WikipediaExtracts:Contras
Extracted from Wikipedia --
The Contras (from Spanish: contrarrevolucionarios, lit. 'counter-revolutionaries') were the anti-communist right-wing rebels who waged a guerrilla war against the Marxist Sandinista National Liberation Front and the Junta of National Reconstruction, which came to power after the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979. The insurgency against the Sandinista government lasted from 1979 until 1990, and was one of the highest profile conflicts of the Cold War.
In July 1979, the FSLN took control of the capital Managua after weeks of heavy fighting. The president at the time, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, fled the country and relinquished control of the central government, leaving the Sandinistas in power. The Sandinistas created a military junta that acted as an interim government immediately after. Various groups were created in response to this, consisting of dissidents of the new government and members of the former National Guard. These groups would regularly meet and establish the Contras in 1980.
During the insurgency, the United States and several other countries provided military assistance and financial aid to the Contras. In 1981, the CIA and Argentina's Secretariat of Intelligence persuaded several Contra groups to unite into the larger Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN).
In 1982, the Boland Amendment was passed to end U.S. aid to the Contras; yet the Reagan administration continued to illegally fund the Contras, which resulted in a scandal known as the Iran–Contra affair. By 1987, most of the Contra militias had united into the Nicaraguan Resistance, within which the Nicaraguan Democratic Force was the largest group.
During the war, the Contras' tactics featured terrorism and human rights violations against civilians. The Reagan administration said that the Contras' tactics did not include attacks against civilians. The CIA said that Contra terrorism resulted from "the poor discipline characteristic of irregular forces", that terrorism was not an official military doctrine of the Contras, and that the Contra leader responsible was executed. The Global Terrorism Database reports that Contras carried out more than 1,300 terrorist attacks.
After a cutoff in U.S. military support, and with both sides facing international pressure to bring an end to the conflict, the contras agreed to negotiations with the FSLN. With the help of five Central American presidents, including Daniel Ortega (then-President of Nicaragua), the sides agreed that a voluntary demobilization of the contras should start in early December 1989. They chose this date to facilitate free and fair elections in Nicaragua in February 1990.
