Nicaragua coverage 1987

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Jan 8 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Signing
^Sandinista Constitution Takes Effect
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The Sandinista government's first constitution takes effect Friday, guaranteeing a broad range of civil liberties which may be suspended before President Daniel Ortega's signature on the charter is dry.
   The signing of the document, which also promises political pluralism, a mixed economy and non-alignment, is to take place in the capital's Plaza de la Revolucion. Peruvian President Alan Garcia, a Soviet cosmonaut and 5,000 other guests are expected to witness the ceremony.
   The charter, two years in the drafting, was approved by the Sandinista- contro lled National Assembly on Nov. 19.
   The 202-article constitution guarantees, among other things, freedom of expression, the right to strike and prohibits imprisonment without a court order.
   These and most other civil liberties are suspended under a state of emergency decreed in 1982. The emergency will be voided when Ortega signs the constitution, but he is expected to reimpose it immediately.
   Bayardo Arce, one of nine senior leaders of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, said the emergency decree's justification - aggression by U.S.-backed Contra rebels - still exists.
   Barricada, the official newspaper of the leftist Sandinista Front, called the completion of the constitution "the most important political event of 1986."
   But critics complained that the charter puts the election machinery in the hands of the government and makes the military - the Sandinista Popular Army - a partisan force.
   "The constitution only serves as a tool of propaganda for foreign consumption," said Erick Ramirez, the president of the Social Christian Party.
   The constitution says elections will be "organized and directed" by a commission appointed by the National Assembly. The Sandinistas have 61 of the assembly's 96 seats.
   The constitution replaces the Statute of Rights and Guarantees of Nicaraguans, which went into effect when a Sandinista-led junta came to power after toppling the right-wing dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in July 1979.
   A National Assembly commission drafted the constitution after the government held a series of town meetings across the country to solicit opinions from the people. The full assembly spent 49 sessions debating, at times heatedly, the draft and made several changes.
   The constitution is sometimes vague, and some observers said the way the Sandinistas use and interpret it will show how far left they plan to go.
   In its first article, the constitution declares "it is the right of the people and the responsibility of all citizens to preserve and defend, with weapons in their hands if necessary, the independence of the fatherland, its sovereignty and self-determination."
   In a section on land reform, under which the Sandinistas have expropriated land from the wealthy and distributed it to the poor, the constitution guarantees that landowners have the right to keep their land, but only if they "work it productively and effectively." It does not provide standards for productivity.
   It guarantees private property as long as the property conforms "to the superior interests of the nation and has a social function."
   The document also declares all citizens equal under the law, regardless of race, sex, political affiliation or religion.
   But 150 of the constitution's articles can be suspended by the president "when the security of the nation, economic conditions or national catastrophe demand it."
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Jan 9 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Constitution
^New Constitution Takes Effect
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A new constitution that promises a wide range of civil liberties takes effect today, but government opponents say the charter is a propaganda ploy.
   The constitution is Nicaragua's first since the leftist Sandinistas took power in 1979.
   President Daniel Ortega is expected to immediately suspend most of the charter's guarantees on the grounds that the country is at war, fighting an insurgency by U.S.-backed Contra rebels.
   The 202-article document, approved Nov. 19 by the National Assembly after two years' work, guarantees freedom of expression, prohibits imprisonment without court order and guarantees the right to strike. It also promises political pluralism, a mixed economy and international non-alignment.
   Many civil liberties currently are suspended under of a 1982 state of emergency that will be voided when the constitution takes effect. But Ortega is widely expected to immediately reimpose the emergency.
   Bayardo Arce, one of nine senior leaders of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, said the emergency decree was ordered because of aggression by the Contras, and said that remains a problem.
   Critics say the constitution puts the election machinery in the hands of the governing party and mandates partisan Sandinista control of the army.
   "The constitution only serves as a tool of propaganda for foreign consumption," said Erick Ramirez, president of the Social Christian Party.
   The constitution says the elections will be organized and directed by an election commission appointed by the 96-member National Assembly, in which the Sandinistas hold 61 seats.
   As a result, critics say, the Sandinista Front is assured of having an electoral commission sympathetic to its views.
   The constitution replaces the Statute of Rights and Guarantees of Nicaraguans promulgated after a Sandinista-led junta ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza in July 1979.
   A National Assembly commission drafted the new constitution after the government held town meetings across the country to solicit opinion. It approved the document after making several changes, including dropping an article that would have given the government power to revoke the citizenship of rebels fighting it.
   The constitution is vague in places, and some observers said the way the Sandinistas use and interpret it will indicate how far to the left they plan to go.
   The first article declares: "It is the right of the people and the responsibility of all citizens to preserve and defend, with weapons in their hands if necessary, the independence of the fatherland, its sovereignty and self-determination."
   "All foreign interference in the internal affairs of Nicaragua, such as any attempt to endanger its independence, threaten the life of the people," it says.
   Another article states: "The state guarantees the existence of political pluralism, mixed economy and non-alignment."
   In a section on land reform, the constitution guarantees owners the right to keep their land, but only if they "work it productively and effectively." It offers no standards for productivity.
   The constitution guarantees the existence of private property as long as the property conforms "to the superior interests of the nation and has a social function," but does not define these terms.
   The document also declares all people equal under the law, regardless of race, sex, political affiliation or religion.
   But this and 149 other articles in the constitution can be suspended by the president "when the security of the nation, economic conditions or national catastrophe demand it," it says.
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Jan 9 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Signing<
^URGENT Ortega Signs New Constitution, Reimposes State of Emergency<
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega signed a new constitution Friday, but quickly reimposed a state of emergency voiding many civil rights guaranteed in the constitution because of "continued North American aggression."
   Speaking before thousands of people gathered in the Plaza of the Revolution for the signing ceremony, Ortega said of his Sandinista government, "We do not wish to have to maintain the national state of emergency, but we are forced to do it."
   The state of emergency, in effect since 1982, had been automatically nullified with the signing of the constitution. But the state-run Voice of Nicaragua radio announced Friday night that Ortega decreed a new national state of emergency.
   Ortega had vowed earlier to immediately reinstate the state of emergency because of the war being fought by U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels, known as Contras, against his left-wing government.
   During his speech at the signing of the the new charter, Ortga did not say when the new state of emergency would be decreed, but he took the action within several hours.
   Critics had denounced the constitution as a document they said would be used as a propaganda tool to guarantee continued leftist rule.
   In Washington, State Department spokesman Phyllis Oakley said, "the new constitution is merely a mask for total control of Nicaragua by the Sandinista Party. It provides the legal justification for the consolidation of one-party, totalitarian rule in Nicaragua.
   "As with the Soviet constitution, the key factor is the use of those in power make of it. Past Sandinista behavior would indicate that those provisions would be manipulated, suspended, or simply ignored by the Sandinista consolidation. The civil rights of those who oppose Sandinista policies have not been respected. There is no reason to think they will be in the future.
   "Unfortunately, the new constitution offers little hope for a process of national reconciliation which can bring an end to the civil war."
   President Alan Garcia of Peru was among the invited guests at the plaza to watch Ortega sign the nation's first constitution since the Sandinistas came to power in July 1979.
   Garcia said before the signing that it was a "highly important step in institutionalizing the course for this nation, which has battled so hard for its freedom."
   Carlos Nunez, president of the National Assembly and one of nine commanders of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, said the constitution "buries the pretexts of our enemies, who try to cast illegitimacy on the revolutionary process."
   In remarks published by the official newspaper Barricada, Nunez said the signing is "a deeat for the American government and for all the sectors or international political groups who participated in this maneuver."
   Before the document was signed, Nunez said Nicaragua "has been assaulted, attacked and massacred, we are able to establish a state of law, created an order and a constitution and thereby build our destiny."
   The 202-article document, the nation's 11th constitution, replaced the Statute of Rights and Guarantees of Nicaraguans, which went into effect when the Sandinistas toppled the rightist regime of the late President Anastasio Somoza.
   The constitution, approved Nov. 19 by the National Assembly after two years of work, promises freedom of expression and religion, prohibits imprisonment without court order and ensures the right to strike. It also promises political pluralism, a mixed economy and international non-alignment.
   Most civil liberties were suspended under the state of emergency ordered because of the war against the Contras.
   Even before the document was completed, opponents complained it  would do little to ease the ruling party's stranglehold on the government. A key complaint was the document did not separate the state or the army from the government party. It puts the election machinery in the hands of the governing party and says the Sandinista Popular Army will be the national army.
   "The constitution only serves as a tool of propaganda for foreign consumption," said Erick Ramirez, president of the Social Christian Party.
   Commenting the Sandinistas' intention to impose a new state of emergency, Ramirez said, "With this, the (Sandinistas) demonstrate once again they do not want to resolve the crisis of the nation by the democratic way and give arguments to those who want to see it overthrown by force."
   He characterized the new constitution as a "swindle for the people."
   The document says the elections will be organized and directed by an election commission appointed by the 96-member National Assembly, in which the Sandinistas hold 61 seats.
   As a result, critics say, the electoral commission is virtually certain to be sympathetic to the views of the Sandinista Front.
   A legislative commission drew up the constitution after the government conducted town meetings throughout the country to solicit opinions. The assembly approved the document after making several changes, including deleting an article that would have allowed revoking the citizenship of Contra rebels.
   The first article declares: "It is the right of the people and the responsibility of all citizens to preserve and defend, with weapons in their hands if necessary, the independence of the fatherland, its sovereignty and self-determination."
   "All foreign interference in the internal affairs of Nicaragua, such as any attempt to endanger its independence, threatens the life of the people," it says.
   Another article states: "The state guarantees the existence of political pluralism, mixed economy and non-alignment."
   The constitution guarantees the existence of private property as long as the property conforms "to the superior interests of the nation and has a social function."
   The document also declares all people equal under the law, regardless of race, sex, political affiliation or religion.
   But this and 149 other articles in the constitution can be suspended by the president "when the security of the nation, economic conditions or national catastrophe demand it," it says.
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Jan 13 01987
^PM-Nicaragua-Hall
^American Accused Of Spying Still Not Charged
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ An Ohio man arrested in a restricted military area and accused of spying has entered his second month of captivity without being formally charged.
   Officials of the leftist Sandinista government said Monday they did not know when Sam Nesley Hall, who was arrested Dec. 12, would be charged.
   Hall, 49, of Dayton, is the brother of Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio.
   He was arrested under national emergency regulations, enacted by the Sandinistas because of their war with U.S.-supported Contra rebels, and can be held indefinitely without trial.
   Authorities said Hall was picked up in a restricted area near the Punta Huete air force base, 13 miles northeast of Managua. They said he had stuffed crude maps of the base and other military installations in one sock.
   At a news conference the Interior Ministry arranged Dec. 22, Hall told reporters he came to Nicaragua to verify a report that Cubans were assembling Soviet helicopters at the air base.
   Hall also has said he belonged to what he called a private "American foreign legion," but that he knew of no links between the group and the CIA or the Pentagon.
   U.S. Embassy press secretary Alberto Fernandez said Monday that aside from a 10-minute meeting with an American consular official shortly after the arrest, the embassy has not been allowed further access to Hall.
   In Washington, Tony Hall said last week that Carlos Tunnerman, the Nicaraguan ambassador to the United States, told him Sam Hall would be brought to trial this month but gave no specific date.
   Margara Ibeda, Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes' secretary, said Monday the first step is for the Interior Ministry to file charges, but that it has not done so.
   "Until the Interior Ministry, which is holding Hall, files its charges, there is nothing we can do," she said.
   The Popular Tribunals, the revolutionary courts that sentenced Eugene Hasenfus, another American arrested in Nicaragua, are under the Justice Ministry's jurisdiction.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was arrested in October after Sandinista troops shot down a Contra supply plane in which he was flying. He was sentenced to 30 years in jail, but President Daniel Ortega pardoned him in December.
   Thelma Salinas, a spokeswoman for the tribunals, confirmed that no judicial proceedings have been initiated in Hall's case.
   Alma Morales, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry, said she had no information on when charges would be filed against him.
   The Permanent Commission on Human rights, an independent watchdog group, said in a report in December that most defendants spend seven or eight months in jail before their cases come up before the Popular Tribunals.
   "(Judging) how regular people are brought up before the tribunals, it could be a while before Hall is brought up," Fernandez said.
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Jan 14 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Fighting
^Nicaraguan Troops Exchange Fire, Mistaking One Another for Contras
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   PANTASMA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Mistaking each other for rebels, two big groups of government soldiers opened fire on each other with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, officials said Wednesday.
   Six soldiers were wounded in the firefight, which lasted four hours and occurred on Friday at the edge of this town, 85 miles north of Managua. The U.S.-supported Contra rebels have been active in the area, fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government.
   The fighting began at night when about 80 rookie soldiers belonging to the Rufo Marin Counter-Insurgency Infantry Batallion mistook about 40 militiamen guarding the Juan Castilblanco farm cooperative at the edge of town as rebels and opened fire, said 1st Lt. Bayardo Pastran, the battalion deputy commander.
   About 60 soldiers from another government unit, thinking it was a rebel attack, joined to help the militiamen defend the farm, Pastran said.
   He said the two groups continued shooting at each other with automatic rifle fire and rocket-propelled grenades until dawn, when they realized their mistake.
   "It was night. Our troops could not distinguish their uniforms," Pastran said. He said that with $100 million in new U.S. military and other aid recently approved for the Contras everyone in the area has been tensely awaiting new rebel attacks.
   "It is tense here," he said. "Everyone is waiting."
   Antonio Zamora, the regional coordinator for the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, said the lack of radios for communication added to the confusion.
   Oscar Ruiz, a member of the cooperative's militia, said that after the shooting began, he rushed to where the fighting was and "everyone opened fire."
