A man who led a 1980s war for freedom in Nicaragua as the head of a U.S. backed-army died over the weekend. His forces were the Contras, short for Contra-Sandinistas, his name Adolfo Calero. He was 81 years of age when he died this week.

Nicaragua since the 1930s had been ruled by the Somoza family. Anastacio Somoza Garcia commanded the Nicaraguan National Guard that was organized and staffed by U.S. Marines. Agustin Cesar Sandino formed a guerilla band and fought the Marines and the National Guard between 1927 and 1933. Sandino was supported by Mexico’s Revolutionary government and from Moscow by the International Comintern for a time.

When Newly-elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered the Marines out of Nicaragua in 1933, national hero Sandino thought he had won but in reality a powerful Somoza had Sandino assassinated and the Sandino name was relegated into history books until the 1970s when the radical-soon-to-be communists named their uprising for Sandino.
Sandino’s message to the “Colossus of the North” – what he called the United States:

“Come on you pack of drug fiends, come on and murder us on our own land. I am waiting for you on my feet at the head of my patriotic soldiers, and I don’t care how many of you there are. You should know that when this happens, the destruction of your mighty power will make the Capitol shake in Washington, and your blood will redden the white dome that crowns the famous White House where you plot your crimes.”

Sandino claimed an army of 3,000 but in reality he had no more than 300 guerilla fighters at any given time and the Marines kept him on the run the entire time of his rebellion. About 120 Marines lost their lives during those six years of fighting. During this campaign, the Marines invented air-to-ground support by air planes and installed Marine sergeants and junior officers into the National Guard as officers like Captain of the National Guard Chesty Puller who like so many of those American Guard officers went on to be famous WWII Marine officers and Generals.

The Sandinista National Liberation Front rebelled against the Somoza dictatorship of West Point graduate Anastacio Somoza Debayle in the 1970s and gathered allies throughout Nicaragua. Americans from Nicaragua returned to join the fight. The Sandinistas ran Somoza out of Nicaragua when President Jimmy Carter cut support for the American-allied Somoza family.

American leftists, Cuba’s Castro, the Palestinian terrorists and every communist- leaning revolutionary group in the world rejoiced as they and their Moscow Soviet masters rushed to the world’s newest Communist country.

Adolfo Calero moved to Florida when the Sandinistas turned on their anti-Somoza allies and unleashed the Sandinista Army to arrest non-communist allies. Calero founded the Nicaraguan Democratic Force which evolved into the Contras.

The United States under President Ronald Reagan wanted to rid the country of the communist Sandinistas so he supported Calero and the Contras When liberals and radicals in the U.S. Congress passed an amendment to a bill that prohibited most of the government from supporting the Contras, elements of the White House under Marine Colonel Oliver North were instructed to help the Contras.

Result: The embarrassing Iran-Contra Affair with North and his boss indicted. North eventually beat the prosecution. With U.S. help and weapons plus money raised by American friends (like me), the motivated and well-trained Contras controlled large swaths of Nicaragua; the Sandinistas barely controlled cities.

Quintessential American ultra-Leftist Noam Chomsky and fellow Leftists supported the Sandinista movement and Sandinista Army despite their vicious atrocities against their perceived enemies like Catholic priests in rural Nicaragua.
Chomsky and like-minded in the American media accused the Contras of atrocities and many Americans came to believe what were lies because the media pounded the public with Sandinista propaganda. No civilized country in the world allows 16 year-olds to vote; Nicaragua was the only one because they needed the votes. Didn’t help them…

They also attempted to export revolution to Mexico. The January, 1994 Mayan uprising in Chiapas was led by a Sandinista well-to-do Mexican communist called “Sub-Commandant Marcos.” Like the Sandinistas, he and the Mayans failed.

Fellow Central American countries pressured the Sandi-nistas to negotiate with the Contras and eventually the Contras agreed to disarm if the Sandinistas agreed to free and open elections. They did and they lost to the widow of a newspaper editor they murdered – Violeta Chamorro. They would come back after 17 years but their international allies have dried up except for cancer-stricken Hugo Chavez and at death’s door Fidel Castro.

Adolfo Calero, Freedom Fighter, democrat, who brought 17 years of democratic rule to Nicaragua lived out his life in country and stayed even after the Sandinistas won the last election. He could because Nicaragua had changed so much because of his war that the Sandinistas could never again institute another communist dictatorship like they did in 1979.