Nicaragua - History : Sandinistas and the Contras

Upon assuming office in 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan condemned the FSLN for joining
with Cuba in supporting Marxist revolutionary movements in other Latin American countries
such as El Salvador. Reagan was also concerned about the growing Soviet and Cuban
presence in Nicaragua, and the Soviet hope to turn Nicaragua into a "second Cuba". Under the
Reagan Doctrine, his administration authorized the CIA to have paramilitary officers from their
elite Special Activities Division begin financing, arming and training rebels, some of whom were
the remnants of Somoza's National Guard, as anti-Sandinista guerrillas that were branded
"counter-revolutionary" by leftists. This was shortened to Contras, a label the anti-socialist
forces chose to embrace. Edén Pastora and many of the indigenous guerrilla forces
unassociated 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 to the south. As
was typical in guerrilla warfare, they were engaged in a campaign of economic sabotage in an
attempt to combat the Sandinista government and disrupted shipping by planting underwater
mines in Nicaragua's Port of Corinto, an action condemned by the World Court as illegal. The
U.S. also sought to place economic pressure on the Sandinistas, and the Reagan
administration imposed a full trade embargo.

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U.S. support for this Nicaraguan insurgency continued in spite of the fact that impartial
observers from international groupings such as the European Economic Community, religious

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Nicaragua - History : Sandinistas and the Contras

groups sent to monitor the election, and observers from democratic nations such as Canada
and the Republic of Ireland concluded that the Nicaraguan general elections of 1984 were
completely free and fair. The Reagan administration disputed these results, despite the fact that
the government of the United States never had any observers in Nicaragua at the time.

The elections were not also recognized as legitimate because Arturo Cruz, the candidate
nominated by the Coordinadora Democrática Nicaragüense, comprising three rightwing political
parties, did not participate in the elections. He withdrew from the elections due to the
government's lack of response to the document "A Step Toward Democracy, Free Elections"
issued in 1982. The document was asking the government to re-establish all civil rights:
freedom of speech, freedom of organization, release of all political prisoners, cease of hostilities
against the opposition, lifting the censorship on the media and abolishing all the laws violating
human rights.

As the Sandinistas moved further in the direction of creating a Marxist state and repressing
political opposition, opposition to the regime increased. Heavy-handed tactics by the Ministry of
Interior, guided by Soviet, Cuban, Bulgarian and East German advisers,security forces in the
countryside, also added recruits to the contra numbers. Inept economic policies, which resulted
in hyperinflation and food shortages, also contributed to discontent. Large Soviet arms
shipments, including T-55 tanks, other armored vehicles, and Hind helicopters, were used in an
increasingly violent counterinsurgency campaign.

After the U.S. Congress prohibited federal funding of the Contras in 1983, the Reagan
administration continued to back the Contras by covertly selling arms to Iran and channeling the
proceeds to the Contras. When this scheme was revealed, Reagan admitted that he knew
about the Iranian "arms for hostages" dealings but professed ignorance about the proceeds
funding the Contras; for this, National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Oliver North took much of
the blame.

Senator John Kerry's 1988 U.S. Senate 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." According to the National Security
Archive, Oliver North had been in contact with Manuel Noriega, a Panamanian general and the
de facto military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989 when he was overthrown and captured
by a U.S. invading force. He was taken to the United States, tried for drug trafficking, and
imprisoned in 1992.

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Nicaragua - History : Sandinistas and the Contras

In August 1996, San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb published a series titled Dark
Alliance, linking the origins of crack cocaine in California to the Contras. 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. Sen. John Kerry's report
in 1988 led to the same conclusions; major media outlets, the Justice Department, and Reagan
denied the allegations.

The International Court of Justice, in regard to the case of Nicaragua v. United States of
America in 1984, found; "the United States of America was under an obligation to make
reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused to Nicaragua by certain breaches of
obligations under customary international law and treaty-law committed by the United States of
America". United States however rejected and did not comply with the judgement under the
'Connally Amendment'

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