Nicaragua coverage May-July 1986

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May 6 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Costa Rica
^Ortega Declines to Attend Arias' Inauguration
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega will not join other Latin American presidents attending the inauguration Thursday of Costa Rican President-elect Oscar Arias, Ortega's office said.
   Arias has said he hopes about 10 presidents who plan to attend the inauguration will issue a joint declaration expressing support for a peaceful solution to Central American conflicts.
   He said in a televised interview Sunday that the most important question is whether Nicaragua is willing to sign the proposed Contadora peace agreement. The Contadora countries - Mexico, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela - have set a June 6 deadline for the signing of the pact.
   Ortega's office, in a statement read on government radio Monday, said the Nicaraguan delegation will be headed by the country's ambassador to Costa Rica, Claudia Lucia Chamorro Barrios. It gave no reason why Ortega will not attend.
   Arias said in the television interview that he believes Nicaragua would sign the Contadora agreement or risk strong criticism from Latin American countries that have supported the three-year effort to find an agreement acceptable to the five Central American nations.
   The Contadora group is named after the Panamanian island where the foreign ministers of Mexico, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela met in January 1983 to work out a regional peace plan for Central America.
   The proposed pact calls for curbing military maneuvers, foreign military advisers and the military buildup in the region, prohibiting support for insurgencies and promoting national reconciliation.
   Nicaragua last month said it would not sign the agreement until the United States stops helping the Contra rebels who are trying to overthrow the Sandinista government.
   In an April 11 letter to congressmen, U.S. special envoy Philip  C. Habib said the Reagan administration would halt the aid with the signing of an agreement that met Contadora objectives.
   Vice President George Bush, who will head a 12-member U.S. delegation, is scheduled to arrive in San Jose, the Costa Rican capital, Thursday morning and remain 12 hours, Ambassador Louis A. Tambs said Monday. He is scheduled to meet with Arias before the ceremony.
   Presidents scheduled to attend the inauguration include those from the other Central American countries - Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and Panama - as well as Ecuador, Uruguay, Peru, Argentina and Colombia.
   Spain, Mexico, Venezuela and Israel are sending their foreign ministers.
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May 10 1986
^AM-Nicaragua
^Ortega Says Nicaragua Must Arm Against U.S. Invasion
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega said Saturday that Nicaragua must continue to arm itself against a possibile of a U.S. invasion, and accused the United States of trying to use a Central American peace pact against his government.
   "The United States, through Contadora, wants to disarm Nicaragua and let (our government) fall," Ortega told 300 workers at a government textile plant.
   "The day the Yankees invade us, no other Latin American country will come to help Nicaragua," he said. "We will have to do it ourselves. We must arm the people to confront the Yankee invasion and defeat it."
   The Sandinista government has been predicting a U.S.-backed invasion for four years.
   The Contadora Group has set a June 6 deadline for signing the peace agreement it brokered for Central America. The draft treaty calls for weapons reductions, elimination of foreign military advisers and bases, and free elections.
   Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have said they will sign the treaty, but Nicaragua has said it won't unless the United States agrees to stop aiding rebels trying to overthrow its leftist Sandinista government.
   The four Contadora nations, Mexico, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela, take their name from the Panamanian island on which they first metin January 1983.
   Nicaragua has an estimated 60,000 regular soldiers and 60,000 people in the reserves and militia, the largest military force in Central America. Nicaraguan rebel forces are estimated as high as 20,000.
   Ortega said many important points in the draft agreement need clarification, including the issues of arms reduction, military bases and foreign military advisers.
   Nicaragua is ready to discuss the cutting back of offensive arms, but "defensive arms in the hands of the (Nicaraguan) people is not a point of discussion," he said.
   He did not define the differences between offensive and defensive weapons, except tht defensive arms include rifles and cannons.
   "Even if the proposal that comes out of the discussion (in Panama) were acceptable to Nicaragua, the signing of the act would depend on an end to the aggression by the United States against Nicaragua," Ortega said.
   About 1,000 U.S. troops are based in Honduras, which borders Nicaragua, and others arrive regularly for joint exercises with Honduran troops.
   President Reagan has asked Congress for $100 million in new military and non-lethal aid for the Nicaraguan rebels, known as Contras.
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May 18 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Germans
^Sandinistas say CIA behind kidnapping of West Germans Precede Manauga
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   JUIGALPA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Three West Germans working for the Sandinista government appealed Sunday for the release of eight collegues - four women and four men - captured a day earlier by anti-Sandinista rebels.
   Miguel Bustos, a Chilean man working with the West Germans was shot in the leg and slightly wounded during the early morning attack Saturday, Dagmar Vogel told a news conference here.
   The 12 had been living in the village of Jacinto Baca, 120 miles southeast of Managua, and were building homes for peasants as volunteers for the Sandinista Construction Ministry.
   One of the attacking rebels wore a cap with the initials "FDN," said Ms. Vogel, 24, of Oberhausen, West Germany.
   The FDN is the Honduras-based, U.S.-backed Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest of the rebel groups fighting to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government.
   Earlier, the Foreign Ministry said the capture of the West German workers was part of a "plan by the CIA of the United States to launch attacks on economic objectives, the civilian population and foreign volunteers."
   It issued a communique saying the German men and women had arrived in Nicaragua 10 days earlier.
   Telephone calls to the West German Embassy in Managua were not answered.
   Groups of young people from numerous countries, especially those in Europe, have been coming to Nicaragua as volunteers since the Sandinistas came to power in 1979 after toppling the right-wing regime of the late President Anastasio Somoza in a civil war.
   Army Cmdr. Robert Calderon told the news conference about 70 rebels took part in the attack on Jacinto Baca.
   Ms. Vogel said her group was awakened when the rebels exchanged gunfire with army troops and local militiamen.      The fighting continued for about 30 minutes, she said, and then a guerrilla appeared on the patio of the house and ordered everyone outside.
   "He said if we didn't leave, he would throw a bomb inside," she said.
   The rebels ordered the 12 foreign workers, their cook and four other Nicaraguans to move away from the house, and as the gunfire increased, some of the workers slipped away, according to Ms. Vogel.
   "The Contras were too busy fighting to look for the ones who went and hid," she said. "I stayed among some trees. I heard the gunfire coming closer. Then I heard the screams of Miguel - he was calling for help."
   Bustos was not taken away and Ms. Vogel, Sean Peter Steinbach, 24, of West Berlin, and Regine Christiansen of Hamburg, managed to escape.
   The eight abducted by the rebels were identified as Doris Altenburg, Astrid Stelter, Angelika Gotz, Reingard Zimmer, Jurgen Wilfried Kuhr, Dirk Diethelm Hegmanns, Dominik Diehl and Siegfried Ruttig.
   Ms. Christiansen and Steinbach also appeared at the press conference, but Ms. Christiansen made no statement.
   Steinbach appealed to the U.S. and West German governments to work for his colleagues' release.
   "We ask the government of the Untied States to immediately stop all aid to the Contras (rebels) so they cannot perpetrate criminal acts such as this one," Steinbach said. "We know that what happened to us is something that happens day by day to the Nicaraguans. It is daily life for the Nicaraguans."
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May 19 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Germans
^West German protesters occupy embassy
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ About 70 West Germans occupied their nation's embassy Monday and said the ambassador could not leave until he asks President Reagan to order Nicaraguan rebels to release eight captured German workers.
   Ambassador Joseph Rusnak said in an interview in the embassy that the Germans entered the building Sunday night and were barring him, the embassy first secretary and two West German security guards from leaving. He said they were the only ones in the embassy when it was taken over.
   Rusnak said he has not been threatened and had not forced the issue by trying to leave.
   Eight West German volunteer workers, four men and four women, were abducted Saturday during a raid by members of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, a U.S.-backed rebel group fighting to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government.
   Three other Germans managed to escape during the battle at the village of Jacinto Baca, 120 miles southeast of Managua. They held a news conference Sunday night and appealed to Reagan and the West German government to demand that the rebels, known as Contras, free their colleagues.
   The Germans were helping build houses for peasants as volunteers for the Sandinista Construction Ministry.
   A Chilean worker with them, Miguel Bustos, was shot in the leg during the fighting but officials said it was only a slight wound. He was not taken prisoner by the Contras.
   Rusnak said the Germans who took over the embassy "made very clear when they entered that they are the chiefs in this house and they will do what they think is correct," he said. Their action was "not correct," he added, but he would not ask police to remove the protesters.
   Some of the Germans lounged around the embassy grounds and others made telephone calls and used the telex to communicate with newspapers in West Germany, said one occupier who identified himself as Jurgen Valdix.
   Monday morning, the embassy occupiers held a news conference and read a a communique condemning the abductions and accusing the embassy of not pressing for the relase of the eight captives.
   Rusnak said that at the occupiers' request, he called the Foreign Ministry in Bonn, which has set up a crisis center to deal with the situation. He said he also called the West German Embassy in Washington and suggested officials there contact the U.S. State Department, and telephoned the West German Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and asked that efforts be made to contact rebel leaders.
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Front, the largest rebel group fighting the Sandinistas, operates from bases in southern Honduras and maintains offices in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital.
   Another occupier, who identified himself as Alberto Ruther, said the workers want the ambassador to send a telegram to Reagan asking him to order the the rebels to free the workers and to ask the president to stop sending financial aid to the rebels.
   Reagan is pressing Congress to approve $100 million in aid for the Contras.
   Ruther said the workers will remain in the embassy until the ambassador agrees to their demands or until the eight are freed. He listed these other demands:
   -Rusnak must ask U.S. Ambassador Harry Bergold to appear at the West German Embassy to speak with the occupiers.
   -Rusnak should cable the West German government and ask it to condemn the "aggression" against Nicaragua.
   -That Rusnak visit the area where the Germans were captured.
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May 20 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Germans
^West Germans End Their Embassy Protest
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ About 70 West Germans who work as volunteers for the Nicaraguan goverment left their nation's embassy Tuesday, ending a 38-hour occupation to protest the capture of eight co-workers by U.S.-backed Contra rebels.
   Ambassador Joseph Rusnak told reporters a high-level Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry official, whom he did not name, acted as a mediator to end the takeover that began Sunday night.
   In a communique, the occupiers said they were leaving the embassy grounds "because we believe we have generated with our action the necessary public and international pressure to press for the hostages' release."
   On Monday, the workers vowed to remain in the embassy until the eight workers were released or until a list of demands were met, including one that Rusnak ask President Reagan to order the Contras to release the Germans.
   The four men and four women were kidnapped Saturday by members of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, when they raided the village of Jacinto Baca, 120 miles southeast of Managua. The Germans had been in the town to help build houses for peasants.
   In Tegucigalpa, the capital of neighboring Honduras, FDN spokesman Frank Arana admitted the eight Germans were in the FDN's custody, saying they were in good shape and will be freed soon through some humanitarian agency.
   An estimated 400 West Germans, who sympathize with the Sandinistas, are in Nicaragua doing volunteer work for the government. Those captured arrived in Nicaragua about 10 days before the shooting.
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May 22 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Volunteers
^Volunteers Travel to Nicaragua for Variety of Reasons An AP Extra
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Thousands of foreign volunteers have traveled to Nicaragua since the Sandinista government came to power nearly seven years ago.
   Some of those who came to do their part against what they believe to be U.S. imperialism, others to help poor people, still more simply to find out for themselves what this country is like.
   They come, mostly at their own expense, from the United States and Canada, other Latin American countries, Western Europe and Australia.
   The "internacionalistas" or "brigadistas," as the volunteer workers call themselves, often live in primitive and sometimes in dangerous conditions, working for little or no pay in visits that last from weeks to months.
   Eight volunteers from West Germany were captured by the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest U.S.-supported rebel group fighting the Sandinistas, last week.
   The Honduras-based force has confirmed they are holding the West Germans and would turn them over at a later, but unspecified, date to a humanitarian agency.
   On Wednesday the Contra rebels claimed in a radio broadcast that the West Germans had been armed with Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles when they were captured. There was no way to verify the claim.
   The capture of the eight last week at a village where they were helping build houses for peasants sparked a 38-hour peaceful takeover of the West German Embassy here.
   Some 70 West German volunteers, mostly youthful and many sporting hairstyles and dress reminiscent of the Woodstock generation, demanded that the West German ambassador call President Reagan and request that he order the Contras to release the captives.
   Salomon Alarcon, an official with the Nicaraguan Committee for Solidarity with the People, said not all the volunteers are young radicals.
   He said a group of elderly Americans, including an 85-year-old man, visited Nicaragua last year to help with the coffee harvest.
   "Not all of the 'brigadistas' are sympathizers with the (Sandinista) revolution," Alarcon said. "Some can be against it. Some just want to know the world and see reality with their own eyes."
   Alarcon, whose organization coordinates some of the volunteers' work projects, said he had no figures on how many currently are in Nicaragua.
