Fort Gulick

Fort Gulick was a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone where hundreds of Nicaraguan National Guard officers were trained in counterinsurgency and intelligence techniques. Along with Fort Benning and Fort Leavenworth, Fort Gulick was one of the primary U.S. military schools that trained the Nicaraguan officers who would later form the core of both the Somoza regime's security apparatus and the Contra army.¹

Training the Guardia

When Anastasio Somoza pleaded with U.S. Ambassador Lawrence Pezzullo not to abandon the Nicaraguan National Guard, he invoked the American investment in their training: "They have been fighting Communism just like you taught them at Fort Gulick and Fort Benning and Fort Leavenworth. Out of nine hundred officers we have, eight hundred or so belong to your schools." The U.S. military training program at Fort Gulick and other bases produced the officers who would later lead the FDN under Enrique Bermúdez, himself a product of American military education. The School of the Americas at Fort Gulick became notorious for training Latin American officers who were later implicated in human rights abuses and drug trafficking.²