Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

CONTRAS • 123leader of the Sandino Revolutionary Front and Sandinista hero. ARDEdid not join UNO largely due to the opposition of Edén Pastora tocertain of UNO’s leaders. Pastora quit the contra struggle in 1986.In May 1987 UNO merged with the Southern Opposition Bloc ofAlfredo César to form the Nicaraguan Resistance, while KISAN wasreorganized as Yapti Tasba Masraka Aslika Takanda, or YAMATA,the Miskito Indian acronym for United Nations of Yapti Tasba (SacredMotherland), separate from the Nicaraguan Resistance command.Instances of terrorization of the civilian population by the contrasand of mistreatment of FSLN prisoners have been documented, initself hardly surprising given the bitterness that existed between theFSLN and their opponents and given the large proportion of contrafighters who lacked both education and the discipline of previousmilitary training. Public debate over U.S. sponsorship of the contrasfocused on the questions of whether such instances of terrorism werepart of a deliberate policy to suppress popular support for the FSLNregime, rather than random cases, and if so, whether the UnitedStates aided, abetted, or otherwise encouraged such systematic terror.A CIA-sponsored Spanish-language training manual producedfor training the contras in techniques of armed propaganda, entitledPsychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare, has often been citedas evidence of a systematic contra terror campaign inspired by U.S.advisers. This manual was presented by the FSLN in its briefs to theInternational Court of Justice as evidence of U.S. support of contraterror, but key cited passages were ambiguous. Quite apart from anydeliberate systematic terrorization by the contras, with or withoutU.S. sponsorship, the record of the rank-and-file contras’ respectfor human rights remained, in the words of a former contra politicalofficer, “depressing and testified to a lack of political discipline”(Rogelio Pardo-Maurer, The Contras: 1980–1989: A Special Kind ofPolitics [New York: Praeger, 55]).Another, more substantial problem connected with the contraswere the arrangements made by U.S. National Security Adviser AdmiralJohn Poindexter and his aide, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North,to sell arms to the Iranian government, both to secure the release ofU.S. hostages held in Lebanon and to generate revenues independentof congressional approval to support the contra military effort. Apartfrom the issue of violating congressional restrictions on funding forthe contras, there remained uncertainty as to whether the Reagan