Contras

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The Contras (from the Spanish term La Contra, short for 'movement of the contrarrevolucionarios') were the armed opponents of Nicaragua's FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional) Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle (which ended the Somoza dynasty), and continuing throughout the following decade. The label was commonly used by the United States press to cover a range of groups opposed to the Sandinistas, who had little or no ideological unity and some of whom supported the revolution against Somoza. Some references use the uncapitalized form, contra, which means 'against' or 'counter' in Spanish.

1 History
2 Atrocity controversies
3 U.S. military and financial assistance
4 Further reading
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] History

The Contras initially received financial and military support from the Argentine government and the US through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Contras would later receive aid through clandestine initiatives by figures in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. They received some support from Nicaraguans opposed to the Sandinistas' nationalization of their land, formation of large farming cooperatives, and mistreatment of dissenters.

Early opposition to the Sandinistas comprised many disparate strands. Though the escaped remnants of Somoza's National Guard disintegrated as a unified force, many members joined groups such as the Anti-Sandinista Guerrilla Special Forces, the 15th of September Legion, and the National Army of Liberation. The core leadership was initially dominated by the National Guard members who had joined.

Meanwhile, some of the Nicaraguan middle class, whose discontent with Somoza had led them to back the Sandinistas, had soon become disillusioned by Sandinista rule. Businessman José Francisco Cardenal went into exile and founded the Nicaraguan Democratic Union (UDN), with the Nicaraguan Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARN) as its armed wing.

The earliest contras inside Nicaragua were MILPAS, peasant militias led by former Sandinista supporters. These militias were the majority of the first Contra groups formed in 1980-1981 in Honduras, Nicaragua's northern neighbour, allying in August 1981 as the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense, FDN) under the command of former National Guard (army) colonel Enrique Bermúdez and Jaime Irving Steidel, a Honduran-born Field Commander, later replaced by Oscar Sobalvarro. A joint political directorate was created in February 1983 under businessman and anti-Sandinista politician Adolfo Calero.

The creation of the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE) and its armed wing, the Sandino Revolutionary Front (FRS), in April 1982 saw a second front open in the war. The group was founded in neighboring Costa Rica by Edén Pastora (Comandante Cero), a former Sandinista and participant in the August 1978 seizure of Somoza's palace. ARDE consisted largely of Sandinista dissidents and veterans of the anti-Somoza campaign who opposed the increased influence of Soviet Union, Eastern block and Cuban officials in the Managua junta. Proclaiming his ideological distance from the FDN, Pastora nevertheless styled his force the "southern front" in a common campaign.

A third force, Misurasata, appeared among the Miskito, Sumo and Rama Amerindian peoples of Nicaragua's Atlantic coast, who in December 1981 found themselves in conflict with the authorities following what the government later called an "ill-judged modernisation drive,"^{[citation needed]} and what the Miskitos themselves believed to be a genocidal attempt to force the tribes to participate in the revolution^{[citation needed]}. They had a number of grievances against the Sandinistas, including:

Unilateral natural resource exploitation policies which denied Indians access to much of their traditional land base and severely restricted their subsistence activities.
The arrest, imprisonment and subsequent execution of the majority of the Misurasata leadership.
The military occupation, bombing, or deliberate destruction of over half of all Miskito and Sumu villages in the region, and the forced conscription of Indian youth into the Nicaraguan military.
Forced removal of at least 10,000 Indians from their traditional lands to relocation and re-education centers in the interior of the country, and subsequent burning of their villages^{[citation needed]}.
Economic embargoes and blockades against native villages not sympathetic to the government.

In 1983 the Misurasata movement, led by Brooklyn Rivera, split, with the breakaway Misura group of Stedman Fagoth allying itself more closely with the FDN. A subsequent autonomy statute in September 1987 largely defused Miskito resistance.

US officials were active in attempting to unite the Contra groups. In June 1985, they reorganized as the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO), under the leadership of Calero, Arturo Cruz and Alfonso Robelo, all former members of the original Sandinista cadre; after its dissolution early in 1987, the Nicaraguan Resistance (RN) was organized along similar lines in May. Splits within the rebel movement emerged with Pastora's defection in May 1984 and Misurasata's April 1985 accommodation with the Sandinista government.

Mediation by other Central American governments under Costa Rican leadership led to the Sapoa ceasefire agreement of March 23, 1988, which, along with additional agreements in February and August of 1989, provided for the Contras' disarmament and reintegration into Nicaraguan society and politics. The agreements also called for internationally-monitored elections which were subsequently held on February 25, 1990. Violeta Chamorro, former Sandinista and widow of anti-Somoza journalist Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, defeated Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega and became President with the backing of the center-right UNO. Some Contra elements and disaffected Sandinistas would return briefly to armed opposition in the 1990s, sometimes styled as recontras or revueltos, but these groups were subsequently persuaded to disarm.

