The Peace Process in Central America (1989– )

Abstract

The coming to power of the left-wing Sandinista regime in Nicaragua in 1979 heralded the start of a ten-year effort to unseat it by its right-wing Contra opponents. Many of the Contras were based in neighbouring Honduras, and received huge amounts of aid from the United States — although the President was often keener on this policy than the purse-string-holding Congress. The war resulted in the death or wounding of, proportionately, very large numbers of people, and helped to devastate the economy — annual inflation in 1988 being said to be more than 25,000 per cent! Not surprisingly, the Government was receptive to nudges in the direction of a settlement from both the Soviet Union and the other Central American states — some of whom also had a civil war problem. But equally, the regime was determined to safeguard the social and political progress it had achieved.