Domingo Ibarra Grijalva, one of the officers of the Nicaraguan National Guard who signed the death warrant of General Augusto C. Sandino, helped lower the body of the great guerrillero into a secret grave on the night of February 21, 1934. In this book Ibarra explains that he put his name to the death warrant without reading it, believing it to be an expression of confidence in the commander of the National Guard, General Anastasio Somoza, and an endorsement of a plan to arrest Sandino and deport him from Nicaragua. The author took no part in the execution, arriving on the scene after Sandino had been shot and his boots had been removed; Ibarra had to be satisfied with one of the deceased’s garters as a souvenir. The author praises Sandino for his struggle against the Yankee invaders, but deplores his involvement in Nicaraguan politics after the Marine withdrawal in 1933. The general was led astray, according to Ibarra, by his advisors Pedro José Zepeda and Escolástico Lara, and by Nicaraguan President Juan Bautista Sacasa, who sought the support of Sandino and his men against Somoza and the National Guard. The National Guard responded to a Sacasa-Sandino entente by defying the president, murdering the general, and massacring his followers. All this, Ibarra feels, was justified, as it prevented civil war.
Ibarra, an exile since breaking with Somoza in the 1940s, adds a few interesting details to the rather familiar story of the National Guard commander’s maneuvers on the night of February 21, 1934. Otherwise, this book offers no facts or interpretations that are not better presented elsewhere. About nine-tenths of the volume is devoted to previously published documents and the author’s rambling comments on Sandino’s war against the Marines and the peace negotiations of 1933.
The book purports to be in English, but borders on the incomprehensible. The translation is the most inept that this reviewer has ever seen in print. The book will baffle all but readers familiar with Spanish, who, with some effort, should be able to reconstruct the original from the mangled English. Vantage Press deserves to be severely censured for issuing Ibarra’s work in this form. Apparently, copy editing is unknown at this “publishing house,” which must hold its authors, and their prospective readers, in utter contempt.
