A 1983 report from the same source documented allegations of human rights violations against the Miskito Indians, which were alleged to have taken place after opposition forces ( the Contras ) infiltrated a Miskito village in order to launch attacks against government soldiers, and as part of a subsequent forced relocation program.

Despite the US government's official position against the drug trade, US government agents and assets have been implicated in the drug trade and were caught and investigated during the Iran-Contra scandal, implicated in the use of the drug trade as a secret source of funding for the USA's support of the Contras.

However, Pastora soon lost whatever popularity he might have had among common Nicaraguans as he adopted the strategy of the northern Contras, terrorizing civilians while mostly avoiding direct encounters with the Nicaraguan military.

The Sandinistas, in turn, complained that he should have attacked US aid to the Contras.

Additionally, militants associated with the CANF, such as Luis Posada Carriles ( who claims to have been funded by Jorge Mas Canosa ) and his Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations ( CORU ) group, and the Contras ( Pepe Hernández having been a Contra combatant, and several CANF members having ostensibly provided them with humanitarian aid ), have been accused of large-scale drug trafficking.

* 1987 – American engineer Ben Linder is killed in an ambush by U. S .- funded Contras in northern Nicaragua.

Benjamin Ernest " Ben " Linder ( July 7, 1959 – April 28, 1987 ), was an American engineer who was working on a small hydroelectric dam in rural northern Nicaragua when he was killed by the Contras, an affiliation of rebel groups funded by the U. S. government / CIA.

The book was dedicated to Ben Linder, who was killed by the Contras on April 28, 1987.

In the dirtiest of Latin America ’ s dirty wars, their faith in America ’ s mission justified atrocities in the name of liberty .” Grandin examined the behaviour of the U. S. backed-contras and found evidence that it was particularly inhumane and vicious: " In Nicaragua, the U. S .- backed Contras decapitated, castrated, and otherwise mutilated civilians and foreign aid workers.

Edgar Chamorro, a former Contra and member of the FDN's political directorate who later became a critic of the Contras, stated that during his time with the Contras, he frequently received reports about atrocities committed by Contra troops against civilians and against Sandinista prisoners: " As time went on, I became more and more troubled by the frequent reports I received of atrocities committed by our troops against civilians and against Sandinista prisoners.

" A Human Rights Watch report found that the Contras were guilty of targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination ; kidnapping civilians ; torturing and executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat ; raping women ; indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian homes ; seizing civilian property ; and burning civilian houses in captured towns.

In violation of the Boland Amendment, senior officials of the Reagan administration continued to secretly arm and train the Contras and provide arms to Iran, an operation they called " the Enterprise ".

After revising the constitution in 1987 and after years of resisting the United States-supported Contras the FSLN lost the election in 1990 to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, but they retained a plurality of seats in the legislature.

The Contras became " a campesino movement with its own leadership " ( Luis Carrion ); they had " a large social base in the countryside " ( Orlando Nunez ); " the integration of thousands of peasants into the counterrevolutionary army " was provoked by " the policies, limitations and errors of Sandinismo " ( Alejandro Bendana ); " many landless peasants went to war " to avoid the state collectives, and Contra commanders " were small farmers, many of them without any ties to Somocismo, who had supplanted the former National Guard officers " ( Sergio Ramirez ).

In Nicaragua, pressure from the Contras led the Sandinstas to end the State of Emergency, and they subsequently lost the 1990 elections.

In fact, the Contras received their name precisely because they were counterrevolutionaries.

*" The Contras ' Valley Forge: How I View the Nicaragua Crisis ", by Enrique Bermúdez ( with Michael Johns ), Policy Review magazine, Summer 1988.

* 1985 – Sandinista Daniel Ortega becomes president of Nicaragua and vows to continue the transformation to socialism and alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba ; American policy continues to support the Contras in their revolt against the Nicaraguan government.

Regarding human rights violations by the Contras, " The Court has to determine whether the relationship of the contras to the United States Government was such that it would be right to equate the Contras, for legal purposes, with an organ of the United States Government, or as acting on behalf of that Government.

After the initiation of full-scale U. S. military involvement in the Nicaraguan conflict the CDS was empowered to enforce wartime bans on political assembly and association with other political parties ( i. e. parties associated with the " Contras ").

Although independent and often at conflict with each other, these guerrilla bands — along with a few others — all became generally known as " Contras " ( short for "", en.

This meant the US could no longer openly support the Contras with U. S. government funds.

After the U. S. Congress prohibited federal funding of the Contras in 1983, the Reagan administration continued to back the Contras by raising money from foreign allies and covertly selling arms to Iran ( then engaged in a vicious war with Iraq ), and channelling the proceeds to the Contras ( see the Iran-Contra Affair ).

Oliver North came into the public spotlight as a result of his participation in the Iran-Contra affair, a political scandal of the late 1980s, in which he claimed partial responsibility for the sale of weapons via intermediaries to Iran, with the profits being channeled to the Contras in Nicaragua.

After the United States Congress turned down continued funding of the Contras in April 1985, the Reagan administration ordered a total embargo on United States trade with Nicaragua the following month, accusing the Sandinista government of threatening United States security in the region.

In 1987, due to a stalemate with the Contras, the Esquipulas II treaty was brokered by Costa Rican President Óscar Arias Sánchez.

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.

The efforts to provide arms for hostages eventually became connected, through the transfer of funds made with arms sales, with the NSC staff's ardent support for the Nicaraguan " Contras " in their civil war against the left-wing government of Nicaragua.

During the 1980s Argüello briefly fought with the Contras in his native Nicaragua, but after a few months in the jungle he retired from the war.

She disagreed with Schultz most notably on the Iran-Contra affair, in which she supported skimming money off arms sales to fund the Contras.

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.

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.

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.