Word: pastora
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Contra leader Adolfo Calero is no stranger to the violent violation of free speech. In fact, he stands accused in an assassination attempt on Eden Pastora. On May 30, 1984 a bomb exploded at a public press conference in La Penca, Nicaragua called by dissident contra leader Eden Pastora (a.k.a. Commandante Zero). Eight people were killed including three international journalists. Many other reporters were mutilated...
...been almost eight years since Eden Pastora Gomez, the Sandinistas' legendary "Commander Zero," stormed Managua's National Palace, paving the way for Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle's flight into exile. Soon feeling % powerless in a government that he charged was run by Communists, Pastora helped form the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE) and began receiving covert U.S. aid to fight the Sandinistas. But the funds were cut off when Pastora refused to cooperate with other rebel forces...
...appears, Pastora is washed up. On May 9, six of his top commanders signed on with the United Nicaraguan Opposition, the U.S.-backed contra force, taking with them most of ARDE's troops. At week's end Pastora said that he is abandoning the contra struggle and will seek political asylum in Costa Rica...
Other contra groups are not faring so well. The Revolutionary Democratic Alliance (ARDE), operating in southern Nicaragua, not only remains estranged from the F.D.N. but is badly split. Eden Pastora Gomez, the swashbuckling ARDE leader who once commanded 2,500 men, has been reduced to door-to-door fund raising in San Jose, Costa Rica's capital. There have been reports of Pastora's followers selling their guns for food. On the Caribbean Coast, an estimated 1,000 Miskito Indian rebels are divided into two rival factions and poorly equipped...
Many contras, however, are barely surviving. Times have been hardest for Eden Pastora Gomez, the volatile leader of an ARDE branch that at one time had as many as 2,500 men. Over the past few months, hundreds of his supporters have sought refuge in Costa Rica, where many of them have sold their $1,000 automatic weapons for as little as $100. "In the best month, we got $600,000 from the gringos," recalls a Pastora aide. "Now, we get nothing. If one of us manages to scrape together $5,000, we buy rice and maybe 20,000 rounds...