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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Eden Pastora.md
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title: Eden Pastora
aliases:
- Eden Pastora
- Edén Pastora
- Eden Pastora Gomez
- Edén Pastora Gómez
- Commandante Zero
- Comandante Cero
- Commander Zero
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Military"
tags:
- KeyFigure
- Person
- Contra
- Nicaragua
- CostaRica
- CIA
- CIADrugTrafficking
- ARDE
- 1980s
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
summary: "Former Sandinista war hero known as Commandante Zero who became commander of the ARDE Southern Front Contra army in Costa Rica, was put on the CIA payroll, and eventually broke with the agency over drug trafficking."
summary: "Sandinista commander who led the CIA-funded ARDE Southern Front in Costa Rica until 1984, then the only Contra commander the CIA's records tied to cocaine financing, and who received money and housing from Danilo Blandon."
born: 1937-01-22
died: 2020-06-16
location: "Ciudad Darío, Nicaragua"
location: "Ciudad Dario, Nicaragua"
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[ARDE]]"
start: 1982-09
end: 1984-07
role: "military leader of the Costa Rica-based Southern Front; leader of the FRS"
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
reverse: true
start: 1982
end: 1984-10
role: "main recipient of CIA funds for the Southern Front from early 1982 to mid-1984; relationship ended October 1984"
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Danilo Blandon]]"
reverse: true
start: 1983
end: 1987
role: "rent-free house in Costa Rica, two pickup trucks, cash"
fn: 7
- type: funded
with: "[[George Morales]]"
reverse: true
start: 1984
end: 1985-01
role: "aircraft, helicopters and money from a Miami trafficker"
fn: 2
---
Eden Pastora, known as "Commandante Zero," was a former [[Sandinistas|Sandinista]] war hero who became commander of [[ARDE]], the Southern Front [[Contras|Contra]] army based in [[Costa Rica]].[^1]
Eden Pastora Gomez, "Commandante Zero," a Sandinista commander who turned against the revolution, led the Costa Rica-based [[ARDE]] coalition's military effort from 1982 to 1984, was the main recipient of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s money for the Southern Front until it was cut off, and in 1984 and 1985 received aircraft, money and housing from men who were or became drug traffickers.[^1][^2] The CIA's Inspector General recorded that the CIA ended its relationship with him in October 1984, within two weeks of the first reporting on ARDE's dealings with the trafficker [[George Morales|Jorge Morales]], and that other factors also weighed in the decision; Pastora said the drug reporting was a CIA effort to push him out.[^1][^3]
### Sandinista War Hero
### The Sandinista commander
Pastora achieved legendary status during the Sandinista revolution for his daring attacks against [[Anastasio Somoza|Somoza]]'s forces, including the 1978 seizure of the National Palace in [[Managua]]. After the revolution, Pastora grew disillusioned with the Sandinista government and broke with the ruling junta.[^2]
Pastora joined the [[Sandinistas]] in the early 1970s and became famous when he led the August 22, 1978 seizure of the Nicaraguan National Palace, which held the legislature hostage until [[Anastasio Somoza|Somoza]] released prisoners and paid a ransom.[^1][^4] The CIA's Inspector General recorded that he was excluded in 1979 from the Sandinista front's nine-man directorate and given relatively minor posts, that he said he was dismayed by the revolution's turn to the left, and that in 1981 he broke with the Sandinistas and went into exile in Costa Rica.[^1]
### CIA Recruitment
### ARDE and the CIA
Pastora was recruited by [[Central Intelligence Agency]] officer [[Dewey Clarridge]] in 1981 to assume command of the Southern Front Contra armies based in Costa Rica. Like [[Enrique Bermudez|Bermúdez]], Pastora was put on the CIA's payroll, where he remained until mid-1984.[^1]
