Page:US Dept. of State - Documents on the Nicaraguan Resistance (1986).pdf/6

 The first is that, despite internal shortcomings and the steady growth of the Sandinista armed forces and internal security units in numbers, operational capability, and weaponry, the resistance is militarily viable.

Keeping together some 20,000 fighters is in itself not a small achievement given existing conditions inside and outside Nicaragua. Over the past several years, between one-third and one-half of these fighters have been operating inside Nicaragua at any given time.

The UNO/FDN forces can be considered the "cutting edge" of a broader national resistance movement. This broader movement includes such organizations as:


 * UNO/FARN under the leadership of Fernando "El Negro" Chamorro operate small units in the Northern Rio San Juan and Southern Zelaya;


 * Sandino Revolutionary Front (ARDE/FRS), under the leadership of Eden Pastora, also operates along the southern region of Nicaragua; and


 * UNO/KISAN and MISURASATA Miskito and independent Creole fighters operate from Northern Zelaya to North of Bluefields along the Atlantic Coast.

By 1985 armed resistance forces were engaging in military operations in more than half of Nicaragua's 16 departments. Comparing the areas in which resistance forces operated in 1982–83 with those in which they have been active since 1984–85 reveals a steady expansion, from hit-and-run raids primarily concentrated along the northern Nicaraguan border to multi-taskforce operations in such departments as Matagalpa, Boaco and Chontales in central Nicaragua, including the lengthy presence of some 1500 members of the Jorge Salazar Command in southern Zelaya and along the Rama Road. Some of these areas are as much as 45 days' march from the Honduran border.

While non-FDN forces remain small and are largely organized into small tactical units of 40–70 men, they do continue to make their presence known. The military leaders of these groups are either former Sandinistas or independents. Like the experience within the FDN itself, where former Guardsmen and former Sandinistas fight side by side, the former Sandinistas in these non-FDN forces are increasing their coordination with the FDN in the strengthened political framework of cooperation with UNO.

For a movement some have declared ineffective, defeated, or even dead, the Nicaraguan resistance is displaying a resiliency that is given little recognition by anyone but the Sandinistas.

This brings me to my final point. The United States supports all the major groups in opposition to the Sandinista dictatorship. Our only conditions are that any group we support subscribe to democratic principles, that it respect internationally-accepted standards of conduct and refrain from criminal activity, and that it cooperate with other like-minded groups. In this regard, I am enclosing for your convenient reference a copy of UNO's Declaration of Principles and Objectives, signed in Caracas, Venezuela, on January 22, 1986.

As I wrote Senator Lugar, the people of Nicaragua and the resistance forces are struggling for a future of freedom and peace, and they deserve our support.

  Document 4

Enrique Bermudez Varela is the military commander of the UNO/FDN armed forces. He is a military engineer who graduated from the Nicaraguan Military Academy and also attended the Agulhas Negras Military Academy in Brazil, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the U.S. Army School of the Americas. From 1976 to 1979, Bermudez served as the Defense Attache in Washington, D.C., and was not involved in or associated with human rights abuses committed during the civil war. Roberto Sanchez, the Sandinista Army spokesman in Managua, noted in December 1982 that Bermudez has never been identified with "war crimes" committed under Somoza. This statement has never been repudiated by the Sandinistas or Sanchez.

Adolfo Calero Portocarrero, a lifelong opponent of Somoza, has been president of the National Directorate of the FDN since December 1983. He began his political career in the 1950s as an activist in the Conservative Party. In 1959 he helped organize managerial strikes in support of an insurrection headed by Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, editor of the opposition daily La Prensa. In 1978, Calero served as his party's representative in the Broad Opposition Front (FAO) and was jailed for initiating a general strike against Somoza. A 1978 New York Times article described Calero as "the most forceful" of Somoza's opponents. After attempting to cooperate with the Sandinistas, Calero went into exile at the end of 1982. He helped found UNO in 1985. Calero graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1953, did graduate work in industrial management at Syracuse University, and holds a law degree from the University of Central America in Nicaragua.

Alfredo Cesar Aguirre earned a B.S. degree in industrial relations from the University of Texas and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. After serving as general administrator of the Nicaraguan Sugar Estates, he joined the Sandinistas in 1978 and was tortured and imprisoned by the government during Somoza's last year. After the Sandinista victory in 1979, Cesar became Executive Director of the International Reconstruction Fund. In 1980–81 he was executive director of the Banking Superior Council. In 1981–82 he was president of the Central Bank. After breaking with the Sandinistas, Cesar went into exile in Costa Rica and became an adviser to the Costa Rican Government, specializing in external debt. In mid-1985 he became the most prominent of six founding members of the Southern Opposition Block (BOS).

Fernando Chamorro Rappaccioli, "El Negro," leader of UNO/FARN and commander of ARDE's military forces, has been a prominent anti-Somoza figure since the 1940s. He participated in numerous military actions against the dictator and was repeatedly jailed or exiled by Somoza. During the revolution, he executed a spectacular rocket attack on Somoza's Managua bunker from the nearby Intercontinental Hotel. In 1979, he fought on the southern front with the Sandinistas. The increasingly communist nature of the regime, and the absence of an effort to implement the democratic goals of the revolution, drove Chamorro into exile in 1982 at which time he joined in the founding of ARDE. When Pastora was expelled as a result of policy disputes within the organization, Chamorro became the military leader.

Arturo Jose Cruz Porras was a member of Nicaragua's Governing Junta from May 1980 to March 1981. He was jailed twice by Somoza, once for 3 months and later for 11 months. In 6