   His office handled the activities of 1,200 international workers from November to March when the coffee crop is harvested, he said.
   Holger Michael, first secretary of the West German Embassy, said few of the volunteers check in on arrival in Nicaragua, but he estimated there are hundreds in the country at any one time.
   The U.S. Embassy also said it had no figures, but Jim Goff, a resident Presbyterian minister, said many American "brigadistas" register with his group, the Committee of U.S. Citizens living in Nicaragua. He estimated that at least 125 are in Nicaragua now.
   Alarcon said many of the volunteers working with his organization rebuild homes, schools and health centers destroyed by the rebels.
   "If there is too much combat in a particular area, they will rebuild the building in a safer place," he said.
   Some consider their work here an action against the U.S. government that has supported the Contras for the last four years.
   "My being here is my small part in Ron Reagan's downfall," said Tony Ashcroft, an Australian working as a technician for a state-run broadcasting network.
   Ashcroft, who took leave from his job in Sydney, Australia, came at his own expense. He earns $5 a week at his new job.
   He said in an interview that "Nicaragua is a beacon. It shows what can be done without domination from America. It just wants to live in its own way without being told what to do."
   He noted, however, that his salary barely pays for his food and a bed in a shabby hotel.
   Asked if his presence here would help stop what he called "creeping American imperialism," Ashcroft replied: "Oh, sure." And he laughed.
   Thinking for a moment more, though, he said his presence is "not much more than a candle in the darkness."
   Another Australian, Ian Butterrs of Brisbane, who works as an electrician for a state-run coffee processing plant, said, "Nicaragua is the front-line against U.S. imperialism in the world. I'm here to see if I can help it a bit."
   Although he admits to frustration sometimes with daily life, including low wages, shortages of consumer goods and hour-long waits for city buses, Butterrs said he is glad he came.
   "It's not comfortable, but I'm here for a reason," he said.
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Jun 4 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Prisoners
^Government Pardons 308 Prisoners
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ More than 300 prisoners, including some whom opposition leaders said were held for political reasons, have been pardoned by the leftist Sandinista government.
   The legislature approved a decree late Tuesday pardoning 308 prisoners who were "not believed to be involved in crimes against the people, who have maintained good conduct, some who have received short sentences or those older than 75 years of age."
   Plutarco Anduray of the Human Rights Commission said the prisoners would be released Thursday. Officials said the prisoners are scattered in various jails in Nicaragua.
   The legislature acted at the request of President Daniel Ortega and the government Human Rights Commission. The Sandinista newspaper Barricada said Ortega sought the pardons because some of the prisoners had received sentences that were too harsh and some were nearing the end of their terms.
   Others were being released for good behavior, it said.
   The pro-government newspaper El Nuevo Diario said one of those being released was former national guard Col. Efrel Lopez Alvarado, who was chief of security for rightist dictator Anastosio Somoza. Somoza was overthrown by the Sandinistas in July 1979.
   Five of the prisoners are from Costa Rica and five from Honduras, said congressional spokesman Marcio Varas.
   Luis Rivas Leiva, secretary general of the leading opposition Social Democratic Party, said none of the nine jailed members of his party was pardoned.
   Three of the 60 imprisoned members of the independent Liberal Party are to be freed, said Carlos Alonzo, a Liberal Party congressman.
   Cesar Castillo, a congressman of the conservative Democratic Party, said one of his party's 115 jailed activists was given a pardon.
   The pardons were greeted with muted enthusiasm by opposition leaders.
   "It seems good to me, but I think they shouldn't give a partial pardon, it should be on a larger scale because many innocent people" are in prison, said Rivas Leiva.
   The Permanent Commission on Human Rights, a non-government organization, says Nicaragua has about 6,500 political prisoners. An additional 2,300 former soldiers of Somoza's national guard are jailed, and the commission says they are accused of counterrevolutionary activities.
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Jun 5 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Hanging
^Former Sandinista Officer Found Dead In Cell
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A former intelligence officer convicted of spying and treason hanged himself with a sheet in his jail cell, an Interior Ministry official said.
   Eduardo Trejos Silva, a former lieutenant in the ministry's security police, was found hanged Wednesday morning with a sheet attached to the ceiling of his cell, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday evening.
   Trejos was accused by the government in March of spying for the CIA. The ministry official, reading from a brief news release, said Trejos had been convicted in a military court, but the release did not say when he was convicted or the length of his sentence.
   The official also refused to disclose where Trejos had been held.
   Trejos was arrested by the ministry's security police along with his wife, Rosalina. The government said she was found with material given her by the CIA in Managua.
   The leftist Sandinista government in March also accused four American officials at the U.S. Embassy in Managua of working for the CIA. The government said the Americans were the CIA control officers for Trejos, his wife and another security police lieutenant, Reinaldo Aguado Montealegre.
   No information was immediately available on the status of Aguado Montealegre.
   Two of the American diplomats accused of being CIA officials were First Secretary Stephen David Murchison and Third Secretary Bonnie Sue Bennett, also vice consul. They later left Nicaragua because the accusations made their work difficult and put their lives in danger, embassy spokeswoman Susan Clyde said Wednesday night.
   The other two diplomats accused of being CIA officials, Benjamin B. Wickham and Bradley Cecil Johnson, finished their tours in Nicaragua in 1985 and left, Ms. Clyde said. She said she had no immediate comment on the reported suicide.
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Jun 5 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Prisoners
^Sandinistas Release 308 Pardoned Prisoners
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The leftist Sandinista government Thursday released 308 prisoners pardoned earlier in the week, including some who had been bodyguards for ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza.
   The National Assembly late Tuesday granted the pardons at the request of President Daniel Ortega and the government Human Rights Commission. All were released from the Modelo Penitentiary on the outskirts of the capital.
   The prisoners exchanged their blue prison uniforms for civilian clothes brought by their families and filed silently out of the penitentiary. A ceremony marking the release of the prisoners was interrupted when their family members, some laughing and some crying with joy, rushed up to them.
   The government granted the pardons to prisoners "not believed to be involved in crimes against the state," those who were nearing the end of their sentences, those who had received sentences that were too stiff, and prisoners who had exhibited good conduct, according to the decree pardoning them and statements by government oficials.
   Somoza's security chief, former national guard Col. Efrel (cq) Lopez Alvarado, also was released Thursday, according to an Interior Ministry spokesman, who did not want to be identified. The ministry is in charge of the prisons.
   However, another ministry official at the prison said Lopez Alvarado had been released eight months ago. There was no way to immediately reconcile the different accounts.
   Also among those released was one of Somoza's personal bodyguard, Jose Jorge Grande Garcia, who gave a long hug to his daughter and wife at the gate to the penitentiary. Like many of the other prisoners, he had been jailed since the Sandinistas came to power by overthrowing Somoza in 1979.
   The ministry spokesman said all 308 pardoned prisoners were released and they included five Hondurans and five Costa Ricans.
   However Erminio Pineda Bautista, the charge d'affaires of the Honduran Embassy here, said eight Hondurans were named in the pardon, although only five were definitely identified as Hondurans.
   One of the prisoners had already been released in May, and Bautista said Nicaraguan officials told him the other seven were released Thursday.
   Although all the prisoners emerged from Modelo Penitentiary, officials had said earlier they were scattered in various jails throughout Nicaragua.
   After the pardons were granted, leaders of opposition parties applauded the move but complained that thousands of political prisoners still remain in Nicaraguan jails.
   The Permanent Commission on Human Rights, an independent organization that existed before the Sandinistas came to power, estimates there are 6,500 political prisoners in Nicaragua, plus an additional 2,300 imprisoned former soldiers from Somoza's national guard. The commission says they are all accused of counterrevolutionary activities.
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Jun 6 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Germans
^Says Fighting Blocked Release of Eight Kidnapped Germans
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A plan to free eight West Germans abducted by Nicaraguan rebels failed Friday when a patrol of government troops attacked the guerrillas holding the captives in southern Nicaragua, a rebel leader said.
   Frank Arana, a spokesman for the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, said the attack by the Sandinista soldiers violated a truce agreed to in secret negotiations to free the Germans - four men and four women.
   Arana made the statement in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Tegucigalpa, the capital of neighboring Honduras, where the Democratic Force rebels have an office.
   He said radio contact was lost with the rebels holding the Germans and it was not known if there were any casualties.
   "The last communication we received from the commander of the (rebel) patrol was, 'We are being attacked by Sandinista troops and must mobilize,'" Arana said.
   Lt. June Mulligan, an army spokeswoman, disputed Arana's report of troops attacking the rebels holding the Germans.
   "Our policy is to not wage any kind of combat anywhere near the Germans," she said. "We are worried they may become involved in a cross-fire." She also said she had no knowledge of any cease-fire agreement.
   Alejandro Bendaas, a Foreign Ministry official, said in a statement on government radio that two efforts to gain the release of the captives had failed and the Germans were still in rebel hands.
   He said the negotiations both times had produced agreements on the location and time for the Germans to be freed, but gave no reasons why the plans collapsed.
   A Foreign Ministry communique issued Friday afternoon mentioned only one plan. It said the captives were to have been released at Cerro El Tigre 20 miles southwest of Rama, which is 140 miles east of Managua.
   Earlier Friday in Bonn, West Germany, government spokesman Herbert Schmuelling had predicted the prisoners, captured May 17 during an attack on a village south of Managua, would be freed Friday. The Germans were volunteers working on government housing projects.
   Schmuelling said the release was set for Thursday, but it was not carried out because arrangements were not finished before nightfall.
   He also said that West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had a lengthy telephone conversation Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State George P. Schultz dealing with the kidnapped Germans. The Reagan administration supports the Nicaraguan Democratic Force guerrillas.
   West German government sources said Hans-Juergen Wischwewski, a special envoy from Bonn and a member of the opposition Social Democratic Party, has been in Nicaragua for several days trying to arrange the release of the Germans.
   A television report in West Germany said Wischwewski had taken off from Managua in a helicopter to pick up the captives.
   Arana said the Sandinista attack on the rebel unit holding the captives occurred at 10 a.m. (noon EDT) near Cerro El Tigre and in the area of the village of Nueva Guinea.
   He said a cease-fire had been agreed upon in the area for the turnover and it was to start at 6 p.m. EDT Wednesday and end at 8 p.m. EDT Friday.
   Arana added that the Nicaraguan Democratic Force will not be able to plan the next step in the captives' release until contact is made again with the unit holding the Germans.
   The West Germans were captured during a rebel raid on the village of Jacinto Baca, about 70 miles south of Managua.
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Force is the largest of several U.S.-supported groups that have been fighting the Sandinistas for the past four years. The Sandinistas came to power in July 1979 after defeating the right-wing regime of the late President Anastasio Somoza in a civil war.
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Jun 7 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Germans
^Rebel Leader Says Fighting Blocked Release of Captive Germans
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ An attack by government troops on Contra rebels holding eight West Germans in southern Nicaragua violated a secret truce agreement and spoiled a plan to free the captives, a rebel leader said.
   However, a Nicaraguan army spokeswoman disputed the report of a Friday attack by Sandinista troops, saying official policy was not to wage any kind of combat near the Germans.
   The four men and four women, volunteers working on government housing projects, were captured May 17 during a rebel attack on a village south of Managua.
   "We are worried they may become involved in a cross-fire," said army spokeswoman Lt. June Mulligan, who said she was also unaware of any cease-fire agreement.
   Frank Arana, the spokesman for the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, said radio contact was lost with the rebels holding the Germans and it was not known if there were any casualties in the attack reported Friday.
   "The last communication we received from the commander of the (rebel) patrol was, 'We are being attacked by Sandinista troops and must mobilize,'" Arana said.
   He spoke to The Associated Press by telephone from Tegucigalpa, the capital of neighboring Honduras where the Democratic Force rebels have an office.
   Arana said the rebels will not be able to plan the next step in the captives' release until contact is restored with the unit holding them. He said the truce with Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government had been agreed to in secret negotiations to free the captives.
   A Foreign Ministry communique issued Friday afternoon said the captives were to have been released at Cerro El Tigre 20 miles southwest of Rama, which is 140 miles east of Managua.
   However, a Foreign Ministry official, Alejandro Bendaas, said in a statement on state radio that the government had made two efforts to gain the captives' release, but had failed both times.
   He said the negotiations had produced agreements on the location and time for the Germans to be freed, but gave no reasons why the plans collapsed.
   Earlier Friday in Bonn, West German government spokesman Herbert Schmuelling had predicted the prisoners would be freed Friday. He said the release had been set for Thursday, but was not carried out because arrangements were not finished before nightfall.
   Schmuelling also said that West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had a lengthy telephone conversation Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State George P. Schultz dealing with the kidnapped Germans. The Reagan administration supports the Nicaraguan Democratic Force guerrillas.
