Only three votes were needed to pass law. As was typical in guerrilla warfare, they were engaged in a campaign of economic sabotage in an attempt to combat the Sandinista government and disrupted shipping by planting underwater mines in Nicaragua's Corinto harbour,[51] an action condemned by the International Court of Justice as illegal. The group's main idea was to organize a provisional government in Costa Rica. According to Bruce E. Wright, "the Governing Junta of National Reconstruction agreed, under Sandinista leadership, that these principles had guided it in putting into practice a form of government that was characterized by those principles. Despite such ideas, which represented the point of view of a faction of the government, the Sandinista government remained officially committed to a mixed economy. The FSLN also created neighborhood groups similar to the Cuban Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, called Sandinista Defense Committees (Comités de Defensa Sandinista or CDS). In their report, the delegation organized by the Division of Overseas Ministries of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States concluded that there is 'no basis for the charge of systematic religious persecution'. In the 2006 Nicaraguan general election, former FSLN President Daniel Ortega was reelected President of Nicaragua with 38.7% of the vote to 29% for his leading rival, bringing in the country's second Sandinista government after 17 years of other parties winning elections. The success of the literacy campaign was recognized by UNESCO with a Nadezhda Krupskaya International Prize. They state that the red-and-black flag is a symbol of Sandinismo as a whole, not only of the FSLN party. There were also accusations of subversive activities in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Colombia, and in the case of Honduras and Costa Rica outright military operations by Nicaraguan troops. The moderate "Broad Opposition Front" (Frente Amplio Opositor – FAO), which opposed Somoza, was made up of a conglomeration of dissidents within the government as well as the "Democratic Union of Liberation" (UDEL) and the "Twelve", representatives of the Terceristas (whose founding members included Casimiro A. Sotelo, later to become Ambassador to the U.S. and Canada representing the FSLN). On June 4, the FSLN called a general strike, to last until Somoza fell and an uprising was launched in Managua. The University of Léon, and the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) in Managua were two of the principal centers of activity. The Sandinista National Liberation Front (Spanish: Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is now a democratic socialist political party in Nicaragua. Although independent and often in conflict with each other, these guerrilla bands—along with several others—all became known as Contras (short for contrarrevolucionarios—counter-revolutionaries).[44]. Armed opposition to the Sandinista government eventually divided into two main groups: The Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense (FDN), a U.S.-supported army formed in 1981 by the CIA, U.S. State Department, and former members of the Somoza-era Nicaraguan National Guard; and the Alianza Revolucionaria Democratica (ARDE) Democratic Revolutionary Alliance, a group that had existed since before the FSLN and was led by Sandinista founder and former FSLN supreme commander Edén Pastora, a.k.a. They argued that popular support was expressed in the insurrection and that further appeals to popular support would be a waste of scarce resources. Upon assuming office in 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan condemned the FSLN for joining with Cuba in supporting "Marxist" revolutionary movements in other Latin American countries such as El Salvador. [15] Inspired by the Revolution and the FLN in Algeria, the FSLN was founded in 1961 by Carlos Fonseca, Silvio Mayorga [es; ru], Tomás Borge, Casimiro Sotelo and others as The National Liberation Front (FLN). Select from premium Sandinista National Liberation Front of the highest quality. Opposition figures argued that the government was responsible for the violence, a view supported by some press outlets and NGOs such as Amnesty International. Molero, Maria. It often polls in opposition to the much smaller Constitutionalist Liberal Party, or PLC. [citation needed], The "Twelve" abandoned the coalition in protest and formed the "National Patriotic Front" (Frente Patriotico Nacional – FPN) together with the "United People's Movement" (MPU). These activities led critics of the Sandinistas to argue that the CDS was a system of local spy networks for the government used to stifle political dissent, and the CDS did hold limited powers—such as the ability to suspend privileges such as driver licenses and passports—if locals refused to cooperate with the government.