Civil war in Nicaragua?
Can you tell me more about the Contra War (1979-1990)? I dont really understand it. Thanks :]
After a series of repressive military dictatorships with death squads led by the U.S. supported Somoza family, the Sandinista Party took control of Nicaragua in a popular revolution in 1979. Daniel Ortega was elected President in a free and fair election in 1984 (He was elected again in 2007)
The Contra army was really a proxy military force funded by United States foreign policy. President Ronald Reagan authorized the CIA a budget of $19 million to organize a coherent counterrevolutionary force to underrmine the Sandinista regime which had come to power in 1979.
US support was also premised on anti-communism; the field rebels did not care whether it was a Somoza style regime or a Marxist regime that ruled Nicaragua. Their grievance was that they were sick of dictatorships and being forced off their lands by both governments.
After Congress voted down further aid to the Contras after much killing and war crimes, illegal funding of the war began and it involved Marine Lt. Oliver North and John Poindexter who was National Security Adviser to President Reagan. Cocaine was shipped to the U.S. and Arms were sold to Iran ; both funded the illegal U.S. run Contra war out of Honduras.
The underlying objection by the U.S. to the Nicaraguan Sandinista government was the same as the current administration’s distate for the government in Venezuela-it shares the wealth created in their country with the population rather than with a small elite and foreign Corporations. Education and literacy, employment and healthcare all improved in both countries. In the 1990 election the population of Nicaragua was tired of being terrorized by the Contras and voted in the U.S. approved leader Violetta Chamorro. In the next decade poverty in Nicaragua was exceeded in Central America only by Haiti.
