"Church. Some Sandinistas had earlier endorsed the Communist crack-down on Poland's labor movement, Solidarity. The ""Gang of Four"" were four advocates of U.S. Congressional funding for the Contras, who were notable for being prominent Democrats. In October 1984, ""The New Republic"" published ""Nicaragua's Untold Stories"", which criticized the Sandinistas for economic mismanagement, corruption, and violations of human rights. The author was Robert S. Leiken, a Democratic policy analyst who had previously been an opponent of the Vietnam War. The turning point came in the fall of 1984, when, after an intense 10 day trip to Nicaragua, Leiken returned 'appalled and"
"fighting within the ranks of the Sandinistas. A special commando team from Argentina worked in conjunction with Somoza's OSN (Office of National Security) and its Argentine advisors with the objective of capturing exiled squadrons from the ERP and the Montoneros. Following the overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle by the Sandinista Front, Argentina played a central role in the formation of the Contras. Shortly after the Sandinista victory in July 1979, agents from Argentine intelligence began to organize exiled members of Somoza's National Guard residing in Guatemala into an anti-Sandinista insurgency. Following the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the Argentine"
"economic, military, and civilian targets. During the Contra war, the Sandinistas arrested suspected members of the Contra militias and censored publications they accused of collaborating with the enemy (i.e. the U.S., the FDN, and ARDE, among others). In March 1982 the Sandinistas declared an official State of Emergency. They argued that this was a response to attacks by counter-revolutionary forces. The State of Emergency lasted six years, until January 1988, when it was lifted. Under the new ""Law for the Maintenance of Order and Public Security"" the ""Tribunales Populares Anti-Somozistas"" allowed for the indefinite holding of suspected counter-revolutionaries without trial."
"selling arms to Iran and then using the proceeds to fund the Contras. The Contra war would claim 30,000 lives. The tactics used by the Sandinista government to fight the Contras have been criticized by some historians for their suppression of civil rights. On March 15, 1982, the Junta declared a state of siege, which allowed it to close independent radio stations, suspend the right of association and limit the freedom of trade unions. Nicaragua's Permanent Commission on Human Rights condemned Sandinista human rights violations, accusing them of killing and disappearing thousands in the first few years of the war."
"paint the Contras as freedom fighters. The Sandinista government headed by Daniel Ortega won decisively in the 1984 Nicaraguan elections. The U.S. government explicitly planned to back the Contras, various rebel groups collectively that were formed in response to the rise of the Sandinistas, as a means to damage the Nicaraguan economy and force the Sandinista government to divert its scarce resources toward the army and away from social and economic programs. The United States began to support Contra activities against the Sandinista government by December 1981, with the CIA at the forefront of operations. The CIA provided the Contras"
"parties. These efforts resulted in the Iran-Contra Affair of 1987, which concerned Contra funding through the proceeds of arms sales to the Islamic Republic of Iran. No court ever made a determination whether Boland covered the NSC and on the grounds that it was a prohibition rather than a criminal statute, no one was indicted for violating it. Congress later resumed aid to the Contras, totaling over $300 million. The Contra war ended when the Sandinistas were voted out of power by a war-weary populace in 1990. Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega was re-elected as President of Nicaragua in 2006 and"
"the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) to violently oust the dictatorship in 1978–79, the subsequent efforts of the FSLN to govern Nicaragua from 1979 until 1990 and the Contra War which was waged between the FSLN and the Contras from 1981–1990. The Revolution marked a significant period in Nicaraguan history and revealed the country as one of the major proxy war battlegrounds of the Cold War with the events in the country rising to international attention. Although the initial overthrow of the Somoza regime in 1978–79 was a bloody affair, the Contra War of the 1980s took the lives of"
"CIA to begin financing, arming and training rebels, most of whom were the remnants of Somoza's National Guard, as anti-Sandinista guerrillas that were branded ""counter-revolutionary"" by leftists ( in Spanish). This was shortened to ""Contras"", a label the force chose to embrace. Edén Pastora and many of the indigenous guerrilla forces, who were not associated with the ""Somozistas"", also resisted the Sandinistas. The Contras operated out of camps in the neighboring countries of Honduras to the north and Costa Rica (see Edén Pastora cited below) to the south. As was typical in guerrilla warfare, they were engaged in a campaign"
"Sandinista National Liberation Front The Sandinista National Liberation Front (, FSLN) is a democratic socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto César Sandino, who led the Nicaraguan resistance against the United States occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930s. The FSLN overthrew Anastasio Somoza DeBayle in 1979, ending the Somoza dynasty, and established a revolutionary government in its place. Having seized power, the Sandinistas ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first as part of a Junta of National Reconstruction. Following the resignation of centrist members from this"
