The Fifteenth of September Legion (') was an anti-communist guerrilla group founded in Guatemala by exiled former junior officers of the defeated

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...

National Guard National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. Nat ...

, which was committed to overthrowing the

Sandinista National Liberation Front The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto Cé ...

government.

History

Based in

Guatemala City Guatemala City ( es, Ciudad de Guatemala), known locally as Guatemala or Guate, is the capital and largest city of Guatemala, and the most populous urban area in Central America. The city is located in the south-central part of the country, ne ...

, it received some support from Guatemala's National Liberation Movement. Eduardo Román, manager of boxer

Alexis Argüello Alexis Argüello (April 19, 1952 – July 1, 2009) was a Nicaraguan professional boxer who competed from 1968 to 1995, and later became a politician. He was a three-weight world champion, having held the WBA featherweight title from 1974 to 19 ...

, also convinced Argüello to fund a radio station, Radio 15th of September. To finance itself, the Legion also staged kidnappings for ransom and bank robberies, called "special operations", in Guatemala and El Salvador. Local leftist guerrillas were already financing themselves through these acts, and the Legion rightly figured that leftists would be blamed.

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

also began providing assistance. In August 1981, at the behest of the Argentine junta and the Reagan administration, it merged with the Nicaraguan Democratic Union (UDN) to form the

Nicaraguan Democratic Force The Nicaraguan Democratic Force (', or FDN) was one of the earliest Contra groups, formed on August 11, 1981 in Guatemala City. It was formed to oppose Nicaragua's revolutionary Sandinista government following the 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somo ...

(FDN). The FDN would eventually grow to become the dominant

Contra Contra may refer to: Places * Contra, Virginia * Contra Costa Canal, an aqueduct in the U.S. state of California * Contra Costa County, California * Tenero-Contra, a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland ...

rebels' faction in the 1980s. Former Legion head, Lieutenant-colonel Enrique Bermúdez, became the military commander of the FDN's military wing.

History

See also

References

Further reading