Enrique Bermúdez

Enrique Bermúdez Varela (December 11, 1932 – February 16, 1991), known as Comandante 380, was a Nicaraguan soldier and rebel who founded and commanded the Nicaraguan Contras. In this capacity, he became a central global figure in one of the most prominent conflicts of the Cold War.

In 1981, Bermúdez founded the largest Contra army, which waged a major war against Nicaragua's Sandinista government; in the war, the Contras received overt and covert assistance from the U.S. government, and the Sandinistas were supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba.

After founding the Contra army in 1981, Bermudez served as its top military commander through the end of the military conflict in 1990. He maintained responsibility for all of Contra military operations, and later helped lead the Contras' transition to an opposition political party in the early 1990s after the Sandinistas were ultimately defeated by political opponents in the 1990 Nicaraguan general election, the second national election following the Sandinistas' rise to power in the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979.

In the first election, held in 1984, Bermudez and other opponents alleged that Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas won the election fraudulently, and Bermudez and the Contras refused to recognize the government and instead escalated their war against it until Ortega and the Sandinistas were later ousted in the 1990 elections.

On February 16, 1991, Bermudez was assassinated in Managua. His family and closest supporters alleged that the assassination was coordinated and conducted by the Sandinistas, but the perpetuators of his killing were never identified and his murder remains unsolved.