Word: nicaragua
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...white horse. And just in case some member of the U.S. Congress missed the significance of the white hat cocked on his head, President Daniel Ortega Saavedra spelled out his good intentions last week during celebrations to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sandinista takeover in Nicaragua. In an effort to diminish U.S. anger over the expulsion of its Ambassador to Managua two weeks ago, Ortega announced that he would extend his country's fragile cease-fire with the contras, now in its fifth month, until Aug. 30. He also called for better relations with Washington and invited the leaders...
Ortega's sudden switch to good-guy tactics did not sway the Resistance, which directs some 10,000 contras who are trying to overthrow the Marxist-led regime. Meeting in the Dominican Republic, the organization's 54-member Assembly, which considers itself Nicaragua's government-in-exile, elected a new seven-man directorate. Among its members: former Colonel Enrique Bermudez, 56, the contras' commander in chief since 1981. The inclusion of Bermudez, who served in the National Guard of the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, represents a major victory for hard-liners within the Resistance who believe that the Sandinistas...
Geographical ignorance is often accompanied by political naivete, as demonstrated by a series of more in-depth questions which the pollsters asked over 1600 Americans. The survey found that not more than half of adult Americans know that the Sandinistas and contras are fighting each other in Nicaragua; most placed the conflict in Iran, Lebanon or Afganistan. In addition, 50 percent of Americans could not name a single member of the Warsaw Pact; 10 percent erroneously placed the United States as a member of the Soviet bloc...
...Congress, senators and representatives debate the fine points of giving aid to the contras (the ones fighting in Nicaragua, that is). Meanwhile, their constituents are hard-pressed even to identify the strife-torn Latin American country on a map, never mind explain what the U.S. government's policy is toward the contras...
...Soviet leader, chairing a Warsaw Pact summit, advances Moscow' s program for political and economic renewal as a way of jump- starting similar plans in Eastern Europe. -- A crackdown in Nicaragua spurs calls for military aid to the contras. -- Britain beats the U. S. to the arms deal of the century...