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Contras
Anti-communist rebel groups in Nicaragua active from 1979 to the early 1990s who opposed the Sandinista government. The Reagan administration funded, trained, and armed them as part of its broader Cold War strategy in Central America, a policy that later became entangled in the Iran-Contra affair after Congress restricted direct funding.
Sandinistas
The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), a left-wing revolutionary movement that overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua in July 1979. Named after Augusto César Sandino, a nationalist leader killed in 1934, the Sandinistas established a government that pursued land reform, literacy campaigns, and close ties with Cuba and the Soviet Union. Their rule was contested by US-backed Contra rebels throughout the 1980s.