   West German government sources said Hans-Juergen Wischwewski, a special envoy from Bonn and a member of the opposition Social Democratic Party, has been in Nicaragua for several days trying to arrange the release of the Germans.
   A television report in West Germany said Wischwewski had taken off from Managua in a helicopter to pick up the captives.
   Arana said the Sandinista attack on the rebel unit holding the captives occurred at 10 a.m. (noon EDT) near Cerro El Tigre and in the area of the village of Nueva Guinea.
   He said a cease-fire had been agreed upon in the area for the turnover and that it was to have started at 6 p.m. EDT Wednesday and end at 8 p.m. EDT Friday.
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Force is the largest of several U.S.-supported groups that have been fighting the Sandinistas for the past four years.
   The Sandinistas came to power in July 1979 after defeating the right-wing regime of the late President Anastasio Somoza in a civil war.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 7 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Hijack
^Police Seize Youth Who Tried to Hijack Nicaraguan Airliner
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A youth who commandeered a Nicaraguan Boeing 727 as it prepared for takeoff Saturday from Managua's Sandino International Airport was captured three hours later when police rushed the plane.
   Lenin Cerna, head of the state Security Bureau, told reporters that no shots were fired in the police assault and no one was hurt. An official communique said there were 68 passengers on the plane at the time of the takeover.
   "The attempt to hijack the plane was made by a boy, whom we are going to present (to the public) later," Cerna said in an interview on the government's Voice of Nicaragua radio station. "Police managed to dominate him in a lightning operation, which makes us very happy."
   Cerna called the would-be hijacker a juvenile delinquent and said he was trying to leave Nicaragua for non-political reasons.
   An Interior Ministry communique identified the hijacker as Martin Martinez Lacayo, 21. It said he was armed with a revolver and threatened to kill the passengers if the plane did not take him to El Salvador and also demanded that a Salvadoran diplomat meet him there.
   The communique did not say why Martinez Lacayo wanted to meet with a diplomat in El Salvador, but it said the youth told police he wanted to go to the United States to be with a sister who lives there.
   Nicaragua's left-wing Sandinista government and the U.S.-backed Salvadoran government are bitter enemies.
   Martinez Lacayo has a police record, having been arrested for stealing in 1981, the communique said, but it gave no further details. It also said the youth was subdued without a shot being fired.
   The plane of Nicaragua's national airline, Aeronica, was commandeered shortly before it was scheduled to take off at 9:30 a.m. (11:30 a.m. EDT) as Flight 726 for El Salvador and Mexico City.
   Cerna told reporters Martinez Lacayo reached the plane by leaping to the tarmac from the airport terminal's second-floor observation deck.
   At 12:30 p.m., reporters saw at least 20 security men, their pistols still in their holsters, rush up stairways at the front and rear of the jet. About two minutes later, the security men began escorting passengers from the plane.
   The passengers were led to a secluded area of the terminal away from family members and journalists.
   News photographer Danilo Garcia said about 100 passengers crowding the terminal watched tensely as the security men retook the aircraft.
   "Many of the women there were crying and shouting that the aircraft should not be assaulted," Garcia said.
   One distraught woman, who said her mother was aboard the jet, collapsed weeping on the sidewalk and was consoled by friends.
   Control tower operators, airline spokesman and airport officials refused to answer reporters' questions or take telephone calls from journalists.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 10 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Germans
^Sandinistas Say May Know Where Captives Held
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The leftist Sandinista government says it knows where Contra rebels are holding eight West Germans captive in Nicaragua, and vowed to free them by force if they are not released today.
   President Daniel Ortega on Monday extended his deadline for taking action until 6 p.m. (8 p.m. EDT) today, according to his spokesman, Manuel Espinoza. He said that if the four men and four women were not freed by then, the Sandinista army would try to free them by force. He gave no details.
   Ortega had set a 6 p.m. Monday deadline for the cease-fire that started last Wednesday, but it was extended 24 hours at the request of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Espinoza said.
   Ortega told reporters Sunday that Sandinista soldiers are ready to go into action to free the captives.
   A Defense Ministry spokeswoman, Lt. June Mulligan, said, "We have been trying to keep our eyes on them the whole time so we can avoid having combat in that area to protect the Germans.,"
   Citing security reasons, she declined to discuss how many Sandinista soldiers were in the area or what measures they might take against the rebels if the captives were not freed, but she described the situation as "very delicate."
   "Those Contras are trigger-happy and nervous and feel kind of stuck," she said.
   Espinoza reported that in a message to Ortega, Kohl said, "I beg you, Mr. President, to continue in your previous efforts, and to that end I think it is important that your government maintain its cease-fire so the lives and health of the eight Germans are not put into more danger."
   The eight had been working as volunteers on a government housing project in Jacinto Baca, about 160 miles southeast of Managua, and were captured May 17 when the Contras attacked the hamlet.
   The rebels are believed to be in an isolated, mountainous, jungle-covered area of southeastern Nicaragua, near where the Germans were captured.
   Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, said Monday night in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, that it would release the captives "safe and sound" but demanded certain conditions first be met including a cease-fire before a time and place is established for the release.
   The FDN maintains offices in the Honduran capital and also has bases in southern Honduras near the Nicaraguan border.
   "If no guarantees exist, there will not any release of the prisoners of war," Enrique Burmudez, FDN military leader, told The Associated Press in Tegucigalpa on Monday night.
   The FDN sent its list of conditions to the West Germans, which in addition to the call for the cease-fire, called for the release to occur within eight days in an area where there are no government troops and that only one helicopter be used.
   Meanwhile, the Union of West German Residents, which represents volunteer German workers in Nicaragua, told reporters Monday that scattered bands of rebels have joined the group holding the captives and that they number from 200-400 members. The report could not be independently verified.
   The West German government Monday delivered another message to Ortega saying it was holding the FDN directly accountable for the fate of the captives, Espinoza said.
   An agreement made between the FDN and West German diplomats for the release of the captives failed last Thursday, with the FDN and the Sandinistas blaming each other for the aborted release attempt.
   The United States provides financial support to the Nicaraguan Democratic Force.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 10 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Germans
^Rebels release eight West Germans
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Eight West Germans captured by Nicaraguan rebels in an attack on a southern village last month were released Tuesday night, the Sandinista government reported.
   The annoucement by Manuel Espinoza, spokesman for President Daniel Ortega, was made in a broadcast over the government's Voice of Nicaragua radio station. .................BULLETIN.................................................. ..
   A spokesman for the Nicaraguan rebels who captured eight West Germans last month said Tuesday night the captives had been freed.
   The Germans, four men and a woman, were seized on May 17 during a raid by rebels of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force on a village in southern Nicaragua. Several previous efforts to have the Germans freed over the past week failed.
   The Nicarguan Democratic Force has offices in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. ........................................................................... ..
   Espinoza said the Germans - four men and four women - and 15 Nicaraguan civilians were released at 6:30 p.m. near the hamlet of Presillitas, 160 miles east of Managua. That was 30 minutes after a deadline issued by Ortega had expired. Ortega had threatened military action if the Germans were not freed by 6 p.m. (8 p.m. EDT).
   In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Frank Arana, a spokesman for Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, told The Associated Press the eight "were released safe and sound and in a perfect state of health."
   Espinoza said the Germans - four men and four women - and 15 Nicaraguan civilians were released at 6:30 p.m. near the hamlet of Presillitas, 160 miles east of Managua. That was 30 minutes after a deadline issued by Ortega had expired. Ortega had threatened military action if the Germans were not freed by 6 p.m. (8 p.m. EDT).
   Arana said they were released by a Contra patrol to representatives of the West German government at a evangelical church in the hamlet, adding there was there was no interference from the Sandinista military. He said the Germans were en route by car to Managua.
   "Our patrols did not encounter any problems of any nature in entering or leaving. The entire operation was a success and in an environment of tranquility," Arana said.
   Arana said the release came about as a result of secret negotiations in Managua and Tegucigalpa between FDN leaders and West German officials.
   The U.S.-backed FDN is the largest of several rebel groups known as Contras battling the left-wing Sandinistas. It has offices in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa.
   It was believed that the Nicaraguan civilians freed by the rebels were captured along with the Germans in the May 17 attack on the village of Jacinto Baca, 160 miles southwest of Managua.
   Shortly before Espinoza made his announcement, the Voice of Nicaragua quoted a Defense Ministry statement as saying the release of the German captives was imminent. It made no mention of any military action.
   Nicaragua initially set a deadline of 6 p.m. Monday, but Ortega extended that for 24 hours at the urging of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
   The earlier Voice of Nicaragua broadcast said the breakthrough for the release of the captives came after two meetings Tuesday between Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, brother of the president, and West German special envoy Hans-Juergen Wischnewski.
   Wischnewski, a special envoy from Bonn, represented the West German government in secret negotiations.
   The government press office had said Kohl sent Ortega a message Monday saying, "I beg you, Mr. President, to continue in your previous efforts, and to that end I think it is important tht your government maintain its cease- fire so that the lives and health of the eight Germans are not put into more danger."
   The Germans seized by the rebels were volunteers working on a government housing project when they were captured in the attack on Jacinto Baca, 160 miles southeast of Managua.
   Although the Sandinistas agreed to a cease-fire in the area as a result of secret negotiations with the West German government, four previous attempts to free the captives failed.
   Last Saturday, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force claimed Sandinistas troops opened fire on one of their patrols holding the captives in southeastern Nicaragua, interfering with a planned release. The report was denied by the government, and neither version could be independently verified.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 11 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Germans
^Contras Release Eight German Captives; One Reported Ill
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Eight West Germans released by U.S.-backed Contra rebels after nearly a month in captivity were en route to Managua today for medical checkups. One of them has hepatitis and urgently requires treatment, government sources said.
   The rebel Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, released the Germans at 6:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m. EDT) Tuesday in the hamlet of Presillitas, near where they were captured May 17.
   The four men and four women, volunteers building low-cost housing, were freed half an hour after a deadline set by the leftists Sandinista government. President Daniel Ortega had threatened military action if the deadline was not met.
   The eight were en route to a military hospital in the capital, said a government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
   One man, identified as Siegfried Ruettig, was suffering from hepatitis and was being transported by ambulance, the official said.
   The other seven - Reingard Zimmer, Astrid Stelter, Juergen W. Kuhr, Dirk Diethelm Hegmanns, Angelika Goetz, Doris Altenburg and Dominik Dihel - traveled in two small buses, said another source who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
   The buses were accompanied by Nicaraguan and West German government officials and Gonzalo Ramirez, president of the Nicaraguan Red Cross, the source said.
   West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher said in Bonn that Hans- Juergen Wischnewski, a leading lawmaker of the opposition Social Democratic Party, had taken charge of the hostages in Nicaragua.
   The director of the military hospital scheduled a news conference for later today, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
   Genscher said he was grateful to everyone involved in getting the hostages released. He told reporters that "the United States made its influence count" in the negotiations. The U.S-backed FDN is the largest of several rebel groups known as Contras battling the Sandinistas.
   Presidential spokesman Manuel Espinoza said on government Voice of Nicaragua radio that 15 Nicaraguan civilians were released along with the eight Germans. He did not identify the civilians.
   The Germans were captured during a Contra attack on the village of Jacinto Baca, 160 miles southeast of Managua.
   Before the hostages were released, Sandinista groups captured two FDN rebels who were scouting an escape route from Presillitas, the Defense Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.
   The two rebels gave the military information that helped Sandinista troops apply "constant pressure" on the rebels holding the Germans, the statement said. It did not say what type of pressure was applied.
   The Defense Ministry said military pressure and "world condemnation" of the capture forced the Contras to release the Germans.
   But Frank Arana, an FDN spokesman in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, told The Associated Press there was no interference from the Sandinista military.
   "Our patrols did not encounter any problems of any nature in entering or leaving," he said. "The entire operation was a success and in an environment of tranquility."
   The Nicaraguan government said the Germans were released to the Sandinista military. Arana, however, said the Germans were released by a Contra patrol to representatives of the West German government at a church in Presillitas.
   Arana said the release came about as a result of secret negotiations in Managua and Tegucigalpa between FDN leaders and West German officials.
   Nicaragua initially set a deadline of 6 p.m. Monday, but Ortega extended that for 24 hours at the urging of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
   Last Saturday, the FDN claimed Sandinistas troops opened fire on one of their patrols holding the captives in southeastern Nicaragua, interfering with a planned release. The report was denied by the government, and neither version could be independently verified.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 12 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Germans
^Freed Germans Blame US For Capture
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Eight West Germans freed after 24 days of captivity by U.S.-backed Contra rebels said they lived in misery and danger during their captivity, and blamed the United States for their plight.
   The four men and four women were volunteer workers building low-cost housing for the leftist Sandinista government when they were captured May 17 by rebels who attacked the village of Jacinto Baca, 160 miles southeast of Managua.
