Not to be confused with the National Opposition Union, a later Nicaraguan electoral coalition that also took the acronym UNO.
The United Nicaraguan Opposition (Unidad Nicaragüense Opositora, UNO) was a Nicaraguan rebel umbrella group formed in 1985, led by the triumvirate of Adolfo Calero, Alfonso Robelo, and Arturo Cruz. However, the great majority of UNO's military forces came from Calero's Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), and throughout its two-year existence Robelo and Cruz complained that Calero treated them as figureheads rather than equals. Generally, the CIA backed Calero in these struggles, while Elliott Abrams and the State Department backed Robelo and Cruz.
Adolfo Calero Portocarrero was a Nicaraguan businessman and the leader of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest rebel group of the Contras, opposing the Sandinista government.
Luis Alfonso Robelo Callejas, a Nicaraguan businessman, was the founder of the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement (MDN). He was one of the "moderates" on the five-members Junta of National Reconstruction that the Sandinistas claimed would rule Nicaragua following the overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. However, Robelo found that the real power lay with the FSLN National Directorate.
Arturo José Cruz Porras, sometimes called Arturo Cruz, Sr. to distinguish him from his son, was a Nicaraguan banker and technocrat. He became prominent in politics during the Sandinista (FSLN) era. After repeatedly resigning from positions in protest, opinion divided between those who lauded him as a statesman and man of principle, and those who derided him as an ineffectual hand-wringer.
In January 1987, Cruz informed Abrams of his intention to resign. In a bid to prevent this, Abrams pushed Calero into resigning in mid-February, but Cruz left on March 9. With Cruz's resignation, UNO collapsed. It was succeeded by the Nicaraguan Resistance.
The Nicaraguan Resistance was the last and arguably most successful effort to unify Nicaragua's rebel Contras into a single umbrella organization. It was established in May 1987, after the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO) floundered.
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The Contras were the various U.S.-backed and funded right-wing rebel groups that were active from 1979 to the early 1990s in opposition to the socialist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction Government in Nicaragua. Among the separate contra groups, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) emerged as the largest by far. In 1987, virtually all contra organizations were united, at least nominally, into the Nicaraguan Resistance.
The Nicaraguan Democratic Force was one of the earliest Contra groups, formed on August 11, 1981 in Guatemala City. It was formed to oppose Nicaragua's revolutionary Sandinista government following the 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. It merged the 15th of September Legion, which comprised mostly former members of Somoza's National Guard, with the Nicaraguan Democratic Union, an organization of émigrés from the business and professional classes. The new FDN also began assimilating the MILPAS movement, bands led by disenchanted former MAP-ML guerrillas. The FDN military was under the command of former National Guard colonel Enrique Bermúdez. The FDN was heavily backed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Reagan administration.
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National Opposition Union was a wide-range coalition of opposition parties formed to oppose Nicaragua's president Daniel Ortega in the 1990 election. Its candidate Violeta Chamorro eventually won the race. UNO traced its origins back to the Nicaraguan Democratic Coordinating Group, which was formed in 1982 by different opposition groups. At the time of the election, of the UNO coalition's fourteen political parties, four were considered conservative, seven could be characterised as centrist parties, and three - including Nicaragua's Communists - had traditionally been on the far left of the political spectrum.
The Democratic Revolutionary Alliance were the Southern Front guerrillas in Nicaragua that fought against the Marxist elements of the original Sandinista Revolution in 1979. Despite being one of the Contra forces, they maintained an ideological distance from the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan Democratic Force (Contras).
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The following is an alphabetical list of topics related to the Republic of Nicaragua.
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Rudel Alessandro Calero Nicaragua is a Nicaraguan footballer who currently plays for Real Estelí and the Nicaragua national football team.
The Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua is the episcopate of Nicaragua. The CEN is a member of the Latin American Episcopal Conference and the Central Episcopal Secretariate of America (CESA).
