With secret C.I.A. support, Mr. Pastora assembled a large force of guerrilla fighters, calling it the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance. It attacked the Managua airport, the Pacific port of Corinto, the city of San Juan del Norte and other targets. But there was no popular uprising, as he had hoped for. He was branded a traitor and tried in absentia. Sandinista offensives forced his retreat to Costa Rica. As his losses mounted, funds from the United States and elsewhere dried up.Edén Pastora, ‘Commander Zero’ in Nicaragua, Dies at 83
The NYT obit is loaded with example of USA interference in foreign nations. But of course Russian hacking is the crime of the century. Yes they may have hacked. They didn't sent marines, money and hired hands.
A few excerpts:
A hero of the 1979 Sandinista revolution, he later turned on his comrades in arms, mounting an international campaign of political pressure and later guerrilla attacks inside the country.
Along the way he courted sympathizers and bankrollers in the United States, Europe and Latin America; took money and air support secretly from the Central Intelligence Agency; attacked cities in Nicaragua;
The junta took on Cuban advisers and pledged land reforms, equality for women and a nonaligned foreign policy. But critics said the regime was turning Nicaragua into a state modeled on Cuban socialism, with cadres enforcing political discipline and stifling dissent.
In 1981, Mr. Pastora quit the government and disappeared. Ten months later, he surfaced in Costa Rica and, echoing United States charges, denounced the Sandinista government as a betrayal of the revolution, saying that it had imposed censorship, delayed elections and aligned itself with Cuba and the Soviet Union. The Sandinistas dismissed him as a renegade.
Mr. Pastora in 1982 raised funds in Portugal, Italy, West Germany and Spain. He met congressional leaders and White House officials in Washington in 1983, winning pledges of $27 million in aid. American corporations made large contributions as well. Panama gave him a helicopter and $300,000.
After the USA abandoned Pastoria,
(The fight against the Sandinistas was carried on by a right-wing force known as the contras with aid from Washington and secret assistance from a conspiracy, led by the National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Oliver North, that sold arms to Iran for funds that were illegally passed to the contras.)
When he was 16, a priest introduced him to the nationalist teachings of Augusto César Sandino, the rebel general who, from 1927 to 1933, led a guerrilla war against American Marines who were enforcing a United States presence in Nicaragua. Murdered on orders by Somoza, who regarded him as a threat, Sandino inspired generations of future Somoza enemies.
He had quite an interesting life:
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