR report documented allegations of human rights violations against the Miskito Indians, which were alleged to have taken place after opposition forces (the Contras) infiltrated a Miskito village in order to launch attacks against government soldiers, and as part of a subsequent forced relocation program. Allegations included arbitrary imprisonment without trial, "disappearances" of such prisoners, forced relocation, and destruction of property. A 1984 IACHR report accused the Sandinistas of having "repeatedly violated the basic rights of Miskito Indians living there, including instances of "illegal killings" and torture". The report accused them of executing 35 to 40 Miskitos in Leimus in December 1981. The U.S. government accused Nicaragua of genocide. The U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig pointed to a photo published in Le Figaro alleged to show Miskito bodies being burned by Sandinista troops as evidence; however, the photo was actually of people killed by Somoza's National Guard in 1978.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The IACHR's 1991 annual report states: "In 1990, the Commission was informed of the discovery of common graves in Nicaragua, especially in areas where fighting had occurred. The information was provided by the Nicaraguan Pro Human Rights Association, which had received its first complaint in June 1990. By December 1991, that Association had received reports of 60 common graves and had investigated 15 of them. While most of the graves seem to be the result of summary executions by members of the Sandinista People's Army or the State Security, some contain the bodies of individuals executed by the Nicaraguan Resistance."


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The IACHR's 1992 annual report contains details of mass graves and investigations which suggest that mass executions had been carried out. One such grave contained 75 corpses of peasants who were believed to have been executed in 1984 by government security forces pretending to be members of the Contras. Another grave was also found in the town of Quininowas which contained six corpses, believed to be an entire family killed by government forces when the town was invaded. A further 72 graves were reported as being found, containing bodies of people, the majority of whom were believed to have been executed by agents of the state and some also by the Contras.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The issue of human rights also became highly politicized at this time as human rights is claimed to be a key component of propaganda created by the Reagan administration to help legitimize its policies in the region. The Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America (ICCHRLA) in its "Newsletter" stated in 1985 that: "The hostility with which the Nicaraguan government is viewed by the Reagan administration is an unfortunate development. Even more unfortunate is the expression of that hostility in the destabilization campaign developed by the US administration. ... An important aspect of this campaign is misinformation and frequent allegations of serious human rights violations by the Nicaraguan authorities." Among the accusations in The Heritage Foundation report and the Demokratizatsiya article are references to alleged policies of religious persecution, particularly anti-semitism. The ICCHRLA in its newsletter stated that: "From time to time the current U.S. administration, and private organizations sympathetic to it, have made serious and extensive allegations of religious persecution in Nicaragua. Colleague churches in the United States undertook onsite investigation of these charges in 1984. In their report, the delegation organized by the Division of Overseas Ministries of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States concluded that there is 'no basis for the charge of systematic religious persecution'. The delegation 'considers this issue to be a device being used to justify aggressive opposition to the present Nicaraguan government.'" On the other hand, some elements of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, among them Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo, strongly criticized the Sandinistas. The Archbishop stated "The government wants a church that is aligned with the Marxist–Leninist regime." The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights states that: "Although it is true that much of the friction between the Government and the churches arises from positions that are directly or indirectly linked to the political situation of the country, it is also true that statements by high government officials, official press statements, and the actions of groups under the control of the Government have gone beyond the limits within which political discussions should take place and have become obstacles to certain specifically religious activities."


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: Human Rights Watch also stated in its 1989 report on Nicaragua that: "Under the Reagan administration, U.S. policy toward Nicaragua's Sandinista government was marked by constant hostility. This hostility yielded, among other things, an inordinate amount of publicity about human rights issues. Almost invariably, U.S. pronouncements on human rights exaggerated and distorted the real human rights violations of the Sandinista regime, and exculpated those of the U.S.-supported insurgents, known as the "contras"."


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: In 1987, a report was published by the UK based NGO Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR, now known as "Progressio"), a human rights organization which identifies itself with Liberation theology. The report, "Right to Survive: Human Rights in Nicaragua", discussed the politicization of the human rights issue: "The Reagan administration, with scant regard for the truth, has made a concerted effort to paint as evil a picture as possible of Nicaragua, describing it as a 'totalitarian dungeon'. Supporters of the Sandinistas ... have argued that Nicaragua has a good record of human rights compared with other Central American countries and have compared Nicaragua with other countries at war." The CIIR report refers to estimates made by the NGO Americas Watch which count the number of non-battle related deaths and disappearances for which the government was responsible up to the year 1986 as "close to 300".


