Fuerzas Armadas de Nicaragua

Armed Forces of Nicaragua Fuerzas Armadas de Nicaragua
guide
Commander in Chief de jure :	President Daniel Ortega Saavedra
Commander in chief de facto :	Defense Minister Martha Elena Ruiz Seville
Military Commander:	General Julio César Avilés Castillo
Military strength
Active soldiers:	15,200
Conscription:	no conscription
Eligibility for military service:	Reaching the age of 18
history
Founding:	1995

The Fuerzas Armadas de Nicaragua are the current armed forces of Nicaragua , which emerged from the Sandinista people's army through a transformation process .

organization

The armed forces are divided into

• Land Forces ( Fuerza Terrestre ),
• Naval forces ( Fuerza Naval ),
• Air Force ( Fuerza Aérea ).

The commander in chief is Daniel Ortega Saavedra . Comandante en Jefe is General de Ejército Julio César Avilés Castillo.

The defense budget is currently the equivalent of US $ 32,270,000, which corresponds to 0.6% of the national budget. There are currently 15,200 soldiers in total .

history

The Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua , which the United States helped build, existed from 1927 to 1979 and was replaced by the Sandinista People's Army during the 1979 revolution . The Ejército Popular Sandinista , EPS, in German translations often referred to as the Sandinista People's Army , was the predecessor of today's Nicaraguan armed forces from 1979 to 1994 and played a decisive role in the Contra War from 1980 to 1990. Humberto Ortega Saavedra was the commander in chief for the entire period . Contrary to the term " army ", the EPS also included the navy ( Marina de Guerra Sandinista = Sandinista navy) and the air forces or air defense forces of Nicaragua ( Fuerza Aérea Sandinista = Sandinista air force / Defensa Anti-Aérea = air defense), which did not form independent armed forces .

After the Sandinista electoral defeat in February 1990, the Nicaraguan state apparatus was completely restructured under the Chamorro government. The MINT and its subordinate Policía Sandinista were dissolved, the PS replaced by the Policía Nacional .

The only exception in the restructuring was the EPS under Humberto Ortega, who was the only Sandinista to remain in a government role. At that time, the EPS was by far the strongest military apparatus in Central America and comprised a good 70,000 members, of which, however, apparently well over half were conscripts. However, the EPS completely took over the domestic secret service DGSE from the dissolved MINT Interior Ministry. The aim of the Chamorros government was to reduce the EPS to a level of 15,000 to 17,000 members by the mid-1990s.

During the period of transformation, there were battles against so-called Recontras and Recompas; former Contras and members of the EPS who became unemployed after their armies were disbanded, but who had sufficient weapons and ammunition. On July 21, 1993, a 150-strong Recompa group led by the former FSLN functionary Victor Manuel Gallego, known as "Pedrito El Hondureño", raided the city of Estelí , looted two banks and made political demands such as job security. A good 43 people were killed in the attack on the city or through the recapture by the EPS. Gallego was immediately given amnesty by Chamorro and Ortega; the loot from the banks was gone.

The transformation process was completed in 1994. The EPS was renamed Ejército de Nicaragua on September 2nd ; it is now part of the Fuerzas Armadas de Nicaragua .

In the spring of 2015, plans to buy Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29s were announced.

equipment

Both equipment and armament mainly come from arms deliveries from the Eastern Bloc for the Sandinista people's army .

literature

• René De la Pedraja Tomán: The United States and the Armed Forces of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, 2000-2014 , Jefferson, NC (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers) 2014. ISBN 978-0-7864-9508- 5

Web links

Commons : Nicaraguan Armed Forces  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ejército de Nicaragua (span.)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} CIA World Factbook . Military section. Retrieved July 24, 2016.
2. ↑ globaldefence.net (engl.)
3. ↑ Jane's Information Group : Nicaragua to seek combat aircraft ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed February 16, 2015