   On Saturday, counter-insurgency troops based in Pantasma, backed by two Soviet-made MI-8 helicopters equipped to fire rockets, clashed with a group of rebels, Pastran said.
   Then on Monday, the rebels halted a government truck on a dirt road about 12 miles southeast of Pantasma and, after forcing the driver and seven passengers off, set it on fire, officials said. The truck was engaged in a nearby road-building project.
   No one was reported hurt in the two last engagements.
   In Managua, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday one person was killed, another injured and three others kidnapped in a rebel attack on an agricultural cooperative in the eastern part of the country.
   The attack occurred Monday at the Santa Margarita cooperative, 75 miles east of Managua in Chontales province, ministry said.
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Jan 15 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Search
^Sandinistas Search for Infiltrating Contra Rebels
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   PANTASMA, Nicaragua (AP) _ As a full moon broke through the clouds, about 100 Sandinista counter- insurgency troops clambered out of transport trucks parked on a dirt road and prepared to sweep into the hills to the east.
   There, in the jungle 85 miles northeast of Managua, a group of 200 U.S.-backed Contra rebels were encircled by other Sandinista troops.
   As is their tactic, the rebels after a brief firefight managed to split up into smaller groups and filter through the net. They left behind about 25 pounds of dynamite.
   Military commanders in Nicaragua see these rebel infiltrators as the vanguard of a Contra assault intended to score dramatic military successes in coming months, partly to impress the U.S. Congress and win continued U.S. funds to carry on the fight against the leftist Sandinista government.
   "The Americans advising the Contras will have to come up with a good operation to justify their efforts," Sandinista military spokeswoman Capt. Rosa Pasos said in a recent interview in Managua. "I think they will have to attack for propaganda purposes. ... Maybe by February they will try something."
   An assistant commander of a Sandinista Irregular Warfare Battalion, directing operations from a command post on the northern outskirts of Pantasma, a farming town, told a reporter that on Tuesday and Wednesday a rebel shock force began infiltrating in December from base camps in neighboring Honduras.
   The officer, 1st Lt. Bayardo Pastran, said the rebels' mission is to wreak havoc in the coffee-growing regions of north-central Nicaragua by attacking farming cooperatives and by sabotaging bridges, electrical power plants and other targets.
   At a news conference Wednesday outside Nicaragua, rebel leader Adolfo Calero said his troops planned attacks on military targets, cooperatives, power plants and a strategic road in Nicaragua.
   "Our idea is to amplify the war fronts, open the maximum number possible of war fronts," said Calero, one of three leaders of the United Nicaraguan Opposition. Calero spoke to reporters on condition his location was not disclosed.
   Last year the United States provided $100 million to the Contras to help them try to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government. The Reagan administration is expected to ask Congress for an additional authorization of $105 million, a proposal complicated by the Iran-Contra scandal in Washington.
   A Western diplomat interviewed in Managua said 2,500 of the rebels belonging to the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the main Contra fighting force, have crossed the border since December, and that another 1,000 troops are poised on the border and are waiting to cross.
   Their mission, the diplomat said, is to create enough damage in the Pantasma region well inside Nicaragua to force Sandinista army units stationed on the border to meet the threat.
   Thousands more of the rebels, newly supplied with U.S. aid, then would be able to cross the border into Nicaragua on the unguarded rebel infiltration routes, said the diplomat, who carefully tracks the military situation but agreed to be interviewed on condition he not be identified.
   Pastran said Sandinista intelligence indicates the shock force include the best rebel fighters were hand-picked from four different "commandos," or units, of the rebel force.
   The Contras' last highly visible attack took place in August 1985 when 150 rebels cut the Pan American Highway for several hours 95 miles north of Managua. However, most accounts state that the rebels suffered at least three times more dead than did the Sandinista forces.
   On Thursday, the government radio station announced that since Jan. 1, 62 Contras have been killed in firefights with Sandinista forces in central Nicaragua and that the Sandinistas captured 26 rifles and 37 grenades.
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Force is believed to have about 10,000 fighters, although estimates of their force vary. They are pitted against more than 100,000 Sandinista troops, including regular army and the militia.
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Jan 21 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Cyclists
^Minnesota Cyclists Reach Halfway Point of Alaska-Argentina Trip
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Four young American bicyclists have passed the halfway mark in their attempt to set a world record by pedaling from Alaska to the tip of South America - about 16,000 miles.
   The four from St. Paul, Minn., began the journey Aug. 8 with their rear wheels in the Arctic Ocean at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Dan Buettner, 26, and Martin Engel, Bret Andersen and Ann Knabe, all 24, are heading for Argentina's Tierra del Fuego.
   They have traveled 8,700 miles so far, first crossing the Alaskan tundra on unpaved roads. The cyclists say they have drawn curious stares from peasants, soldiers and others along the road.
   "They are impressed with us the way you might be impressed with a person who bangs his head against the wall," Buettner said in an interview Tuesday.
   Buettner, 26, a freelance writer, carries a letter written by an official from the Guinness Book of World Records. It says the group has a chance of setting a world record if it can traverse the two continents tip-to-tip on bicycles.
   The letter, written in 1985, says the trip has been done on foot.
   "To our knowledge, if we make it, it will be the first time anyone has crossed the entire length of both continents on bicycles," Buettner said.
   Buettner, who is on his third set of tires, said they expect to complete the trip in July in the village of Ushuaia, Argentina.
   Two other bicyclists, Matjas Bren and Steve Buettner, also of St. Paul, began the journey, but were returning home to meet other commitments.
   In San Salvador, El Salvador, the group had to wait a day until leftist guerrillas lifted a threat that they would stop and burn any vehicle on the highways.
   The rebels, fighting a 7-year-old war, periodically conduct such traffic stoppages in an effort to damage the economy.
   Buettner said the group originally was concerned about traveling through Nicaragua because of the war between U.S.-backed rebels and the Sandinista government.
   "Our preconception was that there would be great danger, but although we have seen lots of soldiers, we haven't seen guns or bombs going off," he said.
   The war is limited largely to remote, mountainous areas of northern and central Nicaragua.
   The four plan to carry their bicycles over a 180-mile stretch of jungle called the Darien Gap, a section of Panama where the Pan-American Highway has not been completed, Buettner said.
   In addition to the adventure and possible record, the group wants to promote friendship between nations, he said.
   "We all speak Spanish," he said. "You travel slowly by bike, so not only do you get to know the countryside, you get to know the people, too."
   "We make it a point never to say whether we believe that what America is doing (in Latin America) is right or wrong," he said. "We ask questions and listen, and I think people appreciate that an American is standing there and listening to their impressions."
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Feb 18 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-CentAm
^Nicaragua Agrees to Central American Talks
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega agreed Wednesday to meet with other Central American leaders within 90 days to discuss a regional peace plan, a spokesman announced.
   The presidents of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador said at the end of a one-day meeting Sunday they would invite Ortega to discuss with them a 10-point peace plan presented by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.
   Ortega was not invited to Sunday's meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica. The presidents agreed to meet next in Guatemala, but set no date.
   The Nicaraguan statement, read over state-run Voice of Nicaragua radio by presidential spokesman Manuel Espinoza, said Sunday's meeting showed the Sandinista government has not been an obstacle to regional peace.
   Ortega's exclusion, it said, "makes it clear the interventionist policy of the United States is the principal factor that has sabotaged the peace proposals for the Central American area, including the one presented by President Arias."
   Nicaragua earlier rejected Arias' plan, which calls for cease-fires in El Salvador and Nicaragua, an end to foreign aid for insurgencies in the region and establishment of a committee to verify compliance with the agreement.
   The statement said the Arias plan should be included in the peace effort by the Contadora Group, Mexico, Colombia, Panama, Venezuula.
   "Nicaragua is willing to renew within the next 90 days the dialogue that the Central American presidents began in Esquipulas, Guatemala, in May 1986," the statement said. That was the last time all five presidents met.
   Guatemalan President Vinicio Cerezo remains neutral in disputes between leftist-ruled Nicaragua and El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica, all aligned with the United States.
   "The Nicaraguan government denounces that while the clamor of the Central American peoples and governments is for peace, the government of the United States insists on increasing tensions, escalating the war on Nicaragua and threatening direct military  action against our country " Nicaragua's statement said.
   It renewed Nicaragua's call for direct talks with the United States, which Managua holds responsible for the anti-Sandinista insurgency.
   The United States suspended talks with Nicaragua in January 1985 after nine rounds, saying the Sandinistas should meet with the rebels. Nicaragua insists on direct talks with the United States, which is supporting the Contra rebels against the Sandinistas.
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Feb 21 1987
^AM-Ortega-Reagan
^Ortega Says U.S. Money Cannot Buy Victory for Rebels With AM-Honduras-Contras
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega said Saturday the Reagan administration will be unable to gain victory for U.S-backed rebels by giving them more money.
   "Reagan cannot buy a victory in Nicaragua," Ortega said in a speech in Niquinohomo marking the 53rd anniversary of the assassination of Augusto Cesar Sandino, a rebel general who fought the U.S. Marine occupation of Nicaraua in the late 1920s-early 1930s. The left-wing Sandinistas take their name from him.
   "It is not a matter of signing a check for a greater amount (of dollars)," Ortega said in a speech carried on government radio, referring to Reagan's proposal to send $105 million in aid to the rebels for the next fiscal year.
   The United States is providing $100 million in mostly military aid to the rebels, known as Contras, most of whom have been operating from camps in southern Honduras.
   Ortega said he expected the rebels to launch an offensive to try to convince the U.S. Congress that they are capable of winning the war, and that "we must not rest until the counterrevolution is totally liquidated."
   He said Reagan has "fought desperately to halt the demoralization and the disintegration of what is his policy of aggression against Nicaragua."
   "Despite the magnitude of its aggression, the Reagan administration has not reached its objectives in Nicaragua," he added.
   The rebels have been "unable to control Nicaraguan territory to impose a so-called provisional government named in Washington" or "to create an internal front to assassinate the leaders of the revolution, sabotage production or to take the war into the cities," Ortega said.
   He claimed that 19,914 rebels and 5,066 Sandinista soldiers and civilians have been killed in six years of warfare. The Sandinistas gained power in July 1979, defeating the right-wing regime of the late President Anastasio Somoza in a civil war.
   About 5,000 people jammed into Niquinohomo's dirt streets to hear Ortega. The town is 20 miles south of Managua where Sandino's boyhood home has been turned into a museum.
   Sandino, a self-styled "general of free men," became the hero of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which was formed 25 years ago. Sandino was killed in 1934 by Nationl Guard troops headed by Gen. Anastasio Somoza, the first in the Somoza family to rule Nicaragua until the Sandinista victory.
   Sandino was not a communist, but was a nationalist who opposed the presence of American Marines in Nicaragua. The Marines occupied the country for nearly 20 years until 1925. They returned a year later and stayed until 1933.
   In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the largest rebel group, the Nicaraguan Democratic force (FDN), claimed its guerrillas killed killed 277 Sandinista soldiers and wounded 355 in battles in Nicaragua in the first 15 days of February.
   It also said that since the first of the year, its forces have killed 729 Sandinista troopers and wounded 1,026, while killing 2,247 and wounding 3,159 in battles last year.
   The FDN gave no figures for its only casualties.
   The various claims could not be independently verified as foreign journalists generally are unable to go to the battle sites.
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Feb 23 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Fighting
^Sandinistas Say 287 Contras Killed This Year
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Nicaraguan troops have killed 287 Contra rebels so far this year and last week intercepted 7,000 pounds of their airdropped supplies, the official Sandinista newspaper Barricada reported Monday.
   It quoted Lt. Col. Roberto Calderon, military commander of central Nicaragua, as saying most of the 214 clashes since New Year's were between troops and U.S.-backed rebels who infiltrated Nicaragua from bases in the Las Vegas salient in southern Honduras.
   The paper said the count was for the period from Jan. 1 through last Friday. It said that in the same period, 30 Contras were captured and an unspecified number wounded.
   On Saturday, the rebel Nicaraguan Democratic Force claimed that from Jan. 1 through Feb. 15, its fighters killed 729 soldiers of the leftist Sandinista government and wounded 1,026 in 172 clashes.
   Neither Contras nor Sandinistas reveal their own casualties. The reports cannot be independently verified, since both sides restrict access to combat areas. The government last week also tightened restrictions on journalists traveling with the military.
   Calderon said 70 wooden crates containing 7,000 pounds of supplies -ammunition, explosives, jungle boots and the like - were captured Jan. 20 after being dropped from a DC-6 aircraft coming from the direction of Honduras.
   A Sandinista counterinsurgency batttalion intercepted the supplies soon after a night airdrop near Lomas de Guarique, 80 miles east of Managua, he reported.
   Supply flights to the Contras are known to operate from the U.S.-built Aguacate airfield in southern Honduras.
   President Daniel Ortega said in a speech over the weekend that President Reagan had failed in his goal to have 30,000 combatants in the Nicaraguan Democratic Force by the end of 1986, and that the force actually numbered 6,000.
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest Contra fighting force, says it has about 18,000 troops. Its leaders recently said about 12,000 of their troops have moved into Nicaragua from Honduras and that in three months all the rebels will be fighting from inside this country.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 24 1987
^AM-Nicaragua
^Opposition Publisher Criticizes State of Emergency
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The owner of a now-closed opposition newspaper said Tuesday he was not surprised by the National Assembly's decision to extend Nicaragua's 5-year-old state of emergency decree for another year.
   The vote Monday ratified President Daniel Ortega's reimposition of the state of emergency on Jan. 9, a few hours after he had signed a new constitution guaranteeing a broad range of civil rights.