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: According to the CIIR report, Amnesty International and Americas Watch stated that there is no evidence that the use of torture was sanctioned by the Nicaraguan authorities, although prisoners reported the use of conditions of detention and interrogation techniques that could be described as psychological torture. The Red Cross made repeated requests to be given access to prisoners held in state security detention centers, but were refused. The CIIR was critical of the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (PCHR or CPDH in Spanish), claiming that the organisation had a tendency to immediately publish accusations against the government without first establishing a factual basis for the allegations. The CIIR report also questioned the independence of the Permanent Commission on Human Rights, referring to an article in "The Washington Post" which claims that the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization funded by the US government, allocated a concession of US$50,000 for assistance in the translation and distribution outside Nicaragua of its monthly report, and that these funds were administered by the Committee for Democracy in Central America (Prodemca), a US-based organization which later published full-page advertisements in "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" supporting military aid to the Contras. The Permanent Commission denies that it received any money which it claims was instead used by others for translating and distributing their monthly reports in other nations.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Nicaraguan-based magazine "Revista Envio", which describes its stance as one of "critical support for the Sandinistas", refers to the report: "The CPDH: Can It Be Trusted?" written by Scottish lawyer Paul Laverty. In the report, Laverty observes that: "The entire board of directors [of the Permanent Commission], are members of or closely identify with the 'Nicaraguan Democratic Coordinating Committee' (Coordinadora), an alliance of the more right wing parties and COSEP, the business organization." He goes on to express concern about CPDH's alleged tendency to provide relatively few names and other details in connection with alleged violations. "According to the 11 monthly bulletins of 1987 (July being the only month without an issue), the CPDH claims to have received information on 1,236 abuses of all types. However, of those cases, only 144 names are provided. The majority of those 144 cases give dates and places of alleged incidents, but not all. This means that only in 11.65% of its cases is there the minimal detail provided to identify the person, place, date, incident and perpetrator of the abuse."


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: On the other hand, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights states: "During its on-site observation in 1978 under the Government of General Somoza, the Permanent Commission on Human Rights in Nicaragua, (CPDH) gave the Commission notable assistance, which certainly helped it to prepare its report promptly and correctly." and in 1980 "It cannot be denied that the CPDH continues to play an important role in the protection of human rights, and that a good number of people who consider that their human rights have been ignored by the Government are constantly coming to it." The IACHR continued to meet with representatives of the Permanent Commission and report their assessments in later years.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The Heritage Foundation stated that: "While elements of the Somoza National Guard tortured political opponents, they did not employ psychological torture." The International Commission of Jurists stated that under the Somoza regime cruel physical torture was regularly used in the interrogation of political prisoners.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The United States State Department accused the Sandinistas of many cases of illegal foreign intervention.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The first allegation was supporting the FMLN rebels in El Salvador with safe haven, training, command-and-control headquarters, advice, weapons, ammunition, and other vital supplies. Captured documents, testimonials of former rebels and Sandinistas, aerial photographs, the tracing of captured weapons back to Nicaragua, and captured vehicles from Nicaragua smuggling weapons were cited as evidence. El Salvador was in a civil war in the period in question and the US was heavily supporting the Salvadoran government against the FMLN guerrillas.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: There were also accusations of subversive activities in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Colombia, and in the case of Honduras and Costa Rica outright military operations by Nicaraguan troops.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: In 2015, Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell claimed during an interview with CNN that John Kerry, then Secretary of State, had visited Nicaragua and met Daniel Ortega and denounced the Reagan Administration's support for the Contras as supporting terrorism during Kerry's tenure as a United States senator.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: During the Nicaraguan Revolution in the 1980s, American Democratic politician and then mayor Bernie Sanders expressed support for the Sandinistas and condemned US support for the Contras, he wrote letters to the group denouncing the US media portrayal of the conflict, and also visited Nicaragua during the war where he attended a Sandinista rally where anti-American chants were reportedly being done.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: The flag of the FSLN consists of an upper half in red, a lower half in black, and the letters F S L N in white. It is a modified version of the flag Sandino used in the 1930s, during the war against the U.S. occupation of Nicaragua which consisted of two vertical stripes, equally in size, one red and the other black with a skull (like the traditional Jolly Roger flag). These colors came from the Mexican anarchist movements that Sandino was involved with during his stay in Mexico in the early 1920s. (The traditional flag of anarcho-syndicalism, which joins diagonally the red color of the labour movement and the black color of anarchism, as in the flag of the CNT, is a negation of nationalism and reaffirmation of internationalism.)


