Page:US Dept. of State - Documents on the Nicaraguan Resistance (1986).pdf/7

 1977, Cruz was invited by the Sandinistas to be one of "The Group of 12," prominent Nicaraguans who would serve as a bridge between the Sandinistas and other groups in the civil opposition to Somoza. A long-time member of the Conservative Party, Cruz is an economist who holds graduate and undergraduate degrees from Georgetown University. He has specialized in development banking and has worked for the Inter-American Development Bank. Following the revolution, Mr. Cruz served as president of the Central Bank in 1979–80, as a member of the governing junta from May 1980 to March 1981, and as Nicaragua's Ambassador to the United States from June 1981 until his resignation in December in protest over Sandinista policies. Cruz was the presidential candidate of the unified opposition Coordinadora Democratica in the November 1984 elections but refused to register his candidacy in protest over the Sandinista government's refusal to permit a fair electoral contest. He helped found UNO in 1985.

Wycliffe Diego is a Miskito Indian leader from the Atlantic Coast town of Puerto Cabezas. He was a Moravian pastor and an active member of the Miskito organization ALPROMISU. He was jailed by Somoza in 1971 for allegedly being a communist. When MISURASATA was formed in 1979, Diego served as a member of its executive board. Reacting to the Sandinista mistreatment of Nicaragua's indigenous population, Diego went into exile and helped found the armed resistance group MISURA. He was wounded in a Sandinista engineered 1982 assassination attempt and is today a key figure in UNO/KISAN.

Eden Pastora Gomez, the legendary Commander Zero and leader of the ARDE/FRS, was the Sandinistas' most popular hero and a senior official of their government until he distanced himself from them in 1981. In August 1978 Pastora led the unit that captured the National Palace in Managua. That operation gained the release of 59 political prisoners, but its lasting significance was that it captured the imagination of the Nicaraguan people and enabled the Sandinistas to become the symbol of resistance to Somoza. After the fall of Somoza, Pastora became Vice Minister of Interior and then Vice Minister of Defense. In April 1982 he announced his opposition to the Sandinista regime. That same year he was cofounder of ARDE. In April 1983 he took up arms against the Sandinistas in southern Nicaragua.

Brooklyn Rivera Bryan is a Miskito Indian from the Nicaraguan AltanticAtlantic [sic] Coast. He supported the revolution against Somoza and was a founding member of MISURASATA when it was created under Sandinista auspices in 1979. In February 1981, Rivera and other Indian leaders were arrested by the Sandinistas and accused of "counter-revolutionary activities." He was released from jail after a short time and continued to protest Sandinista efforts to nationalize Indian lands and to relocate the Indian population. He resisted efforts to force the "cultural assimilation" of the various Indian groups by the Sandinistas. He was driven into exile and carries on the fight for freedom as head of MISURASATA, now independent of the Sandinistas.

Alfonso Robelo Callejas, political coordinator of ARDE and head of the MDN, was trained as a chemical engineer. He served as director of the University of Central America from 1970 to 1972 and was president of the Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce until 1975. He then headed the development institute INDE. Following the assassination of La Prensa editor Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, Robelo founded the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement, a moderate, democratic-oriented political party of businessmen, industrialists, and professionals opposed to the Somoza regime. After the revolution Robelo was one of the five members of the original 1979 junta. He resigned in 1980 because of the Marxist tendencies in the FSLN-dominated government and the growing Cuban influence in the country. Harassed by the FSLN after his resignation, he was finally forced into exile in 1982, at which time he and Eden Pastora founded the Democratic Alliance. Robelo helped found UNO in 1985.

Indalecio Rodriguez Alaniz, FDN Directorate member in charge of civil affairs. The son of an anti-Somoza figure, he became politically active at an early age. He participated in the anti-Somoza youth movement and became involved in the Independent Liberal Party, ultimately becoming its political secretary. He was jailed twice in the 1950s for anti-Somoza activities. After spending several years abroad, he returned to Nicaragua to accept a position at the University of Central America where he remained during the revolution. In 1981 he abandoned his university post to go into exile and take up the struggle against the Sandinistas. Educated as a veterinarian, Rodriguez has been a professor and university president as well as a cattleman and coffeegrower.

Lucia Cardenal Viuda de Salazar is the widow of Jorge Salazar Arguello, a prominent Nicaraguan businessman who was murdered by the Sandinista security forces in November 1980. She was educated in Catholic schools in Nicaragua and the United States. During the revolution, the Salazars collaborated with the Sandinistas and harbored Sandinista militants who were being sought by Somoza's forces. Her late husband, a top official of the private sector organization Superior Council of Private Enterprise, played a key role in the civic opposition to Sandinista policies in 1980. A progressive and charismatic leader whose popularity was rising, he was shot and killed by Sandinista State Security police who claimed he was participating in a conspiracy. After his murder Mrs. Salazar fled Nicaragua and joined the FDN.

Aristides Sanchez is the FDN Directorate member responsible for logistics. He holds a Doctor of Law degree and graduated in Italy with a specialization in labor law. Cattleman and agriculturalist.  Document 5

Under the protection of God and interpreting the hopes of the great majority of people in Nicaragua, who with heroic patriotism shook off the yoke of the previous dictatorship and now suffer the repression by force of arms of new tyrants and foreign intervention;

GIVING HOMAGE :

To the noble sacrifice of the democratic resistance forces which have shed their blood and continue to offer their lives in an unequal war against an army in the service of Soviet imperialism, from which it receives direction, training, weapons and supplies;

To the civic courage and democratic vocation of the political parties, labor and social organizations, ethnic minorities and individuals who have maintained a firm attitude against the abuses of the military tyranny of the Sandinista Front;

AFFIRMING:

That the people of Nicaragua have demonstrated their will to free themselves from the totalitarian regime which oppresses them with the support of foreign forces and the so-called inter 7