   "It would have been a miracle if the assembly had rejected Ortega's order," Carlos Holman, whose La Prensa newspaper was closed last year under the state of emergency, said in a telephone interview. "The assembly is in the hands of the Sandinistas, and there is no way they would cross him."
   A pro-government newspaper, El Nuevo Diario, said 60 of 82 members present in the assembly voted to extend the decree. The ruling Sandinistas hold 61 seats in the 96-seat assembly.
   The Sandinista government first imposed the state of emergency in 1982, saying it was necessary because of Nicaragua's war with the U.S.-backed Contra rebels.
   The decree suspends rights to, among other things, free expression, speedy trials, strikes and unrestricted travel around the country. The president as well as the National Assembly can renew it.
   Sandinista leaders invoked the strike in closing La Prensa last June 26, accusing it of being "an accomplice and an official spokesman for President Reagan in Nicaragua."
   The Nicaraguan Supreme Court on Feb. 6 rejected a petition from four opposition political parties asking that the emergency decree be struck down as unconstitutional.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 25 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Economy
^Sandinistas Announce Another Crackdown on Black Market
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The leftist Sandinista government announced Wednesday it would launch another police effort to close Managua's thriving black market.
   The official Sandinista newspaper, Barricada, said police would raid some of the 2,000 "illegal merchants" working in the capital's sprawling Eastern Market.
   The newspaper also reported that police would begin setting up roadblocks to search vehicles and arrest those involved in the illegal trafficking of meat.
   Since the Sandinistas came to power in a 1979 revolution, Nicaragua's economy has been in a steady decline. Such basic items as beans, rice and meat often are in scarce supply or not available to the average shopper.
   "We know it is illegal to sell these products. But we must do it to eat. We cannot earn enough selling at the fixed government price," said one vendor who refused to give her name for fear of arrest.
   Other sellers recall that in January the police conducted a raid and confiscated some goods after a brief rock-throwing melee between merchants and police.
   "If the police come again, we will confront them with whatever we have. We will meet them with rocks and sticks," a vendor said.
   Another woman, trying to sell five pairs of sandals and shoes laid out on a plastic sheet on the pavement, said she would run away if the police come to the market.
   The Eastern Market vendors have a history of resentment, sometimes violent, of the government. In the past, some government inspectors entering the market have been beaten up.
   Barricada said one of its reporters was stoned by the vendors Tuesday when he entered the market to write a story.
   For the past several years, Nicaragua has spent half of every dollar it has earned for military purposes, blaming shortages of consumer goods and other problems on what they call the U.S. "war of aggression against Nicaragua."
   The United States backs Nicaraguan rebels who are fighting to overthrow the Sandinistas.
   Planning Minister Dionisio Marenco last month said agricultural production declined 2.3 percent in 1986 and inflation reached 657 percent. He predicted exports of $360 million in 1987 against imports of $750 million.
   He also forecast a 2.1 percent increase in economic growth for 1987. Last year, the government predicted a 5 percent economic growth, but admitted it fell .04 percent.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 26 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Americans
^U.S. Protesters Travel To Combat Areas
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Eleven Americans have traveled to a combat area in northern Nicaragua to protest the presence of Contra rebels in a move that a U.S. Embassy official Thursday characterized as "foolish and naive."
   Barricada, the official Sandinista newspaper, said Thursday the 11 Americans arrived Wednesday in Matiguas, a village 80 miles northeast of Managua in Matagalpa province where there has been frequent fighting.
   It said the group would spend 15 days in the village helping in the construction of houses in a resettlement camp for Nicaraguans who have fled or been moved by the government from areas of fighting.
   Embassy press attache Alberto Fernandez said the group, including nine veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, sent a letter to the embassy saying they would hold the U.S. government responsible if they are wounded or killed.
   "If they get hurt it is their fault because they are getting mixed up in a civil war. I think they are foolish and naive," Fernandez said.
   "First of all, they are talking about influencing U.S. policy, but it seems to me we have elections every two years, and that is the way to influence policy, by voting and writing your congressman," he said.
   In an interview published in The Morning Union of Springfield, Mass., one of the protesters, Brian Willson, was quoted as saying, "We intend to stand as United States witnesses and stand in front of U.S. bullets."
   The newspaper said Willson directed the Vietnam veterans outreach center in Greenfield, Mass., until he became involved fulltime in anti-Contra activities last month.
   The Contras, supported and financed by the United States, are fighting to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.
   Although Barricada said 11 people went to Matiguas, there were only 10 signatures on the letter to the embassy. An embassy official, who did not want to be identified, said the embassy did not have hometowns on the people, but identified the signers as Richard Eugene Schoos, Peter T. Eaves, John Schroder, James Bush, Scott V. Ruthford, Holley Ravin, John D. Isherwood, John Poole, Joseph C. Ashley, and Willson.
   In a related development, Barricada reported Thursday that a People's Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced a woman Contra to nine years in prison.
   The newspaper said Bernarda Calderon Gonzalez, 23, was captured while retreating into the jungle after participating in an ambush of a Sandinista troop transport truck. It gave no details of the ambush.
   Barricada said four other Nicaraguans are awaiting verdicts from the tribunal on charges they gave the rebels food and shelter and informed them of Sandinista troop movements.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 27 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Americans
^U.S. Protesters Travel To Combat Areas
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ One of 11 Americans traveling to a combat area in northern Nicaragua was quoted as saying he wants to "stand in front of U.S. bullets" to show opposition to Washington's funding of Contra rebels.
   U.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez called the group "foolish and naive."
   "If they get hurt it is their fault because they are getting mixed up in a civil war," he said Thursday.
   The official Sandinista newspaper Barricada said the Americans went Wednesday to Matiguas, a village 80 miles northeast of Managua in an area of frequent fighting.
   It said the group would spend 15 days in the village helping build houses in a resettlement camp for Nicaraguans who have fled or been moved by the government from areas of fighting.
   Fernandez said the group, including nine veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, sent a letter to the embassy saying they would hold the U.S. government responsible if they are wounded or killed.
   In an interview published in The Morning Union of Springfield, Mass., one of the protesters, Brian Willson, was quoted as saying, "We intend to stand as United States witnesses and stand in front of U.S. bullets."
   The newspaper said Willson directed the Vietnam veterans outreach center in Greenfield, Mass., until he became involved fulltime in anti-Contra activities last month.
   The Contras, supported and financed by the United States, are fighting to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.
   Although Barricada said 11 people went to Matiguas, there were only 10 signatures on the letter to the embassy.
   An embassy official, who did not want to be identified, said the embassy did not know the Americans' hometowns, but identified the signers as Richard Eugene Schoos, Peter T. Eaves, John Schroder, James Bush, Scott V. Ruthford, Holley Ravin, John D. Isherwood, John Poole, Joseph C. Ashley and Willson.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar 2 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Press
^La Prensa Owner Denounces Sandinista 'Dictatorship'
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The opposition newspaper La Prensa, shut down by the Sandinista government last June, marked the 61st anniversary of its founding Monday by denouncing dictatorship.
   A sign in front of the newspaper's building read, "On its 61st anniversary, La Prensa is still silenced."
   At a news conference in the newsroom, co-owner Violeta Chamorro read a prepared statement saying the left-wing Sandinistas "have substituted one dictatorship with another, perhaps worse, one."
   La Prensa had been an outspoken opponent of the rightist Somoza dynasty that ruled Nicaragua for 42 years until its overthrow by the Sandinistas in July 1979.
   The assassination in 1978 of Mrs. Chamorro's husband, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, was a key factor in unifying the opposition to President Anastasio Somoza, with the Sandinistas emerging as the largest and best organized force.
   After the Sandinista takeover, La Prensa criticized what it called moves toward totalitarianism in the country. It was closed temporarily twice and censored so closely by the government that it missed publication 35 times.
   Last June 26, the Sandinista government ordered the newspaper shut down. That was a day after the U.S. Congress approved $100 million in aid to Nicaraguan rebels, known as Contras, who have been fihting the Sandinstas for five years.
   Mrs. Chamorro denied in her statement allegations by the government that La Prensa had receieved money from the CIA.
   "They (the Sandinistas) have not been able to bring forward any facts that prove the repeated false accusation that La Prensa is inspired and paid by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, but they keep repeating this slander to disguise their hate for free expression, even though they know they are not deceiving anyone," Mrs. Chamorro said.
   The newspaper was closed under provisions of a national state of emergency first declared in March 1982 because of rebel attacks
   Mrs. Chamorro said the government was making an "absurd contradiction" in declaring a state of emergency because of the war while denying the rebels pose any real threat.
   "The Sandinista leaders constantly repeat that La Prensa and the other independent media will appear again when the aggression ends," she said. "We ask: What alliance do we have with the armed insurgency that operates in the country, that we must pay for them with our silence?"
   She said the newspaper has "incurred enormous economic losses" since it was shut down, but she vowed it will never be closed completely.
   La Prensa still receives services from international news agencies and has 33 people remaining on its payroll, Mrs. Chamorro said. It had 230 employees at the time it was ordered closed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar 4 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Americans
^Americans Head for Combat Area to Dramatize Protest of U.S. Contra Aid
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   EL MAMONAL, Nicaragua (AP) _ Ten Americans have headed deeper into the combat areas of northern Nicaragua to dramatize their protest against U.S. aid to Contra rebels.
   The protesters, nine of whom have served in the U.S. armed forces, said they wanted to expose themselves to danger in an effort to draw Americans' attention to the fighting here.
   "There is an element of atonement" in the action, said Scott Rutherford Jr., 53, a Navy veteran from Washington, D.C.
   "Many of us fought for our country, but now we are here to make sacrifices - to say to our government that what they are doing here is wrong," he said.
   The U.S. Congress last year approved $100 million in military and non- lethal aid to the Contra rebels, who are fighting Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government. The Sandinistas came to power in July 1979, ending 42 years of rule by the rightist, pro-American Somoza dynasty.
   The protesters, who are members of the Veterans Peace Action Team, arrived a week ago at a ranching cooperative in El Mamonal, which is about 100 miles northeast of Managua.
   After helping build housing and a well on the farm, they climbed aboard a small pickup truck Tuesday and headed for Nicaragua's sixth region, a military zone comprising the northern provinces.
   Their exact destination was unknown, but they said they wanted to visit contested areas in the war zone.
   Although El Mamonal is technically in the war zone, there have been no Contra attacks in the vicinity recently.
   There are no fixed front lines in the fighting here. Government and rebel soldiers clash in brief firefights in remote jungle areas.
   Alberto Fernandez, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, said last week that the protesters were "foolish and naive."
   All have signed a pledge saying they will not carry or use weapons during their visit, said Brian Willson, 45, of San Rafael, Calif.
   On Feb. 17, the protesters sent a letter to President Reagan and Congress, saying they would hold them personally responsible if they were wounded or killed while in Nicaragua.
   "We are willing in a non-violent manner to put our lives on the line for life, sanity and peace, just as we were once willing to place our bodies in jeopardy for death, insanity and war," they wrote.
   Four of the veterans were involved in combat during military service.
   Willson; John Poole, 41, of Oak Park, Ill.; and Richard Schoos, 36, of Santa Cruz, Calif., fought in Viet Nam. Joseph Ashley, 62, of Goleta, Calif., served in World War II and the Korean War.
   The other members are Peter Nimkoff, 53, of Mill Valley, Calif.; Peter Eaves, 33, Maplewood, Minn.; James Bush, 39, of Santa Cruz, Calif., and John Schuchardt, 47, of Madison, Conn. John David Isherwood, 63, also of Santa Cruz, is the only non-veteran in the group.
   Most of the protesters planned to return home March 19 but said they expect other U.S. veterans to come to Nicaragua as part of a program organized by the Veterans Peace Action Team, which is based in Santa Cruz.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar 8 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Arrests
^Opposition Leaders Arrested During Demonstration
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Police took three opposition political leaders into custody Sunday during a demonstration held in defiance of a state of emergency.
   Police broke up the demonstration, held to mark International Women's Day, as about 200 people prepared to march from a church where they had attended Mass.
   Julio Ramon Garcia Vilchez, vice president of the Social Christian Party, Gilberto Cuadra, president of the Nicaraguan Development Institute, and Maria Mimbreno, a youth leader of the Conservative Party, were shoved into the back of a police vehicle.
   Bill Gentile, a Newsweek magazine photographer, said he saw Ms. Mimbreno break a placard over a policeman's head as she was taken into custody. Garcia Vilchez suffered a small cut on his cheek, apparently as he was put in the vehicle.
   The three were detained for "lack of respect for authority," Roger Cabezas Gomez, an assistant police commander, told The Associated Press at the scene.
   About 30 police officers, some with rubber truncheons in their hands, surrounded the demonstrators as they stood on the sidewalk in front of the El Carmen Roman Catholic Church near the center of Managua.
   One policeman moved toward a group of women standing on the church steps, but retreated when one of the women held a rosary and a cross up to his face.
   After about 30 minutes, the demonstrators trickled away, some shouting slogans against the government.
   "Now that we have seen how the police are behaving, we have decided not to march," Sergio Torres, secretary of the Conservative Party and a member of the National Assembly, said. He said several of the demonstrators were elderly women who have relatives who are political prisoners.
   Torres said he saw three unidentified women arrested by police, but his report could not be immediately confirmed.
   "We cannot risk seeing these women getting hurt," said Enrique Sotelo Borgen, a lawyer who defends political prisoners.
   "I take the words of Augusto Cesar Sandino to heart - 'I would prefer to die as a rebel before living as a slave,'" shouted Azucena Ferrey, a vice president of the Social Christian Party.