"describe the destruction of health centers, schools and cooperatives at the hands of the rebels. Others have contended that large scale murder, rape and torture also occurred in Contra dominated areas. The US also sought to place economic pressure on the Sandinistas, and the Reagan administration imposed a full trade embargo. With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, relations between the United States and the Sandinista regime became an active front in the Cold War. The Reagan administration insisted on the ""Communist threat"" posed by the Sandinistas—reacting particularly to the support provided to the Sandinistas by Cuban president Fidel"
"the National Guard of Somoza, the dictator who had been overthrown in the 1979 Revolution. The Contras were joined also by former revolutionaries who had turned against the Sandinista policies; a third source of personnel were farmers angered by the Sandinista land reform and American Indians. The Contras had financial and military support from the Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S. However, a CIA-supported manual advocating killing Sandinista politicians and poisoning wells in Nicaragua, as well as mining harbors, provoked a backlash. The House Appropriations Bill of 1982 contained the Boland Amendment, which outlawed U.S. assistance to the Contras for"
"the Sandinistas; individuals suspected of supporting the Front were targeted. The Front, named after Augusto César Sandino (a Nicaraguan rebel leader in the 1920s), began its guerrilla war against the Somozas in 1963 and was funded by the Soviet Union and Cuba under Fidel Castro. Support for the Sandinistas ballooned after the earthquake, especially when U.S President Jimmy Carter withdrew American support for the regime for human rights reasons. At this point, the opposition to the Somozas included not only Sandinistas, but other prominent figures such as Pedro Chamorro (assassinated on January 10, 1978). Israel was the last supplier of"
"to the Sandinista National Liberation Front and their coup d'état, the main opposition was the Contras. The hectic situation tied a lot of foreign countries into the mix to choose sides, including the United States among many others. The fighting and the food shortages were massive problems at this time. She recalled that ""The Sandinista revolution occurred when I was eight years old. I remember the civil war and the attacks on small towns."" The Meneses family fled Nicaragua via Los Angeles in 1988 when Meneses was only 17. The reason they had to flee was because her father was"
"delivered. Managua became the second capital in the hemisphere after Cuba to host an embassy from North Korea. Ironically, in light of the tensions between their Soviet sponsors and China, the Sandinistas allowed Taiwan to retain its mission and refused to allow a Chinese mission to enter the country. The first challenge to the powerful new army came from the Contras, groups of Somoza's National Guard who had fled to Honduras, organized, trained and funded by CIA elements involved in cocaine trafficking in Central America. The Contra chain of command included some ex-National Guardsmen, including Contra founder and commander Enrique"
"the contras, with a Canadian observer mission claiming that 42 people were killed by the contras in ""election violence"" in October 1989. This led many commentators to assume that Nicaraguans voted against the Sandinistas out of fear of a continuation of the contra war and economic deprivation. From July 19–21, 1991, the FSLN held a National Congress to mend the rifts between members and form a new overarching political program. The effort failed to unite the party, and intense debates over the internal governance of the FSLN continued. The pragmatists, led by the former vice president Sergio Ramirez, formed the"
"Gang of Four (pro-Contra) In the U. S. political history of the 1980s, the Gang of Four refers to Bernard W. Aronson, Bruce P. Cameron, Robert S. Leiken, and Penn Kemble, four advocates of U.S. Congressional funding for the Nicaraguan Contras, who were engaged in an armed campaign in opposition to the Sandinista government, during the Reagan Presidency. The four were prominent policy analysts and activists in the U. S. Democratic Party. During the 1980s in Nicaragua, the Contras were engaged in an armed campaign against the Sandinista government. In the beginning, the Contras consisted largely of former members of"
"aid to Nicaragua and expanded the supply of arms and training to the Contra in neighbouring Honduras, as well as allied groups based to the south in Costa Rica. President Reagan called the Contras ""the moral equivalent of our founding fathers."" In March 1982 the Sandinistas declared an official State of Emergency. They argued that this was a response to attacks by counter-revolutionary forces. The State of Emergency lasted six years, until January 1988, when it was lifted. Under the new ""Law for the Maintenance of Order and Public Security"" the ""Tribunales Populares Anti-Somozistas"" allowed for the indefinite holding of"
"Sandinistas warns them that there are Contra fighters in the area. Carla finds her family and introduces George to them. Later that night, heavily armed Contras attack the village. The Contras kill many people and huge explosions go off around the village, while Sandinista villagers return fire. In the morning George discovers that Carla and Antonio have a baby daughter. George asks Carla to return to Glasgow with him and bring the baby, but Carla refuses. George meets Bradley who seems absolutely incensed. Bradley explained that the Contras, who are operating out of Honduras, are a CIA-organized and funded group."
