Word: contras
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...1950s I had already read Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon. Also historical accounts about Hitler; why he was never overthrown. I must say I was always against the system. We called it "contra" then. My parents were as well. My father is a bit red. But my mother made sure we were instructed as Catholics. There was always internal resistance. We thought the system could not last long, that we had to accept it as a result of the war, of Hitler's despotism and the cruelty of that regime. Yet we were always afraid of being denounced...
Nicaragua's civil war is supposed to be over. But contra commander Ciguena, as he calls himself, is in no rush to return to the civilian life he abandoned eight years ago to take up arms against the Sandinistas. As he sat beneath a tree in the dusty backwater village of San Marcos in northern Nicaragua last week, Ciguena, 25, explained that he supports Violeta Chamorro, whose National Opposition Union (U.N.O.) defeated the Sandinistas at the polls two weeks ago. But Chamorro has called on the contras to disband, and Ciguena doubts that she can function as President without...
...sprawling bungalow in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa last week, the contras opened discussions on the terms of their disengagement with representatives of the U.N.O. and the Roman Catholic Church. Honduras is the grudging host to some 10,000 contra troops; up to 4,000 other fighters operate in Nicaragua. The contras' concern for their safety was heightened last week when fighting between Sandinista soldiers and rebels broke out in central and northern Nicaragua; each side accuses the other of provoking the conflict...
...wittingly or not, Washington stumbled on an arm's-length policy: wreck the economy and prosecute a long and deadly proxy war until the exhausted natives overthrow the unwanted government themselves. For Americans, the cost was minimal. True, bruising annual battles over Central America splintered Congress, and the Iran-contra scandal hobbled Ronald Reagan's second term, but hardly any U.S. soldiers were dying...
...inflicted the most pain on the wrong people. The past ten years have savaged the country's civilians, not its comandantes. Since 1985 Washington has strangled Nicaraguan trade with an embargo. It has cut off Nicaragua's credit at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The contra war cost Managua tens of millions and left the country with wrecked bridges, sabotaged power stations and ruined farms. The impoverishment of the people of Nicaragua was a harrowing way to give the National Opposition Union (U.N.O.) a winning issue...