Pastora formed the Sandino Revolutionary Front (FRS) in early 1982 and allied it with other groups to form ARDE in September 1982; [[Fernando Chamorro|Fernando "El Negro" Chamorro]]'s [[UDN-FARN]] left the [[FDN]] to join him, Webb wrote, and Pastora publicly called the FDN "criminal mummies and gorillas."[^1][^5] [[Gary Webb]] wrote that the CIA officer [[Dewey Clarridge]] recruited him in 1981 to command the Southern Front.[^6] The CIA's Inspector General recorded that from early 1982 to mid-1984 Pastora was the main recipient of the funds the CIA channeled to Southern Front forces, that the appropriation ran out in August 1984, and that it replaced him as ARDE's military leader in July 1984; ARDE's spokesman attributed that to injuries from the May 1984 bomb attack and the CIA said his refusal to join forces with the Northern Front also undermined him. The Senate's Kerry subcommittee wrote that on May 30, 1984 he was wounded by a bomb at La Penca, Nicaragua, that according to ARDE officer Karol Prado aid from the United States was cut off that day, and that the CIA regarded him as "disruptive and unpredictable"; the bomb killed seven people, three of them journalists.[^1][^2][^4] The Inspector General listed the CIA's other reasons for ending the relationship: the poor performance of his fighters, counterintelligence concerns about his contacts with the Sandinistas in Managua, and the congressional restrictions that took effect in October 1984.[^1]
Pastora was a longtime friend of [[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]], from whom he received money, vehicles, and rent-free lodging. Blandón described Pastora as a personal friend and stated that he provided him support during the Contra war.[^1] Pastora visited Blandón's silk-screen printing company JDM Artwork Inc. during a trip to L.A. in 1982, and the firm printed T-shirts with his likeness. The [[San Francisco]] Chronicle stated that Pastora had also visited a firing range near the [[Cabazon Indian Reservation]] for a weapons demonstration in 1981, a claim Pastora has both confirmed and denied on separate occasions.[^3]
### Morales
### Formation of ARDE
In October 1984 the CIA began receiving reports that Pastora's associates had agreed to help the Miami-based trafficker Jorge Morales bring drugs into the United States in return for material and financial help. The State Department's July 1986 report to Congress said a senior member of the FRS agreed late in 1984 that FRS pilots would fly narcotics from South America to sites in Costa Rica and Nicaragua; Morales gave the FRS a C-47 and two crated helicopters and about $100,000.[^2] A November 1984 cable reported that Pastora, Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro and Roberto Chamorro were traveling to Miami to meet Morales, that Morales had transferred about $30,000 to an ARDE account, and that two ARDE pilots, including Gerardo Duran, were there for a flight for Morales. A December 1984 cable said Pastora met Morales and did not like his "pressuring him to immediately meet [Pastora's] end of their arrangement, which is providing pilots and operational facilities in Costa Rica for Morales' drug operations." The CIA disseminated this to thirteen senior government officials in a December 1984 sensitive memorandum and briefed the DEA and the U.S. Attorney's office in Miami on December 6; its representatives told the House intelligence committee in January 1985 that members of Pastora's organization had agreed, "either with Pastora's direct knowledge or tacit approval," to supply pilots and landing strips to a Miami-based Colombian drug dealer.[^1] Pastora told the Inspector General that he did not know Morales was a trafficker until October 1984, ended the arrangement in January 1985 when he realized the political cost, and returned the planes; Popo Chamorro said Pastora learned of it only after the October meetings and his own December meeting with Morales; Pastora said Morales also gave him about $40,000, and he listed about $20,000 from a Cuban, about $40,000 and two helicopters from Leo Fernandez, and about $25,000 from [[Manuel Noriega]].[^1][^7] Morales testified to the Kerry subcommittee that he hoped helping the Contras would get his indictment dropped because of their CIA contacts.[^2]
In September 1982, Pastora announced he was taking up arms against his old Sandinista colleagues. [[UDN-FARN]], under [[Fernando Chamorro|"El Negro" Chamorro]] and [[Edmundo Chamorro]], jumped ship from the [[FDN]] and united with Pastora's group to form ARDE (Alianza Revolucionaria Democrática). The merger made political sense because both factions, as former Sandinistas, hated the ex-[[Nicaraguan National Guard|National Guard]] officers of the FDN. Pastora frequently outraged his CIA handlers by publicly referring to the FDN as "criminal mummies and gorillas." The FDN considered Pastora a closet Communist and suspected him of being a Sandinista mole.[^2]
