$Unique_ID{bob01009} $Pretitle{} $Title{Iran-Contra Affair: The Report Chapter 1 U.S.-Nicaragua Relations: Background} $Subtitle{} $Author{Various} $Affiliation{} $Subject{somoza nicaragua states united government nicaraguan sandinistas support national sandinista} $Date{1987} $Log{} Title: Iran-Contra Affair: The Report Author: Various Date: 1987 Chapter 1 U.S.-Nicaragua Relations: Background On July 17, 1979, President Anastasio Somoza Debayle and his family fled Nicaragua. A civil war that had devastated the nation's economy and caused more than 130,000 casualties was at an end, as was the autocratic and corrupt 43-year rule of the Somoza family. But the battle for Nicaragua's future was just beginning. The United States had long played a role in Nicaragua's affairs. Under the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, the United States had declared the Western hemisphere, including Central America, off-limits to European powers. For the rest of the 19th century, U.S. influence was episodic. An American privateer named William Walker briefly seized control of Nicaragua in 1855, opened its borders to slavery, and appointed himself President before he was deposed and executed. The opening of the Panama Canal, however, increased the strategic importance of Nicaragua to the United States in the early 20th century. A treaty signed by the United States and Nicaragua in 1911 gave the United States an exclusive right of intervention in return for the reorganization of Nicaragua's finances. One year later, President Taft invoked this pact as a basis for dispatching 2,700 Marines to Nicaragua. The Marines initially arrived at the request of a U.S.-supported Nicaraguan President, ostensibly to protect American property and citizens. They stayed, with one brief intermission, until 1933. During this period, Nicaragua was a virtual dependency of the United States. From 1927 to 1933, the Marines and the Marine-trained Nicaraguan National Guard, with General Anastasio Somoza Garcia at its head, fought a guerrilla war against the forces of General Augusto Cesar Sandino, who opposed the U.S.-backed Conservative Government of Adolfo Diaz. Sandino, whose aim was to rid Nicaragua of "U.S. imperialists," became a national hero to many Nicaraguans during those years; the Sandinistas were named after him. When U.S. forces withdrew in 1933, Sandino accepted a truce. He was shot dead a year later. Many authorities believe Sandino was killed on direct orders from Somoza, who seized power from the civilian government in 1936. From 1936 to 1979, Anastasio Somoza Garcia and then his son, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, ruled Nicaragua. The rule of Anastasio Somoza Debayle was characterized by corruption; the Somoza family owned nearly one-third of all the land and controlled much of the country's wealth. In 1961, opponents of Somoza formed the National Liberation Front (FSLN), popularly known as the Sandinistas. This fledgling resistance organization drew much of its early support from students. Fidel Castro provided some of its initial financial backing. Through the early 1970's, the FSLN was a marginal group, unable to succeed in its low-level guerrilla war or to marshal popular support. The 1972 earthquake that devastated the capital city of Managua, however, changed the nature of the conflict between the rebels and the Government. Following the earthquake, Somoza reaped immense profits from international relief efforts. His show of greed in the face of so much suffering was an important fact in his loss of support from the growing Nicaraguan business and professional classes. Another was his grooming of his son, known as Tachito, to inherit his position. Successive attacks by the FSLN were met by increasingly harsh reprisals by the National Guard. Strikes, street protests, and guerrilla raids prompted Somoza to order the wholesale shooting of alleged peasant collaborators and the clearance of large areas of the countryside where opposition fighters found sanctuary. Somoza's human rights abuses led the Carter Administration in April 1977 to reduce military and economic aid to the regime. Six months later, the aid was restored after Nicaragua promised to curb the excesses of the National Guard. Despite Somoza's promises, the situation deteriorated. In January 1978, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, the editor of La Prensa, Nicaragua's foremost opposition newspaper, was assassinated. His assassins were never found, but the public reacted against the Government. A wave of protest swept the country. The ranks of the FSLN swelled with new recruits. Business, trade, and church groups joined the rebellion. The FSLN was the only force trained and capable of opposing the National Guard. The fact that the movement had taken on the rhetorical trappings of a leftist insurgency seemed of little consequence to Nicaraguans eager to remove Somoza. Following the killing of Chamorro, non-Marxist resistance groups began to gather around the FSLN, leading ultimately to the creation of the Broad Opposition Front seeking to draw all economic classes, ages, and professions. By the beginning of 1979, the movement could claim the full backing of Cuba, the unqualified support of the democracies of Venezuela and Costa Rica, and broad sympathy throughout Latin America. In February 1979, the State Department announced that, because of Somoza's unwillingness to accept a negotiated settlement, the United States was recalling more than half of its officials in Nicaragua and suspending all new economic and military aid. The end of U.S. backing cut the last props of support for the Government, and the end of the Somoza dynasty came on July 17, 1979. The Sandinistas were enormously popular when they began their rule. A Provisional Government of National Reconstruction was formed to lead the country. At its head was a five-person directorate composed of Violetta Chamorro (widow of the murdered La Prensa editor), Alfonso Robelo, Sergio Ramirez, Moises Hassan, and Daniel Ortega. Hassan and Ortega came from the militant wing of the Sandinista Party. Members of the 18-member cabinet and the 33-member council were drawn from a broad spectrum of Nicaraguan public life. Though Nicaraguans were generally satisfied that the new Government represented the Somoza opposition, the United States was not, pointing to Ortega and Hassan as left-wing radicals. The Sandinistas Take Over The Sandinistas set out to court public favor and international support. They promised free elections, a free press, free enterprise, an independent judiciary, and an end to political oppression. Yet, the Sandinistas took over television and radio stations