ABSTRACT
The three-year state of siege, first imposed by Anastasio Somoza Debayle during the December 1974 Castillo house raid, set the stage for the 1977-1979 insurrection. The state of siege suspended most civil liberties, permitted military trials for civilians, imposed curfews, and generally freed the hands of the National Guard. Anastasio Somoza's refusal to resign stalled the mediation completely in mid-November. Seeking to break the logjam, the mediators proposed a foreign-supervised plebiscite on whether Somoza should finish his presidential term, but the regime rejected any such election. Many Nicaraguans went without sufficient food, and health conditions were deplorable. Although some two thousand died in the September insurrection, seven times as many Nicaraguans died in the following gastroenteritis epidemic. The announcement of the final FSLN offensive and the call to mass insurrection signaled the beginning of a coordinated nationwide escalation of combat against the regime.