"status and a shaky democracy took hold. The Southern Front Contras continue their fight, and as of 2004 finally gained title to viable farmland in the vicinity of El Rama. Democratic Revolutionary Alliance The Democratic Revolutionary Alliance ( or ""ARDE"") were the Southern Front guerrillas in Nicaragua that fought against the Marxist elements of the original Sandinista Revolution in 1979. Despite being one of the Contra forces, they maintained an ideological distance from the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan Democratic Force (Contras). Formed by Edén Pastora Gómez in 1982, it united his Sandino Revolutionary Front (FRS) with such groups as the Nicaraguan Democratic"
"19th and 20th centuries the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean coast came to rely upon private investment and enterprises for socio-economic stability. In adherence to socialist policies, the Sandinista-dominated Nicaraguan government in the 1980s sought to nationalize all private institutions, which resulted in a reduction of private investment on the Caribbean coast. Many indigenous groups resented the government for its interference in the indigenous economy and regional autonomy. The Rama were one of many indigenous groups to join the Contras, a group of anticommunist guerrillas, some of whom were backed by the CIA, dedicated to fighting the Sandinista regime. As"
"and 8 years of combat experienced soldiers until the contras were disbanded in the period of 1988/1989/1990. The world was following up the sandinistas-contras war due to a long civil war like none to compare in the Latin American Countries, in both side of the History they were fierce soldiers, mercenaries, sentinels, devils and angels as people from all nations appointed them. 12 BLI'S well armed with heavy fire power were raised : Light Hunter Battalions (, BLC) The BLCs were another type of counterinsurgency unit, first deployed in early 1986. They were about half the size of the BLIs,"
"the country's second Sandinista government after 17 years of the opposition winning elections. Ortega and the FSLN were re-elected again in the presidential elections of November 2011 and of November 2016. The Sandinistas took their name from Augusto César Sandino (1895–1934), the leader of Nicaragua's nationalist rebellion against the US occupation of the country during the early 20th century (ca. 1922–1934). The suffix ""-ista"" is simply the Spanish equivalent of ""-ist"". Sandino was assassinated in 1934 by the Nicaraguan National Guard (), the US-equipped police force of Anastasio Somoza, whose family ruled the country from 1936 until they were overthrown"
"In the 1980s, most SI parties gave their backing to the Nicaraguan Sandinistas (FSLN), whose democratically-elected left-wing government was subject to a campaign to overthrow it backed by the United States, which culminated in the Iran–Contra affair after the Reagan administration covertly continued US support for the Contras after such support was banned by Congress. In the late 1970s and in the 1980s the SI had extensive contacts and discussion with the two leading powers of the Cold War period, the United States and the Soviet Union, on issues concerning East–West relations and arms control. The SI supported détente and"
"The title refers to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and its catalogue number, 'FSLN1', refers to the abbreviation of the party's Spanish name, ""Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional"". ""Sandinista!"" was voted best album of the year in the Pazz & Jop critics poll in ""The Village Voice"", and was ranked number 404 on the ""Rolling Stone"" list of ""The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"" in 2003. ""Slant Magazine"" listed the album at number 85 on its ""Best Albums of the 1980s"" list in 2012. The album was recorded over most of 1980, in London, Manchester, Jamaica and New York. It"
"Some Jewish were expropriated for their collaboration with the Somoza regime, but not because they were Jewish. Moreover, the high ranking Sandinista and mayor of Managua, Herty Lewites, was of Jewish descent but didn't affect their image. Although the Carter Administration had attempted to work with FSLN in 1979 and 1980, the more right-wing Reagan Administration supported a strong anti-communist strategy for dealing with Latin America, and so it attempted to isolate the Sandinista regime. As early as 1980-1981 an anti-Sandinista movement, the ""Contrarrevolución"" (Counter-revolution) or just ""Contras"", was forming along the border with Honduras. Many of the initial Contras"
"its grip but opposition only grew broader and fiercer. A humiliating hostage crisis ensued in August 1978 when Sandinista rebels led by ""Comandante Cero (Commander Zero)"" future Contra leader Edén Pastora took over the National Assembly. This hostage crisis was the second major action launched by the Sandinistas. By March 1979, the Somoza regime faced an open civil war as well as being cut off from all aid by the United States, including blocking of a shipment of weapons and ammunition coming from Israel. With ammunition, spare parts, fuel, and medical supplies running dangerously low, the increasingly hard-pressed National Guard"