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: In recent times, there has been a dispute between the FSLN and the dissident Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) about the use of the red and black flag in public activities. Although the MRS has its own flag (orange with a silhouette of Sandino's hat in black), they also use the red-and-black flag in honor of Sandino's legacy. They state that the red-and-black flag is a symbol of Sandinismo as a whole, not only of the FSLN party.


title: Sandinista National Liberation Front

text: I grew up in Urbana three houses down from the Sanderson family – Milton and Virginia and their boys Steve and Joe. My close friend was Joe. His bedroom was filled with aquariums, terrariums, snakes, hamsters, spiders, and butterfly and beetle collections. I envied him like crazy. After college he hit the road. He never made a break from his parents, but they rarely knew where he was. Sometimes he came home and his mother would have to sew $100 bills into the seams of his blue jeans. He disappeared in Nicaragua. His body was later identified as a dead Sandinista freedom fighter. From a nice little house surrounded by evergreens at the other end of Washington Street, he left to look for something he needed to find. I believe in Sean Penn's Christopher McCandless. I grew up with him.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital, also known as phenobarbitone or phenobarb, sold under the brand name Luminal among others, is a medication of the barbiturate type. It is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the treatment of certain types of epilepsy in developing countries. In the developed world, it is commonly used to treat seizures in young children, while other medications are generally used in older children and adults. In developed countries it is used for veterinary purposes. It may be used intravenously, injected into a muscle, or taken by mouth. The injectable form may be used to treat status epilepticus. Phenobarbital is occasionally used to treat trouble sleeping, anxiety, and drug withdrawal and to help with surgery. It usually begins working within five minutes when used intravenously and half an hour when administered by mouth. Its effects last for between four hours and two days.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Side effects include a decreased level of consciousness along with a decreased effort to breathe. There is concern about both abuse and withdrawal following long-term use. It may also increase the risk of suicide. It is pregnancy category B or D (depending on how it is taken) in the United States and category D in Australia, meaning that it may cause harm when taken by pregnant women. If used during breastfeeding it may result in drowsiness in the baby. A lower dose is recommended in those with poor liver or kidney function, as well as elderly people. Phenobarbital, like other barbiturates works by increasing the activity of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital was discovered in 1912 and is the oldest still commonly used anti-seizure medication. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital is used in the treatment of all types of seizures, except absence seizures. It is no less effective at seizure control than phenytoin, but phenobarbital is not as well tolerated. Phenobarbital may provide a clinical advantage over carbamazepine for treating partial onset seizures. Carbamazepine may provide a clinical advantage over phenobarbital for generalized onset tonic-clonic seizures. Its very long active half-life (53–118 hours) means for some people doses do not have to be taken every day, particularly once the dose has been stabilized over a period of several weeks or months, and seizures are effectively controlled.


title: Phenobarbital

text: The first-line drugs for treatment of status epilepticus are benzodiazepines, such as lorazepam or diazepam. If these fail, then phenytoin may be used, with phenobarbital being an alternative in the US, but used only third-line in the UK. Failing that, the only treatment is anaesthesia in intensive care. The World Health Organization (WHO) gives phenobarbital a first-line recommendation in the developing world and it is commonly used there.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital is the first-line choice for the treatment of neonatal seizures. Concerns that neonatal seizures in themselves could be harmful make most physicians treat them aggressively. No reliable evidence, though, supports this approach.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital is sometimes used for alcohol detoxification and benzodiazepine detoxification for its sedative and anti-convulsant properties. The benzodiazepines chlordiazepoxide (Librium) and oxazepam (Serax) have largely replaced phenobarbital for detoxification.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital properties can effectively reduce tremors and seizures associated with abrupt withdrawal from benzodiazepines.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital is occasionally prescribed in low doses to aid in the conjugation of bilirubin in people with Crigler–Najjar syndrome, type II, or in people with Gilbert's syndrome.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital is a commonly used agent in high purity and dosage for lethal injection of "death row" criminals.


title: Phenobarbital

text: In infants suspected of neonatal biliary atresia, phenobarbital is used in preparation for a Tc-IDA hepatobiliary (HIDA; hepatobiliary Tc-iminodiacetic acid) study that differentiates atresia from hepatitis or cholestasis.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital is used as a secondary agent to treat newborns with neonatal abstinence syndrome, a condition of withdrawal symptoms from exposure to opioid drugs "in utero".


title: Phenobarbital

text: In massive doses, phenobarbital is prescribed to terminally ill people to allow them to end their life through physician-assisted suicide.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Like other barbiturates, phenobarbital can be used recreationally, but this is reported to be relatively infrequent.


title: Phenobarbital

text: The synthesis of a photoswitchable analog (DASA-barbital) and phenobarbital has been described for use as research compound in photopharmacology.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Sedation and hypnosis are the principal side effects (occasionally, they are also the intended effects) of phenobarbital. Central nervous system effects, such as dizziness, nystagmus and ataxia, are also common. In elderly patients, it may cause excitement and confusion, while in children, it may result in paradoxical hyperactivity.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital is a cytochrome P450 hepatic enzyme inducer. It binds transcription factor receptors that activate cytochrome P450 transcription, thereby increasing its amount and thus its activity. Due to this higher amount of CYP450, drugs that are metabolized by the CYP450 enzyme system will have decreased effectiveness. This is because the increased CYP450 activity increases the clearance of the drug, reducing the amount of time they have to work.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Caution is to be used with children. Among anti-convulsant drugs, behavioural disturbances occur most frequently with clonazepam and phenobarbital.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Acute intermittent porphyria, hypersensitivity to any barbiturate, prior dependence on barbiturates, severe respiratory insufficiency (as with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), severe liver failure, pregnancy, and breastfeeding are contraindications for phenobarbital use.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital causes a depression of the body's systems, mainly the central and peripheral nervous systems. Thus, the main characteristic of phenobarbital overdose is a "slowing" of bodily functions, including decreased consciousness (even coma), bradycardia, bradypnea, hypothermia, and hypotension (in massive overdoses). Overdose may also lead to pulmonary edema and acute renal failure as a result of shock, and can result in death.