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[edit] Atrocity controversies

The Nicaragua conflict claimed an estimated 30,000 lives. The Sandinista government, its supporters, and outside groups such as Amnesty International and Americas Watch frequently accused the Contras of indiscriminate attacks on civilians. The Contras and their backers, especially in the Reagan Administration, dismissed these accusations as a propaganda campaign and accused the Sandinista's of the same crimes against humanity.

The Sandinista government claimed in their November 1984 report that since 1981 the Contras had:

assassinated 910 state officials;
attacked nearly 100 civilian communities;
caused the displacement of over 150,000 people from their homes and farms;
damaged or destroyed bridges, port facilities, granaries, water and oil deposits, electrical power stations, telephone lines, saw mills, health centres, schools and dams.

A Sandinista militiaman interviewed by The Guardian claimed that Contra rebels committed these atrocities against Sandinista prisoners after a battle at a Sandinista rural oupost:

Rosa had her breasts cut off. Then they cut into her chest and took out her heart. The men had their arms broken, their testicles cut off and their eyes poked out. They were killed by slitting their throats and pulling the tongue out through the slit.^[1]

A similar report by the contra newsletter "Resistencia" recounted that a small boy witnessed his mother being raped and tortured and had her breasts cut off. The boy then had since joined the Contras to fight the Sandinistas.

An influential report on alleged Contra atrocities was issued by lawyer Reed Brody shortly before the 1985 US Congressional vote on Contra aid. The report was soon published as a book, Contra Terror in Nicaragua (Brody, 1985). It charged that the Contras attacked purely civilian targets and that their tactics included murder, rape, beatings, kidnapping and disruption of harvests. Brody's report had been requested by the Sandinista government's Washington law firm Reichler & Applebaum and the Sandinista government had provided his facilities in Nicaragua.^[2] In a letter to the New York Times,^[3] Brody asserted that this in no way affected his report, and added that the newspaper had confirmed the veracity of four randomly chosen incidents.

Americas Watch - which was subsequently folded into Human Rights Watch - stated that "the Contras systematically engage in violent abuses... so prevalent that these may be said to be their principal means of waging war." [1] American news media published several articles accusing Americas Watch and other bodies of ideological bias and unreliable reporting. They alleged that Americas Watch not only gave too much credence to alleged Contra abuses but also systematically tried to discredit Nicaraguan human rights groups such as the Permanent Commission on Human Rights, which blamed the major human rights abuses on the Sandinistas.^[4]

In 1985, the Wall Street Journal reported:

Three weeks ago, Americas Watch issued a report on human rights abuses in Nicaragua. One member of the Permanent Commission on Human Rights commented on the Americas Watch report and its chief investigator Juan Mendez: "The Sandinistas are laying the groundwork for a totalitarian society here and yet all Mendez wanted to hear about were abuses by the contras. How can we get people in the U.S. to see what's happening here when so many of the groups who come down are pro-Sandinista?"^[5]

Human Rights Watch in turn had accused the U.S. and the supporters of Contras as exaggerating and distorting the human rights abuses of the Sandinistas and purposely exculpating those of the U.S.-supported Contras against the government.

Reinaldo Aguado Montealegre, presidente de la Sociedad Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (SIDH), in Nicaragua. Accuses FSLN officials Tomas Borge and Lenin Cerna, of committing human rights violations on the prison codenamed "Zona Franca". Montealegre was a political prisoner of the FSLN and has since excavated the remains of his fellow prisoners from "Zona Franca".Contra la impunidad en Nicaragua

[edit] U.S. military and financial assistance

See also the Iran-Contra affair

A key role in the development of the Contra alliance was played by the United States following Ronald Reagan's assumption of the presidency in January 1981. Reagan accused the Sandinistas of importing Cuban-style socialism and aiding leftist guerrillas in El Salvador. On November 23 of that year, Reagan signed the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the CIA the authority to recruit and support the Contras with $19 million in military aid. The effort to support the Contras was one component of the Reagan Doctrine, which called for providing military support to movements opposing Soviet-supported, communist governments.

In 1984, Nicaragua filed a suit in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the United States (Nicaragua vs. United States), which resulted in a 1986 judgment against the US, calling on it to "cease and to refrain" from the "unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua, through such actions as the placement of underwater mines by CIA operatives and training, funding and support for the guerrilla forces. [2] The court, whose jurisdiction the Reagan administration did not accept, ruled that the US was "in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to use force against another state" and was ordered to pay reparations.

