Word: sandinistas
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...eight years, the Honduran town of Yamales served as the nerve center for the Nicaraguan contras in their war against the Sandinista government in Managua. So it was appropriate that Yamales was the site last week for a ceremony attended by hundreds of rebels that marked the dismantling of the contra base camps. Abel Ignasio Cespedes, known to his insurgent troops as Comandante Ciro, turned over a battered West German G-3 automatic rifle to a representative of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who will be inaugurated as Nicaragua's President this week. The weapon was then handed to Major General...
...question has hovered menacingly since Violeta Chamorro's upset win last February in Nicaragua's presidential elections: Would the defeated Sandinista National Liberation Front (F.S.L.N.) relinquish control of the army and police force that kept it in power for ten years...
After a month of mixed signals, the answer finally appears to be yes to the much disputed issue. The F.S.L.N. and Chamorro's transition team agreed last week that the Sandinista People's Army and the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, should be "subordinated to the civil power of the president of the republic." In a seven-point document, the two sides also specified that the new government could reduce the size of the military. Chamorro has promised deep cuts in the 70,000-man army, as well as in the police force, whose size is secret...
...sticking point is the reluctance of some anti-Sandinista contras to lay down their weapons before Chamorro takes office on April 25. But the rebels are running out of friends faster than ammunition. When 100 contras ambushed and killed a dozen Sandinista soldiers near the Honduran border last week, the attack was swiftly denounced by the newspaper La Prensa, owned and operated by the Chamorro family...
...Sandinista army may prove to be the bigger headache for the incoming Chamorro administration. Despite an increase in conscript desertions since the elections, the army's 15,000-strong professional core remains well disciplined and loyal to the Sandinistas. Chamorro has vowed to abolish the draft and reduce the size of the military. Luis Humberto Guzman, a member of U.N.O.'s senior advisory board, has said that military spending should not exceed 15% of the budget. Under Ortega, defense expenditures totaled 50% of the budget. For that reason alone, demobilization of both armies makes sense if Nicaragua is going...