title: Phenobarbital

text: The electroencephalogram (EEG) of a person with phenobarbital overdose may show a marked decrease in electrical activity, to the point of mimicking brain death. This is due to profound depression of the central nervous system, and is usually reversible.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Treatment of phenobarbital overdose is supportive, and mainly consists of the maintenance of airway patency (through endotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation), correction of bradycardia and hypotension (with intravenous fluids and vasopressors, if necessary), and removal of as much drug as possible from the body. In very large overdoses, multi-dose activated charcoal is a mainstay of treatment as the drug undergoes enterohepatic recirculation. Urine alkalization (achieved with sodium bicarbonate) enhances renal excretion. Hemodialysis is effective in removing phenobarbital from the body, and may reduce its half-life by up to 90%. No specific antidote for barbiturate poisoning is available.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital is as an allosteric modulator which extends the amount of time the chloride ion channel is open by interacting with GABA receptor subunits. Through this action, phenobarbital increases the flow of chloride ions into the neuron which decreases the excitability of the post-synaptic neuron. Hyperpolarizing this post-synaptic membrane leads to a decrease in the general excitatory aspects of the post-synaptic neuron. By making it harder to depolarize the neuron, the threshold for the action potential of the post-synaptic neuron will be increased. Phenobarbital stimulates GABA to accomplish this hyperpolarization. Direct blockade of excitatory glutamate signaling is also believed to contribute to the hypnotic/anticonvulsant effect that is observed with the barbiturates.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital has an oral bioavailability of about 90%. Peak plasma concentrations (C) are reached eight to 12 hours after oral administration. It is one of the longest-acting barbiturates available – it remains in the body for a very long time (half-life of two to seven days) and has very low protein binding (20 to 45%). Phenobarbital is metabolized by the liver, mainly through hydroxylation and glucuronidation, and induces many isozymes of the cytochrome P450 system. Cytochrome P450 2B6 (CYP2B6) is specifically induced by phenobarbital via the CAR/RXR nuclear receptor heterodimer. It is excreted primarily by the kidneys.


title: Phenobarbital

text: It is also used to treat feline hyperesthesia syndrome in cats when anti-obsessional therapies prove ineffective.


title: Phenobarbital

text: It may also be used to treat seizures in horses when benzodiazepine treatment has failed or is contraindicated.


title: Phenobarbital

text: The first barbiturate drug, barbital, was synthesized in 1902 by German chemists Emil Fischer and Joseph von Mering and was first marketed as Veronal by Friedr. Bayer et comp. By 1904, several related drugs, including phenobarbital, had been synthesized by Fischer. Phenobarbital was brought to market in 1912 by the drug company Bayer as the brand Luminal. It remained a commonly prescribed sedative and hypnotic until the introduction of benzodiazepines in the 1960s.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital's soporific, sedative and hypnotic properties were well known in 1912, but it was not yet known to be an effective anti-convulsant. The young doctor Alfred Hauptmann gave it to his epilepsy patients as a tranquilizer and discovered their seizures were susceptible to the drug. Hauptmann performed a careful study of his patients over an extended period. Most of these patients were using the only effective drug then available, bromide, which had terrible side effects and limited efficacy. On phenobarbital, their epilepsy was much improved: The worst patients had fewer and lighter seizures and some patients became seizure-free. In addition, they improved physically and mentally as bromides were removed from their regimen. Patients who had been institutionalised due to the severity of their epilepsy were able to leave and, in some cases, resume employment. Hauptmann dismissed concerns that its effectiveness in stalling seizures could lead to patients developing a build-up that needed to be "discharged". As he expected, withdrawal of the drug led to an increase in seizure frequency – it was not a cure. The drug was quickly adopted as the first widely effective anti-convulsant, though World War I delayed its introduction in the U.S.


title: Phenobarbital

text: In 1939, a German family asked Adolf Hitler to have their disabled son killed; the five-month-old boy was given a lethal dose of Luminal after Hitler sent his own doctor to examine him. A few days later 15 psychiatrists were summoned to Hitler's Chancellery and directed to commence a clandestine program of involuntary euthanasia.