   They were set free Tuesday night in the hamlet of Presillitas, 140 miles east of Managua, half an hour after a deadline set by the government to take military action had passed.
   "We won't complain about the circumstances in which we lived while we were prisoners, nor of the inhuman treatment we received. But we do raise our voices against the criminal tactics, like our kidnapping, which is directed by the United States," said one of the Germans, Dominick Diehl, at a news conference Wednesday night.
   "Our kidnapping would not have been possible without the support the Reagan administration gives the Contras," he said.
   Another released captive, Astrid Stelter, said the rebels kept constantly on the move and at times shot over the heads of the Germans if they moved too slowly.
   "The fear that we felt was indescribable," she said.
   They denied allegations by the FDN that they were carrying weapons when the Contras attacked the town.
   "We never carried guns," one of the Germans, who was not immediately identified, told reporters.
   The eight were taken earlier Wednesday to a government military hospital for observation. Most suffered from upset stomachs and one required immediate attention for hepatitis.
   "We are checking them and giving them tests and in general their condition is good, although they are suffering from acute fatigue and digestive upsets, some of them including diarrhea," said Dr. Juan Ignacio Gutierrez, hospital director.
   The doctor said one man, identified as Siegfried Ruettig, was suffering from hepatitis and was brought in an ambulance.
   "We are trying to determine his exact condition, but he generally appears to be well," he added.
   Fifteen Nicaraguans were freed together with the Germans, but they were not immediately identified by authorities.
   The other Germans - Reingard Zimmer, Juergen W. Kuhr, Dirk Diethelm Hegmanns, Angelika Goetz and Doris Altenburg - traveled in two small buses. Their ages and hometowns were not immediately available.
   Asked if any of the Germans showed signs of torture or mistreatment, Gutierrez replied: "No, we have found nothing of the kind. But, as I say, they are under observation."
   West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher said in Bonn that he was grateful to everyone involved in getting the hostages released. He told reporters, "The United States made its influence count" in the negotiations.
   The FDN is the the largest of several rebel groups known as Contras battling the Sandinista government.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 17 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Gangs
^Street Gangs Keep Police Busy in Managua
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Police report a rise in crime by street gangs in Managua and maintain it is a social problem that is new to Nicaragua.
   They say they are trying to determine why gangs, calling themselves the Spanish equivalent of the Sharks, the Dragons, the Cobras and the Savages, have formed.
   According to recent local news reports, gangs roaming the streets of their neighborhoods have raped and killed a teacher, beaten a man to death and stabbed a policeman.
   "The phenomenon of juvenile gangs requires a profound analysis to determine who it is that is really committing the crimes," Commander Doris Tirejino, chief of the Sandinista police, told a news conference.
   She said the Interior Department, the Education Ministry, the Nicaraguan Sports Institute and other government agencies are studying the problem.
   Police also say the gangs have entered schools where they terrorized students and teachers.
   Teachers interviewed at the Diriangen school, which was attacked by stone- throwing youths in May as teachers and students cowered inside, said the director of the school now carries a pistol.
   The teachers added that after the youths smashed several windows with rocks, the director dispersed the gang by firing the pistol into the air.
   "It has become very dangerous," said Ines Mejnard, the assistant director of the combined elementary and high school. "The gangs rob students both outside and inside the school. Sometimes the gangs come in the school and threaten us with switchblades."
   A steel-chain fence surrounds the school and the gate is kept shut with a padlock, but students who are late to class, or hoodlums looking for an easy target, can squirm under the fence in several places.
   Rosario Aguirre Contadero, a teacher at the school, said gang violence is a new phenomenon. She said members of the Dragons gang have told individual policemen that if one of their gang members was arrested, other gang members would attack a policeman in reprisal.
   Police officers contacted refused to discuss the gangs, saying any interviews would have to be arranged by the Interior Ministry press office. That office did not respond to a written request for interviews.
   At the news conference, Chief Tirejino displayed chains, studded leather wrist bands and other gear confiscated from a gang member.
   She blamed part of the gang problem on parents who fail to exercise strict control of their children. She cited an incident in which police hauled in two rival gangs involved in a street brawl.
   As the police were lecturing members of the gangs, their parents showed up and began defending their sons' actions, the chief said.
   Among the other imaginative names the gangs have come up with are the Epileptics, reportedly because the leader suffers from epileptic seizures, and the Earrings, because members wear earrings.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 20 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Soviet Plane
^Sandinistas Display Soviet Plane
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The Nicaraguan government has showed reporters a twin-engine Soviet-made airplane and denied claims by the Reagan administration that it was being used to track down U.S.-backed Contra rebels.
   Alejandro Rodriguez, an official with the leftist Sandinista government's Institute of Territorial Studies, said the Anatov AN-30 plane was brought to Nicaragua on May 8 to do a photographic survey of the country for civilian map-making.
   "This airplane has scared the advisers of President Reagan," Rodriguez told reporters at Sandino International Airport on Thursday. "They are making a scandal saying it is used for military surveillance purposes, and the North American government is intentionally lying."
   However, Rodriguez said he would not hesitate to give the Nicaraguan military any information of military value gathered in the project.
   "We can use stones, machetes and rifles for military purposes," he said. "I believe we also have the right to use maps for military purposes."
   The AN-30 is an 80-foot-long twin turboprop survey plane with a 96-foot wingspan, according to Jane's All the World's Aircraft.
   The White House said June 11 that a Soviet reconnaissance airplane had flown over Nicaragua recently and apparently was gathering information useful in fighting the Contra rebels. U.S. officials identified the plane as a "Soviet AN-30 photo-reconnaissance aircraft."
   Reagan is seeking congressional approval for $100 million in additional aid to the Contras, who have been fighting the Sandinista government for four years.
   The blue-and-white plane was drawn by a truck onto the tarmac of the civilian airport on the outskirts of Managua.
   A man who identified himself only as a Soviet with the economic section of his embassy looked on as news photographers clambered through the aircraft.
   Rodriguez said only a few of the plane's flights so far have been successful because heavy clouds obscured the ground.
   The plane is being rented for at least two years from a Soviet state-owned company and has a nine-member Soviet crew, including camera operators, he said.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 21 11986
^AM-Managua-Contadora
^Sandinistas link Contadora pact to talks with U.S.
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Foreign Minister Miguel d'Escoto said Saturday the Sandinista government is ready to sign a Contadora peace treaty, but restated its stand that the pact be coupled to talks with the United States.
   In a letter to the eight Latin American nations sponsoring the peace efforts, d'Escoto said his left-wing government "has always been disposed to sign the peace act."
   The letter, Nicaragua's first public statement on the latest proposed accord drafted June 7, said that to "create adequate conditions for a signing of a peace act," talks between Nicaragua and the United States must be sought and efforts started to establish commissions to settle border disputes.
   President Reagan is opposed to a resumption of negotiations with the Sandinistas, saying they must first open talks with the internal opposition, including U.S.-backed rebels.
   D'Escoto's letter, copies of which were distributed to the press, also said "it is imperative ... to advance the Contadora process and reach the final objective of peace" that Central American countries be prohibited from using their territory as bases of aggression against other countries.
   The letter did not state whether Nicaragua was making that a condition for signing of the agreement.
   It is estimated that up 20,000 Nicaraguan rebels are operating from bases in Honduras, which borders Nicaragua on the north. Reagan is seeking congressional approval of $100 million in aid to the rebels.
   His administration accuses the Sandinistas of supporting leftist rebels battling the U.S.-backed government in El Salvador.
   The Contadora group, formed by Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela, has been trying for 3 1/2  years to negotiate a peace treaty acceptable to El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica. Last year, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Peru joined the Contadora negotiations as a support group.
   Major items in the proposed treaty including arms limitations, the withdrawal of foreign military advisers and democratic pluralism in the Central American countriees.
   In a press release issued with copies of d'Escoto's letter, the Foreign Ministry said Nicaragua "deeply regrets the negative attitude adopted by some Central American countries and by the United States with regard to the proposals by the Contadora group."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 21 1986
^AM-Mercenary
^Nicaragua claims foreign mercenary captured
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The Defense Ministry said Saturday that Nicaraguan troops have captured a foreigner who was fighting with U.S.-backed rebels and indicated he may be an American, but gave few details.
   A brief ministry communique said the "mercenary" had at one time identified himself to a former Costa Rican officer, during a visit to Costa Rica, as "Lalio Warnes of North American nationality."
   But the communique did not say if the Sandinista government had positively identified the man.
   It said he was captured last Monday during a firefight between government troops and rebels near Nueva Guinea, 130 miles southeast of Managua.
   U.S. Embassy press attache Susan Clyde said she had no independent information on the report that also was carried in the Sandinista newspaper Barricada.
   "We have asked the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry for confirmation on this and they said they don't know anything about it," she said, adding she had never heard of a Lalio Warnes.
   The three-paragraph communique, written in Spanish and translated by The Associated Press, said:
   "The Defense Ministry informs that:
   "1. On June 16, in combat on Mount Barrancazos, 27 kilometers southeast of Nueva Guinea, Zelaya province, a mercenary of foreign nationality, who was unhurt in a firefight, was captured. This mercenary agent, according to what was said, left the United States for Costa Rica on Feb. 14, 1985, sent by the superior command of that country, by way of the Costa Rican airline LACSA. In San Jose (the Costa Rican capital), he was received by a former colonel of the Costa Rican civil guard, to whom the mercenary identified himself as Lalio Warnes of North American nationality.
   "2. At the proper time we will amplify the information on the case of this mercenary, who is now under investigation by the pertinent military authorites of our country."
   The communique did not say how the government would have known what was said to a former Costa Rican officer. Nicaragua and Costa Rica have strained relations because of alleged border violations.
   Rebels of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force have been conducting operations in the Nueva Guinea area in recent months.
   Telephone calls to the Foreign Ministry yielded no information and the Defense Ministry public affairs office, which issued the communique, was closed Saturday.
   The pro-government El Nuevo Diario newspaper announced with a page one headline, "They Have Captured a Yankee."
   It also referred to the prisoner as a "North American mercenary" and a "gringo mercenary," but not as a U.S. citizen.
   The Sandinista news media frequently call the rebels, who receive U.S. aid, CIA mercenaries.
   It is known that a few Americans have helped train the rebels and occasionally fought beside them.
   In September 1984, two U.S. citizens were killed when their helicopter was hit by anti-aircraft fire while attacking a Sandinista military school in northern Nicaragua.
   The men belonged to Civilian Military Assistance, a private organization based in Alabama that donates supplies to the rebels.
   Many rebels belonging to a group composed mostly of Miskito Indians wear uniforms carrying the CMA insignia that were donated by the Alabama group.
   Last year, the government claimed an American was killed in combat. It based its report on identification "dogtags" found near a body after a firefight.
   The story turned out to be false. The American whose name was on the dogtags was a U.S. military veteran living in the United States and who apparently had not been in Nicaragua at the time of the battle.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 24 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Congress
^Sandinistas Predict Congress Will Approve Contra Aid With US-Nicaragua Bjt
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The government newspaper Barricada predicted Tuesday the U.S. House of Representatives will approve President Reagan's proposal for $100 million in aid to Nicaraguan rebels.
   It said in a front-page editorial the proposed aid to the rebels, known as Contras, was "illegal and immoral, which can only end in another immoral action."
   The comments by Barricada, official newspaper of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, were published a day after President Daniel Ortega described the U.S. government as "fascist."
   Barricada said Tuesday: "In whatever form they distribute the $100 million and the way in which they name it - humanitarian aid for example - will have the same results, sabotage to national economic centers and deaths of workers and farmers in our country."
   The House is narrowly divided on Reagan's plan, which includes $70 million in military assistance, and is expected to vote Wednesday. The rebels now are using the last of $27 million in non-lethal aid Congress approved last year.
   Reagan made another appeal for the aid in an address televised from the White House on Tuesday, in which he said Nicaragua "is becoming a Soviet base every day that we debate."
   There was no immediate reaction in Managua to the speech.
   In a related development, the Defense Ministry said two Contras captured separately in southeastern Nicaragua were natives of Cuba who had emigrated to the United States in May 1980. A statement said both "were recruited by the command of the mercenary forces of the American administration."
   The Defense Ministry said the man identified after his capture last week as a North American named Lalio Warnes actually was Ubaldo Hernandez Perez. It said he was captured in the Nueva Guinea region, the scene of recent activity by the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest Contra group.
   It identified the second man captured as Eugenio Rejas Lava.
   Defense Ministry officials did not specify their ages and offered few other details. It said both had been turned over to the Interior Ministry, which handles security.
   Ortega said Monday at the tomb of Carlos Fonseca, founder of the Sandinista National Liberation Front:
   "Today, humanity is threatened by the resurgence of fascist thinking by the top-levels of government of the North American power, which is bent on imposing its military hegemony and an arms race that will cause more hunger and sacrifice for the peoples of the earth, including the North American people."