   The ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front took its name from Sandino, who fought against U.S. Marines who occupied Nicaragua in the 1920s and 1930s.
   The state of emergency restricts press freedom and certain civil rights. Demonstrations are prohibited unless the government authorizes them in advance.
   Leaders of the Nicaraguan Democratic Coordinate, an opposition political organization which organized the demonstration, said they had not sought a permit because they wanted to challenge the legitimacy of the emergency.
   A state of emergency has been in effect in varying degrees almost continuously since March 1982.
   The Nicaraguan Development Institute is a privately run organization which gives loans and provides technical assistance to privately-owned businesses.
   U.S. congressman Robert Lagomarsino, R-Calif., a supporter of U.S. aid to Contra rebels fighting to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government, said it appeared to him that the police overreacted.
   He was one of four U.S. congressmen on a fact-finding tour of Central America who appeared minutes after the arrests.
   The others were Rep. George Crockett, D-Mich., Rep. Michael Dewine, R-Ohio, and Rep. Esteban Torres, D-Calif.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar 9 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Arrests
^Three Opposition Leaders Arrested During Demonstration
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Three opposition leaders remained in police custody today after being arrested during an unauthorized demonstration marking International Women's Day.
   Reporters at the scene identified those arrested Sunday as Julio Ramon Garcia Vilchez, vice president of the Social Christian Party; Gilberto Cuadra, president of the privately-owned Nicaraguan Development Institute; and Maria Mimbreno, a youth leader of the Conservative Party.
   Roger Cabezas Gomez, an assistant police commander, said the three were taken into custody for "lack of respect for authority." Newsweek magazine photographer Bill Gentile said he saw Ms. Mimbreno break a placard over a policeman's head as she was taken away.
   Garcia Vilchez suffered a small cut on his cheek, apparently as he was shoved into a police vehicle.
   About 200 people took part in the demonstration outside the El Carmen Roman Catholic Church near downtown Managua in defiance of a state of emergency.
   The leftist Sandinista government has forbidden demonstrations without advance government permission under a state of emergency in force since March 1982. The state of emergency also restricts press freedom and certain civil rights.
   Leaders of the opposition Nicaraguan Democratic Coordinate, which organized the demonstration, said they did not apply for a permit in order to challenge the legitimacy of the emergency law.
   About 30 police officers armed with rubber truncheons surrounded the demonstrators. One policeman moved up to a group of women on the church steps, but retreated when a woman dangled the cross on a rosary before his face.
   Eventually, the demonstrators trickled away, some shouting anti-government slogans.
   Sergio Torres, secretary of the Conservative Party and an opposition member in the National Assembly, said several elderly women among the demonstrators had relatives who are political prisoners.
   Torres said the demonstrators had planned a march to protest lack of freedom after the rally, but called it off after police showed up.
   "Now that we have seen how the police are behaving, we have decided not to march," he said.
   U.S. congressman Robert Lagomarsino, R-Calif., who appeared on the scene minutes after the arrests were made, said it appeared to him that police overreacted.
   Lagomarsino, a supporter of U.S. aid to Contra rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government, is a fact-finding tour of Central America along with Reps. George Crockett, D-Mich., Mi----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar 10 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Fighting
^Government says Contras Killed 4 Sandinistas and 4 Civilians
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Contra rebels killed four members of the Sandinista militia and four civilians and burned 17 houses in an attack on an isolated village, government radio reported Tuesday.
   The Voice of Nicaragua said the U.S.-supported rebels also wounded seven militia members and kidnapped one in Monday's attack on Aguas Calientes, located in a remote, jungle-covered part of Zelaya province 140 miles east of Managua.
   The broadcast, citing unidentified sources in the Defense Ministry, said three children and a 54-year-old woman were killed and two children and two adult civilians were wounded.
   The report made no mention of casualties among the Contras, who have been fighting the leftist Sandinista government for the past five years.
   On Monday, a Foreign Ministry communique read over the Voice of Nicaragua claimed Honduran troops lobbed several mortar rounds across the border into northern Nicaragua, killing a soldier and two other people and wounding several others.
   The communique said members of the Honduran 11th Infantry Battalion fired 120mm and 81mm mortar rounds Monday into the village of Santo Tomas del Nance, less than a mile from the border in Chinandega province.
   The Nicaraguan communique said Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco sent a "formal and energetic" note of protest to the Honduran Foreign Ministry.
   The protest note asked the Honduran government to conduct a "exhaustive investigation and punish those responsible" for the attack.
   The communique said a similar attack occurred Friday at the hamlet of Chocolate, near Santo Tomas del Nance.  chael Dewine, R-Ohio, and Esteban Torres, D-Calif.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar 11 1987
^AM-Honduras-Plane
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A U.S.-registered plane shot down in Honduras matched the description of one hit by Nicaraguan fire while dropping supplies to Contra rebels earlier, President Daniel Ortega said Wednesday.
   Ortega said Sandinista soldiers in the northern town of Wiwili, 15 miles from the border, fired at the aircraft at about 10 p.m. Monday, before Honduras reported downing a plane.
   Honduran military authorities in Tegucigalpa said in a communique Wednesday night that the plane appeared to have been a drug flight from Colombia en route to the United States and four crew members, including an American, died in the crash.
   On Tuesday, the Honduran military said three people died in the crash. The communique gave no reason for changing the number of victims.
   The communique identified the American as Joseph Bernard Mason, but did not give any hometown, and said the other three crew members who have not been identified were from Guatemala.
   "Our investigation has established that Joseph Bernard Mason, the North American pilot, possessed ample prior felonies in the United Staes for his participation in international drug trafficking activities," the communique said without giving specifics.
   A U.S. Embassy official in Tegucigalpa also said Wednesday the pilot of the aircraft has been tentatively identified as Mason. The official, who did not want to be identified for protocol reasons, provided no further details on the man.
   The Nicaraguan president claimed the twin-engine, propeller-driven DC-3 had dropped a load of supplies by parachute to the U.S.-backed rebels fighting his leftist Sandinista government.
   "We cannot be sure that we shot down the airplane," Ortega said. "The possibility exists that upon being hit by the anti-aircraft fire the plane had communications problems and could not identify itself to the Honduran air force."
   Honduran military officials said Tuesday that combat jets downed the plane Monday night after the pilot refused to identify himself.
   After Ortega's statement, Honduran military spokesman Col. Manuel Suarez Benavides said his government stood by its account. "We have the necessary proof to prove the truth of the incident," he said.
   In Guatemala City, a civil aviation official said Wednesday that the DC-3 plane, registration number of N-49454, left there Monday morning with a flight plan for El Estor, about 100 miles northeast.
   Juan Luis Munoz, chief of the air navigation office, said Mason reported an hour later that "he had the airfield at El Estor in sight" and the aviation agency had no information about what happened afterward.
   He said Mason was accompanied by co-pilot Freddy Galiazato and both were Americans.
   Ortega said the plane that his country's troops fired on entered Nicaragua from El Salvador.
   On Oct. 6, Nicaraguan soldiers captured Eugene Hasenfus of Marinette, Wis., after shooting down the Contra supply plane on which he was a cargo handler. The plane took off from Ilopango air base in El Salvador.
   Hasenfus, 45, was sentenced to 30 years in prison but released in December after serving two months.
   Honduran officials said the DC-3 was shot down at 11:30 p.m. Monday after entering Honduran airspace from Nicaragua and proceeding northwest. The armed forces statement said the plane's path indicated it came from Colombia or elsewhere in South America.
   No narcotics were found in or around the wreckage "but it is believed the cargo was thrown out by the crew" shortly before the craft was intercepted, the statement said.
   The Honduran statement said the plane crashed at El Palmital, a settlement near the town of Guarita in mountainous Lempira province, about 6 miles from the El Salvador border and 108 miles west of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital.
   DC-3s, built through World War II, are favorites with South American drug smugglers.
   In Washington, the Pentagon said no U.S. military aircraft were operating in the area.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar 12 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Debt
^Nicaragua Taking Measures To Prevent Seizure of Assets
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Nicaragua is moving to prevent foreign bankers from seizing its assets as payment of back interest on its foreign debt, the head of the nation's central bank said in an interview published Thursday.
   Joaquin Cuadra, president of the Central Bank of Nicaragua, told the pro- government newspaper El Nuevo Diario that such a move by foreign bankers would have serious consequences for the international financial system and would cause alarm among other debtor nations.
   Cuadra did not say what steps the government was taking to prevent a possible seizure.
   The Miami Herald reported Tuesday that U.S. banks were forming a creditor's committee to consider seizing Nicaraguan assets overseas if the country continued missing interest payments on its $3.7 billion debt.
   The bank group had notified some 150 international banks of its intention to recover the debt, an unidentified banker told the Herald.
   A Bank of America spokesman in San Francisco confirmed that Bank of America, New York's Citibank and Wells Fargo Bank, also based in San Francisco, were attempting to form a creditors committee on behalf of Nicaragua's international bank lenders.
   Banking sources said the purpose of a creditors committee would be to explore available options for collecting the debt.
   The financially strapped Central American nation has had trouble meeting payments on its foreign debt since the Reagan administration imposed a trade embargo in 1985 when relations between the two countries deteriorated.
   President Daniel Ortega was quoted Thursday in a report from the Sandinista news agency Nueva Nicaragua as saying, "There is no possibility that we could pay, although we would like to."
   Ortega said Nicaragua wants to "renegotiate the debt that we have in moratorium, to find reasonable terms and interest rates."
   Cuadra said Nicaragua was hindered in making debt payments by the trade embargo, which officials say has cost Nicaragua more than $108.4 million.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar 28 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Contras
^U.S. Protester Says He Saw Results of Contra Ambush
^LaserPhoto MGA1
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ One of 10 Americans walking through Nicaragua to protest U.S. aid for the Nicaraguan rebels said Saturday he had come across the site of a "bloody ambush" conducted earlier by the guerrillas.
   Brian Willson, 45, of San Rafael, Calif., spoke on national radio from San Ramon, 70 miles northeast of Managua, during cermemonies attended by President Daniel Ortega marking the end of the coffee harvesting season in Matagalpa province.
   Two journalists traveling to meet the marchers also saw the ambush site and said the rebels, known as Contras, killed six Sandinista soldiers and wounded eight.
   "Just yesterday, when being driven from northern Nicaragua in order to be here today, on the very road we had walked two days earlier, we were startled by a bloody ambush that had occurred only a short time earlier," Willson said on the radio.
   Ortega said of Willson: "He is a veteran of the Vietnam war - a man who was obligated by circumstances to fight thousands of kilometers (miles) away (in Vietnam) from his homeland to fight a people who were fighting for their independence. Now, he is here in Nicaragua, saying to the American government 'do not make the same mistake again.'"
   Several other Americans on the march also are veterans of the Vietnam and Korean wars.
   Ortega also said Willson is "an American who, full of good will and who represents the true feelings of the North American people, has come with others to Nicaragua to demonstrate his solidarity with the people...."
   Willson said the group has heard five firefights and a mortar attack since begining the 70-mile march Monday from Jinotega, 18 miles northwest of the provincial capital of San Ramon. They hope to reach Wiwili, north of Managua, on Sunday.
   Michael Capeless, a free-lance photographer from Alburquerque, N.M., and Ester Nordland, a reporter for the Arbeiderbladet newspaper in Oslo, Norway, said they came upon the ambush site Friday, minutes after the attack. The site was 85 miles north of Managua between Jinotega and Wiwili.
   They said most of the American marchers were about 20 miles to the north when the attack occurred, and none was involved. Willson was returning to San Ramon when he passed the battleground and saw the burning truck and soldiers attending to wounded comrades, according to the two journalists.
   Capeless said survivors told him the rebels fired grenades and automatic rifles at the truck carrying 29 Sandinista soldiers. He said he found four U.S.-made, M-79 grenade shells on the ground near the truck, plus expended rifle shells.
   "After we got there, two soldiers who had been blown out of the truck were found," Capeless said. "One was in shock, his eardrums were probably broken and he was really dazed from the explosions."
   Another soldier had been hiding in bushes near the truck, Capeless said.
   "Suddenly the flames from the truck spread into the bushes, and he started screaming," the photographer said. "His buddies went in and grabbed him before the flames got to him."
   No rebel bodies were found, he added.
   Lt. Carlos Lara, a Defense Ministry spokesman in Managua, said he had no information about the ambush.
   The attack occurred south of the area where much of the fighting has been in recent weeks, indicating the rebels are penetrating farther into the country from their bases in southern Honduras.
   Earlier this week, U.S. Embassy spokesman in Managua Al Laun said the United States would hold the Nicaraguan government responsible for the American marchers because the Sandinistas could have stopped them from making the march. But the protesters said they would not blame the government or people if any of them were hurt.
   "We have been called communists on the Voice of America. We are internationalists who live in the United States and we are against the intervention of our country in this country," marcher Holley Ravin, 34, of San Rafael, Calif., said Friday.
   Other marchers are John Poole, 41, Oak Park, Ill.; John Schuchardt, 47, Madison, Conn., and his wife Judith Williamson; Richard Schoos, 36, Santa Cruz, Calif.; Scott Rutherford, 53, Washington; John David Isherwood, 63, Santa Cruz, Calif.; Joseph Ashley, 62, Goleta, Calif.; and Peter Eaves, 33, Maplewood, Minn.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apr 2 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Indians
^Thousands of Indians Returning To Nicaragua Homeland With PM-Salvador-Attack, Bjt
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   PUERTO CABEZAS, Nicaragua (AP) _ Thousands of Miskito Indians have returned to Nicaragua from Honduras to resettle an area that once was declared a free-fire zone, a U.N. official says.