title: Phenobarbital

text: In 1940, at a clinic in Ansbach, Germany, around 50 intellectually disabled children were injected with Luminal and killed that way. A plaque was erected in their memory in 1988 in the local hospital at Feuchtwanger Strasse 38, although a newer plaque does not mention that patients were killed using barbiturates on site. Luminal was used in the Nazi children's euthanasia program until at least 1943.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital was used to treat neonatal jaundice by increasing liver metabolism and thus lowering bilirubin levels. In the 1950s, phototherapy was discovered, and became the standard treatment.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Phenobarbital was used for over 25 years as prophylaxis in the treatment of febrile seizures. Although an effective treatment in preventing recurrent febrile seizures, it had no positive effect on patient outcome or risk of developing epilepsy. The treatment of simple febrile seizures with anticonvulsant prophylaxis is no longer recommended.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Barbiturate drugs are obtained via condensation reactions between a derivative of diethyl malonate and urea in the presence of a strong base. The synthesis of phenobarbital uses this common approach as well but differs in the way in which this malonate derivative is obtained. The reason for this difference is due to the fact that aryl halides do not typically undergo nucleophilic substitution in Malonic ester synthesis in the same way as aliphatic organosulfates or halocarbons do. To overcome this lack of chemical reactivity two dominant synthetic approaches using benzyl cyanide as a starting material have been developed:


title: Phenobarbital

text: The first of these methods consists of a Pinner reaction of benzyl cyanide, giving phenylacetic acid ethyl ester. Subsequently, this ester undergoes cross Claisen condensation using diethyl oxalate, giving diethyl ester of phenyloxobutandioic acid. Upon heating this intermediate easily loses carbon monoxide, yielding diethyl phenylmalonate. Malonic ester synthesis using ethyl bromide leads to the formation of α-phenyl-α-ethylmalonic ester. Finally a condensation reaction with urea gives phenobarbital.


title: Phenobarbital

text: The second approach utilizes diethyl carbonate in the presence of a strong base to give α-phenylcyanoacetic ester. Alkylation of this ester using ethyl bromide proceeds via a nitrile anion intermediate to give the α-phenyl-α-ethylcyanoacetic ester. This product is then further converted into the 4-iminoderivative upon condensation with urea. Finally acidic hydrolysis of the resulting product gives phenobarbital.


title: Phenobarbital

text: The level of regulation includes Schedule IV non-narcotic (depressant) (ACSCN 2285) in the United States under the Controlled Substances Act 1970—but along with a few other barbiturates and at least one benzodiazepine, and codeine, dionine, or dihydrocodeine at low concentrations, it also has exempt prescription and had at least one exempt OTC combination drug now more tightly regulated for its ephedrine content. The phenobarbitone/phenobarbital exists in subtherapeutic doses which add up to an effective dose to counter the overstimulation and possible seizures from a deliberate overdose in ephedrine tablets for asthma, which are now regulated at the federal and state level as: a restricted OTC medicine and/or watched precursor, uncontrolled but watched/restricted prescription drug & watched precursor, a Schedule II, III, IV, or V prescription-only controlled substance & watched precursor, or a Schedule V (which also has possible regulations at the county/parish, town, city, or district as well aside from the fact that the pharmacist can also choose not to sell it, and photo ID and signing a register is required) exempt Non-Narcotic restricted/watched OTC medicine.


title: Phenobarbital

text: A mysterious woman, known as the Isdal Woman, was found dead in Bergen, Norway, on 29 November 1970. Her death was caused by some combination of burns, phenobarbital, and carbon monoxide poisoning; many theories about her death have been posited, and it is believed that she may have been a spy. The story has been the subject of a BBC Podcast, "Death in Ice Valley".


title: Phenobarbital

text: British veterinarian Donald Sinclair, better known as the character Siegfried Farnon in the "All Creatures Great and Small" book series by James Herriot, committed suicide at the age of 84 by injecting himself with an overdose of phenobarbital. Activist Abbie Hoffman also committed suicide by consuming phenobarbital, combined with alcohol, on April 12, 1989; the residue of around 150 pills was found in his body at autopsy.


