Fernando "El Negro" Chamorro

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Fernando Chamorro Rappaccioli, known as "El Negro," was a longtime Nicaraguan rebel fighting both the Somoza and Sandinista regimes. Efforts to build a Contra Southern Front around him played a part in the Iran-Contra Affair.

Chamorro, a descendant of Nicaragua's pre-eminent Conservative Party family, inherited a tradition of opposition to Somoza's Liberal-based regime. He and his brother Edmundo began sporadic actions against Somoza, beginning in 1959. Highlights included the seizure of the Diriamba and Jinotepe barracks on November 11, 1960, and the firing of two rockets at Somoza's bunker from the InterContinental Hotel on July 20, 1978, during the Sandinista Revolution.

The Chamorro brothers also turned against the Sandinistas, and formed the military wing of the exile Nicaraguan Democratic Union (UDN), the Nicaraguan Revolutionary Armed Forces. Virulently opposed to the UDN's decision to merge with former National Guardsmen into the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the formed a breakaway that retained the UDN-FARN name. El Negro and FARN briefly joined Edén Pastora's Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE), only to break with Pastora and ally with the FDN, During the FDN's Operation Marathon in late September 1983, Chamorro led the FARN in an action at El Espino.

Later, his forces moved back to Costa Rica, with the goal of absorbing the remnants of the ARDE into the Southern Front of UNO. In early 1986, most of Pastora's commanders agreed to align with Chamorro, and Pastora quit the struggle with a handful of remaining followers. By January 1987, however, Chamorro broke with UNO.