My Contra Misadventure
Not long after Nicaragua’s Sandinistas took power, Ronald Reagan decided to have them overthrown. The CIA went to its well-used playbook and put together an insurgency popularly known as the Contras. The official name was the Nicaraguan Democratic Front (FDN. Reagan said this about the Contras:
”You know the truth about them, you know who they’re fighting and why. They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance.”
I was a Time correspondent in 1984 when I convinced Contra leaders and their American handlers to allow me and photographer Bob Nickelsburg to travel with a group or rebels. I wanted to confirm that Contras controlled a swath of Northern Nicaragua.
We were embedded with a group of Contra combatants. Our trip began at remote base camp in Honduras, about a mile from Nicaragua’s Nueva Segovia province.
Just two days into the trek it became clear that the Contras had at best a tenuous presence. The group’s leader, Alfa, was intent on avoiding contact with Sandinista counterinsurgency troops. We spent one week trekking over rugged terrain, avoiding contact with government forces. Here is an excerpt from my book.
One day, we marched on in the early afternoon along a dry creek bed. Suddenly, a peasant leading a mule hurried toward us. Alfa tensed and ordered the man to halt. The man was talking excitedly. Alfa said the man warned that a large Sandinista patrol was headed in our direction. We hid in the brush that lined the creek bed. About thirty minutes later, on a path about fifteen feet above us, we heard boots tromping on rocky soil and loud chatter. I scarcely dared breath They were a surreal few minutes. I thought our predicament was very much like one torn from a war movie.
…My trip demonstrated that while many peasants said they supported the FDN cause, organized support was spotty and often came without food and intelligence on Sandinista movements. I would learn in a future trip with leftist guerrillas in El Salvador that solid civilian support required a ready supply of food, information, and en armed combat, much in the way the Viet Cong aided the North Vietnamese regulars.
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 