title: Phenobarbital

text: Thirty-nine members of the Heaven's Gate UFO religious group committed mass suicide in March 1997 by drinking a lethal dose of phenobarbital and vodka "and then lay down to die" hoping to enter an alien spacecraft.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: Anaconda is a 1997 American adventure horror film directed by Luis Llosa and starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Eric Stoltz, Jonathan Hyde and Owen Wilson. It focuses on a documentary film crew in the Amazon rainforest that is captured by a snake hunter who is hunting down a giant, legendary green anaconda. The film received mostly negative reviews but was a box office success, grossing $136.8 million worldwide against a $45 million budget, and also became a cult classic. It was followed by a series of films.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: On the Amazon River, a poacher hides from an unknown creature in his boat. While it breaks through the boat and attempts to catch the poacher, he commits suicide by shooting himself to prevent it from killing him.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: Meanwhile, a film crew is shooting a documentary about the Shirishamas, a long-lost indigenous Amazonian tribe. The crew includes director Terri Flores, cameraman and childhood friend Danny Rich, production manager Denise Kalberg, Denise's boyfriend and sound engineer Gary Dixon, narrator Warren Westridge, anthropologist Professor Steven Cale, and boat skipper Mateo. The group encounters stranded Paraguayan snake hunter Paul Serone, who convinces them he can help them find the Shirishamas. Most of the crew are uncomfortable around Serone, and Cale clashes with him several times about Shirishama lore. Eventually, Cale is stung by a wasp, and an allergic reaction swells up his throat and leaves him unconscious. Serone performs an emergency cricothyrotomy, seemingly saving Cale's life, but soon after, he takes over the boat, forcing the crew to help him achieve his true goal: hunting down a giant record-breaking green anaconda he had been tracking, which he believes that he can capture alive.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: Danny, Mateo and Serone search the wreckage of the poacher's boat. A photograph in an old newspaper reveals that Mateo, Serone, and the poacher were working together to hunt animals, including snakes. Leaving the poacher's ship, Mateo falls into the water, where the giant female anaconda, measuring , attacks and kills him, while Danny and Serone return to their boat, unaware of Mateo's fate. Serone promises that if the crew helps him find the snake, he will help them get out alive. That night, the anaconda attacks the boat crew. Serone attempts to capture the snake, but it coils around Gary, crushing him. Terri attempts to shoot the anaconda to save him, but Serone knocks her gun away and the snake devours Gary, leaving Denise heartbroken in tears. The crew overpowers Serone and ties him up as punishment.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: The next day, the boat becomes stuck at a waterfall, requiring Terri, Danny, and Westridge to enter the water to winch it loose. Denise confronts Serone and attempts to kill him to avenge Gary's death, but he strangles her with his legs before dumping her corpse into the river. The anaconda returns, and Westridge distracts it long enough for Terri and Danny to return to the boat while Westridge ascends the waterfall. Serone breaks free during the attack and attacks Danny. The anaconda climbs a tree and attacks Westridge, but the tree snaps. The crew winds up in the water, Cale wakes up in the process, and Westridge is killed in the fall from the waterfall. The snake attacks Danny, but Terri shoots it in the head. Serone, still believing he can capture the snake alive, attacks her. Cale stabs him with a tranquilizer dart before losing consciousness again himself, and Danny knocks Serone into the river.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: Serone manages to catch up to the group and captures Terri and Danny, using them as bait in an attempt to capture a second, much larger male black anaconda, measuring individual. The snake attacks the pair, slowly suffocating them. Serone attempts to catch the anaconda in a net, but it breaks free and attacks him, eventually swallowing him whole, while Terri and Danny watch as they escape their bonds. The anaconda gives chase to Terri, who retreats into the building and finds a nest full of newborn anacondas. The snake regurgitates the still-alive, but partially digested Serone and chases her up a smokestack. Danny pins its tail to the ground with a pickaxe and ignites a fire below the smoke shack, setting the snake on fire. The resulting explosion sends the burning anaconda flying out of the building and into the water. As Terri and Danny recuperate on a nearby dock, the anaconda resurfaces, but Danny kills it with an axe to the head.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: Afterward, Terri and Danny reunite with Cale, who begins to revive on the boat. While floating downriver, the trio suddenly locates the Shirishama tribe, who helps them escape the Amazon.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: The film opened at No. 1 with $16.6 million in its first weekend and remained at the top spot in its following week. In total, "Anaconda" went on to gross $136.8 million worldwide, making it a sizable box office success collecting more than three times its $45 million budget.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: "Anaconda" received generally negative reviews upon its release. Some critics did praise the film's effects, scenery, and tongue-in-cheek humor, but many criticized the acting, "forgettable" or "cardboard" characters, inaccuracies, and "boring" start. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 40%, based on 53 reviews, with an average rating of 4.9/10. The site's consensus reads: ""Anaconda"s pulpy pleasures are constricted by its own absurdity, but creature feature fans may enjoy its brazen silliness". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 37 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: Film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film a mixed 2 out of a possible 4 stars, criticizing the film's "hokey" special effects and "expositionless" script but complimented the film's use of Brazilian locale and Voight's campy performance. Roger Ebert awarded the film 3 1/2 out of 4 stars and called it a "...slick, scary, funny Creature Feature, beautifully photographed and splendidly acted in high adventure style".