Further reports followed. A Sandinista radio broadcast in February 1985 said Pastora's associates were building landing strips in Guanacaste for drug flights; an April 1985 cable named Duran and David Mayorga as owners of an air company said to hide cocaine in yucca shipments, with a plane belonging to Pastora and ARDE; a December 1985 cable said a Panamanian with business ties to Noriega, Cesar Rodriguez, was gathering money for Pastora, and in June 1986 the CIA was told Pastora accepted $10,000 from Rodriguez during a trip to Panama; and a January 1986 cable reported that a Costa Rican associate had 200 kilograms of cocaine he wished to use to help finance Pastora's activities. A February 1986 cable asked for an interagency review of the evidence on David Mayorga, one of Pastora's closest advisers, and noted that it "needs to be made available to those still bent on seeing that [Pastora] is given . . . funding"; the Inspector General found no record that the review took place. In March 1986 a CIA station chief wrote that the Southern Front structure was "too badly penetrated by Sandinistas and too many of the players have been associated with narcotics smuggling."[^1] [[Marcos Aguado]], Pastora's pilot and, in Pastora's words, his son-in-law, was among those named by [[Robert Owen]] as involved in trafficking, and Prado told the Kerry subcommittee that the allegations against Pastora's group were a CIA effort to discredit him; the subcommittee could not validate Owen's claims.[^2][^1]
### Break with the CIA
The CIA's Central American Task Force chief, [[Alan Fiers]], testified to the Iran-Contra committees on August 5, 1987 that "we knew that everybody around Pastora was involved in cocaine. His staff and friends . . . they were drug smugglers or involved in drug smuggling." He told the Senate intelligence committee on July 31, 1987 that the CIA had no knowledge that Pastora was directly involved in the Morales deal but had "a significant body of evidence" that Pastora's people were directly involved in cocaine trafficking to the United States, and said on October 14, 1987, as Pastora planned to return to Nicaragua, "This guy is a cocaine runner. Period. He ran cocaine." In January 1988 he told Senator Bill Bradley that "Pastora had been involved with a Colombian trafficker, but the FDN was clean."[^8][^1] Webb wrote that the CIA station chief [[Joseph Fernandez]] disputed Pastora's claim of a CIA plot, that CIA files showed the agency passed the drug reporting about Pastora to a wide range of officials in contrast to its silence about the FDN and UDN-FARN, and that after an Associated Press story in late 1985 Pastora quit within months.[^3] The CIA's Inspector General recorded that he left ARDE in 1986 and withdrew from the war; the Associated Press reported that he then ran a fishing cooperative in Costa Rica.[^1][^4]
Pastora eventually broke with the CIA and was accused by the agency of consorting with drug traffickers. [[Marcos Aguado]], a CIA-trained pilot and business associate of [[Norwin Meneses]], got Pastora involved with Colombian drug traffickers.[^1]
### Blandon, Meneses and the California circle
Pastora claimed he was the target of an elaborate CIA scheme to force him out of the war, a plot that involved the use of drug dealers working for the intelligence agency. This occurred, he said, after he refused CIA orders to unite his forces with the former National Guardsmen in the CIA's northern Contra army, the FDN. When it came time to dispose of him, Pastora said, the CIA leaked the information that he was getting help from drug dealers, both to drain his support in the United States and to make him the fall guy for the cocaine trafficking being done by the CIA's "approved" Contra armies.[^4]
