Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0100/01009.txt

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$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.