   He also said the "fascist politics" of the United States had resulted in rejection of "peace initiatives from the Soviet Union."
   Ortega's use of such strong words as the House prepared to vote on Contra aid was in keeping with his apparent disregard for the effect his actions might have on congressional sentiment.
   Almost immediately after the House voted down a rebel aid proposal last year, Ortega traveled to Moscow and Soviet-bloc capitals seeking aid.
   Some congressmen cited the trip as a factor in their decisions to approve the later bill providing the non-lethal assistance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 25 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Vega
^Bishop Target Of Sandinista Scorn With US-Nicaragua Bjt
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A Roman Catholic bishop who feels it is his sacred duty to fight for the poor has become a target of scorn for the leftist Sandinistas and a symbol of freedom to President Reagan.
   Monsignor Pablo Antonio Vega - the short, slightly rotund bishop of rural Chontales province - was mentioned by Reagan during his speech Tuesday urging Congress to approve $100 million in aid for the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels, known as Contras.
   Reagan quoted the bishop as saying, "We are defending the right of man to be." The president then added: "Well reverend father, we hear you. For we Americans believe with you that even the humblest campesino has the right to be free."
   The 66-year-old bishop, who went to a seminary in El Salvador and studied theology in Montreal, was reviled by the regime of ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza and was branded "the red bishop" because he acted on the belief that the obligation of the church went further than worshiping God.
   "The church does not have the responsibility to tell people what to do, but we must create a consciousness for the people so they can be free in our society," Vega said in a telephone interview.
   Poor farmers in Latin America, who make up the majority of the population, "have no chance to express themselves and be builders of their own societies. They are victims of the ruling classes," Vega said.
   Such talk is usually directed at the traditional ruling classes of Latin America, a small oligarchy backed by a powerful, ruthless military.
   But now the talk is directed at the Sandinistas, who came to power after toppling Somoza in 1979. They "have an economic-political system that is asphyxiating religious values," Vega said. "There is constant distortion of everything we say, and they claim we are Contras."
   Leaders of the Sandinista government call Vega the "chaplain of the Contras."
   Not only does Vega make his views known to reporters, he also makes them known in public speaking engagements in the United States.
   President Daniel Ortega has accused Vega of traveling to the United States to criticize the Sandinista revolution at the behest of the CIA, a claim that Vega denies.
   "I represent neither the left nor the right," Vega said. "I fight for human values.
   "The church ... must not be a drug to put people to sleep," he said. "We must proclaim liberty in the spirit of God."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 25 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Cubans
^2 Contras Identified as Cuban Immigrants Say They Trained in Fla.
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Two men identified as Cuban immigrants to the United States said Wednesday they were recruited and trained in Florida to fight alongside U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels trying to overthrow the Sandinista government here.
   The Nicaraguan government presented the men, who said they were captured by Sandinista forces in combat earlier this month, to reporters at a news conference at the Interior Ministry. Raul Cordon, a ministry official, said the two would be tried in Nicaragua.
   The news conference took place before the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved President Reagan's request for $100 million in mostly military aid for the rebels, known as Contras.
   The two men said they came to the United States in the 1980 Mariel boatlift that brought thousands of Cubans to Florida in 1980. They said they were unemployed when they were approached in Miami in 1985 by a man who promised them up to $500 to fight in Nicaragua.
   One of the men, Mario Eugenio Rejas Lava, said he was recruited by a man who called himself Rene Cordo, a Cuban-American, who told him he would have lots of food in Nicaragua and that victory would be quick because the Sandinista army was demoralized.
   "We found the opposite to be true," Rejas Lava said. "There was no food or anything. When we were captured we were out of food and supplies."
   Rejas Lava, 33, said he was trained for a month beginning in June 1985 in a secret camp in the Everglades in south-central Florida.
   He said he did not know who financed or was in charge of the operation, but said he did not come into contact with anyone identified as a U.S. official.
   Ubaldo Hernandez Perez, the other man, said that while at a training camp in Costa Rica he had met a Cuban-American named Pedro Gil, who told him he was a former CIA agent.
   Hernandez Perez said he had been promised $500 to fight in Nicaragua by the same man who had recruited Rejas Lava, but that he had only received $150.
   During their time in training and inside Nicaragua they saw about a half- dozen other Cubans among the rebels, they said. Most of the combat, Rejas Lava said, consisted of ambushes by the rebels.
   "The Contras fire off four rounds and then run," he said. "That to me is not fighting."
   Rejas Lava said he was flown in an aircraft from Costa Rica to El Salvador, but did not say what he did or who he met there.
   Rejas Lava and Hernandez Perez said they had no passports and entered Costa Rica on tourist cards.
   The Nicaraguan Defense Ministry said on Tuesday the two men were captured separately in southeastern Nicaragua. A ministry communique said both "were recruited by the command of the mercenary forces of the American administration."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 26 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-US<
^URGENT Nicaraguan President Says Aid Approval Ratifies "Warlike" U.S. Policy With US-Nicaragua<
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega on Wednesday criticized the U.S. House of Representatives for approving $100 million in aid for Nicaraguan rebels, calling the vote a ratification of the "warlike" policy of the Reagan administration.
   Ortega, in a nationally televised news conference at his presidential offices, said the action brought the United States "to the brink of direct intervention by its troops in Nicaragua."
   The Democratic-controlled House voted 221-209 on Wednesday in favor of a plan for $70 million in military hardware and $30 million in non-lethal aid for the Contra rebels, who are fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government.
   The vote reversed the House's 222-210 defeat of a similar package three months ago.
   The Republican-controlled Senate must pass the bill before it can reach President Reagan.
   Ortega said his government will never talk with the Contras, whom he referred to as "the instruments of terror (and) the mercenary forces."
   The Reagan administration has insisted on talks between the leftist Sandinistas and the Contras.
   Ortega accused President Reagan of "acting worse than Hitler with his terrorist and fascist policy against Nicaragua, imposing it on international opinion and that of the North American people."
   "It is supposed that after this approval, the North American government will take new steps toward the breaking of relations with Nicaragua," he said.
   He said that "even though this approval will bring us more economic and material difficulties and more death, it does not terrify nor intimidate us."
   The Nicaraguan leader said the House vote "is a ratification of the warlike policy of the U.S. government that brings it to the brink of direct intervention by its troops in Nicaragua."
   Ortega also said the House had dealt "a very serious blow to the peace gestures of the Contadora group."
   The group, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama, have been working for three years to find a peace agreement acceptable to the five Central American countries.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 26 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-US
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega said Thursday his government will tighten internal security measures and strictly enforce Nicaragua's state of emergency, citing U.S. House approval of $100 million in aid to Contra rebels.
   Ortega made the announcement over nationwide radio and television from the presidential offices after a meeting with the nine commanders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which runs Nicaragua's leftist government.
   The U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday night in favor of giving $70 million in military aid and $30 million in non-lethal aid to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels in the next eight months. Little difficulty is expected in reconciling the bill with a Senate-approved version.
   Ortega said approval of the new aid "opens a new aggressive escalation that changes the international and domestic perspectives, which forces a revision of some policies to confront the new threats that exist."
   He said those changes would include "the strict and severe application of the state of emergency," which was imposed in 1982 and restricts personal freedoms and allows the government to censor the press.
   The Nicaraguan leader said the emergency regulations were "an effort to contribute to easing internal and regional tensions" but sometimes had been managed "with excessive flexibility."
   Ortega also said there would be "an increase and reinforcement of security measures to stop terrorist plans, through the strengthening of revolutionary vigilance and civil defense."
   He was apparently referring to the Sandinista Defense Committees, neighborhood groups the government says are the "eyes and ears of the revolution," and civil defense groups in factories, businesses and cooperatives.
   Ortega also said military draft quotas must be fulfilled "without excuses of any kind."
   Referring to the U.S.-backed Contra rebels, Ortega said his government "cannot permit those who sell out the nation to continue unpunished in their brazen function of agents of the North American government..."
   He did not elaborate further on what his government planned to do.
   A few hours before the announcement, Carlos Holmann, managing editor of La Prensa, the country's only opposition newspaper, said the Interior Ministry had sent a letter saying the newspaper was being closed "for an indefinite time."
   In a televised news conference Wednesday night, Ortega said the Contra aid was part of a "terrorist and fascist policy" that eventually will lead to U.S. military intervention.
   He said the aid package dealt a "very serious blow" to the efforts of Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Venezuela to negotiate a regional peace treaty. The Contras have had little success in their 4-year-old effort to overthrow Ortega's leftist Sandinista government, which took power in a coup in 1979. The guerrillas received covert CIA support from 1981-1984, but the new package would give them military aid openly for the first time.
   Reagan administration officials say the new aid is to pressure the Sandinistas into holding peace talks with Contra leaders.
   Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto said Thursday his goverment will respond by expanding its military forces, even though it "will cost many more deaths."
   D'Escoto, interviewed on on NBC-TV's "Today" show from The Hague, Netherlands, said his government's "number one priority ... is going to continue to be the defense of our sovereignty and territorial integrity."
   He said, "We will continue ... to rely on our own people, but there is no doubt that when it comes to military equipment that we don't manufacture, we are open to all peace-loving countries of the world to give us the help that we need to defend our sovereignty and independence."
   He refused to say whether this meant Nicaragua will seek additional military aid from the Soviet Union.
   The Sandinistas have about 100,000 soldiers, reserves and militia. They are better trained and better armed than the estimated 17,000 to 18,000 Contras.
   Most of the fighting has been in the mountains and countryside, with Contras operating in small groups that strike and then retreat to live off the land.
   A fleet of about 22 Soviet-made MI-24 attack helicopters also has given the Sandinista military a significant edge in the battle. The Contras say a top priority made possible by additional aid will be land-to-air missiles to combat the high-power helicopters.
   Contra training at their clandestine camps in southern Honduras also can be expected to improve.
   The Sandinistas portray the Contras as CIA stooges who have little popular support for their fight.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 27 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Impact
^Prolonged War, Crackdown on Dissent, in Sight for Nicaragua
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ More U.S. aid to Contra rebels is expected to make the long guerrilla war even tougher and the prospect already has brought a clampdown on internal dissent by the Sandinista government.
   Rebel leaders say $100 million in aid, approved Wednesday in the House of Representatives by a narrow vote of 221-209, will enable them to obtain new weapons quickly to fight the Sandinista military, which has far better training and equipment.
   They want to spend much of it on missiles with which to shoot down Sandinista attack helicopters and on better transport in Nicaragua's rugged mountain terrain.
   The government says its Soviet-equipped military forces will be expanded to meet the threat, which would put further pressure on an already strapped economy. Defense already takes 40 percent of the budget.
   An immediate result of the House vote was enforcement of a state of emergency in Nicaragua that was decreed last Oct. 15 but loosely applied.
   Sandinista authorities closed the only opposition newspaper, La Prensa, on Thursday and tightened security throughout the country on orders of President Daniel Ortega.
   Neither side has been predicting quick victory in the four-year-old guerrilla war, with or without more U.S. aid to the Contras. The conflict has left 15,000 Nicaraguans dead, wounded or missing, and done $2 billion in damage to this Central American nation's economy.
   The proposal for $70 million in military aid and $30 million in non-lethal assistance represents a significant increase from the $27 million in "humanitarian" aid approved in 1985. The bill goes to the Senate, which is expected to pass it.
   Contra leaders have said one of their priorities will be surface-to-air missiles for use against the government fleet of about 22 Soviet-made MI-24 attack helicopters. The Contras also are expected to improve their transportation and training and tryto open a southern front.
   Contra forces now operate almost exclusively from bases inside Honduras, along its border with northern Nicaragua.
   The Sandinistas have about 100,000 soldiers, reserves and militia, armed with modern weapons from the Soviet bloc.
   Government leaders portray the rebels as "CIA mercenaries," "Yankee imperialists" or simply "beasts," who operate without popular support.
   They have accused the Contras of atrocities. Reagan, who contends that Nicaragua is becoming a Soviet base, acknowledged in a speech Tuesday that the rebels had committed human rights abuses.
   Indalecio Rodrigures, a leader of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, said in a recent interview: "We have enough medicines, clothes and boots. The main things we need are surface-to-air missiles to attack the Sandinista helicopters. We also need artillery, mortars and RPGs (rocket propelled grenades)."
   Transportation is a major problem in the mountains that cover most of Nicaragua. Rebels generally travel on foot or by mule.
   The best way to resupply them is by air, but they have few serviceable aircraft.
   "We have clandestine airstrips in the central and south but sometimes we don't have the planes," Rodriguez said.
   No independent on rebel strength are available. Rodriguez cites 20,000-23,000, but Western diplomats estimate the total at 17,000-18,000.