   So far this year, 1,000 Indians in U.N. refugee camps in southeastern Honduras have returned voluntarily to Nicaragua, according to the Jaime Ruiz de Santiago, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees representative in Managua.
   At least 7,000 more refugees who lived outside the U.N. camps in Honduras have returned on their own since late last year, and an additional 15,000 Indians remain in the camps, Ruiz de Santiago said.
   Most of the Indians have returned to their villages along the Coco River, which marks the border between northeastern Nicaragua and Honduras, said Jose Toby Garcia, the director of the government's social welfare office in Puerto Cabezas.
   Officials said the tide of refugees has created serious food shortages in the area. Estimates of the number of people living near the river ranges from 8,000 to 20,000.
   Ruiz de Santiago said in a recent interview the United Nations intends to begin sending emergency supplies of food to the area, but he had no information on the quantity being sent.
   In 1982, the leftist Sandinista government forced at least 25,000 Indians from their homes along the Coco River, destroyed their livestock and crops and burned entire villages to the ground in an effort to remove civilian support for Indian rebels operating in the area and to create a free-fire zone.
   Because there was no census, it is unknown how many Indians were moved in the forced relocation, although some private estimates put the figure as high as 40,000.
   In 1985, the government began allowing the Indians to return to their homeland, but in March 1986, many fled again when the government troops launched an offensive against the U.S.-backed Contra rebels.
   Ruiz de Santiago said the United Nations expects to repatriate 300 Indians per month. Last month, Honduran and Nicaraguan officials met in Managua to organize a more direct route for the refugees to return.
   Previously, the Indians were sent overland or by airplane to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, then by a circuitous route through Nicaragua to the river region.
   Beginning April 22, the refugees will be flown from Puerto Lempira, Honduras, directly to Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. Both towns are on the Mosquito Coast, and the new route will save days of travel time.
   Dorotea Wilson, who represents Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast in the National Assembly, said in an interview in Puerto Cabezas that there are "serious problems" with food shortages for the returning refugees.
   An immigration official in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua's largest town in northern Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast, barred a reporter from visiting the Coco River area.
   The official, Lt. Miguel Velez, refused to answer queries about why the reporter was barred from visiting the area, saying such questions were "offensive and provocative."
   A resident of Puerto Cabezas, who asked not to be identified, who had visited the river region, said the Indians there "are living like animals."
   "They have nothing to eat," the resident said. "They are just out in the bush."
   Mrs. Wilson said the problem was not so serious that people were starving.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apr 3 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Asylum
^Sought Opposition Nicaraguan Legislator Allowed To Leave
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A former opposition member of the National Assembly who spent nine months as a refugee in the Venezuelan Embassy to escape arrest was permitted to leave Nicaragua on Friday, his lawyer said.
   Felix Pedro Espinoza was driven under Venezuelan diplomatic protection to Managua international airport, where he boarded a commercial flight for Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.
   Lawyer Luis Andara Ubeda said the leftist Sandinista government granted Espinoza special permission to leave the country. He was a member of the national legislature for the opposition Conservative Democratic Party.
   On July 15, the Sandinista-dominated assembly voted to strip him of his legislative immunity so that he could stand trial on charges that he had set fire to his home. Fellow opposition legislators claimed at the time the charges and were politically motivated.
   A few days later, he slipped past a police guard and sought political asylum at the embassy.
   Andara Ubeda said a civil court tried Espinoza in in his absence and sentenced him to four years imprisonment.
   Members of the Conservative Democrat Party at the time denounced the charges against Espinoza as a move by the Sandinistas to intimidate and silence its critics.
   Espinoza is the first member of the 96-seat legislature to seek political asylum since the Sandinistas came to power in 1979, Andara Ubeda said. He represented the northern provinces of Esteli, Nueva Segovia and Mardriz, an area where U.S.-backed rebels are active.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apr 7 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Military
^Sandinistas Train for Defense of Capital
^LaserPhoto
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Sandinista soldiers demonstrated their skill with powerful Soviet-made rocket launchers in an exercise the military says is meant to show the United States they are "ready for anything."
   The three-day exercise, which concludes today, is part of the Sandinista army's preparation for defending the capital against what Nicaraguan leaders frequently say is an inevitable U.S. invasion.
   The United States backs Nicaraguan rebels, called Contras, who are fighting to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government. The Sandinistas took power in a 1979 coup that topped the U.S.-backed government of Anastasio Somoza.
   The Defense Ministry reported Monday that 117 government troops and 425 Contras were killed in 426 clashes from March 5 through Sunday. It said the Contras attacked civilian targets 33 times in that period, killing 41 people, wounding 25 and kidnapping 64.
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest Contra group, has said its fighters killed 614 Sandinista soldiers during March and wounded 878 in 169 engagements.
   Both sides are known to inflate their reports of enemy losses.
   Officials took foreign reporters Monday to a training ground about 8 miles southwest of Managua where soldiers were working with Soviet-built BM-21 multiple rocket launchers.
   The weapon, which can fire 40 rockets simultaneously up to 14 miles, has been used in combat against the Contras.
   "We are telling the North American government that we are ready for anything," said Lt. Carlos Lara, an official of the Sandinista Defense Ministry's public affairs department, who escorted the journalists.
   Moments later, 10 soldiers scrambled from a tent and went to work making one of the rocket launchers combat-ready. Twelve launchers were mounted on trailers attached to trucks and dug into pits. Some were camouflaged with tree branches.
   On Sunday, soldiers at a training ground near Managua's airport east of the city practiced with anti-aircaft artillery pieces and Soviet-made T-54 tanks. No rounds were fired either Sunday or Monday.
   Military officials refused to say how many soldiers were participating in the exercise. But the government has said the maneuvers are in response to joint U.S.-Honduran exercises taking place across Nicaragua's northern border in Honduras.
   The Defense Ministry, in its report on casualties, accused the United States of sending six spy flights over this Central American country during the one-month period and said U.S. warships were patroling the Caribbean and Pacific coasts.
   The statement said Honduran troops attacked 10 times across the border in northern Nicaragua. Honduras has denied similar claims in the past.
   Contras were being blamed for sabotaging power pylons in northern Nicaragua and causing a blackout Sunday night in Jinotega province 102 miles north of Managua.
   On March 28, rebels destroyed two pylons near Nicaragua's southern frontier with Costa Rica. They knocked out pylons the week before on the northern border and near Managua.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apr 14 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Attack
^Contra Attacks on Cooperatives Fuel Controversy An AP Extra
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   PATIO GRANDE, Nicaragua (AP) _ Contra rebels have attacked dozens of state-run farming cooperatives this year, sometimes killing civilians, despite admonitions by their U.S. trainers to concentrate on the Sandinista army and economic targets.
   Survivors of a recent Contra attack on the Patio Grande cooperative 100 miles north of Managua say the rebels fired bullets and rockets indiscriminately and burned the farmers' only tractor.
   Isidrio Gonzalez Gutierrez, a resident, said six young rebels in camouflage uniforms burst into his home just before sunset.
   "I held up my Bible in front of them," Gonzalez, dressed in a tattered white shirt and patched pants, told a reporter. "I think they were going to shoot me, but when they saw the Bible, they held back."
   The attack last Thursday, in which survivors say three civilians were wounded, brings into focus the U.S.-backed rebels' controversial tactic of targeting the cooperatives in their fight against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government.
   Human rights groups decry the attacks on cooperatives because civilian casualties frequently result. But the rebels maintain that when farmers bear arms given them by the government, they become the enemy.
   Although Contra squad leaders recently trained in the United States reportedly were taught to concentrate instead on engaging the Sandinista army and destroying economic targets such as power lines and bridges, the rebels continue to attack the cooperatives.
   Reporters traveling throughout the war zone have come across several instances where civilians have been killed in attacks on cooperatives this year. The attacks are part of an increase in rebel activity following receipt of some of the $100 million in Contra aid approved by Congress for this year.
   The Defense Ministry says four civilians were killed in the attack at Patio Grande. However, Rogelio Estrada, the cooperative's representative to the governing Sandinista National Liberation Front, told reporters visiting this weekend that the dead were armed members of the cooperative's militia.
   Estrada said nine cooperative members, including three civilians, were wounded.
   Gonzalez said the rebels threatened to kill him unless he moved away from the cooperative, then burned the cooperative's only tractor, which was parked next to his home. They also burned the cooperative's only truck and a motorcycle before retreating into the jungle.
   Some estimated as many as 60 rebels took part in the attack.
   Gonzalez's seven children, all of them barefoot and some of them naked, played with the charred remnants of the tractor outside their home, a frame of thin pieces of lumber with plastic sheets for walls and a corrugated tin roof.
   Patio Grande, a coffee- and banana-producing cooperative perched on a mountaintop in Nueva Segovia province, is in an area where government troops and Contras frequently clash.
   Carlos Holman Chamorro, deputy minister of agriculture, said in a recent interview in Managua that the policy of installing cooperatives in combat zones "is an economic, political and military project. We told (the farmers), 'You are now the owners of this land - defend it 3/8'"
   Ruben Alfaro Diaz, a militiamen at Patio Grande, said the rebels poured automatic weapons fire and grenades into the cooperative, immediately overrunning its first defense lines.
   "The enemy was very well-equipped," Alfaro Diaz said. "They were better armed than we were."
   He said in addition to automatic rifles, the Contras had several M-79 grenade launchers and at least one RPG-2 rocket launcher. They captured the cooperative's mortar and one of its two heavy machine guns.
   Estrada said the cooperative has about 100 automatic assault rifles.
   The Nicaraguan government says it has more than 100,000 armed men, including the army, militia and reserves, but does not give a breakdown of the figure. The militiamen are armed by the government but have little or no military training.
   Most of Patio Grande's cooperative's 350 members came from the northeastern province of Madriz, hit last year by severe drought.
   Alejandro Vasquez, a militiaman, said most moved to the cooperative six months ago.
   "We had houses before, but there was not enough land for all of us," he said. "The Ministry of Agrarian Reform invited us here. They said there was good land here and work for everyone."
   "We knew there was war here," said Santos Ines Moreno, another militiaman. "The Contras want to intimidate us and force us to leave so they can control this area.
   "We were disorganized during the fight Thursday," he said. "But we will learn from that, and we'll get better at defending ourselves."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apr 15 1987
^PM-Honduras-Contras
^Two Honduran Deserters Claim U.S. Trains Contras In Honduras
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Two teen-agers identifying themselves as Honduran army deserters said U.S. Army advisers trained Contra rebels on a Honduran base and that the Honduran military loaned weapons to the guerrillas.
   The two, identified as Pvt. Angel Benjamin Rodriguez Lopez, 16, and Pvt. Alex Danilo Castro Chavarria, 17, said Tuesday they deserted in mid-March from the Fifth Infantry Battalion based near Mocoron, in eastern Honduras about 20 miles from the Nicaraguan border.
   They spoke at a news conference at the Foreign Ministry.
   Rodriguez Lopez said the Contras, fighting to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government with $100 million in new aid from the U.S. government, have been receiving training from Americans at the base.
   "The Americans are training the Contras now - they are training the FDN there," he said, referring to the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest rebel fighting group.
   For the first time in the war, the group has been operating in recent weeks in eastern Nicaragua, an area south of the base. The rebels have their own clandestine bases in Honduras, near the Nicaraguan border in an area known as the Las Vegas salient, about 120 miles southwest of Mocoron.
   Rodriguez Lopez did not say how long the alleged training had been going on. Asked who is in charge of training the rebels, Rodriguez Lopez said, "A captain of the United States is in charge of them." He could not identify the captain by name.
   In the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, U.S. Embassy press attache Michael O'Brien said, "I have no specific information on that charge" and referred questions to the Honduran military.
   Honduran President Jose Azcona Hoyo and U.S. officials have said American troops would have no contact with the Contras while in Honduras on military maneuvers involving Honduran troops.
   However, there have been unconfirmed reports in the past, chiefly from Contra leaders, that U.S. troops permanently stationed in the country have trained rebels inside Honduras. There are no legal prohibitions on such training.
   Honduran military officials in Tegucigalpa, who refused to be identified, said they had no information about the two deserters.
   Rodriguez Lopez said the Contras are being trained alongside Honduran troops, and the Honduran army "loans arms and everything to the Contras."
   "The Contras are taken better care of and have more freedom than we (Honduran soldiers) have," he said.
   Both deserters said they planned to live and work in Nicaragua.
   Rodriguez Lopez said some fighters of the Kisan guerrilla group, comprised primarily of Miskito Indians from the northeastern Nicaraguan coast, also are receiving training at the Honduran base.
   The Kisan reportedly have dwindled to about 500 fighters and have been inactive during the past year.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apr 15 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Crash
^One Killed in Crash of Sandinista Air Force Plane
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A Sandinista air force plane crashed shortly after taking off Wednesday from the civilian airport, killing one person and injuring nine others, a Defense Ministry official said.
   The plane crashed at 10 a.m. at Sandino International Airport outside Managua, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. She attributed the cause of the crash to "mechanical defects."
   It was not immediately clear if all nine injured were aboard the aircraft although she said it was a Soviet-made AN-2 transport plane, capable of carrying 16 passengers. The airport is used regularly for both commercial and military flights.
   The plane, with its wings laying collapsed by its side, was on a grass median strip between the airport's only runway and a taxiway. A group of soldiers were clustered around the fuselage, which appeared to have sustained little damage and was right side up.
   The government Voice of Nicaragua radio identified the victim as Lt. Pedro Torres, chief of staff of the Nicaraguan naval forces in the Caribbean coast region.
   Meanwhile, the Sandinista newspaper Barricada reported Wednesday that a Soviet-made Mi17 helicopter was "seriously damaged" by fire while it was parked at a military base outside Matagalpa, 60 miles north of Managua.
