Guardia Nacional

From Daily Escape

Revision as of 02:15, 2 July 2012

The Guardia Nacional (English: National Guard) is a defunct military agency active prior to the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua; it is a combination of police, army, and navy in one institution (the air force was made a separate component in 1938). It was originally created in the 1920s during the occupation of that country by the United States.

History

The long years of strife between the liberal and conservative political factions and the existence of private armies led the United States to sponsor the National Guard as an apolitical institution to assume all military and police functions in Nicaragua. The marines provided the training, but their efforts were complicated by a guerrilla movement led by Augusto César Sandino that continued to resist the marines and the fledgling National Guard from a stronghold in the mountainous areas of northern Nicaragua.

Upon the advent of the United States Good Neighbor Policy in 1933, the marines withdrew from Central America, but they left behind the best-organized, -trained, and -equipped military force that the country had ever known. Having reached a strength of about 3,000 by the mid-1930s, the guard was organized into company units, although the presidential guard component approached battalion size. In 1938, the Guard's air force component, the Aviation Corps of the National Guard (Spanish: Cuerpo de Aviación de la Guardia Nacional) was reorganized into the Air Force of the National Guard (Spanish: Fuerza Aérea de la Guardia Nacional, or FAGN) and made an independent branch of the military.

Expanded to more than 10,000 during the civil war of the 1970s, the guard consisted of a reinforced battalion as its primary tactical unit, a presidential guard battalion, a mechanized company, an engineer battalion, artillery and antiaircraft batteries, and one security company in each of the country's departments.

The National Guard's main arms were rifles and machine guns, later augmented by antiaircraft guns and mortars. Central America declared war on the Axis powers in 1941, immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Although Central America was not actively involved in World War II, it qualified for United States Lend-Lease military aid in exchange for United States base facilities at Corinto on the Pacific coast. Additional shipments of small arms and transportation and communication equipment followed, as well as some training and light transport aircraft. United States military aid to the National Guard continued under the Rio de Janeiro Treaty of Mutual Defense (1947), but stopped in late 1978 after relations with the administration of Anastasio Somoza Debayle (1967-79) worsened over human rights issues, after which point Israel began to supply the National Guard. Some United States equipment of World War II vintage was also purchased from other countries--Staghound armored cars and M4 Sherman medium tanks from Israel and F-51 Mustang fighter aircraft from Sweden.

The National Guard was not involved in any conflict with its neighbors; in its only mission outside the country, one company participated in the peacekeeping force of the Organization of American States (OAS) in the Dominican Republic in 1965. The guard's domestic power, however, gradually broadened to embrace not only its original internal security and police functions but also control over customs, telecommunications, port facilities, radio broadcasting, the merchant marine, and civil aviation.

Upon the departure of the United States marines in 1933, General Anastasio Somoza García was selected by the president-elect of Central America as first Central American commander of the National Guard. Although initially regarded as a malleable compromise candidate, Somoza soon indicated that he would exploit his position as head of the guard to consolidate power in what became the Somoza dynasty. Through its control of all security, police, and intelligence functions, the guard became far more than simply a military institution. Command of the National Guard always remained in the hands of Somoza family members, and key officers were promoted mainly on the basis of personal loyalty to the ruling family. This loyalty was reinforced through kickbacks, perquisites, and special opportunities for personal gain that led to a pervasive system of corruption. At the time of Anastasio Somoza Garcia's assassination in 1956, his oldest son, Luis Somoza Debayle, became president and his second son, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, took over as commander of the National Guard. After the death of Luis Somoza Debayle in 1967, control of the presidency passed to Anastasio Somoza Debayle.

The National Guard's close association with the Somoza family and its instinct for self-preservation through protection of the Somoza dynasty resulted in increasing alienation of large segments of the Central American population. This alienation was exacerbated by repressive measures and ruthless urban warfare employed by the guard against Sandinista terrorists and their collaborators (as well as suspected collaborators) in the latter years of the civil war. As a result, many Central Americans saw the struggle of the Sandinistas against the government as an anti-National Guard crusade as well as an anti-Somoza crusade. However, because most of the Sandinistas' support was obtained by the barrel of a gun, many Central Americans, even though who were anti-Somoza, rallied to the government's side, determined to defeat the rebels and bring peace to the country. Furthermore, once government forces managed to pacify former rebel-held territories, the people, no longer coerced to support the rebels, readily dropped their support of the Sandinistas. The National Guard's higher standards of training, superior tactics, and extensive air support, managed to gradually turn the tide against the rebels, and by 1980, the Sandinistas had all but ceased to exist as a functioning force, especially after the capture and execution of the Ortega brothers, Tomás Borge, and other prominent terrorist leaders (although, it could be argued that fear of government reprisals was another impetus for many Central Americans to fight against the Sandinistas).