title: Anaconda (film)

text: Despite the initial negative reception, "Anaconda" has since become a cult classic, often viewed as being so-bad-it's-good. The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book "The Official Razzie Movie Guide" as one of The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: The film was nominated for six Razzie Awards in 1998 including Worst Picture (which lost to "The Postman"), Worst Actor (Jon Voight; which went to Kevin Costner for "The Postman"), Worst Director (awarded to Costner for "The Postman"), Worst Screenplay (lost to "The Postman"), Worst New Star ("the animatronic anaconda"; which went to Dennis Rodman for "Double Team") and Worst Screen Couple (Voight and "the animatronic anaconda"; where they lost to Rodman and Jean-Claude Van Damme for "Double Team"). It was also nominated for two Saturn Awards including Best Actress (Jennifer Lopez; who lost to Jodie Foster for "Contact") and Best Horror Film (which went to "The Devil's Advocate"). It won two Stinkers Awards including Worst Supporting Actor and Worst Fake Accent for Jon Voight (who also won the latter award for "Most Wanted").


title: Anaconda (film)

text: The broadcast of the movie during primetime viewing on South African television station e.tv has become a national running gag, with the station airing the movie several times every year since the mid-2000s.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: A sequel, "", was released to theaters in 2004. Three more films follows with a direct-to-video release, "" (2008), "" (2009) and "Lake Placid vs. Anaconda" (2015), a crossover film with the "Lake Placid" franchise.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: Even though no characters from the first film appear in the sequels, the events of the first film are referenced by the character Cole Burris in the second film, when he says he knows a man (Dr. Steven Cale) and another man (Danny Rich) that took a crew down to the Amazon, where they were attacked by snakes; in "Lake Placid vs. Anaconda", character Will "Tully" Tull describes the same incident of the snakes in the Amazon to Reba, without explicitly mentioning the characters.


title: Anaconda (film)

text: In January 2020, Sony Pictures announced a reboot is in development and screenwriter Evan Daugherty was hired to write the reboot film.


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: Rodrigo Junqueira Reis Santoro (; born 22 August 1975) is a Brazilian actor. He is most known for his portrayal of Persian King Xerxes in the movie "300" (2006) and its sequel "" (2014). Other famous movies include "Brainstorm" (2001), "Carandiru" (2003), "Love Actually" (2003), "Che" (2008), "I Love You Phillip Morris" (2009), and "Rio" (2011). He also appeared on the television series "Lost", portraying the character Paulo, and on HBO's "Westworld" (2016–2020) as Hector Escaton.


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: Santoro was born in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro state, to Francesco Santoro, an Italian engineer with roots in Paola, Province of Cosenza, Calabria, and Maria José Junqueira Reis, a Brazilian artist of Portuguese ancestry.


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: He went on to play parts in many of Globo's telenovelas, such as "Olho no Olho" (1993), "Pátria Minha" (1994), "Explode Coração" (1995), "O Amor Está no Ar" (1997), "Suave Veneno" (1999) and "Mulheres Apaixonadas" (2003), as well as the miniseries "Hilda Furacão" (1998), in the role of a priest. Santoro also voiced the titular character in "Stuart Little" and its sequel in the Brazilian-dubbed versions.


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: His first major role in a film production came in 2001, with "Bicho de Sete Cabeças" ("Brainstorm") from Brazilian director Laís Bodansky. By the end of the film, he received a standing ovation from the audience. He also went on to win the festival's best actor trophy. After "Bicho", his reputation as an actor had been solidified and he was cast as the male lead in "Abril Despedaçado" ("Behind the Sun"), one of the nominees for best foreign film in the 2002 Golden Globe Awards. In the 2003 Hector Babenco film "Carandiru" he played Lady Di, a transgender prisoner.


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: Canadian director Robert Allan Ackerman signed Santoro for his TV production "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" after being mesmerized by his performance in "Bicho de Sete Cabeças". Since Santoro did not have an agent in North America, Ackerman contacted Santoro's father. He spent two months filming in Rome, alongside such renowned actors as Helen Mirren and Anne Bancroft. Soon after he finished shooting for "Mrs. Stone", he received an offer from Columbia Pictures for a part in the blockbuster "". This role kick-started his career in Hollywood. After "Charlie's Angels", he played Karl, an enigmatic chief designer and the love interest of Laura Linney's character, in the romantic comedy "Love Actually", which also co-stars Colin Firth, Lúcia Moniz, Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley, and Rowan Atkinson.


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: Santoro also began obtaining work in the advertising business as he appeared in a commercial campaign with Gisele Bündchen in 2002. He played the male lead in "No. 5 The Film", a three-minute-long commercial for Chanel, directed by Baz Luhrmann alongside Nicole Kidman in 2004.


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: In 2006, Santoro joined the season three cast of the ABC television series "Lost" as Paulo, a survivor of the Oceanic Flight 815 crash. His first appearance was in the episode "Further Instructions", and his character was killed off in the episode "Exposé". He also voiced the character in the Brazilian-dubbed version of the series.