The Justice Department and CIA inspectors recorded the money [[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]] gave him and disagree about its source and meaning. Blandón said he let Pastora live rent-free in a house he owned in Costa Rica from about 1983 or 1984 to 1987, gave him about $9,000 in 1985 or 1986 "for personal use," from his legitimate businesses, and gave him two cars; he told the Justice Department's inspectors that Pastora "didn't want to know" about the source and that he never told him he dealt drugs. Pastora told the Senate intelligence committee on November 26, 1996 that Blandón gave him $3,000 twice between 1985 and 1987 and two pickup trucks, that he met Blandón three or four times, and that he knew nothing of the trafficking until Blandón's 1992 arrest; he told the CIA's inspectors Blandón gave about $6,000 and the housing and that the trucks were worth about $1,500 each. Blandón estimated the total at about $30,000, including the housing. The DEA informant DEA CI-1 told the Inspectors General that Pastora and Adolfo Calero "lied" in congressional hearings in denying they knew Meneses, Blandón and Torres; Pastora testified that he met [[Norwin Meneses]] in 1979 and by chance in Costa Rica around 1988.[^9][^7] An informant told the FBI that Pastora met Blandón in Miami in January 1985 seeking cocaine funds for Contra operations; LA CI-1 told the Inspector General he meant the funds were cocaine money, not that Pastora knew it, and that Blandón, drunk at a Miami party, produced no money. The Rolodex from Blandón's car lot listed a number for Pastora in Costa Rica.[^10][^11][^9] In the January 1987 Operation Perico reports, DEA CI-1 recorded that Blandón's organization had given Pastora weapons until two years earlier, that Pastora lived in a Blandón house, and, separately, that Pastora lived in Meneses's house in Costa Rica and told Meneses he wanted to enter cocaine trafficking to funnel money to the Contras and asked Meneses to find a buyer for a DC-3 at Ilopango, with Aguado as his representative in El Salvador.[^12] Webb wrote that Pastora got money and trucks from Blandón and that the physician Felix Saborio, a Blandón friend, became his Cuban-community liaison in Miami and an ARDE fundraiser; Pastora said of both, "Blandón and Saborio . . . both vanished from my ranks when it became clear that I was not willing to march to the tune of the CIA."[^3]
CIA station chief [[Joseph Fernandez]] disputed Pastora's claims, but CIA files showed the agency "disseminated" the drug information about Pastora to a "broad range of senior [U.S. government] intelligence and law enforcement officials" - in stark contrast to the agency's silence about drug dealing by the FDN and UDN-FARN. To this day, Pastora remains the only Contra commander the U.S. government has ever officially admitted was involved with drug money.[^4]
Webb also relayed that Pastora visited Blandón's silk-screen shop in Los Angeles in 1982, where T-shirts with his likeness were printed, and a *San Francisco Chronicle* report in 1994 that he attended a weapons demonstration at a firing range near the [[Cabazon Indian Reservation]] in 1981, a claim Webb wrote Pastora both confirmed and denied.[^13] Blandón said he arranged a presentation by [[Ronald Lister]] of weapons for Contra leaders including Pastora and Adolfo Chamorro, who showed no interest; a handwritten note seized from Lister's home in 1986 listed the names of several CIA officers working with Pastora's ARDE, Webb wrote.[^7][^3]
### CIA-Linked Drug Money
### Later years
After the CIA cutoff of his funding in May 1984, Pastora received financial assistance from CIA-linked sources. Colombian trafficker [[George Morales]] provided aircraft, money, and weapons through CIA assets [[Octaviano Cesar]] and Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro, who assured Morales the CIA would resolve his pending drug indictment in exchange for assistance.[^4]
Danilo Blandón also provided cash - $6,000 according to Pastora, $20,000 according to Marcos Aguado - two pickup trucks, and the keys to his vacation home in San Jose, Costa Rica, where Pastora lived rent-free for several years. [[Felix Saborio|Dr. Felix Saborio]], a childhood friend of Blandón, became Pastora's representative to the Cuban community in Miami and ARDE fund-raiser. Pastora assumed Blandón was a successful car dealer. "Blandón and Saborio. . .both vanished from my ranks when it became clear that I was not willing to march to the tune of the CIA," Pastora said.[^4]
Former CIA official [[Alan Fiers]] testified: "We knew that everybody around Pastora was involved in cocaine. We knew it from November of 1984 forward. We reported it." A few months after the AP exposed Pastora's involvement with drug money in late 1985, Pastora quit the Contra war and became a fisherman. The CIA then replaced him with Fernando "El Negro" Chamorro's UDN-FARN, which had far more links to drug traffickers.[^4]
