20 July 2010 Last updated at 01:35

In pictures: Sandinista revolution remembered

On 19 July Nicaragua commemorates the 31st anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. A collection of posters by the Central American university in Managua documents the 10 years of left-wing government that followed. (Photos courtesy IHNCA-UCA)

The armed revolt led by the left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front ended more than 40 years of authoritarian rule by the Somoza family.

It was inspired by Augusto Sandino, who fought against US intervention in Nicaragua in 1927-33 and was killed by the Somoza government in 1934.

Inspired by Marxist ideology, the Sandinistas followed a radical programme of land reform and nationalisation. But the government also included Roman Catholic priests inspired by liberation theology.

The Sandinistas made education a top priority in a country where half the population could not read. This poster promoted a mass literacy campaign in the countryside.

Resources were also poured into health care in one of Latin America's poorest countries. This poster promoted a polio vaccination campaign. The slogan reads "We want to grow up healthy!"

Opponents of the revolution known as "Contras" took up arms against it. They were supported by the US, which saw the Sandinistas as a communist threat to the region during the Cold War.

The Contra rebels waged a guerrilla war from across the border in Honduras and Costa Rica, forcing the Sandinistas to devote more and more resources to defence. This poster urges resistance in the indigenous Miskito language of the Caribbean coast.

The Sandinistas advocated gender equality, and women were also drawn into the fight against the Contras.

Posters were used to rally support for the revolution inside and outside Nicaragua. Thousands of foreign left-wing sympathisers - known as Sandalistas - came to work in solidarity.

After more than 50,000 deaths, an international peace process brought the conflict to an end in 1988. In elections in 1990, the Sandinista President Daniel Ortega was defeated by Violeta Chamorro. The revolution was over.

But in 2006 the Sandinista party returned to power when Daniel Ortega was elected president. He is no longer a revolutionary Marxist, and critics accuse him of turning his back on the ideals of the revolution in pursuit of personal power.

Latin America & Caribbean

In pictures: Sandinista revolution remembered

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