   Barricada described the fire as accidental, but did not give any details about how it began or when it occurred. The Defense Ministry said it had no further details.
   A Western diplomat with knowledge of rebel activities said recently that Contras might try to destroy parked helicopters. The helicopters have been used against the rebels in fighting in the countryside.

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Apr 25 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Coast
^Coastal Autonomy Plan Debated
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The official newspaper Barricada on Friday predicted that the National Assembly would approve a government-proposed plan to grant limited autonomy to the Caribbean coastal region.
   A council representing 240,000 Caribbean coastal residents including Indians, blacks and mestizos debated the proposal for three days and was to vote on it Friday.
   There is no telephone communication between Puerto Cabezas, the coastal town where the council was meeting, and the capital. Puerto Cabezas is 250 miles northeast of Managua.
   Results of the council's vote were not expected to be known for some time.
   The proposed statute would allow the region's residents to elect their own legislative body.
   The regional council was empowered to revise the proposal, which then goes to the National Assembly.
   But the National Assembly, controlled by the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, also can make changes in the measure and does not have to send them to the council for approval.
   Barricada on Friday predicted that the assembly would approve the plan, paving the way for the election of a local legislature which would be responsible for levying local taxes, planning the economic strategy for the area and preserving the ethnic cultures of the region.
   Dorotea Wilson, one of three delegates in the National Assembly from the Atlantic, as the Caribbean coast is commonly called, recently said the statute is a "plan of national unity."
   "What we want is to unite ourselves and still maintain our diversities," she said.
   The leftist federal government would retain responsibility for law enforcement and defense, and would have ultimate say on the economics and work priorities of the area.
   Friday's edition of El Nuevo Diario, the pro-Sandinista newspaper, said former members of the Indian rebel group KISAN were among those on the regional council deliberating the autonomy proposal.
   More than 500 Indians have left KISAN since the government passed a general amnesty law in 1985.
   Many of the former rebels still have their weapons and have formed a group called KISAN For Peace, which the government recognizes as an "indigenous militia force."
   KISAN, which is a Miskito Indian acronym for Nicaraguan Coast Indians United, and which is reported to have about 500 combatants, has not participated in the autonomy discussions because it believes the government will not abide by any agreement.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apr 25 11987
^AM-Nicaragua-Fighting
^Defense Minister Claims One-Fourth of Rebel Force Eliminated
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Defense Minister Humberto Ortega said Saturday that Sandinista troops have killed or captured almost a quarter of the U.S.-backed rebels battling the leftist government.
   Ortega, speaking at a ceremony opening a museum of weapons taken from rebels, said the Nicaraguan Democratic Force had 6,200 fighters and that 1,400 had been killed and 100 captured since January. About 300 soldiers were killed during the same period, he said.
   But his figures varied greatly from those given by the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest of several rebel groups fighting the Sandinitas. It claims it has some 15,000 fighters, with about 12,000 inside Nicaragua. It has said its members killed more than 1,300 soldiers in the first three months of 1987.
   There is no way to independently verify the figures of either side because the Sandinista government generally bars journalists from the battle zones.
   The defense minister, brother of President Daniel Ortega, also said a military operation has been launched to force the remaining rebels across Nicaragua's northern border into Honduras. Many of the rebels have their base camps in an area of southern Honduras.
   "Yesterday, our troops, backed by ground, air and artillery operations, began to collide with these (rebel) forces, and we expect that in a short period we will force them to retreat to their bases in Honduras," the defense minister said.
   He reported much of the fighting was taking place in a sparsely populated area along the Wina River in Jinotega province, 160 miles northeast of Managua.
   "The only bases the mercenary forces have are the ones they constructed in Honduras with the support of the government of the United States," Ortega said.
   "Recently, there was a commando operation ... in which special forces of the army acting against enemy shelters, principal bases and command posts, caused a quantity of dead and wounded," Ortega said. He did not give the location of the attack but added that "our intention and our activities were never for a moment against Honduran territory or against the Honduran government."
   Honduras has repeatedly accused Nicaragua of sending its troops into Honduran territory.
   Twice last year, U.S. Army helicopters ferried Honduran troops to the border area during Nicaraguan incursions. The United States keeps a permanent force of some 2,000 soldiers in Honduras and they frequently conduct joint maneuvers with Honduran troops. But the U.S. government has stressed that the American soldiers would not be engaged in combat.
   Nicaragua also claims Honduran troops violate the border and Ortega told the audience at the ceremony that Sandinista soldiers "were attacked from Honduran territory by Honduran units with artille----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sun Apr 26 1987
^AM-Contras-Evacuation
^Nicaraguan Peasants Relocated to Eliminate Support for Contras An AP Extra
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   NUEVA GUINEA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The leftist Sandinista government is relocating thousands of civilians in south-central Nicaragua in an attempt to eliminate support for the Contra rebels in the area.
   Saturnino Mendoza, a regional director of the Union of Farmers and Cattlemen, said more than 1,800 people have been relocated since the program started April 8 in the sparsely populated zone.
   Mendoza claimed many of those being relocated are firm supporters of the U.S.-backed Contras, who have had a steady presence in this area, 120 miles southeast of Managua, the capital.
   "The civilians are being removed to take away the social base of the Contras. This will be a big blow to the Contras," he said.
   He added that the civilians must leave, whether they want to or not, because their homeland "has become a militarized zone - a no man's land."
   The union is helping the government in the program, Mendoza said, in which at least 4,000 people will be moved by the time it is over.
   The area being evacuated is remote and extends southeasterly from Nueva Guinea. It was not clear exactly how much territory is covered by the program, authorized under the state of emergency in effect almost continuously since March 1982.
   This program is the largest undertaken by the government since it moved thousands of Miskito Indians away from their homelands along the Coco River in northeastern Nicaragua in 1982. That program later was rescinded because of widespread opposition.
   (The Associated Press submitted a request last week to the Defense Ministry in Managua for further details of government policy on such evacuations and also sought official comment on the Nueva Guinea relocations, but it did not receive a response. During the weekend, the AP was told no Defense Ministry officials were available to answer the questions or to comment.
   (A Western diplomat in Managua, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Sandinista government evacuates civilians "when it is going to mine certain areas, or establish a free-fire zone or when they think the peasants are pro-Contra.")
   Residents of villages strung along a dirt road leading from Nueva Guinea, the region's largest town, to the south say they have seen groups of hundreds of evacuees walking along the road during the past two weeks.
   "Yesterday, it took an hour for a group of people to pass by here," Rafael Romero Fonseca said as he lounged outside his rough-hewn shop in Colonia Serrano. "They were carrying hammocks, and had their children, pigs and cows with them. They were escorted by soldiers."
   Clemente Duarte, a farmer passing the time of day outside Romero Fonseca's shop, said that since the evacuations began, he has become afraid to tend his fields, which are an hour's ride on horseback in the direction the people were being evacuated from.
   "I am afraid to go out there now, because that land has become a free-fire zone," Duarte said. "There are no campesinos out there anymore, just abandoned farms."
   About half the evacuees have been taken to a relocation camp called Cascal, about 20 miles north of Nueva Guinea. Three relocation camps in all are being created to take in the flood of evacuees, Mendoza said.
   Plots of land within the camps will be assigned to each family in compensation for having to leave their homes, Mendoza added.
   The evacuees came from farms hacked out of the jungle. Some said their fields were brimming with beans, corn and rice when government soldiers ordered them to leave earlier this month.
   "I was out in the fields cutting corn when I saw the soldiers come," said Santiago Ruiz Rivera, a 62-year-old, one-legged man. "By the time I got to my house it was surrounded by solders. They told me, 'Prepare to leave.'"
   Within the hour Ruiz Rivera, his wife and their eight children joined a column of 1,500 civilians, escorted by 600 government soldiers, on a three-day march to an evacuee reception center, he said.
   Ruiz Rivera said he left behind his crops, 14 cows, 17 pigs and his home.
   Now, he and his family live in Cascal under a plastic sheet nailed to a thin wood frame. Hundreds of the flimsy structures are set up on the hard ground, which is covered with the stubble of brush blackened from burning.
   Ruiz Rivera said he lost his leg in an accident while felling trees to clear land 13 years ago.
   "We made pure jungle and mountain into clean and rich land," he said. "Now I'm too old to start again."
   He said he would try to take his family to stay with relatives in Leon, a northern town he had left 13 years ago because of drought.
   Mendoza said the evacuees will be encouraged to stay in the relocation camps and to plant crops there.
   He said the government will set up schools and clinics for the evacuees.
   "It is better for them here," he said. "Right now, they are living under plastic sheets, but soon they will have housing, and education and health facilities - more than what they had in their former homes."
   Some evacuees managed to bring cattle and chickens with them, but many had only rations of corn and beans given by the government  ry and rifle fire." He did not give any date or location of the purported attack.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apr 28 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Fighting
^Sandinista Troops Mass In Northern Nicaragua With AM-Nicaragua-American
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Sandinista troops have massed in northern Nicaragua to try to trap U.S.-supported Contra rebels or force them back into Honduras, according to a Western diplomat with access to intelligence reports.
   On Saturday, Defense Minister Humberto Ortega said the military had launched an offensive the previous day and had "collided" with troops from the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, the largest rebel fighting group.
   But the diplomat, a reliable source who spoke Monday on condition he not be identified, said the offensive had been expected since early last week, but that it had not yet begun.
   "Last week, we saw the concentrations of forces that would represent the type of offensive that (Ortega) was talking about," he said. "But we have not seen the beginning of the sweep itself."
   The area where Ortega said the offensive is taking place, near the Honduran border in the Wina River Valley, 160 miles northeast of Managua, is a rugged area virtually inaccessible by motor vehicle.
   The leftist Sandinista government severely restricts movements of journalists to the battle areas so there was no way to verify the reports independently. The rebels recently began allowing journalists to travel with them in northern Nicaragua.
   The diplomat said he was perplexed as to why the defense minister announced the offensive prematurely, but added he was sure it would take place since he had been made public.
   "We will see if the Contras can get away by slipping around their flanks," the diplomat said. "Of course, they can slip into Honduras."
   However, he said the rebel high command would discourage such a tactic because it has made a commitment to Honduran President Jose Azcona Hoyo that the guerrillas would try to avoid returning to Honduras.
   The Contras have maintained camps in the southern part of that country since the start of their fight five years ago. Their presence in Honduras, an impoverished nation that is a close ally of the United States, has caused clashes between Sandinista and Honduran troops.
   Last December, Honduran warplanes and artillery pieces pounded Sandinista soldiers who mounted an incursion to attack Contra bases. U.S. Army helicopters ferried Honduran infantrymen to the front.
   The diplomat said up to 4,500 rebels are in northern Nicaragua, half of the force of 9,000 rebels who crossed into Nicaragua since December, representing most of combatants. He said the rest were in the mountains of central or south-central Nicaragua.
   The Contras themselves claim about 12,000 fighters inside Nicaragua and a total force of about 15,000. The Sandinistas say there are no more than 6,200 rebels and that 1,400 have been killed inside Nicaragua this year.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apr 29 1987^PM-Nicaragua-American<
^Colleagues of Slain American Vow to Stand Firm URGENT<
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
   MATAGALPA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The largest U.S.-supported Nicaraguan rebel fighting force said today that an American killed in northern Nicaragua was caught in a firefight between its forces and Sandinista militia.
   "The death of (Benjamin Ernest) Linder was produced in the midst of a firefight between one of our patrols and a group of militia of the Sandinista army, which accompanied the U.S. citizen," the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, said in a statement released in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
   The Contras said Nicaragua was responsible for the death for allowing the man to be in a war zone. Nicaragua earlier accused the Reagan administration of criminal responsibility for his death.
   The body of Linder, 27, of Portland, Ore., arrived in the provincial capital of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, early today, his coffin carried by four men from the village more than 20 miles away where he was slain Tuesday.
   Linder was the first American volunteer working on behalf of the Sandinistas to be killed in the rebels' 5-year-old guerrilla campaign against the leftist government.
   Colleagues of Linder today blamed the Reagan administration for his death and reaffirmed their commitment "to stand alongside the Nicaraguan people."
   Nicaraguan officials said Contra rebels killed Linder and two Sandinista militiamen in an attack in the northern village of La Camaleona in neighboring Jinotega province, where the rebels have been increasingly active in recent months.
   The statement blamed Nicaragua's leftist government for the death.
   "The FDN holds the Marxist-Leninist regime of Nicaragua for the death of the U.S. citizen by allowing him to enter an area of civil war of our country, which is between Nicaraguans and not foreigners," it said.
   "The American (Linder), one of the few international volunteers helping the Managua regime, lived in Nicaragua for several years and knew perfectly the risks he ran by being in a war zone accompanied by Sandinista soldiers," the statement said. Linder was working on the construction of a small hydroelectric plant in the village 85 miles northeast of Managua.
   An American acquaintance of Linder said he usually carried an assault rifle "for protection" when he ventured outside the village, but did not know if he had the gun with him Tuesday. One report said he was unarmed at the time of the Contra raid.
   About 50 foreign volunteers, most of them Americans, paid last respects at the office of the presidential delegate in Matagalpa, where Linder's coffin was placed. Dozens of wreaths surrounded the open casket holding the body of the red-bearded volunteer.
   "We hold the Reagan administration and the U.S. Congress fully and directly responsible for the murder of Benjamin Ernest Linder and call on the people of the U.S. to demand an immediate end to all U.S. support for this unjust war," said a statement drafted by Linder's fellow volunteers and read by Mary Risacher, of Washington.