   Miguel d'Escoto, Nicaragua's foreign minister, said Thursday the military will be strengthened.
   "... there is no doubt that, when it comes to military equipment that we don't manufacture, we are open to all peace-loving countries of the world to give us the help that we need to defend our sovereignty and independence," he said.
   He would not say whether that meant the Sandinistas would seek more Soviet military aid.
   D'Escoto was interviewed on on NBC-TV's "Today" show from The Hague, Netherlands.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 28 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Ortega
^Ortega Calls House Vote on Rebel Aid a 'Declaration of War' With AM-Nicaragua-Dissent, Bjt
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The vote by the U.S. House of Representatives to send $100 million in aid to Nicaraguan rebels is a "declaration of war by the United States against Nicaragua," according to President Daniel Ortega.
   "War ... will be met by war," he told an estimated 20,000 people at a rally Friday night in Managua's Ana Maria Plaza.
   He said his Sandinista government "has the right, the moral obligation, to give to the Nicaraguan people all the arms necessary to defend the revolution."
   Ortega's speech was frequently interrupted by chants of "Here, there, the Yankees will die."
   The House on Wednesday approved President Reagan's request for $70 million in military assistance and $30 million in non-lethal aid for the rebels, known as Contras. The Senate earlier approved its own version of the aid package.
   Ortega also praised a decision by the International Court of Justice condemning U.S. support for the rebels. The court, based in the Hague, ruled Friday that the U.S. aid was a violation of international law.
   The court "has indicated with all clarity who is the assassin, who is at fault, and has pointed to the government of the United States for its terrorist policy against Nicaragua," Ortega said.
   In its ruling, the court also said the United States must pay reparations to Nicaragua.
   The decision ended 26 months of court proceedings, which the United States announced in January 1985 it would ignore. The court, an agency of the United Nations, has no enforcement powers and depends on voluntary compliance with its rulings.
   Ortega said that in the five years the rebels have been battling the government, 14,000 fighters on both sides have been killed. "Of that number, 4,303 were combatants defending the fatherland" and the others were rebels. He made no mention of civilian casualties.
   The Sandinistas came to power in July 1979 after defeating the rightist government of President Anastasio Somoza.
   Ortega defended his government's decision Thursday to close La Prensa, Nicaragua's only opposition newspaper, and to strictly enforce the 4-year-old state of emergency.
   "There is too much blood, pain and sacrifice to remain tolerant of those who ... in the name of pluralism and freedom of the press, try to open an internal front in favor of aggression," he said.
   Ortega added that if Reagan "has so much love for the newspaper La Prensa, for some political groups, private enterprise or for some cardinal or bishop, he should stop his hostilities against Nicaragua."
   A number of Roman Catholic church leaders, including Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the archbishop of Managua, and Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega in central Chontales province, have frequently criticized the government.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 1 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Folksters
^Peter, Paul and Mary Protest U.S. Involvement in Nicaragua
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Peter, Paul and Mary, the American folk trio that 20 years ago protested the Vietnam war, played to sellout crowds here and condemned the Reagan administration's support for Contra rebels fighting the Sandinista government.
   At an emotional news conference Monday night, Paul Stookey recounted an encounter with a Nicaraguan priest:
   "(He) took a white flower from a vase. He said, 'We give to you, Paul, this white flower. It is a sign of peace. We ask you to take it to the American people and please ask them not to pour our blood on it.'"
   Sunday night, the trio revived such old favorites as "Puff the Magic Dragon" and "If I Had a Hammer" before a crowd of 2,000 people that included President Daniel Ortega's wife, Rosario Murillo, and hundreds of Sandinista soldiers.
   From a makeshift wooden stage in a circus tent, they sang in the tropical heat of the bloodshed and tragedy of war with numbers including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and "Blowing in the Wind."
   A Nicaraguan translated some lyrics into Spanish, and the crowd joined in with the chorus.
   Later, Peter Yarrow told the audience he was ashamed that the House of Representatives had approved $100 million in aid to the Contras.
   Ms. Murillo, who is a poet, called the trio "ambassadors of peace, love and understanding."
   In an interview Monday, Yarrow said the group paid its own way to perform in the embattled Central American nation.
   Mary Travers, also present during the interview, said the United States learned a lesson from the Vietnam war because instead of sending U.S. troops to fight "we now buy mercenaries."
   Peter, Paul and Mary are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year. They split up in 1972 but got back together again in 1978 to perform for about 50 days each year.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 1 1986
^AM-Nicaragua
^Officials Paper Says Priest Banned For 'Defaming' Revolution
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The government barred a senior Roman Catholic priest from returning to Nicaragua because he slandered the leftist Sandinista revolution, the official newspaper Barricada said Tuesday.
   Monsignor Bismark Carballo, the spokesman for the Catholic church in Nicaragua, was changing planes in Miami last Saturday to come back to Managua after a trip to Europe when an airline official told him of the government's decision to bar him.
   The leftist Sandinista government has expelled several foreign priests from the country or prevented them from returning, but this was the first time that a Nicaraguan clergyman was kept out of the country.
   The article in Barricada, voice of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, was the first public explanation of the decision.
   It said Carballo "conducted an open and strong campaign" in support of $100 million in new U.S. aid to rebels fighting the Nicaraguan government.
   The cleric "conducted propaganda action totally against the Nicaraguan people and defamed and slandered the revolution through different communications  media," the paper said.
   The new aid package for the Contra rebels was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 25. The Senate approved a slightly different version of the package earier in the year and has yet to vote on the House version.
   Church leaders at first supported the 1979 Sandinista revolution that overthrew the dictatorial government of President Anastasio Somoza. However, they have become increasingly critical of the government, accusing it of violating human and individual rights in an effort to impose Marxism in the country.
   In Vatican City, Managua's archbishop, Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo, assailed the action against Carballo.
   "I consider it deplorable that Nicaraguan priests are forbidden their rights to live in and re-enter the country," Obando Bravo said in an interview broadcast on Vatican Radio. "The government has said that it would be tough with all those who speak badly of the revolution while abroad."
   Asked about the House approval of new aid to the Contras, Obando Bravo said, "The Church has always maintained that all problems must be solved by peaceful and civil means. We have said that the church and Catholics do not want instruments of death to arrive in our country from any source."
   Meanwhile, six opposition parties met privately Tuesday to analyze the government's new crackdown on internal security.
   "This new situation worries us ... since we fear that it could get worse," Erick Ramirez, president of the Social Christian Party, told The Associated Press on Monday.
   The Liberal Independent, Constitutionalist Liberal, Conservative of Nicaragua, Authentic Democratic Conservative and Social Democratic parties also took part in the meeting. They had no immediate public comment on their discussions.
   Ramirez said Interior Minister Tomas Borge visited him last Saturday at party headquarters and assured him that the government will permit political activity. But Ramirez said the new situation "could reach to us, despite the fact that our struggle is civic."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 2 1986
^PM-Nicaragua
^Opposition Says Country in Worst Crisis in Its History
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Opponents of the leftist Sandinista government are publicly calling for new elections and making several other demands despite President Daniel Ortega's vow to clamp down on dissent.
   Leaders of the Nicaraguan Democratic Coordinate, an opposition alliance, issued a series of demands Tuesday in a written statement distributed to reporters at the headquarters of the Social Christian Party.
   The group demanded the government open discussions on holding "free, direct, equal and secret elections;" reopen the sole opposition newspaper, La Prensa; end threats against opposition leaders; and stop exerting pressure on the Roman Catholic Church.
   They also demanded that the church's spokesman, Monsignor Bismarck Carballo, be allowed to return to Nicaragua.
   "Nicaragua is suffering in these moments the most serious crisis of its history. Civil war is a reality in a great part of the national territory," their joint statement said. "A dialogue of national reconciliation  is the only alternative to save Nicaragua from the catastrophe that is drawing closer."
   Founded two years ago, the opposition alliance includes 12 organizations, including four opposition parties, two private enterprise groups, and labor unions.
   Ramiro Gurdian of the Union of Agricultural and Cattle Producers said opposition leaders have received frequent threats in anonymous telephone calls. He said he received four such calls Tuesday.
   "They say I talk a lot and that an accident may happen to me," Gurdian said. "I can't say if the calls were from state security or if they were a joke."
   Despite Ortega's warning last week that the government would not tolerate internal opposition, Erick Ramirez, the president of the Social Christian Party, said "the fact that we are here at this press conference shows clearly we are not afraid to declare our points of view."
   The government toughened its stance against the opposition after the U.S. House of Representatives approved last Wednesday $100 million in aid for Nicaraguan rebels, known as Contras.
   The next day the government closed La Prensa, saying it was a mouthpiece of the Reagan administration.
   On Saturday, the government barred Carballo from returning to Nicaragua after a trip abroad. The Sandinista newspaper Barricada made the first public explanation of the action on Tuesday.
   Barricada said Carballo was barred from returning because "he conducted an open and strong campaign in favor of approval of the $100 million in aid, that he conducted propaganda action totally against the Nicaraguan people and defamed and slandered the revolution through different communications media."
   In Vatican City, Managua's archbishop, Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, assailed the action against Carballo.
   "I consider it deplorable that Nicaraguan priests are forbidden their rights to live in and re-enter the country," he said in an interview broadcast on Vatican Radio.
   Asked about the House approval of new aid to the Contras, Obando y Bravo said, "The Church has always maintained that all problems must be solved by peaceful and civil means. We have said that the church and Catholics do not want instruments of death to arrive in our country from any source."
   While church leaders at first supported the Sandinista revolution that overthrew President Anastasio Somoza in 1979, they have become increasingly critical of the government. They have accused the government of violating human and individual rights in an effort to impose Marxism on Nicaragua.
   Ramirez said opposition leaders would not curtail their criticism of the government, and would continue traveling abroad despite the action against Carballo.
   The Sandinistas National Liberation Front, has "abandoned political pluralism, mixed economy and non-alignment, fundamental pillars on which democracy in Nicaragua should be constructed," the opposition statement said.
   Ortega was elected president in 1984, but some opposition parties did not participate, citing a lack of a free press and the harassment of opposition candidates by mobs of Sandinista youths.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 5 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Church
^Ortega Says Expelled Bishop Can Return When There's Peace
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega said Saturday that Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega, expelled by the leftist Sandinista government a day earlier, could return to his homeland when there is peace in Nicaragua.
   Ortega, in a speech in Juigalpa where the exiled Vega had been based, also said the nation's only opposition newspaper would remain closed until "the war is over."
   The government closed the La Prensa newspaper on June 27, two days after the U.S. House of Representatives approved a $100 million aid package for the Contra rebels seeking to overthrow the Sandinistas.
   Ortega charged that La Prensa was a mouthpiece for the Reagan administration and said: "We defend freedom of the press and freedom of thought. But we won't allow freedom of the press or freedom of thought to be used in defense of terrorism ... and counter-revolutionary activities." Part of his speech was broadcast on the government radio, the Voice of Nicaragua.
   An editorial Saturday in the government newspaper Barricada called Vega an "imperialist instrument bathed in blood."
   Vega was the second Nicaraguan clergyman banned from the country in a week, heightening tensions between the government and the Roman Catholic Church.
   The government announced Friday that it suspended Vega's right to remain in Nicaragua, saying he had openly backed President Reagan's campaign to aid the Contras and was "an accomplice of the U.S. government's policy of terror and crime against Nicaragua."
   Two days before his expulsion, the prelate told reporters that the anti- Sandinista rebels have a right to fight for their freedom.
   The day after the House vote, the government said it would enforce a four- year-old state of emergency and crack down on opposition groups. Under the emergency, the government can banish or deport anyone, restrict travel, jail people without trial and censor the press.
   Vega, 66, bishop of the central province of Chontales, was granted political asylum Friday in neighboring Honduras.
   The Catholic Church issued a statement in which it expressed "solidarity and esteem" for Vega and Monsignor Bismarck Carballo, a church spokesman who was barred from returning to Nicaragua June 28 after a trip to Europe.
   Pope John Paul II, on a visit to Colombia, said he was deeply saddened by Vega's expulsion. "I would like to hope that those responsible ... will reconsider the gravity of such a measure, which also contradicts the repeated claims of wanting a peaceful and respectful coexistence with the church," he said.
   A secretary for Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the archbishop of Managua, said he was out of the capital meeting with the church's bishops and unavailable to speak to reporters.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 6 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Church
^Catholic Prelates Blast Nicaraguan Government
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Two Roman Catholic prelates in Central America criticized the government of Nicaragua on Sunday for its recent actions against church leaders.
   In El Salvador, Monsignor Gregorio Rosa Chavez, auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, said it was disgraceful that the Sandinistas had expelled Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega, a prominent critic of the Sandinista government.
   Vega, 66, was accused of openly sympathizing with the Reagan administration, which supports the Nicaraguan rebels in their four-year-old fight to overthrow the Sandinistas. Following his expulsion Friday, he was granted asylum in Honduras.