### Bombing at Headquarters
Shortly after the CIA's harbor mining scandal of spring 1984, a bomb exploded at Pastora's jungle headquarters during a press conference, wounding Pastora, killing or injuring a score of ARDE officials and journalists, and throwing the Contra armies in Costa Rica into turmoil. The bombing occurred during a period of intense public relations disasters for the Contra project.[^4]
### Weapons Presentation
Danilo Blandón arranged for [[Ronald Lister]] to give a weapons sales presentation to Contra leadership, which Pastora attended along with other top leaders. "Blandón said the attendees showed no interest in Lister's offer and Blandón received the impression that the military arms of the Contras was already being supplied by CIA or another U.S. government agency," the CIA reported. A handwritten note seized from Lister's home in a 1986 raid bore the names of several CIA operatives working with Pastora's ARDE group.[^4]
Pastora ran for [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] president in 1996.[^1]
Webb wrote that Pastora said the CIA had targeted him after he refused to merge his force with the former Guardsmen of the FDN, and that he ran for president of Nicaragua in 1996.[^3][^6] After [[Daniel Ortega]] returned to power in 2007 he rejoined the Sandinistas and was given oversight of the San Juan River region. He died on June 16, 2020 at the military hospital in Managua at the age of 83.[^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Cast of Characters
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 5: "God, Fatherland and Freedom"
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 6: "They were doing their patriotic duty"
[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it"
[^5]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 11: "They were looking in the other direction"
[^1]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Inspector General, *Report of Investigation (96-0143-IG)*, Volume II: The Contra Story, October 8, 1998, section on Southern Front Contras, https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/south.html
[^2]: U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy* (December 1988), pp. 50-53 (the case of George Morales and FRS/ARDE), https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it." Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^4]: Associated Press, "Eden Pastora, Nicaraguan revolutionary, dead at 83," June 16, 2020, https://www.news4jax.com/news/2020/06/16/eden-pastora-nicarguan-revolutionary-dead-at-83/
[^5]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 5: "God, Fatherland and Freedom." Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^6]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Cast of Characters. Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^7]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Inspector General, *Report of Investigation: Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States (96-0143-IG)*, Volume I: The California Story, January 29, 1998, Findings (Ross, Blandon, Meneses), https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine/findings1.html
[^8]: U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy* (the Kerry report), December 1988, p. 38, quoting the August 5, 1987 testimony of the CIA Central American Task Force chief before the Iran-Contra Committees, https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^9]: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter IV, section B (OIG investigation regarding support of the Contras by Blandon and Meneses), https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9712/ch04p2.htm
[^10]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: A Review of the Justice Department's Investigations and Prosecutions* (December 1997, released July 1998), Chapter II (Oscar Danilo Blandon), sections A-D, https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9712/ch02p1.htm
[^11]: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter IV, section A (sources of the allegations), https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9712/ch04p1.htm
[^12]: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter II, section G (the 1987 Los Angeles OCDETF investigation), https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9712/ch02p4.htm
[^13]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 6: "They were doing their patriotic duty." Sole source for the passages so cited.