   "Rather than being intimidated by this assassination, we U.S. citizens working in the northern war zone of Nicaragua reaffirm our decision to continue to stand alongside the Nicaraguan people in their struggle for peace and justice," the statement said.
   After the statement was read, someone shouted the name of the slain man, and those gathered shouted in unison, "Presente 3/8 Presente 3/8" - meaning "He is with us." A wake was to be held for Linder tonight.
   An estimated 200 Americans are in Nicaragua as volunteers. They generally say they work in Nicaragua because they oppose U.S. policy toward this country or because they simply want to help.
   In Washington, Vice President George Bush said he did not know the exact circumstances of Linder's death, but added: "anytime an American loses his life on foreign soil, that's of enormous concern to everyone."
   Asked whether he objected to Americans volunteering on projects in Nicaragua, the vice president said, "No, not particularly."
   But, he added, "I'd love to see all volunteers working for the countries that love this volunteer concept ... us democratic countries ... that value the freedoms that go into this concept of volunteerism."
   Alejandro Morales, an employee of the Nicaraguan Energy Institute for which Linder had worked when he first came to Nicaragua in 1985, told The Associated Press in Matagalpa that Linder was "a highly qualified technician" who "went to work in an area where (even) the Nicaraguan technicians were afraid to go."
   Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto sent a protest note to Secretary of State George Shultz saying the attack was carried out "by a counterrevolutio nary group under contract to the U.S. government."
   D'Escoto said the attack "makes clear once again the terrorist and criminal nature of the acts promoted by the administration of the United States within its bloody official policy of state terrorism, a practice that has been condemned by the international community."
   There were conflicting reports on the slaying. A government official, commenting on condition of anonymity, said six Contras walked into Linder's office and shot him.
   D'Escoto's note said Linder was "kidnapped and later murdered."
   Some Nicaraguan travelers who arrived at the scene shortly after the raid quoted witnesses as saying the attack occurred while Linder and six Nicaraguans were on the outskirts of town surveying a pipeline.
   The travelers told reporters in Matagalpa that Linder was unarmed when a Contra commando unit struck with grenades and rifle fire. They said four of the Nicaraguans with Linder were militiamen, who customarily provide security in small settlements in the war zones.
   In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Sondra McCarty said she had no information on the reports of the death. "We're checking into them," she said.
   Linder was a member of NICA, a pro-Nicaragua group based in Bellingham, Wash., said NICA member Tom Voorhees in a telephone interview from his home in Clinton, Wash.
   Linder quit the Energy Institute last year to become an unpaid volunteer doing rural development work in Jinotega.
   Seven European volunteers have been killed since 1983 in Contra attacks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apr 29 11987
^AM-Linder Profile
^Slain American First Worked in Nicaragua As A Circus Clown With AM-Nicaragua-American Bjt
^LaserPhoto PD6
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MATAGALPA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Benjamin Ernest Linder came to Nicaragua in 1983 and went to work as a circus clown because he couldn't get a permit as an engineer, a fellow American volunteer said Wednesday.
   He soon got the document and helped build small power plants, but also continued entertaining children. On Tuesday, he became the first American volunteer slain in the 5-year-old war between U.S.-backed Contra rebels and the leftist Sandinista government.
   The 27-year-old from Portland, Ore., "was always very happy," said Mira Brown, a fellow volunteer from Boston.
   She worked with him in building a hydroelectric plant that brought electricity for the first time to El Cua, a cluster of adobe houses near this northern provincial capital to which his body was brought in a pink wooden coffin.
   Ms. Brown spoke to reporters outside the U.S. Embassy in Managua, where American volunteers demonstrated Wednesday against the Reagan administration's support for the rebels. She said came to Nicaragua after graduating from the University of Washington in Seattle.
   She said he had difficulty obtaining a work permit because programs for the "internacionalistas," as foreign volunteers are known, were not as developed then.
   He joined the national circus and, for three months, made children laugh as a clown, riding a unicycle and juggling, she said. Ms. Brown described the red-bearded young engineer as hard working and cheerful, an idealist who was not politicized.
   Linder worked for the Nicaraguan Appropriate Technology Project, known as NICAT, helping build a small hydroelectric plant at the village of La Camaleona about 20 miles from here. NICAT is a pro-Nicaraguan group based in Bellingham, Wash.
   Until last year, Linder had helped build a similar plant at El Cua for the government's National Energy Institute.
   Alejandro Morales, a Nicaraguan colleagues, said the young American was a "highly qualified technician" but also continued entertaining children in the villages.
   "Sometimes when villages would have parties, he would dress up as a clown," Morales said. "He would fascinate the children, including my 7-year- old daughter, with juggling acts, some on a unicycle he owned, and other tricks. He was special in his own way."
   Morales said his daughter telephoned him at work Tuesday to say she had heard of Linder's death.
   Ms. Brown recalled a government campaign in El Cua to vaccinate children against measles.
   She said Linder put on his clown suit, painted dots on his face and went around on his unicycle shouting "Death to Measles 3/8" getting the children to follow him to the vaccination center.
   Others said he accepted hardship cheerfully and acted without fear.
   "It embarrasses me to say this, but he went to work where Nicaraguans were afraid to go," Morales said.
   Because death by rebel ambush and land mine were fairly common in the area, Nicaraguan employees of the power company were "very, very scared to go in there," said another of Linder's colleagues, who did not give his name.
   David Ramalay of Witness for Peace, an organization that monitors and reports on rebel attacks, said Linder lived with an elderly Nicaraguan man in an adobe house in El Cua.
   He said the engineer reluctantly carried a Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifle when he went into the countryside.
   "Every time he went out of El Cua he carried a weapon," Ramalay said, but added that he did not know whether Linder was armed on Tuesday. Reports from witnesses to the attack said he was not.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
May 1 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-American
^Nicaraguan President Appeals for Peace at Slain American's Funeral
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MATAGALPA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega helped carry the coffin of an American volunteer killed in an attack by U.S.-backed Contra rebels and said his death should move the Reagan administration to negotiate for peace.
   Benjamin Linder, an engineer working without pay on a rural electrification project, was "assassinated by mercenaries following orders from the CIA," Ortega said in a speech at Linder's funeral Thursday.
   Linder's slaying Tuesday "should move the conscience of those in the U.S. government so that (funeral) bells should toll no more, so that aggression ends ... and they accept to dialogue with Nicaragua," he said.
   The Contras said Linder was killed in a clash between their forces and Sandinista militiamen accompanying him, and blamed the Nicaraguan government for the American's death because it allowed him into a war zone.
   "For whom the bell tolls? Hemingway would ask," Ortega said. He answered that it tolled for Linder and seven European volunteers slain in Contra attacks since the rebels, with support from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, began their guerrilla war against the leftist Sandinista government five years ago. About 40,000 Nicaraguans have died in the conflict.
   The Reagan administration considers Ortega's government a threat to regional security because of its close ties to the Soviet Union and Cuba.
   Sandinista officials have claimed the rebels singled out Linder and killed him along with two Nicaraguan militiamen near the hamlet of La Camaleona, 20 miles north of this provincial capital.
   Unconfirmed reports said Linder was carrying a weapon when he was killed.
   In a protest note to Secretary of State George Shultz, Foreign Minister Miguel d'Escoto said Linder was "kidnapped and later murdered ... by a counterrevolutionary group under contract to the U.S. government."
   The U.S. Embassy in Managua first said it would send consular officials to northern Nicaragua to investigate the slaying, but later said it would not because Sandinista authorities were not cooperating and the area was too dangerous.
   Linder, 27, of Portland, Ore., came to Nicaragua in 1983 shortly after he graduated from the University of Washington as a mechanical engineer. He was one of about 200 American volunteer workers currently in the country.
   On Thursday, the Sandinista government posthumously awarded him the Order of Commander Jose Benito Escobar, the country's highest non-military citation. It was the first time the award was given to a foreigner.
   A crowd of 1,000, including Linder's family and about 50 fellow American volunteers who sang "We shall overcome," marched 25 blocks to the hilltop cemetery on the south side of Matagalpa. Ortega served as pallbearer part of the way.
   Preceding the cortege were jugglers and other entertainers from the Managua Circus, where Linder worked as a clown for three months when he first arrived in Nicaragua in 1983. He sometimes had dressed as a clown to encourage children to get vaccinated at local health centers.
   Schoolgirls in uniforms of white blouses and blue skirts marched and shouted, "Here, no one surrenders 3/8" and other slogans of the Sandinistas, who overthrew a rightist, pro-American dictatorship nearly eight years ago.
   At the graveside, Linder's father poured a cupful of soil from his native Oregon over the coffin.
   In a brief eulogy, David Linder said his son "believed that through work he could make life better for (the Nicaraguan) people and help strengthen democracy. ... It is clear to me that people here understand what he did. My family and I are very proud to have Benjamin interred in your city."
   There was no religious ceremony, but two friends of the family chanted a prayer in Hebrew while Linder's brother John and his sister Miriam knelt, wept and put their hands on the rose-colored wooden coffin.
   When asked who killed his son, Linder said: "Who killed Ben? Someone who paid someone who paid someone who paid someone and so on down the line to the president of the United States." His voice broke and he wept.
   U.S. Consul Donalty Tyson, who told reporters he was present to pay his respects and offer assistance to the family, stood off quietly to one side.
   Linder was a member of the Nicaraguan Appropriate Technology Project, based in Bellingham, Wash. He helped build a small hydroelectric plant in Jinotega province last year to provide electricity to the hamlet of El Cua, where he lived.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
May 1 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-American
^Brother of Slain American Condemns U.S. Policy
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The brother of American volunteer Benjamin Linder, who was killed in an attack by Contra rebels, told a cheering crowd of thousands Friday that he blames the U.S. government for the death.
   Linder, 27, of Portland, Ore., was a mechanical engineer working without pay on a rural electrification project was killed Tuesday along with two Nicaraguan militiamen.
   He was buried as a Sandinista hero Thursday in Matagalpa, 80 miles north of here, at a funeral attended by President Daniel Ortega, friends and relatives.
   "They were killed by the government of the United States," John Linder told a crowd estimated at 25,000 gathered in the Plaza of the Revolution for the annual May Day celebration.
   "The grenade that killed my brother and two Nicaraguans while they were surveying to bring electricity to northern Nicaragua was paid for, delivered and the attack planned by the government of the United States."
   He spoke in English and his comments were translated into Spanish by a friend. The crowd cheered and applauded after each translated segment.
   Later Friday, the American group to which Linder belonged called for a congressional investigation into his death.
   Tom Voorhees, spokesman for the Nicaraguan Appropriate Technology Project, also called for an investigation into the Reagan administration's policy regarding development workers in Nicaragua. "Are they considered enemies of the United States?" said Voorhees, speaking in Seattle.
   Linder's sister, Miriam, said their parents, David and Elisabeth Linder, would spend most of Friday in seclusion at their hotel. The parents had planned to go the isolated northern area in Jinotega province where their son was killed but canceled their plans without explanation. Their daughter said she did not know when the family would return to Oregon.
   On Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy said it would not send a representative to the area because of fighting between the rebels and Sandinista troops.
   In his speech, John Linder also said the United States in carrying out a policy of aggression against Nicaragua was circumventing the desires of the American people. "The people of the United States - the workers, the farmers, those who pay with their tax dollars, who will pay with their lives as they did in Vietnam - these people want peace," he said.
   Victor Tirado, one of the nine commanders of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, told the crowd that Benjamin Linder "symbolized the future of generations in Nicaragua and in the United States (who want) mutual respect. He gave his life for this goal."
   Sandinista officials have claimed the rebels singled out Linder and killed him near the hamlet of La Camaleona, 20 miles north of Matagalpa.
   The Contras say he died in a clash between their forces and Sandinista militiamen accompanying him, and blamed the Nicaraguan government for allowing Linder into a war zone.
   There have been unconfirmed reports that Linder was carrying a weapon when he was killed. He had been living in Nicaragua since 1983 and was one of about 200 American volunteers working in the country.
   On Thursday, the Sandinista government posthumously awarded him the Order of Commander Jose Benito Escobar, the country's highest non-military citation. It was the first time the award was given to a foreigner.
   Linder was a member of the Nicaraguan Appropriate Technology Project, based in Bellingham, Wash. He helped build a small hydroelectric plant in Jinotega province last year to provide electricity for the hamlet of El Cua, where he lived.
   In another development Friday, the government reported Contras have killed 22 Sandinista soldiers in combat in north-central Nicaragua "in the last few days." It did not give specific dates.
   The Sandinista newspaper Barricada said Friday 24 rebels have been killed in three firefights in the northern provinces of Nueva Segovia and Jinotega and the central province of Boaco. It did not say when the fighting occurred.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
May 1 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-American
^Brother of Slain American Condemns U.S. Policy
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The brother of American volunteer Benjamin Linder, who was killed in an attack by Contra rebels, told a cheering crowd of thousands Friday that he blames the U.S. government for the death.
   Linder, 27, of Portland, Ore., was a mechanical engineer working without pay on a rural electrification project was killed Tuesday along with two Nicaraguan militiamen.
   He was buried as a Sandinista hero Thursday in Matagalpa, 80 miles north of here, at a funeral attended by President Daniel Ortega, friends and relatives.
   "They were killed by the government of the United States," John Linder told a crowd estimated at 25,000 gathered in the Plaza of the Revolution for the annual May Day celebration.
   "The grenade that killed my brother and two Nicaraguans while they were surveying to bring electricity to northern Nicaragua was paid for, delivered and the attack planned by the government of the United States."
   He spoke in English and his comments were translated into Spanish by a friend. The crowd cheered and applauded after each translated segment.
   Later Friday, the American group to which Linder belonged called for a congressional investigation into his death.