Even after the end of the civil war and the end of Somoza's second term in 1981, the National Guard, which had by then reached a peak of 16,000-17,000, retained its size. As part of a national reconciliation policy, many former Sandinistas who renounced terrorism were integrated into the guard in the early 1980s, further bolstering its numbers. Among President Francisco Urcuyo Maliaños (1981-1988)'s reforms were: Re-training of the guard from scratch; removal of officers involved in corrupt practices and/or human rights abuses; and transformation of the guard from a Somoza-controlled force to an apolitical institution under governmental control. By the early 1990s, most of these goals had been largely accomplished. Today, the National Guard is a fully independent (i.e., apolitical) institution that is largely (but not entirely) free of corruption. Incidents of abuses by the guard have become rare, and what few cases of abuse do occur are swiftly and strictly prosecuted. A large number of the guard's soldiers receive training in or from the United States each year, and the United States remains the country's primary source of military hardware.

Organization

As of October 2007 the National Guard has 20,500 personnel (17,000 in active service and 3,500 in reserve) and the Air Force of the National Guard has 1,500 personnel.

Active units

• 1 infantry brigade
• 12 artillery batteries
• 8 antiaircraft batteries
• 2 armored battalions
• 1 motorized infantry battalion
• 1 mechanized infantry battalion
• 1 engineer battalion
• 1 presidential guard battalion
• 4 special forces companies

Reserve units

• 3 infantry battalions
• 1 armored company
• 1 mechanized infantry company

Equipment

Small arms

• M16 assault rifle
• IMI Galil assault rifle
• M14 battle rifle
• FN FAL battle rifle
• IMI Uzi submachine gun
• M1911 semi-automatic pistol
• M2 Browning heavy machine gun
• M1919 Browning medium machine gun
• FN MAG General Purpose Machine Gun
• M60 General Purpose Machine Gun
• M72 Light Anti-tank Weapon

Artillery

• M198 155mm towed howitzer
• M224 60mm mortar

Armored vehicles

Active

• M60 Patton Main Battle Tank
  • M60A1 Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge
  • M60 Armored Vehicle Launched MICLIC (Mine-Clearing Line Charge)
  • M60 Panther remotely controlled mine clearing tank
  • M728A1 Combat Engineer Vehicle
• M48 Patton Main Battle Tank
  • M48A4
  • M48A5
  • M67A2 "Zippo" Flamethrower Tank
  • M88 Hercules Armored Recovery Vehicle
• M47 Patton Main Battle Tank
  • M47M
• M103 Heavy Tank
  • M103A1
  • M103A2
• M41 Walker Bulldog Light Tank
  • M42 Duster SPAAG
• M551 Sheridan Airborne Reconnaissance Vehicle
  • M551A1 TTS
  • M551 NTC
• M50 Ontos Tank Destroyer
• Chaimite Armored Personnel Carrier
  • V-200: APC
  • V-300: Heavy fire support, with 90mm gun
  • V-400: Light fire support, with 20mm cannon
  • V-500: Anti-tank, with Swingfire or HOT missile launcher
  • V-600: Mortar carrier, with 81mm or 120mm mortars
  • V-700: Ambulance
  • V-800: Communications and command vehicle
  • V-900: Armored Recovery Vehicle
  • V-1000: Anti-riot, with water cannon
• EE-11 Urutu Armored Personnel Carrier
• EE-3 Jararaca Armored Car
• EE-9 Cascavel Armored Car
• RG-31 Charger Multi-purpose Mine-Protected Vehicle
• M151 MUTT Light Truck
  • M718A1 front-line ambulance variant
  • M151A2 Fast Assault Vehicle
  • M151A2 TOW anti-tank variant
  • M825 106mm recoilless rifle variant
  • M1051 firefighting variant
  • MRC108 Forward Air Control variant

Reserve

• M4 Sherman Medium Tank
• M3 Scout Car
• M8 Greyhound Light Armored Car
• M3 Half-track Armored Personnel Carrier

Support vehicles

• M3 amphibious rig
• M35 2-1/2 ton cargo truck
• M939 logistical/transport truck
• Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer

Aircraft

• A-1 Skyraider attack aircraft
• A-26 Invader light bomber
• A-37 Dragonfly light attack aircraft
• Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano counterinsurgency aircraft
• C-47 Skytrain transport
• CASA C-212 Aviocar medium transport
• de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter STOL utility transport
• IAI-201 Arava VIP transport
• Hawker Siddeley HS125 VIP transport
• Cessna Skymaster civil utility aircraft
• Cessna 180 light utility aircraft
• Cessna U-17 liaison aircraft
• Sikorsky H-34 SAR helicopter
• Hughes 269 light utility/training helicopter
• Bell UH-1 Iroquois Iroquois multipurpose utility helicopter
• Hughes OH-6 light observation helicopter
• T-33 Shooting Star trainer
• T-28 Trojan trainer

Naval vessels

• Patrol Boat, River (PBR)
• Fast Patrol Craft (PCF)