FDN

The Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense was the largest, most well-armed, and best-trained of all the Contra factions.³ Created by the Central Intelligence Agency, based in Honduras, and commanded by Enrique Bermúdez, a former National Guardsman. The FDN's political wing was led by Adolfo Calero, a longtime CIA agent and former manager of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Managua.

Leadership

Enrique Bermúdez ("Commandante 380") served as supreme military commander. According to Gary Webb, the CIA selected Adolfo Calero in 1983 to lead the political wing; he worked closely with Oliver North. In the CIA inspector general's account, Calero left Nicaragua in protest against Sandinista policies in December 1982, joined the FDN leadership, sought support in Panama, Costa Rica and Colombia in January 1983, and became the FDN's president and commander-in-chief. Bermúdez, a National Guard engineer officer from 1952 to 1979 and defense attaché in Washington from 1976, was removed as chief of the general staff in late 1982 but remained the de facto military leader; in February 1984 the general staff was replaced by a combined command with Calero as commander-in-chief and Bermúdez as chief of military affairs. He was ousted in February 1990 and assassinated in Managua on February 16, 1991.⁷ Aristides Sánchez was head of supplies and logistics, went on the CIA payroll in the early 1980s as an aide to Bermúdez, and allegedly served as the conduit for Cocaine money flowing from the Meneses drug ring in California.

Drug Trafficking Connections

In September 1981 the CIA received an allegation that the ADREN, the organization whose military arm was the Legion of September 15, had decided to smuggle drugs into the United States to finance its activities, beginning with cocaine carried to Miami on a commercial flight in July 1981. The agency sent the report to the State Department, the DIA, the NSA, U.S. Southern Command and the ambassadors in Central America on September 14, 1981, and to the DEA, the FBI, Customs and Treasury on October 28, 1981, under the title "ADREN Operations to Smuggle Narcotics Into the U.S. to Finance Its Anti-Sandinista Activities." In February 1982 CIA headquarters answered a name trace that Bermúdez "is not associated with the 'renegade' 15th of September Legion members," whom it described as engaged in drug smuggling. The inspector general found no record that either allegation about Bermúdez was reported to Congress.⁷

Multiple FDN officials were implicated in drug trafficking. Renato Peña, the FDN spokesman in San Francisco, was one of Norwin Meneses's cocaine dealers and admitted hauling millions in drug profits from San Francisco to Los Angeles for delivery to the Contras. Peña was present "on many occasions" when Meneses telephoned FDN commander Enrique Bermúdez in Honduras to discuss requests for gun silencers, cross bows, and other military equipment.⁵ Fernando Sánchez, the FDN's representative in Guatemala, was identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in November 1982 as a cocaine supplier to the Frogman drug ring. Aristides Sánchez allegedly served as the conduit for cocaine money from the Meneses operation and personally received drug cash from Carlos Cabezas at the Contras' Miami offices.¹ Danilo Blandón founded the FDN chapter in Los Angeles and used cocaine sales to fund the Contras.¹

A secret 1987 DEA report stated that a defendant in the Frogman Case had made 51 phone calls to the FDN office in San Francisco, and a DEA informant had met with traffickers at the FDN office.⁴

Origins and Creation

The FDN was officially created in August 1981 when the CIA forced a merger between Bermúdez's Legion of September 15 and UDN-FARN. The merger was signed in the upstairs rec room of the Legion's rented safe house in Guatemala City, with an Argentine military officer observing. Former FDN director Edgar Chamorro stated in a World Court affidavit that the CIA paid for the meeting, rented the building, and drafted the agreement: "The name of the organization, the members of the political junta and the members of the general staff were all chosen or approved by the CIA." The CIA inspector general's chronology, drawn from station cables, records that the ADREN, the Nicaraguan Democratic Union and MISURASATA agreed in principle in May 1981 to combine, that the FDN "was established in September 1981" with a general staff of Bermúdez, Justiniano Pérez, Ricardo Lau and Juan Francisco Rivera, and that the merger "was completed in early 1982."⁷

The CIA's role was authorized under National Security Decision Directive #17, signed by President Reagan in late 1981, which allocated $19.95 million for covert operations against the Sandinistas. The funds were channeled through the Argentine military to preserve CIA "deniability."

The CIA selected Aristides Sánchez - a close friend of Norwin Meneses and brother of Fernando Sánchez (Somoza's last ambassador to Guatemala), Troilo Sánchez (Norwin's business partner), and Enrique Sánchez (partner in a Miami restaurant with Donald Barrios) - to assist Bermúdez. Oliver North later called Aristides Sánchez "Calero's hatchet man."³ Norwin Meneses stated: "I dealt directly with Bermúdez, and occasionally his assistant on minor things. I also worked with Aristides Sanchez. He was a very good friend of mine."

Weapons Supply Network

Ronald Lister and Pyramid International Security Consultants established weapons manufacturing operations in El Salvador that supplied arms to the Contras. Lister partnered with FDN supporters Danilo Blandón and Norwin Meneses in selling weapons abroad. The FDN could not collect sufficient funds to finalize an arms deal with Lister, but Lister and his associates set up a weapons plant in downtown San Salvador that manufactured guns airlifted to Contra camps in Honduras.⁵ The Justice Department's inspector general concluded that Lister "would have liked to sell military and security weaponry and equipment to the Contras and to factions in El Salvador but we found no evidence showing that he did."⁸

Air cargo company Hondu Carib Cargo, operated by Mario Calero - brother of FDN political leader Adolfo Calero - flew FDN supply missions. The owner of Hondu Carib was pilot Frank Moss, identified in a 1989 Senate report as having been investigated for narcotics offenses by ten different law enforcement agencies. A DC-4 Moss used was seized by the DEA in 1987 with marijuana residue and notes containing the names of two CIA officers and the phone number of Robert Owen, Oliver North's courier.⁵

Later Reorganization

The FDN later joined the umbrella group UNO (United Nicaraguan Opposition), a CIA-inspired attempt to unite all Contra factions. The FDN retained most of the authority and did the bulk of the fighting.²

Low Point of 1984–85

During the winter of 1984–85, the FDN reached its lowest ebb on the battlefield and in public opinion. After twelve months of consecutive public relations disasters - the CIA's harbor mining, the assassination manual scandal, the passage of the Boland Amendment in October 1984 - the FDN was alone and in disarray. Thousands of rebel fighters retreated from Nicaragua to Honduras. Money and weapons were scarce. In early 1985, allegations of Contra battlefield atrocities - murders, tortures, assassinations, and "the deliberate use of terror" - surfaced from human rights groups, undermining President Reagan's characterization of them as "freedom fighters."Robert McFarlane, Reagan's national security adviser, told FDN leader Adolfo Calero in January 1985 that it might be time to start thinking about "cutting both our losses and theirs."⁶