Nov 13, 2026

Nicaragua has gone almost a century without a free government: first the Somoza family dictatorship, then the communist Sandinistas and Daniel Ortega. Captain Onofre Gutierrez grew up under the first and got out months before the second. He left for the last time in October 1978, as a high school senior, on a flight where his father made him sit at the back of the airplane in case the National Guard came aboard. The following July the Sandinistas took the capital, and he watched from the United States with family still inside. In this Surviving Communism interview, Gutierrez tells Jenny Beth Martin how it happened: an earthquake, relief aid that never reached the people who needed it, Marxists recruiting in the universities, and a revolution that promised a better option and delivered a second ruling family. He describes the cousin who still will not talk politics on the phone, and the uncle who was jailed after the revolution. Then he tells the American half of the story. He waited years for an asylum hearing, earned a green card, moved to Long Beach with $350, worked three jobs, and paid for flight school one hour at a time until he was an airline captain. He has a message for young Americans drawn to socialism: prices can come down, but once communism gets in, it does not leave. Captain Onofre Gutierrez is a retired airline captain, an American citizen, and a member of the Surviving Communism panel. teapartypatriots.org jennybethshow.com

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