Nicaragua-US military relations sour

As the radical left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) looks increasingly likely to win government at the next presidential election, the US has manufactured a crisis in order to force the government to give up its anti-aircraft weapons. The pretext is the discovery (and confiscation) of an anti-aircraft SAM-7 missile held by two civilians, which the US claims indicates that the Nicaraguan military is involved in illicit arms dealing. The Nicaraguan army denies that the missile is from its stocks. However, US embassy official Peter Brennan has called for the army to destroy the SAM-7s it owns. The SAM-7s were first brought into Nicaragua by the US as part of its covert war against the Sandinista-led government in the 1980s. The weapons were only handed to the army following the Sandinista's 1989 electoral defeat. In 2004, under US pressure, Nicaragua's right-wing president agreed to destroy the stock, but was overruled by FSLN-introduced legislation passed by the national assembly.

From Green Left Weekly, February 9, 2005.

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From GLW issue 614