The Contras have killed, tortured, raped, mutilated and abducted hundreds of civilians they suspect of sympathizing with the Sandinistas.

The Palestine Liberation Organization and the Sandinistas are or have been particular causes célèbres.

However, while adamantine in his opposition to the Sandinistas, he absolutely refused to have anything to do with the much larger contra group in Honduras, the FDN.

After the war, a survey was taken of voters: 75. 6 % agreed that if the Sandinistas had won, the war would never have ended.

The Sandinistas were particularly advantageous for the women of Nicaraguan as they promoted progressive views on gender as early as 1969 claiming that the revolution would " abolish the detestable discrimination that women have suffered with regard to men and establish economic, political and cultural equality between men and women.

Supporters of the Sandinistas ... have argued that Nicaragua has a good record of human rights compared with other Central American countries and have compared Nicaragua with other countries at war.

It was all lies, what they promised us " ( unemployed person ); " I thought it was going to be just like 1984, when the vote was not secret and there was not all these observers around " ( market vendor ); " Don ’ t you believe those lies fraud, I voted my conscience and my principles, and so did everyone else I know " ( young mother ); " the Sandinistas have mocked and abused the people, and now we have given our vote to opposition UNO " ( ex-Sandinista officer ).

The people who belong to the national ruling government party, the Sandinistas, have more opportunities for employment.

The primary opposition candidate was the U. S .- backed Arturo Cruz, who succumbed to pressure from the United States government not to take part in the 1984 elections ; later US officials were quoted as saying, " the ( Reagan ) Administration never contemplated letting Cruz stay in the race, because then the Sandinistas could justifiably claim that the elections were legitimate.

The Sandinistas took their name from Augusto César Sandino ( 1895 – 1934 ), the charismatic leader of Nicaragua's nationalist rebellion against the US occupation of the country during the early 20th century ( ca.

The Sandinistas inherited a country in ruins with a debt of 1. 6 billion dollars ( US ), an estimated 50, 000 war dead, 600, 000 homeless, and a devastated economic infrastructure.

* End of the Sandinistas and US Response from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives

Helms stated in his Senate report that the Sandinistas were still controlling much of the Nicaraguan government and suggested that the government replace all former Sandinista officers with ex-contras, replace all judges, and return all US property that was taken from US citizens during the revolution.

The US government refused to recognize the Sandinista regime's legitimacy to represent Nicaragua in The Esquipulas Process, on the basis that the Sandinistas had taken power in a 1979 coup d ' etat against the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, establishing the Junta of National Reconstruction.

Although in 1984 the Sandinistas held a fair and free election, in which they won the majority of the votes, the main opposition parties boycotted this election under US pressure, and the US was able to claim that the victory was illegitimate.

The documents, cables that Negroponte sent to Washington while serving as ambassador to Honduras, indicated that he played a more active role than previously known in managing US efforts against the leftist Sandinistas.

Too many political mistakes at the same time made by Noriga, and the US pressure made by the Almirant John Poindexter to use the Panamanian territory to fight against the Sandinistas got worst with his clear No, the Noriega ´ s reason was " They are our friends ", and the assassination of Spadafora in 1985 generates the beginning of the political turmoil that ended in 1989 with the US led invasion.

Newsweek reported that it told reporters that high-level Sandinistas were involved in drug trafficking, but US drug officials said there was no evidence for such a charge.

The Sandinistas, not wishing to alienate the US, were willing to acquiesce.

" After the U. S. enforced the embargo, Nicaragua was isolated from the West, forcing the Sandinistas to rely more on Eastern bloc military and economic assistance even though Moscow declined to offer the quantity of aid it provided to close communist allies.

U. S. President Carter initially hoped that continued American aid to the new government would keep the Sandinistas from forming a doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist government aligned with the Soviet bloc, but the Carter administration allotted the Sandinistas minimal funding to start them off, and the Sandinistas resolutely turned away from the U. S., investing Cuban and East European assistance into a new army of 75, 000.

