Emiliano Zapata was assassinated on this day, April 10, 1919.
 
The Poncho Villa or Emiliano Zapata of Central America, who like Zapata gave his name to a rebel movement that would eventually oust American imperialism from its shores, was Augusto Cesar Sandino. Did you know that is where the Sandinistas of Nicaragua (FSLN) got their name?

La soberanía de un pueblo no se discute,
se defiende con el arma en la mano.

Cesar Sandino fought an undeclared war against US Marines, which made him an illegal combatant. When Sandino captured a US aviator, tried him for having bombed innocent civilians, and sentenced him to hang –in American eyes, outside of the law– the US declared Sandino and his fighters to be terrorists and exempt from protection under the Hague Conventions.

Sandino fought the Americans for six years until he was assassinated during a cease-fire in 1933 by the Samoza regime which would rule Nicaragua with America’s backing until 1979. After 1979 Ronald Reagan and his Contras would redouble US persecution of the Nicaraguans.

The above image depicts a Nicaraguan freedom fighter about to decapitate a vanquished US marine. This served as Sandino’s official postal stamp. Sandino was equally eloquent in words:

Come on you pack of drug fiends, come on and murder us on our own land. I am waiting for you on my feet at the head of my patriotic soldiers, and I don’t care how many of you there are. You should know that when this happens, the destruction of your mighty power will make the Capitol shake in Washington, and your blood will redden the white dome that crowns the famous White House where you plot your crimes.