   In Managua, Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Nicaragua, said the closing of the country's only opposition newspaper means the end of freedom of expression here.
   Obando y Bravo, speaking to reporters after Mass at the Church of Santo Domingo, also called the expulsion of Vega "a violation of human rights."
   Vega, he said, was expelled "for having denounced things that the government did not like."
   On June 29, Monsignor Bismarck Carballo, spokesman for the church in Nicaragua, was prevented from returning home by a banishment order that accused him of sympathizing with the rebels.
   Carballo had been visiting Europe and was not allowed to board an airplane in Miami for the last leg of the flight to Nicaragua. Airline officials said the government had barred him from re-entering the country.
   In his homily, Rosa Chavez said these and other related actions by the Sandinistas had turned the church in Nicaragua "into a church of silence."
   Although 10 priests have been expelled from Nicaragua since the Sandinistas seized power in 1979, this was the first time such actions were taken against native Nicaraguan clergymen.     It was also part of a widening crackdown against dissidents and opponents of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua since June 25 when the U.S. House of Representatives approved $100 million in aid to the rebels. A similar aid proposal is pending in the Senate, which reconvenes Monday.
   On June 27, the Sandinista government closed Nicaragua's only opposition newspaper, La Prensa, accusing it of being the mouthpiece of the Reagan administration. President Daniel Ortega charged that La Prensa was siding with the United States against the Sandinistas.
   La Prensa and church leaders supported the Sandinista revolution that overthrew President Anastasio Somoza, the strongman whose family ruled Nicaragua for 42 years, but they have become increasingly critical of what they say are the Sandinistas' efforts to turn Nicaragua into a Marxist state.
   Obando y Bravo said freedom of expression was "already shut off" before the expulsions.
   The government "gave a blow against La Prensa. That was the last speck of freedom. Freedom of expression here is over."
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 8 1986
^PM-Nicaragua
^Opposition Parties Criticize U.S. Aid to Contras
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Six opposition political parties charged that U.S. military aid for Contra rebels fighting the leftist Sandinista government will cause "more violence and pain for Nicaraguans."
   In a joint statement issued Monday, the parties also repeated an earlier call to the Sandinistas to open talks with political opponents, although they said the Contras should be barred from any such talks.
   The parties' statement was prompted by the June 25 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives supporting President Reagan's plan to send $100 million in mostly military aid to the Contras. The measure now goes to the Senate, where it is believed assured of passage.
   Since the House vote, Nicaragua's leaders have closed the only opposition newspaper indefinitely, barred one Roman Catholic priest who has criticized the government from returning home, and expelled a bishop.
   Erick Ramirez, president of the Social Christian Party, told a news conference at Social Democrat Party headquarters that the Sandinista leaders "are deepening the totalitarian project under the pretext of the House vote."
   "The decision by the United States Congress to militarily support Nicaraguan insurgent groups and the repressive response of (the Sandinista government) only strengthens the military options and ... consequently presages more violence and pain for Nicaraguans," the parties said in their statement.
   They urged the government to reopen the opposition La Prensa newspaper and to allow Monsignor Bismarck Carballo, spokesman for the church in Nicaragua, and Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega back into the country.
   Carballo was barred from coming home after a trip to Europe, and Vega received asylum in neighboring Honduras after being expelled Friday.
   Sandinista refusal to take those steps "evidently signifies the government does not want peace and wants the war to continue," Ramirez said.
   Joining the Social Christians and Social Democratics in issuing the statement were the Christian Democratic Party, the Conservative Party of Nicaragua, the Independent Liberal Party and the Constitutional Liberal Party.
   The six parties submitted a proposal to the government on Jan. 30 for talks but never received a response, said Julio Ramon Garcia Bilchez, vice president of the Social Christians.
   The last official talks between the opposition and the Sandinistas took place in November 1984, about five years after the Sandinistas came to power, and were "unilaterally suspended" by the government, he said.
   Since then, the two sides have held informal meetings under the sponsorship of the Spanish ambassador to Nicaragua, but no agreements were reached.
   The opposition leaders said they would not submit the proposal in writing this time but were relying on news coverage to relay their request.
   Mario Rappaccioli, president of the Conservative Party, said that given the Sandinistas' reaction to the House vote, it would be "a miracle" if they agreed to meet with domestic political opponents.
   The Reagan administration has said it would stop backing the rebel Contras if the Sandinistas agree to negotiate with the Contra leaders.
   But Virgilio Godoy, president of the Independent Liberal Party, said the Contras should be excluded from talks between the Sandinistas and their opponents.
   "We insist this be a civilian dialogue between political parties, not between military forces in the field," Godoy said.
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Jul 13 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Church
^Cardinal urges Nicaraguan Faithful to Love Their Enemies
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo asked Roman Catholics Sunday to pray for the return of two priests exiled by the Sandinista government and said the faithful should "love an enemy ... who has wronged you."
   Since June 28, the left-wing Sandinistas have sent into exile Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega and barred Monsignor Bismarck Carballo from returning to the country.
   Fourteen foreign Catholic priests have been forced to leave the country, but Vega and Carballo were the first Nicaraguan-born clergymen exiled or banned since the Sandinistas gained power in July 1979.
   "The Christian people must play the role of the Good Samaritan, and continually pray (for Vega and Carballo) so that God helps them and they can return to work in their homeland," Obando y Bravo, a sharp critic of the Sandinistas, said in a Mass.
   "It is difficult to love your enemy," he added. "You, at this moment, can think of who my enemies are. To love kind people is easy, but to love your enemy, this is difficult; an enemy who has wonged you, who has slandered you and insulted you and who puts your life in danger."
   "As Christians, we must love the enemy," he said.
   Vega, 66, as vice president of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference of 10 bishops, is the second highest prelate after Obando y Bravo. The Sandinistas accused him of backing President Reagan's campaign to provide aid to Nicaraguan rebels and deported him July 4.
   Carballo, the church spokesman in Nicaragua, was accused of anti-Sandinista "propaganda" and prevented from returning to the country June 28 after a trip to Europe.
   The action against the two clergymen followed the U.S. House of Representatives' approval on June 25 of $100 million in military aid to the rebels and the government's closure of the newspaper La Prensa, the only opposition daily in the country.
   The Sandinistas accused the newspaper of being "a mouthpiece" of the Reagan administration and called the two clergymen "instruments of the hostile politics of the United States against Nicaragua."
   Pope John Paul II has criticized the actions against Vega and Carballo as "an almost incredible act evoking the dark ages of actions taken against the church ... that were reasonably believed overcome."
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Jul 13 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Refugees
^Two Nicaraguan Refugees Slip from One Embassy into Another
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Two Nicaraguans who were living as political refugees in a Venezuelan Embassy house fled and entered the Honduran Embassy at gunpoint, a diplomat said Sunday.
   Cipriano Fuentes, the Venezuelan Embassy press attache, told The Associated Press that seven Nicaraguan refugees remain in the Venezuelan house, including two officers of the National Guard that was disbanded after the Sandinistas gained power in July 1979.
   Fuentes identified the two refugees who left the house Friday night as Maximo Roussel Suarez, a Cuban-trained former military counter-intelligence officer, and Roger Montes Areas, a member of the U.S.-supported Nicaraguan Democratic Force rebel group, both 24 years old.
   He said the men, dressed in Sandinista army fatigues, showed up at the Honduran Embassy and brandished pistols to get past Nicaraguan military guards outside the building.
   Fuentes said he did not know where the men got the pistols and uniforms, or why they left the Venezuelan Embassy house.
   The house was rented by the embassy last year to accomodate the nine, who had sought political asylum at the Venezuelan diplomatic mission.
   A Nicaraguan soldier is constantly posted outside the Venezuelan building, but Fuentes said Roussel Suarez and Montes Areas probably slipped away by climbing a back wall.
   A man who answered the telephone at the Honduran Embassy refused to confirm or deny the report. He said the embassy was closed for the weekend.
   Fuentes said that when Roussel Suarez sought refuge in the Venezuelan Embassy last May, he claimed he was an army counter-intelligence officer from 1981 to 1984 and had received six months' training in Cuba.
   Montes Areas fled to the Venezuelan Embassy last November, claiming he was doing undercover work with another member of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force in Leon, 40 miles northwest of Managua, and decided to seek refuge when his fellow rebel was captured, Fuentes said.
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Force is one of several groups fighting to overthrow the Sandinista who won the civil war in 1979 and ousted the conservative regime of President Anastasio Somoza, whose family had ruled the country for 42 years.
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Jul 17 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Asylum
^Venezuelan Embassy Houses Ex-National Guard Officers An AP Extra
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Asssociated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ As the revolutionary Sandinista government prepares to celebrate its seventh anniversary in power, two men in self-imposed confinement inside a Venezuelan Embassy building are hoping for its fall.
   The two, Orlando Gutierrez and Mario Guerra Palacios, are former officers of the national guard that brutally propped up the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza.
   They have kept themselves in confinement since the Sandinista guerrillas, backed by a groundswell of popular support, overwhelmed the national guard and forced Somoza to flee the country on July 17, 1979.
   The two officers, along with dozens of others, sought political asylum in various embassies. Gutierrez, a colonel, and Guerra Palacios, a captain, went to the embassy of El Salvador, and in 1981 were moved to a tumble-down annex of the Venezuelan mission.
   Other guardsmen who sought asylum have been given safe passage out of Nicaragua. But as the Sandinistas celebrate on Saturday the seventh anniversary of their march into Managua, Gutierrez and Guerra Palacios will be marking their seventh year in self-imposed confinement.
   Having been denied safe passage out of the country, Gutierrez and Guerra Palacios say there is only one hope left for them.
   "Only if President Reagan comes in and wipes out these Communists will we be free," Gutierrez said. "Either that, or we will end up dying here."
   The Reagan administration has supported the Contra guerrillas fighting the Sandinistas for the past four years.
   Angela Saballos, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said former guardsmen in embassies who were not accused of any crime were granted safe passage. She said only those charged with serious crimes, such as murder or torture, remain.
   Gutierrez was the warden of Modelo prison outside Managua in the 1960s and is widely believed to have approved of the torture of prisoners there.
   However, Ms. Saballos, and an offical she telephoned at the Justice Ministry, were unable to list any specific charges against Gutierrez and Guerra Palacios.
   A Venezuelan diplomat who spoke on condition he not be identified said nine Nicaraguans who are seeking or have been granted asylum by the Venezuelan government have been living in two embassy houses. Gutierrez and Guerra Palacios have been there the longest.
   Two of the nine slipped away and entered the Honduran Embassy by forcing their way at gunpoint past Nicaraguan military guards outside on Friday night.
   On Tuesday, an opposition member of the National Assembly, Conservative Democratic Party member Felix Pedro Espinoza Briones, sought political asylum in the embassy, hours before the assembly was to begin proceedings against him in an arson case. He was accused of burning down his own ranch in northern Nicaraguan.
   Gutierrez, 61, has suffered two heart attacks in confinement, due, he says, to the strain of not knowing if he ever will be free.
   "Here you die a little every day, because you know you live here entirely alone, protected only by a flag and an emblem," he said, referring to the Venezuelan flag outside the building and the embassy's emblem.
   "This house is a tomb, because no one is interested in getting us out of here - no human rights groups, no one," Gutierrez added,
   The house the former guardsmen live in is on a back street, always guarded by a Sandinista soldier.
   The two men are afraid that if they leave the building, they will be arrested and will join 2,300 former national guard soldiers that, according to a human rights group's figures, are in Sandinista prisons.
   Photographs of Gutierrez's wife and six children, four of whom now live in San Francisco and in Miami, are on the wall.
   The embassy official said Gutierrez is "emotionally destroyed" and sometimes sinks into deep depression and weeps for hours.
   "He says he will never get out and will die in that house," the diplomat said.
   Guerra Palacios has kept himself busy by studying radio and television repair, and in May completed a correspondence course in electronics.
   He says he hopes the Sandinista government will allow him out of the country as a gesture of goodwill, but if that falls through, he will start studying refrigerator and air conditioning repair.
   His wife sees him every visiting day, on Tuesdays, and he has tried to make his room look like an apartment.
   "I don't want to feel like I'm in a prison," he said. "I'd rather feel like I'm in a luxury hotel."
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Jul 17 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Helicopters
^Sandinistas confirm Soviet Helicopters Arrived
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The leftist Sandinista government recently received a shipment of military helicopters from the Soviet Union, army intelligence chief Capt. Ricardo Wheelock confirmed Thursday.
   President Daniel Ortega, meanwhile, inaugurated a direct telephone line to the Soviet Union via satellite. He talked by phone with Nicaragua's ambassador in Moscow, Ernesto Castillo.