Facing domestic pressure to remove Humberto Ortega and the risk of curtailment of United States aid as long as Sandinistas remained in control of the armed forces, Chamorro announced that Ortega would be replaced in 1994.

Once the Sandinistas assumed power, Cuba gave Nicaragua military advice, as well as aid in education, health care, vocational training and industry building for the impoverished Nicaraguan economy.

The Nicaraguan revolution put the country's government on the United States ' black book ; therefore the Sandinistas would not receive any aid from the United States.

The hierarchy also opposed social reforms implemented by the Sandinistas to aid the poor, allegedly because they saw it as a threat to their traditionally privileged position within society.

According to him, the Sandinistas had won power in July 1979 with the assistance of massive, covert Cuban military aid.

While critical of the Sandinistas, Moreno's group sent a Simon Bolivar Brigade to Nicaragua to aid the Civil War, with the aim of building a revolutionary party there.

In 1984, the DEA became upset with the White House, alleging the White House blew the smuggling investigation against the Sandinistas to embarrass them before a contra aid vote.

U. S. aid for the contras was authorized and the Sandinista government, under contra military and global political pressure, ultimately agreed to hold the free and fair elections the contras sought, which the Sandinistas then lost in one of several global indications that the Cold War was dissolving.

Mutual exhaustion, Sandinista fears of Contra unity and military success, and mediation by other regional governments led to the Sapoa ceasefire between the Sandinistas and the Contras on March 23, 1988.

Despite the clear electoral victory for the Sandinistas, the Contras continued their violent attacks on both state and civilian targets, until 1989.

The song chronicles the history of the Sandinistas, as well as their conflict with the Contras, and reflects an optimistic hope for the future of Nicaragua.

This demobilization included the removal of the US-backed Contras thereby leaving the Sandinistas with no one to fight, and therefore creating a highly effective peace.

In 2001 Joan Kruckewitt, an American journalist who lived in Nicaragua from 1983 to 1991 and covered the war between the Sandinistas and the Contras for ABC Radio wrote a book The Death of Ben Linder ( Seven Stories Press 2001 ) giving a more sympathetic portrait of Linder's life, work, and death.

A strong feminist, she brought women ’ s voices to the fore in the magazine and oversaw considerable coverage of Central America, the Sandinistas, and the Contras.

Two years before his assassination by the Sandinistas in Managua, contra military commander Enrique Bermúdez, during a meeting in Tegucigalpa, asked Johns to author his autobiographical essay, " The Contras ' Valley Forge ," which is based on extensive discussions between the two and received substantial global media coverage in The New York Times, The Washington Post and elsewhere.

For example, some of the Contras originally fought with the Sandinistas to overthrow Anastasio Somoza, and some of those who oppose Castro also opposed Batista.

On 25 February 1982, Steadman Fagoth, one of the guerrilla leaders, took refuge in Honduras along with 3, 000 Miskitos, while the Sandinistas began to denounce the activities of Contras in the Rio Coco zone.

Upon the conclusion of the civil war, 7, 500 Guardsmen were taken prisoner – with many former Guards suspected of violating human rights being held in detention by the Sandinistas –, while another 4, 500 officers and enlisted men fled to neighbouring Honduras, Costa Rica and Guatemala to form the nucleus an armed opposition force to the new Nicaraguan government, which would later become known as the Contras

* Contras, Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries opposed to the Sandinistas

The S / LPD said it helped write an anti-Sandinista column for the Wall Street Journal that ran two days earlier ; assisted in a " positive piece " on the Contras by Fred Francis that aired the night before on NBC ; wrote op-eds for the Washington Post and New York Times that would run with the bylines of Contra leaders ; arranged an extensive media tour for a Contra leader " through a cut-out " ( to hide the S / LPD's role ); and prepared to leak a State Department cable that would embarrass the Sandinistas: " Do not be surprised if this cable somehow hits the evening news.

" But, Clarridge maintained, by the end of the conflict, the Contras numbered more than 20, 000 peasants due less to the CIA's efforts than to the Sandinistas ' attempts at reeducation and land redistribution.