and censored the newspaper La Prensa, which opposed repression whether by the Sandinistas or by Somoza. The Sandinistas forced the two moderate members of Nicaragua's governing council, Chamorro and Robelo, to resign, pressured opposition parties, continued political detentions, and expropriated land. The revolutionary party organization assumed the functions of state. On September 19, 1980, the Government announced that it would not hold national elections until 1985. Americans were divided on how to interpret Sandinista intentions. If the Carter Administration did not openly embrace the Sandinistas, neither did it close all doors to a possible reconciliation. Immediately following the Sandinista victory, the United States donated $39 million in emergency food aid to Nicaragua, and in 1980 Congress appropriated an additional $75 million in emergency economic assistance (Public Law 96-257). Similarly, Washington supported the provision of aid to Nicaragua from international lending organizations. The Carter Administration accepted the fact that the United States was in "competition" with Cuba to win over the Nicaraguan Government, but it hoped that friendly relations could be maintained. Yet while providing overt financial assistance, President Carter in the fall of 1979 signed a Finding authorizing support to the democratic elements in Nicaragua because of the concern about the effect of the Sandinista takeover on such institutions. In public statements, Sandinista officials expressed their desire for better relations with the United States, and insisted that they had no intention of supporting insurgencies aimed at subverting their neighbors. Their actions, however, began to raise doubts. Weapons and equipment sent by Cuba through Nicaragua were making their way to rebels in El Salvador. The new regime received aid from several sources, including United States, Mexico, Venezuela, and Western Europe. But the United States, the largest single contributor, became increasingly concerned about the new regime's growing ties with the Eastern bloc. Nicaragua increased its number of Cuban advisers, and in 1980 and 1981 signed agreements with the Soviet Union and East bloc governments, including Bulgaria and East Germany, for advisers and military and intelligence assistance. Candidate Ronald Reagan stated his firm opposition to any further U.S. support for the Sandinistas. In January 1981, President Carter suspended aid to the Nicaraguan regime. In April 1981, the Reagan Administration continued this policy. It announced that it would withhold the remaining $15 million in unspent U.S. assistance to Nicaragua and not request further economic aid until the revolution was democratized and all assistance to the Salvadoran rebels ceased. Concerns about Nicaragua's internal repression, its growing military force, its ties to the Soviet bloc and its support for the Salvadoran insurgency led the Administration to consider ways to assist the regime's opponents, who came to be known as the Contras. The Contras As the Sandinistas consolidated their hold on Nicaragua in 1979 to 1981, the concerns of the United States were matched within Nicaragua itself. In response, a new Nicaraguan rebel movement - anti-Sandinista "Contras" - emerged. The Contras were not a monolithic group, but a combination of three distinct elements of Nicaraguan society: former National Guardsmen and right-wing figures who had fought for Somoza and against the revolution; anti-Somocistas who had supported the revolution but felt betrayed by the Sandinista Government; and Nicaraguans who had avoided direct involvement in the revolution but opposed the Sandinistas' increasingly anti-democratic regime. Many future Contra leaders fled to exile. Some, like Jose Francisco Cardenal, head of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), moved to the United States, where they began a political campaign to win support for their cause in Congress and from among the Cuban and Nicaraguan exile communities. Other anti-Sandinistas set about organizing a resistance movement in neighboring nations. The largest and most active of these groups, which later came to be known as the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), was led by Adolfo Calero Portocarrero. Calero had been an accountant and businessman, and had been active in the movement to oust Somoza. Following the liberation, he served as the political coordinator of the Conservative Democratic Party and became an outspoken critic of the Sandinista Government. Calero joined the resistance movement after his office and home were attacked and he was forced into exile. Although Calero had opposed Somoza, the FDN had its roots in two insurgent groups made up of former National Guardsmen who fled Nicaragua after the fall of Somoza. In 1981, this branch of the resistance consisted of only a few hundred men. Other elements of the anti-Sandinista resistance emerged following the failure of members of the Nicaraguan provisional government to resolve their differences over the political direction of the country. Increasingly, those who opposed the Sandinistas found themselves isolated within the Government. The resignation in 1980 of Violetta Chamorro from the ruling directorate triggered an exodus of moderate leaders from the Government. Among those who left were Alfonso Robelo Callejas and Arturo J. Cruz. Robelo had entered politics during the two national strikes organized against Somoza. In March 1978, he founded the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement and was imprisoned by Somoza. After his release, he was forced into exile. He participated in the post-revolutionary Government as the head of his own political party and as an opponent of the Sandinista regime. Cruz, who would become a prominent Contra leader, was named Nicaraguan Ambassador to the United States in 1981. He resigned 2 years later in protest against Sandinista policies, and joined the resistance in 1983. In addition to the main force of FDN fighters centered primarily in the northern portion of the country, other resistance forces became active in other parts of Nicaragua. These include several Indian groups operating along the Atlantic coast and, after 1981, a group formed by the charismatic figure and former Sandinista guerrilla leader and hero, Eden Pastora. Forces under Pastora were based along the southern border with Costa Rica. Initial support for the Nicaraguan resistance came from another country, which organized and supplied paramilitary forces in early 1981. By the end of 1981, however, the Contras were looking to the United States for their support. They were to find a receptive audience - President Reagan.