   The $1.5 million earth station for the Intersputnik satellite system was constructed by Nicaraguans with Cuban and Soviet technical advisers. It is located in an extinct volcanic crater 4 miles northwest of the capital.
   President Reagan charged during his campaign to obtain congressional approval for $100 million in aid to the Contra rebels that the earth station would be used for Soviet espionage in North America.
   But in his phone conversation with Castillo, Ortega said the charges "only fit in the mind of Reagan." He said that with the earth station, his government was "exercising the right of the Nicaraguan people to have communications with the entire world."
   Officials of Nicatelsat, the government communications company, said the first links with the earth station would be to the Soviet Union and Cuba.
   An earth station of the Intelsat system linking Nicaragua with the United States was built in the same crater in 1972. Then, the government was run by the pro-American Somoza family, deposed by the Sandinistas in July 1979.
   Wheelock, in his news conference, criticized the foreign media for its coverage of the helicopters.
   "They call them communist helicopters - as if technology has an ideology," Wheelock said. "El Salvador has 74 helicopters (from the United States) and Honduras has more than 130 helicopters, and no one says anything about it."
   He said all nations have the right to obtain any type of arms they want and as "a sovereign country we don't have to answer to anybody."
   "Recently," Wheelock said, "The New York Times said Nicaragua had acquired a certain amount of helicopers, which is true."
   While Wheelock did not identify the type or number of helicopters received, The Times last week quoted unidentified diplomats and military specialists in Managua as saying 15 new MI-17 helicopters that carry up to 32 people arrived in early May at the ports of Corinto and Bluefields.
   The air force was believed to have seven or eight MI-17 helicopters before the shipments began.
   "A diplomat who closely watches the Sandinista military said the shipments appeared to be continuing. He estimated that as many as 10 more helicopters might arrive in Nicaragua in the coming weeks," The Times reported.
   Wheelock said the report was filled with "a lot of propaganda."
   "It would not worry us if Honduras had 100,000 helicopters or if El Salvador had 40,000 helicopters," he said.
   Wheelock also said the United States regularly makes spy flights over Nicaragua and turns over intelligence on Sandinista troop movements to anti- government rebels. He said the United States flew 121 spy flights from January to July 11.
   Wheelock also charged that U.S. intelligence officials use an airplane he identified as an R-635 to eavesdrop on military and civilian radio and telephone traffic.
   With the U-2 spy plane, he said, U.S. intelligence analysts are able to pinpoint locations of Sandinista troops and weapons emplacements. The cameras are so sharp, he said, that "if one flew over this morning and photographed me, they would be able to tell if I shaved or not."
   Wheelock said 11 U-2 planes have appeared off Nicaragua this year, including one he identified as an RLB-24, based in Panama, which can jam Sandinista radio communications signals.
   He said Nicarguan missile batteries have not fired on the planes because that might provoke U.S. intervention in the six-year conflict between the Sandinistas and the U.S.-supported rebels.
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Jul 19 1986
^AM-Sandinista Anniversary
^Nicaraguans Celebrate Seventh Anniversary of Revolution
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   ESTELI, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega denounced "American terrorist policies" in a speech Saturday to an estimated 15,000 people at a rally on the seventh anniversary of the Sandinistas' victory.
   The area was heavily guarded and troops were reinforced in the region to prevent any attack by U.S.-supported rebels. Ten Soviet-made armored personnel carriers with machine guns lined a side of the dirt plaza outside this northern city where the rally was held.
   Ortega, wearing a green uniform, also said he would ask the U.N. Security Council to force the United States to abide by a World Court decision.
   "We went to the court and the United States government, acting like a delinquent, ignored the law," Ortega told the crowd.
   The World Court in the Hague ruled June 27 that the United States violated international law by supporting the Nicaraguan rebels and said Washington should pay reparations. The United States said it would not abide by the ruling.
   Ortega said he would give the United States until July 27 to respond, and then would go to the Security Council.
   The court, the legal arm of the United Nations, has no power to enforce its rulings and must rely on voluntary compliance. The Security Council has enforcement power, but the United States, as one of the five permanent members, can veto any council action.
   There were reports, which could not be confirmed, at the United Nations Friday that Nicaragua would ask for a council meeting sometime during the last week in July and that Ortega would go to New York to address the council.
   Ortega, speaking from a makeshift podium on a hot, breezy day, charged that President Reagan was copying Nero and Hitler "by murdering the Nicaraguan people."
   He said said 31,290 people had been killed or wounded in the war against the rebels, and called them "victims of the political aggression of the United States." The Reagan administration is following a "strategy of death," he said, and that would mean increased military activity throughout Nicaragua.
   "This is their plan of peace for Nicaragua, Central America, Latin America and the world," Ortega said. "By using mercenary forces, they plan to keep killing workers, doctors...."
   Referring to U.S. claims that Nicaragua exports Marxist revolution, Ortega said: "We don't want a war in Central America. We don't want direct U.S. intervention in Nicaragua, because that would mean total war in all of Central America."
   He also discussed internal problems and shortages, saying food must be supplied first to the combatants.
   "In the future there will be more difficulties, but we won't surrender for hunger," he said.
   Ortega traveled to Esteli in a four-wheel drive vehicle escorted by two Soviet-made MI-24 helicopter gunships. Thousands of people traveled in a caravan to the tobacco-growing area.
   Black and red banners of the governing Sandinista National Liberation Front and blue and white national flags hung from streetlights leading into this city of 30,000.
   July 19 marks the date the Sandinistas ended their guerrilla fight, deposed pro-American dictator Anastasio Somoza and marched triumphantly into Managua in 1979 backed by a sea of popular support.
   Food shortages, skyrocketing inflation and an overall economic crisis have led to some disenchantment with the revolution. Civil liberties have been curtailed under a lingering state of emergency, which the government says is necessary because of a war financed by the United States.
   American-armed and trained anti-communist guerrillas are attempting to overthrow the Sandinistas. The government puts the war's death toll at more than 14,000.
   Dignitaries from the diplomatic community attended the festivities. U.S. Ambassador Harry Bergold chose not to attend.
   The Sandinista newspaper Barricada said visitors inclued Vice President Moraslav Toman of Czechoslovakia, Vice President Mohamed Shahabuddeen of Guyana and Libyan Foreign Minister Kamal Hassan al-Mansour.
   The Iranian government, in a paid pro-government newspaper advertisement, said: "Salutatations to the sacred blood of the heroes and martyrs of liberty."
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Jul 26 1986
^AM-Doctors-Nicaragua
^Soviet Doctors Kept Busy in Nicaraguan Countryside An AP Extra
^With LaserPhoto
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
^    EDITOR'S NOTE - American and Soviet doctors are at work only about 150 miles from each other in Central America. The Americans in Honduras and the Soviets in neighboring Nicaragua are kept apart by ideology, politics and conflict, but their missions are the same - treating the poor of the countryside. Associated Press correspondents visited both and filed these dispatches. ----
   CHINANDEGA, Nicaragua (AP) _ On a lush coastal plain in the shadow of smoking volcanoes stands the new Soviet-Nicaraguan Friendship Hospital, a single-story building and a cluster of military-style tents.
   Inside, 60 Soviet doctors and nurses are treating hundreds of patients a day for diseases and in some cases for combat wounds.
   The hospital is one of the most overt signs of the Soviet presence in Nicaragua.
   A bright red hammer-and-sickle flag flaps on a flagpole alongside those of Nicaragua and of the governing Sandinista National Liberation Front.
   "People from all over Nicaragua come to this hospital," said Vladimir Chugaynov, an interpreter for the physicians escorting an American reporter and photographer. "All the patient care is paid for by the Soviet Union."
   The 100-bed hospital is usually full, and on this day had 94 patients, Chugayov said.
   The hospital's hallways and grounds were crowded with bandaged and sick Nicaraguan men and women, many of them elderly, and children.
   The physicians were described as being civilians who came to Nicaragua voluntarily, most of them for one-year tours, said Sergei Krutikoff, a surgeon who said he arrived here two months ago from Vilnius in Soviet Lithuania.
   Asked why he volunteered, Krutikoff replied: "It is hard to say exactly why I came. I heard Nicaragua was very interesting because of its geography and flora. But I also knew the people here had just completed a revolution, and I wanted to see how they are doing and to help them."
   Soviet-made helicopters sometimes bring in Sandinista soldiers wounded in clashes with the U.S.-backed Contra rebels, but such cases are rare, Krutikoff said, because Sandinista hospitals are closer to the war zone.
   The hospital is the only Soviet one in the country, although Soviet physicians work in other parts of Nicaragua, Chugaynov said.
   Although the two physicians on duty, Krutikoff and Boris Nanav, gave a tour of one wing of the hospital and the tents outside, a Soviet who said he was a translator politely prevented visitors from entering the main section of the hospital, saying it was being cleaned.
   Krutikoff said he treats an average of 60 patients a day.
   "People who live here have almost no medical care," he said. "Their illnesses are very simple, and they are not common in developed countries."
   Nanav, a native of Saratov in southern Russia, said he volunteered to come to Nicaragua because "it is a poor country that needs solutions quickly."
   Told of U.S. Army doctors working with people in neighboring Honduras, Krutikoff said that if the United States and the Soviet Union did not have so many political problems, "we would have a chance to speak with the American doctors in Honduras and work together in medicine, instead of spending so much money on weapons."
   The United States gives financial aid to the Contras fighting to overthrow the Sandinistas. The Soviet Union is sending aid, including weapons, to the Sandinistas.
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Jul 30 1986
^AM-Downtown Managua
^Downtown Managua Left a Void by 1972 Earthquake
^With LaserPhoto
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A recent movie showed an airliner coming in for a landing at Managua. Below was a city crowded with skyscrapers, a teeming metropolis.
   The scene was filmed somewhere else. Managua isn't like that. Its heart was destroyed by an earthquake 13 1/2  years ago and it largely remains that way, with squatters living in the ruins, like survivors of some sort of holocaust.
   About 100 buildings, including the nation's largest Roman Catholic cathedral, are still the skeletons they became when the earthquake destroyed about 600 central blocks Dec. 23, 1972, killing more than 10,000 people.
   The pyramid-shaped Hotel Intercontinental that once housed the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes is one of the buildings that still stand here and there. But buildings that once housed  businesses, shops and doctors' offices lie in rubble.
   A dozen tanks and armored personnel carriers used by the Somoza government in its losing battle against the Sandinista guerrillas in 1979 lie rusting in a lot overgrown with weeds. Anti-American and revolutionary slogans are painted on most walls. A colorful block-long mural depicts, among other things, a figure representing death cloaked in an American flag.
   Cars rush past the devastated downtown area on wide thoroughfares. There is no traffic on the cracked, pot-holed side streets that now go nowhere.
   Some of the downtown has been converted into parks, but probably because few people live or work in the area, they are largely deserted and ill-kept.
   Instead of being a nucleus for the city, the downtown area is a void. The heart of Managua has been removed and no one has put another one in its place.
   Although the leftist Sandinista government says it has big plans to build a new downtown and some tentative steps toward revival have been taken, it will be at least a decade before construction begins on a large scale, according to Fernando Morales, a city planner.
   The project has a low priority for a government that is fighting U.S.-backed insurgents in a war that reportedly eats up at least half the national budget. The economy here never had recovered from the revolutionary war that ousted Anastasio Somoza from the presidency in July, 1979.
   But the government and private business have made some improvements, mostly near Lake Managua where there now is a promenade.
   From the ruins of what used to be a medical laboratory, Guillermo Campos can hear hammers pounding as construction workers a block away restore a government office building.
   City planner Morales said in an interview it is one of three that have been or are on the way to being rebuilt by the Sandinista government. The government also has filled several flattened city blocks with low-cost, two- story townhouses, which are mostly occupied by government workers.
   Campos, a night watchman for a restaurant, has lived in the concrete shell of the laboratory for four years with his wife and six children.
   "I hope the government does not remove us so it can rebuild this house," Campos told a visitor. "Right now it is calm here. There are no problems."
   In place of curtains on his bedroom window, Campos has stacked chunks of concrete onto the ledge. Large sections of the walls and part of the roof have tumbled down, as if the building sustained heavy bombardment. Two chickens strut along the dirt floor.
   From the roof of the building, Campos pointed out neighboring ruins and said they are all occupied by squatters. A half-dozen women washed clothes at an outdoor water faucet a half-block away, the only source of water for the neighborhood.
   About 10 minutes' walk from Campos's house, workmen are building a discotheque next to a popular steakhouse called Los Antojitos.
   The manager, Edgar Garcia Ponce, said Los Antonitos, across the street from the Hotel Intercontinental, has done such a solid business since it was built in 1976 that the owners decided to go ahead with building the disco next door.
   Most of the clientele is expected to come from the hotel, which with its pyramid design was one of only two high-rise buildings that escaped damage or destruction during the earthquake.