"amnesty to and put on the agency’s bankroll important Contra supporters and fundraisers who were known to the US Government to be cocaine smugglers. Later, at the behest of Oliver North, the Reagan Administration began to use Contra drug money to support the anti-communist Nicaraguan rebels' efforts against the Sandinista government. The Sandinistas were hated by successive Democratic and Republican U.S. administrations for the 1978-79 Sandinista Revolution (the overthrowing of the U.S.-sponsored brutal dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua) and for their support of worker and peasant revolutions developing throughout Central and South America. Blandon, a cocaine smuggler who founded"
"main opposition party. The FSLN won the majority of the votes. Those who did oppose the Sandinistas won approximately a third of the seats. Despite the clear electoral victory for the Sandinistas, the Contras continued their violent attacks on both state and civilian targets, until 1989. The FSLN lost elections in 1990 to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, after revising the constitution in 1987 and after years of resisting the United States-supported Contras, but retained a minority of seats in the legislature. The FSLN evolved from one of many opposition groups to a leadership role in the overthrow of the Somoza"
"National Guard unit which he commanded ""was accused of widespread human-rights violations in the final days of the civil war."" In early 1980, the new Sandinista government formally accused Somoza Portocarrero of masterminding the 1978 assassination of opposition journalist Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, and a June 1981 trial that convicted nine people of the crime implicated him ""in absentia"". In 1980, Sandinista officials also issued a warrant for Somoza Portocarrero's arrest on charges that he embezzled $4 million in governmental funds (via dummy corporations) while his father was still in power. He was living in Miami at the time (having"
"to expropriate native-held land for nationalization. During these decades, the mainstream of Nicaraguan national politics recognized the Miskito only when asking them to vote for the Nicaraguan National Liberal Party. In the 1980s, the Sandinista government extended their influence over the region via its ""Comités de Defensa Sandinista"". In response, several Miskito groups formed guerrilla forces, who carried on armed struggle against the central government. On 25 February 1982, Steadman Fagoth, one of the guerrilla leaders, took refuge in Honduras along with 3,000 Miskito. Meanwhile, the Sandinistas began to denounce the activities of Contras in the Río Coco zone. In"
"cadres made their way to Nicaragua, where the Sandinistas had taken power in 1979. An ERP commando team comprising veterans of the ""Dirty War"" under Gorriarán Merlo, for example, demonstrated their active involvement in the revolutionary struggle by killing ex-dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1980. Gorriarán returned to Argentina in 1987 to become a leader of the ""Movimiento Todos por la Patria"" (All For the Motherland Movement or MTP). Claiming another military coup by the ""Carapintadas"" was imminent against the new democratic government of Raúl Alfonsín (which at the time was leading a series of trials against members of the Argentine"
"Junta, the FSLN took exclusive power in March 1981. They instituted a policy of mass literacy, devoted significant resources to health care, and promoted gender equality but came under international criticism for human rights abuses, mass execution and oppression of indigenous peoples. A US-backed group, known as the Contras, was formed in 1981 to overthrow the Sandinista government and was funded and trained by the US Central Intelligence Agency. In 1984 elections were held but were boycotted by some opposition parties. The FSLN won the majority of the votes, and those who opposed the Sandinistas won approximately a third of"
"attacks. In late 1979, the Montoneros launched a ""strategic counteroffensive"" in Argentina, and the security forces killed more than one hundred of the exiled Montoneros, who had been sent back to Argentina after receiving special forces training in camps in the Middle East. On 14 June 1980, eight Argentine army officers (in cooperation with Peruvian military authorities), kidnapped Noemí Esther Giannetti de Molfino (an active Montoneros collaborator) along with eight Argentine nationals in the Peruvian capital and had them forcefully disappear. In October 2014, the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner would rename a street in the city of Resistencia,"