Benoît Gysembergh

But other towns, only too eager to rise up, did not wait to be liberated by the rebels. I reached León, the country's second largest town, in early June. Streets were strewn with dead bodies, shops had been looted. Five thousand militiamen, mostly young and unarmed, laid siege to "La Guardia", Somoza's personal guard, that had taken refuge a few kilometres away in a fortified prison on a hill in the centre of the city. Afraid of hitting their own families living in town, La Guardia hardly used its artillery. But two airplanes that had come from the capital, armed with 50 mm machine guns, started attacking the rebels and dropping – by hand, like at the time of the First World War – 25 kg bombs which avowedly caused more fright and terror than real damage.

Nevertheless, the starved and harassed national guards soon lost hope and began to desert. The garrison eventually surrendered on June 19th, one month before the capital fell. Somoza managed to escape with the help of the US Special Forces, but a Sandinista commando quickly traced him all the way to his golden exile in Paraguay some months later, assassinating him on the spot. Thus the Sandinistas took power, while Somozan supporters, once more aided by the USA, went underground, drawing the victors into a long and costly conflict, the Contra war.

Twenty years after these times of glory and despair, I happened upon more than a hundred photographs. Like a private detective, I went back to the country and knocked on people's doors, in an effort to find the former combatants and find out what had become of them. As the guerrillas hardly knew each other, it was not an easy task. Many were killed while fighting the Contras, while others moved or went to seek work in America or in neighbouring countries. Gradually blighted by corruption, racketeering and scandals, the erstwhile revolutionary leaders were eventually ousted, but the "Muchachos" soon grew disillusioned, to the point of losing the hope of one day living in circumstances other than wretched poverty.

Benoît Gysembergh

The exhibition has been made possible through the assistance of the French Ministry of Culture.