Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

SELF-DEFENSE FORCES OF COLOMBIA • 617presidential candidate of the right-wing Liberal Alliance party. Whilemissing Alemán, they hit and killed his bodyguard. During the 20October elections, Alemán won 51 percent of the vote while the Sandinistacandidate José Daniel Ortega Saavedra won 38 percent. DuringMay 1993 and March 1997, huge arms caches were discoveredin Nicaragua but apparently were supplies left over from the CentralAmerican conflict of the 1980s and were not intended for subversionwithin Nicaragua nor connected with FSLN disagreements with theAlemán administration.In the 5 November 2006 general election, the FSLN returned topower democratically, with its presidential candidate, Daniel Ortega,winning 38.1 percent of the vote to the 29.0 percent won by theAlianza Liberal Nicaragüense (ALN), or Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance,of Eduardo Montealegre. The FSLN won 32 seats in the 92-seatNational Assembly, giving it the largest bloc, while the ConstitutionalistLiberal Party took the second-largest grouping with 25 seatsand the ALN took 23 seats. The FSLN victory was possible in largepart due to the splitting of the former Liberal Alliance coalition ofthe Constitutionalist Liberal Party with the National Liberal Alliance,which had occurred following the revelation of extreme corruptionsurrounding the former Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Alemán, whohad been removed from office in 2002. Alemán apparently retaliatedby forming a strategic alliance of his followers within the ConstitutionalistLiberal Party with the FSLN to undermine his successor, EnriqueJosé Bolaños, and other erstwhile conservative political allies.The splitting of conservative votes between these opposing factionsof the former Liberal Alliance ensured the FSLN victory in the 2006presidential and legislative elections.While the new FSLN administration retained some of its anti-U.S.rhetoric and maintained warm relations with Cuba’s Fidel Castro andVenezuela’s Hugo Chávez, there is no indication that the FSLN hasresumed sponsorship of insurgent groups elsewhere. During his yearsin opposition, Daniel Ortega moved away from doctrinaire Marxismin favor of a more moderate vision of democratic socialism. Also,Ortega has grown more socially conservative, as evinced by his recentenactment of laws banning all forms of abortion.SELF-DEFENSE FORCES OF COLOMBIA (AUC). The AutodefensasUnidas de Colombia, also known as the United Self-Defense