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: Santoro was cast as Persian emperor Xerxes in Zack Snyder's film "300" (2006), based on the Frank Miller comic of the same name. The job had many special requirements, which included intensive workout for the physicality of the role (Santoro had previously lost to star in a Brazilian miniseries), extensive CGI work to portray the 6'2" Santoro as the seven-foot God-King, a four-and-a-half-hour makeup application process and the complete removal of Santoro's body hair first by waxing and then by shaving, which proved too painful. His eyebrows were kept intact, however, covered over with prosthetics and drawn in rather than being shaved. Santoro read the works of Herodotus, an Ancient Greek historian, in order to prepare for his part. Regarding Xerxes, he has stated:


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: For his role in "300", Santoro became the first Brazilian actor nominated for the MTV Movie Awards in the category of Best Villain. He did not win however, with the award going to Jack Nicholson for "The Departed".


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: After playing the late footballer Heleno de Freitas in the 2012 film "Heleno", Santoro co-starred alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 2013 film "The Last Stand" before playing Garriga in the Will Smith drama film "Focus" (2015).


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: Santoro played Jesus in the 2016 historical action film "Ben-Hur" and received personal blessings from Pope Francis for the role.


title: Rodrigo Santoro

text: Santoro has been in a relationship with Brazilian actress Mel Fronckowiak since 2013. On 22 May 2017, they welcomed their first child, a daughter named Nina.


title: Veronica Cartwright

text: Veronica Cartwright (born April 20, 1949) is a British actress. She is known for appearing in science fiction and horror films, and has earned numerous accolades, including three Primetime Emmy Award nominations.


title: Veronica Cartwright

text: As a child actress, she appeared in supporting roles in "The Children's Hour" and "The Birds", the latter of which was Cartwright's first commercial success. She made her transition into mainstream, mature roles with 1978's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". The following year, she played Lambert in the science-fiction horror film "Alien", which earned her recognition and a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She additionally appeared in the films "The Right Stuff" and "The Witches of Eastwick" which earned her praise, and in the 1990s, received three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, one of which was for her role on "ER" and two of which were for her role in "The X-Files".


title: Veronica Cartwright

text: Cartwright was born in Bristol and grew up in Los Angeles, having emigrated to the US shortly after the birth of her younger sister, actress Angela Cartwright.


title: Veronica Cartwright

text: In 1958, her career as a child actress began with a role in "In Love and War". Among her early appearances were repeated roles in the television series "Leave It to Beaver" (as Beaver's classmates Violet Rutherford and, later, Peggy MacIntosh) and episodes of "" "The Haunting" (1960) and "The Twilight Zone" "I Sing the Body Electric" (1962). In 1963, she guest starred twice in NBC's medical drama about psychiatry, "The Eleventh Hour", in the episodes "The Silence of Good Men" and "My Name is Judith, I'm Lost, You See". Cartwright appeared in the films "The Children's Hour" (1961) and Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963), which were both highly successful. In "The Birds", she was cast along with her television father from "Leave It to Beaver", Richard Deacon, although the two were not on screen together. She appeared in "Spencer's Mountain" (1963) with Henry Fonda and Kym Karath. She played daughter Jemima Boone in the first two seasons of NBC's "Daniel Boone" from 1964 until 1966, with co-stars Fess Parker, Patricia Blair, Darby Hinton, Ed Ames and Dallas McKennon. She won a regional Emmy Award for the television movie "Tell Me Not in Mournful Numbers" (1964). She achieved adult success with film roles in "Inserts" (1974), "Goin' South" (1978), and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978).


title: Veronica Cartwright

text: Cartwright's breakout feature was the science-fiction horror film "Alien" (1979), for which she was originally cast as "Alien"s heroine Ellen Ripley, but director Ridley Scott instead set her to play Lambert prior to shooting. The infamous chestburster scene in the film featured a genuine reaction from Cartwright, who had not been informed beforehand that blood would be involved; co-star Tom Skerritt confirmed this by saying "What you saw on camera was the real response. She had no idea what the hell happened. All of a sudden this thing just came up." She won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.


title: Veronica Cartwright

text: Her subsequent film roles include "The Right Stuff" (1983), "Flight of the Navigator" (1986), "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987), "Money Talks" (1997), "Scary Movie 2" (2001), "Kinsey" (2004) and "Straight-Jacket" (2004). She was nominated again for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for The "Witches of Eastwick".


title: Veronica Cartwright

text: A frequent performer in television, she has played guest roles in such series as "Route 66", "Leave it to Beaver", "The Mod Squad", "Miami Vice", "Baywatch", "L.A. Law", "ER", "The X-Files", "Chicago Hope", "Will & Grace", "Touched by an Angel", "Judging Amy", "Six Feet Under", "The Closer", and "". Cartwright has received three Emmy Award nominations, one for her work in "ER" in 1997, and two for her work on "The X-Files" in 1998 and 1999. Cartwright also starred as Mrs. Olive Osmond in the made-for-TV film "Inside the Osmonds".