The US, which did not participate in the merits phase of the proceedings, maintained that the ICJ's power did not supersede the Constitution of the United States and argued that the court did not seriously consider the Nicaraguan role in El Salvador, whose intervention the court would not accept. The latter argument was affirmed by the primary dissenting justices, notably US Judge Schwebel who claimed that "Nicaragua does not come before the Court with clean hands." [3] Nicaragua then took its case to the UN Security Council, where a resolution supporting the ruling of the ICJ was vetoed by the United States. Nicaragua then went to the General Assembly, which passed a resolution supporting the ruling of the ICJ 94-3.

Direct military aid was interrupted by the Boland Amendment, passed by the United States Congress in December 1982, and subsequently extended in October 1984 to forbid action by not only the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency but all US government agencies. Administration officials sought to arrange funding and military supplies by means of third-parties, culminating in the Iran-Contra Affair of 1986-1987, which concerned contra funding through the proceeds of arms sales to Iran. On February 3, 1988 the United States House of Representatives rejected President Reagan's request for $36.25 million to aid the Contras. According to the National Security Archive, Oliver North, an important official in the Iran-Contra affair, had been in contact with Manuel Noriega, the military leader of Panama later convicted on drug charges, whom he personally met.

In 1987 American public opinion was divided by the killing of American engineer Ben Linder by the Contras.

The issue of drug money and its importance in funding the Nicaraguan conflict was the subject of various reports and publications. The contras were funded by drug trafficking, of which the USA was aware.^[6]. Senator John Kerry's 1988 Committee on Foreign Relations report on Contra drug links concluded that "senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems." [4] On the other hand, the 1989 book, Kings of Cocaine, alleges Sandinista involvement in cocaine smuggling. Barry Seal, a Medellin cartel pilot took photos which allegedly showed a high ranking Sandinista official unloading cocaine shipments at a Sandinista military airport.

The Reagan administration's support for the Contras continued to stir controversy well into the 1990s. In August 1996, San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb published a series titled Dark Alliance, alleging that the origins of crack cocaine in California was the responsibility of the Contras. [5] [6] Webb's controversial and highly damaging revelations were disputed at the time, but later revelations confirmed some of his findings. Freedom of Information Act inquiries by the National Security Archive and other investigators unearthed a number of documents showing that White House officials, including Oliver North, knew about and supported using money raised via drug trafficking to fund the Contras.

[edit] Further reading

Belli, Humberto. (1985). Breaking Faith: The Sandinista Revolution and Its Impact on Freedom and Christian Faith in Nicaragua. Crossway Books/The Puebla Institute.
Bermudez, Enrique, "The Contras' Valley Forge: How I View the Nicaraguan Crisis", Policy Review magazine, The Heritage Foundation, Summer 1988.
Brody, Reed. (1985). Contra Terror in Nicaragua: Report of a Fact-Finding Mission: September 1984-January 1985. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-313-6.
Brown, Timothy. (2001). The Real Contra War: Highlander Peasant Resistance in Nicaragua. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-3252-3.
Chamorro, Edgar. (1987). Packaging the Contras: A Case of CIA Disinformation. New York: Institute for Media Analysis. ISBN 0-941781-08-9; ISBN 0-941781-07-0.
Christian, Shirley. (1986) Nicaragua, Revolution In the Family. New York: Vintage Books.
Cox, Jack. (1987) Requiem in the Tropics: Inside Central America. UCA Books.
Cruz S., Arturo J. (1989). Memoirs of a Counterrevolutionary. (1989). New York: Doubleday.
Dickey, Christopher. (1985, 1987). With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Garvin, Glenn. (1992). Everybody Had His Own Gringo: The CIA and the Contras. Washington: Brassey's.
Gugliota Guy. (1989). Kings of Cocaine Inside the Medellin Cartel. Simon and Shuster.
Horton, Lynn. Peasants in Arms: War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua, 1979-1994. (1998). Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies.
Kirkpatrick, Jeane J.. (1982) Dictatorships and Double Standards. Touchstone. ISBN 0-671-43836-0
Miranda, Roger, and William Ratliff. (1993, 1994) "The Civil War in Nicaragua: Inside the Sandinistas." New Brunswick, NY: Transaction Publishers.
Moore, John Norton (1987). The Secret War in Central America: Sandinista Assault on World Order. University Publications of America.
Pardo-Maurer, Rogelio. (1990) The Contras, 1980-1989: A Special Kind of Politics. New York: Praeger.
Persons, David E. (1987) A Study of the History and Origins of the Nicaraguan Contras. Nacogdoches, Texas: Total Vision Press. Stephen Austin University Special Collections.
Webb, Gary (1998). Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, Seven Stories Press. ISBN 1-888363-68-1 (hardcover, 1998), ISBN 1-888363-93-2 (paperback, 1999).