The Sandinista National Liberation Front is a Christian socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto César Sandino, who led the Nicaraguan resistance against the United States occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930s.
Rodrigo José Ramón Francisco de Jesús Carazo Odio was a Costa Rican economist and politician who served as the 38th President of Costa Rica from 8 May 1978 to 8 May 1982.
Otto Guevara Guth is a politician in Costa Rica and founder of the Partido Movimiento Libertario. He served in the Costa Rican legislature from 1998-2002 and 2014-2018. Guevara is currently the president of the Libertarian Movement Party and has been its candidate for president of Costa Rica in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014.
The Nicaraguan Revolution began with rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the ouster of the dictatorship in 1978–79, and fighting between the government and the Contras from 1981 to 1990. The revolution revealed the country as one of the major proxy war battlegrounds of the Cold War.
The Intelligence Directorate, commonly known as G2 and, until 1989, named Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI), is the main state intelligence agency of the government of Cuba. The DI was founded in late 1961 by Cuba's Ministry of the Interior shortly after the Cuban Revolution. The DI is responsible for all foreign intelligence collection and comprises six divisions divided into two categories, which are the Operational Divisions and the Support Divisions.
Carlos Fonseca Amador was a Nicaraguan professor, politician, writer and revolutionary who was one of the founders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). Fonseca was later killed in the mountains of the Zelaya Department, Nicaragua, three years before the FSLN took power. He has posthumously received the titles of National Hero of Nicaragua and Commander in Chief of the Sandinista Popular Revolution.
The La Penca bombing was a bomb attack carried out in May 30, 1984 at the remote outpost of La Penca, on the Nicaraguan side of the border with Costa Rica, along the San Juan River. It occurred during a press conference convened and conducted by Edén Pastora, who at the time was the leader of a Contra guerrilla group fighting against the ruling Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Pastora, the presumed target of the attack, survived the bombing, but seven other people were killed, including three journalists, and several others were severely injured. The bombing was carried out by an operative posing as a news photographer and is considered a serious violation of journalistic neutrality during an armed conflict, like the assassination in 2001 of Afghan leader Ahmad Shah Massoud by Al-Qaeda agents posing as international journalists.
Sandinista ideology or Sandinismo is a series of political and economic philosophies instituted by the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front throughout the late twentieth century. The ideology and movement acquired its name, image and its military style from Augusto César Sandino, a Nicaraguan revolutionary leader who waged a guerrilla war against the United States Marines and the conservative Somoza National Guards in the early twentieth century. The principals of modern Sandinista ideology were mainly developed by Carlos Fonseca, inspired by the leaders of the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s. It sought to inspire socialist populism among Nicaragua's peasant population. One of these main philosophies involved the institution of an educational system that would free the population from the perceived historical fallacies spread by the ruling Somoza family. By awakening political thought among the people, proponents of Sandinista ideology believed that human resources would be available to not only execute a guerrilla war against the Somoza regime but also build a society resistant to economic and military intervention imposed by foreign entities.
Luis Alfonso Robelo Callejas, is a Nicaraguan businessman, was the founder of the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement (MDN).
The Central American crisis began in the late 1970s, when major civil wars and communist revolutions erupted in various countries in Central America, causing it to become the world's most volatile region in terms of socioeconomic change. In particular, the United States feared that victories by communist forces would cause South America to become isolated from the United States if the governments of the Central American countries were overthrown and pro-Soviet communist governments were installed in their place. During these civil wars, the United States pursued its interests by supporting right-wing governments against left-wing guerrillas.
A referendum on the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was held in Costa Rica on 7 October 2007. It was originally to be held on 23 September 2007, but it was postponed on 5 June 2007 due to a court challenge. Opinion polls from April, July and August 2007 suggested that a majority of voters were in favour, while a poll from June saw a majority against. It was ultimately approved by 51.56% of voters.
Falangism in Latin America has been a feature of political life since the 1930s as movements looked to the national syndicalist clerical fascism of the Spanish state and sought to apply it to other Spanish-speaking countries. From the mid-1930s, the Falange Exterior, effectively an overseas version of the Spanish Falange, was active throughout Latin America in order to drum up support among Hispanic communities. However, the ideas would soon permeate into indigenous political groups. The term "Falangism" should not be applied to the military dictatorships of such figures as Alfredo Stroessner, Augusto Pinochet and Rafael Trujillo because while these individuals often enjoyed close relations to Francisco Franco's Spain, their military nature and frequent lack of commitment to national syndicalism and the corporate state mean that they should not be classed as Falangist. The phenomenon can be seen in a number of movements both past and present.
Friendly bilateral relations now exist between Nicaragua and the United States. However, in the 19th and 20th centuries, tensions were high and American intervention was frequent. In the 1980s, due to Red Scare paranoia and an attempt to put down socialism in the region, the U.S proceeded to wage an undeclared war against the left-wing Sandinista movement by funding the Contra groups until it was defeated in the election in 1990.
CIA activities in Nicaragua were frequent in the late 20th century. The increasing influence gained by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a left-wing and anti-imperialist political party in Nicaragua, led to a sharp decrease in Nicaragua–United States relations, particularly after the Nicaraguan Revolution. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to support the Contras, a right-wing Nicaraguan political group to combat the influence held by the Sandinistas in the Nicaraguan government. Various anti-government rebels in Nicaragua were organized into the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the first Contra group, at the behest of the CIA. The CIA also supplied the Contras with training and equipment, including materials related to torture and assassination. There have also been allegations that the CIA engaged in drug trafficking in Nicaragua.
Idania de Los Angeles Fernandez Ramirez was a Nicaraguan revolutionary in the Sandinista Front.
The People's Liberation Movement also known as the Cinchoneros, was a paramilitary socialist organization active in the 1980s in Honduras. The MPL was one of the primary militant organizations in Honduras at the time, along with the Lorenzo Zelaya Popular Revolutionary Forces.
The United States has at various times in recent history provided support to terrorist and paramilitary organizations around the world. It has also provided assistance to numerous authoritarian regimes that have used state terrorism as a tool of repression.
Sofía Montenegro Alarcón is a Nicaraguan journalist, social researcher, and feminist. Montenegro's family were militarily aligned with the Somoza forces, but her feminist and Marxist studies moved her to join with the opposition to the regime. She fought in the Sandinista Revolution and though initially supportive of the Sandinista Party, later became an outspoken critic, saying it had moved to the right. She served as an editor of various divisions of the official Sandinista newspaper, Barricada, until 1994, when she founded the Center for Communication Research (CINCO) as an independent research organization free of government influence. She has written broadly on power, gender, and social interaction.
The 2018 Nicaraguan protests began on 18 April 2018 following a move by the government of Daniel Ortega to reform social security. Following the deaths of protesters, demonstrations intensified and grew into a large anti-Ortega movement seeking his removal from office.
The Revolutionary Civic Union was the name of an armed paramilitary group and later far-right pro-fascist Costa Rican political party. The party was led by politician Frank Marshall Jiménez, denoted anti-communist and anti-Calderonista, who became a member of the Legislative Assembly.
