Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
After more than a year of intense civil war, Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigned from office on July 19, 1979, and fled the country. Accompanying the opposition's Provisional Junta when it entered Managua were the foreign ministers of the five Andean Group nations: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. The presence of the Andean Group representatives during the transfer of power is indicative of the important part played by international governmental organizations (IGOs) during the Nicaraguan revolution. Along with the Andean Group, the Organization of American States (OAS) acted with a degree of independence not usually evident in hemispheric affairs.