   Tom Voorhees, spokesman for the Nicaraguan Appropriate Technology Project, also called for an investigation into the Reagan administration's policy regarding development workers in Nicaragua. "Are they considered enemies of the United States?" said Voorhees, speaking in Seattle.
   Linder's sister, Miriam, said their parents, David and Elisabeth Linder, would spend most of Friday in seclusion at their hotel. The parents had planned to go the isolated northern area in Jinotega province where their son was killed but canceled their plans without explanation. Their daughter said she did not know when the family would return to Oregon.
   On Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy said it would not send a representative to the area because of fighting between the rebels and Sandinista troops.
   In his speech, John Linder also said the United States in carrying out a policy of aggression against Nicaragua was circumventing the desires of the American people. "The people of the United States - the workers, the farmers, those who pay with their tax dollars, who will pay with their lives as they did in Vietnam - these people want peace," he said.
   Victor Tirado, one of the nine commanders of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, told the crowd that Benjamin Linder "symbolized the future of generations in Nicaragua and in the United States (who want) mutual respect. He gave his life for this goal."
   Sandinista officials have claimed the rebels singled out Linder and killed him near the hamlet of La Camaleona, 20 miles north of Matagalpa.
   The Contras say he died in a clash between their forces and Sandinista militiamen accompanying him, and blamed the Nicaraguan government for allowing Linder into a war zone.
   There have been unconfirmed reports that Linder was carrying a weapon when he was killed. He had been living in Nicaragua since 1983 and was one of about 200 American volunteers working in the country.
   On Thursday, the Sandinista government posthumously awarded him the Order of Commander Jose Benito Escobar, the country's highest non-military citation. It was the first time the award was given to a foreigner.
   Linder was a member of the Nicaraguan Appropriate Technology Project, based in Bellingham, Wash. He helped build a small hydroelectric plant in Jinotega province last year to provide electricity for the hamlet of El Cua, where he lived.
   In another development Friday, the government reported Contras have killed 22 Sandinista soldiers in combat in north-central Nicaragua "in the last few days." It did not give specific dates.
   The Sandinista newspaper Barricada said Friday 24 rebels have been killed in three firefights in the northern provinces of Nueva Segovia and Jinotega and the central province of Boaco. It did not say when the fighting occurred.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
May 5 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Linder
^Father Says Contras Killed Son At Point Blank Range
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The father of Benjamin Linder, the first American working for the government killed by U.S.-supported Contras, said Tuesday an autopsy report shows the rebels killed his son while he was on the ground wounded.
   "What I am telling you is that they blew his brains out at point-blank range as he lay wounded," said Dr. David Linder, a pathologist from Portland, Ore. "Someone, I believe, came up to him, saw him, and instead of taking him prisoner (or) leaving him alone, killed him."
   Linder said he based his conclusions on an autopsy report by a Nicaraguan physician that contradicts reports from witnesses who said the 27-year-old mechanical engineer was killed by grenade fragments April 28.
   The son was one of about 200 Americans working with the leftist Sandinista government, which the Contras are fighting with U.S. training and aid.
   He was given a hero's burial Thursday by the government in Matagalpa, 60 miles north of Managua, at a funeral where President Daniel Ortega served as one of the pallbearers.
   Sandinista officials say the rebels singled out the younger Linder and killed him in a small village in northern Jinotega province where he was working on a rural electricification project.
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, the largest Contra fighting group, says Linder was caught in a firefight between the rebels and Sandinista militia. There were conflicting reports about whether Linder was armed.
   Linder said eyewitness accounts show his son and co-workers were ambushed by the rebels who were hiding in an isolated ravine where the attack took place.
   "This was not a chance encounter," he said. "This is murder."
   The father also told reporters the autopsy report shows his son was initially immobilized by non-lethal wounds in the back of his legs and his left forearm and "was then killed by a gunshot wound to his head."
   He said the examining physician, Francisco Valladares, told him there were powder burns around the entry wound to the head, adding the report also said his son was killed by a high-velocity bullet.
   "The powder burns suggest that he was shot at very close range, possibly two feet away or less," Linder said.
   Linder said the autopsy showed his son's face had several puncture marks made by an unknown object, but he discounted the possibility of torture.
   "Even though I have limited regard for the Contras, I can't imagine them just sitting there poking at the poor kid's head," Linder said.
   The report was signed by Dr. Bayardo Gonzalez Vargas, the pathologist for the northern Matagalpa province. Linder said he did not know if a second autopsy was conducted by Vargas or whether he merely wrote a summary of earlier findings.
   Last week, a report by Witness for Peace, an American group opposed to U.S. support for the rebels, said witnesses it interviewed said Linder "was killed instantly when a small group of Contras fired five grenades and then opened fire" on Linder's group.
   Ed Griffin-Nolan, who represents Witness For Peace in Nicaragua, told The Associated Press after the autopsy became public that the witnesses had seen Linder fall when grenades exploded and apparently wrongly assumed that was what had killed him.
   Griffin-Nolan said he believed the autopsy findings were more reliable than the witnesses' reports.
   "The Contras who killed Ben were hired guns," said a brother, John Linder, who also was at the news conference. "The real killers are in Washington, enjoying a pleasant lunch or perhaps a game of golf, while my brother lies dead at age 27. They are brutal, and they keep their hands clean by sending others to do their dirty work."
   Elisabeth Linder, the slain man's mother, and Alyson Quam, his girlfriend, also appeared at the press conference. Miriam Linder, Benjamin's sister, said the family did not know when it would return home.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
May 6 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Linder
^Father Says Linder Was Wounded, Then Slain
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The father of American engineer Benjamin Linder said his son was shot at point-blank range by Contra rebels while he lay wounded by grenade fragments.
   The younger Linder was working on a rural electrification project last week when he became the first pro-Sandinista American volunteer to be killed by the U.S.-backed insurgents.
   Dr. David Linder, a pathologist from Portland, Ore., told a news conference Tuesday that an autopsy shows his son was killed by a gunshot to the head at "very close range, possibly two feet away or less."
   Earlier reports had said the 27-year-old Linder died when a grenade exploded near him during a Contra attack on his party, which included Sandinista militiamen, outside a village in northern Jinotega province.
   Witness accounts indicated the electrification crew was ambushed by the rebels.
   Linder said the autopsy report shows his son first was immobilized by non- lethal wounds in the legs and left forearm, and then was shot to death.
   "This is murder," he said. "What I am telling you is that they blew his brains out at point-blank range as he lay wounded."
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest Contra fighting group, says Linder was caught in a firefight. There were conflicting reports about whether he was armed.
   Two Sandinista militiamen also were reported killed in the clash.
   Linder was given a hero's burial Thursday in Matagalpa, 60 miles north of Managua. President Daniel Ortega was one of the pallbearers.
   About 200 Americans are working as volunteers for the leftist Nicaraguan government.
   "The Contras who killed Ben were hired guns," said Benjamin's brother, John, who also was at the news conference. "The real killers are in Washington, enjoying a pleasant lunch or perhaps a game of golf, while my brother lies dead at age 27. They are brutal, and they keep their hands clean by sending others to do their dirty work."
   Elisabeth Linder, the slain man's mother; Miriam Linder, Benjamin's sister; and Alyson Quam, his girlfriend, also appeared at the press conference.
   The Linder family left Nicaragua this morning, airline officials said. They were expected to arrive in Portland, Ore. tonight.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
May 6 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Fighting
^Sandinistas Claim 723 Contras Killed In Past Month
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The leftist Sandinista government said Wednesday that its forces killed 723 Contra rebels in 323 engagements in Nicaragua in the past month.
   The Defense Ministry statement said 103 government troops died in fighting during the same period - from April 5 to Tuesday. There was no report on the number of wounded.
   By comparison, the government said during the March 5-April 5 period that 425 rebels died in 426 clashes while 117 government troops were killed.
   There was no mention in the communique of a Contra statement Monday that rebels had killed 50 Sandinista soldiers in southern Nicaragua. Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Carlos Lara at the time denied any such battle had occurred.
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, the largest Contra fighting group supported by the United States, said in a report released Friday that during April its troops killed 764 Sandinista soldiers and wounded 891. The FDN does not report its own casualties.
   The FDN said it has killed 2,107 Sandinistas and wounded 2,795 since the first of the year, while the Sandinista government says it killed 1,904 Contras while 377 of its own troops were killed during the same period.
   Both sides are known to inflate the casualty figures of the opposing forces. There is no way to independently verify either side's claims.
   The government imposes travel restrictions on journalists in Nicaragua and the Contras allow journalists to travel with their forces only rarely.
   The Reagan administration has supported the Contras since the start of their fight five years ago, saying U.S. aid is justified because of the Sandinistas' close ties to the Soviet bloc and their alleged effort to spread revolution in Central America.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
May 7 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Americans
^Organizers Say American Volunteers to Keep Coming to Nicaragua
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ American volunteers will keep coming to Nicaragua despite warnings from the State Department and the killing by Contra rebels of a pro-Sandinista American engineer, organizers said.
   "We want 15,000 Americans to come down here to replace the Nicaraguans who have been killed in this war," volunteer organizer Charles Liteky told The Associated Press during an interview Wednesday in Managua.
   Liteky, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor in Vietnam, and Brian Willson, another decorated veteran, last year protested U.S. support for the Nicaraguan rebels by fasting on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
   The parents, brother and sister of Benjamin Linder, the 27-year-old engineer slain last week while working on an electrification project in the rural north, returned home Wednesday to Portland, Ore. after attending his funeral.
   Linder and two militiamen of the leftist Sandinista government died during a Contra attack on their party April 28. His father, pathologist David Linder, said an autopsy report showed the engineer was wounded by a grenade and then killed by a shot in the head fired at point-blank range. He accused the Contras of murder.
   The Contras said Linder's death was the government's fault for allowing him into a war zone and warned other foreigners to stay out of combat regions.
   Similar warnings have been issued by the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Managua.
   An estimated 2,000 Americans live in Nicaragua.
   Ed Griffin-Nolan, a local representative of Witness For Peace, an anti-war group that investigates and reports on rebel attacks in Nicaragua, said 200 to 300 U.S. citizens are working in the war zones.
   His group, based in Washington, D.C., now has 45 volunteers in Nicaragua pledged to stay at least eight months and live at their own expense in combat zones. The group also brings in groups for two-week stays, Griffin-Nolan said in a separate interview Wednesday.
   It has brought in a total of 2,300 Americans since it was founded in 1983 and Griffin-Nolan, from Staten Island, N.Y., said the program will continue.
   "If the Reagan administration wants to protect us then they can call off their hired guns," he said. Reagan, who has called the Contras "freedom fighters," has said the leftist Nicaraguan government threatens regional security.
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May 7 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Americans
^Say Hundreds More Americans To Arrive In Nicaragua Soon
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Anti-war advocates say they will encourage more Americans to come work for the leftist Sandinista government despite the death of an American in an attack by U.S.-backed Contra rebels.
   Benjamin Linder, 27, a mechanical engineer from Portland, Ore., was killed April 28 in northern Jinotega province while working on a rural electrification project. His father, David Linder, a pathologist, said an autopsy showed his son was first wounded and then shot in the head at close range.
   The Contras say Linder was caught in a firefight between the rebels and militia, while Sandinista officials say he was singled out by the attackers. There were conflicting reports about whether Linder was armed.
   The U.S. Embassy and the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, FDN, the largest Contra fighting force, say volunteer workers should leave areas of fighting.
   But many American pro-Sandinista volunteers are ignoring the warnings and some are trying to recruit more volunteers.
   Ed Griffin-Nolan, of Staten Island, N.Y., local representative of the anti- war Witnesses For Peace group, estimated 200 to 300 American volunteers are now in combat areas. He said the group will continue encouraging volunteers to come to Nicaragua.
   "If the FDN stops committing the kinds of atrocities they are known for, like ambushing civilians and laying land mines, then we would have no purpose here. If the Reagan administration wants to protect us then they can call off their hired guns," Griffin-Nolan said Wednesday.
   The Washington-based Witness organization has 45 volunteers in Nicaragua, pledged to stay at least eight months and live at their own expense in war zones, Griffin-Nolan said.
   He said the group has brought 2,300 Americans of mixed denominations and professions to Nicaragua since it was founded in 1983.
   Another volunteer organizer, Charles Liteky, said in an interview, "We want 15,000 Americans to come down here to replace the Nicaraguans who have been killed in this war."
   Liteky, who won the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, and Brian Willson, another decorated veteran, last year protested U.S. support for the Contras by fasting on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. They now are in Nicaragua as members of the World Peace Force, of Santa Cruz, Calif.
   They are seeking volunteers to "live in cooperatives with Nicaraguan farmers," Liteky said. "If the government allows it, we will put people in strategic places, like hydroelectric plants, schools, and other places targeted by the Contras."
   Liteky said the Nicaraguan government has already approved the plan, but Griffin-Nolan expressed doubt, noting the Sandinistas are waring of putting Americans in danger.
   "The government has told us they don't want us to shed our blood. We told them the same thing, that we don't want to die, we just want to be witnesses to the war," Griffin-Nolan said.
   He said Witnesses For Peace volunteers are insisting on going to war zones without the armed protection the government insists they have.
   "We practice non-violence, and we will not travel with soldiers," he said. "The idea (is) that the Contras are less likely to attack an area if Americans are present."
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Wed May 13 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Fighting
^Sandinistas Claim They Routed Contra Force
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Sandinista troops backed by helicopter gunships and artillery forced 800 U.S.-supported Contra rebels backed into Honduras after overrunning their base in northern Nicaragua, Defense Minister Humberto Ortega said Wednesday.
   Ortega told reporters 3,000 soldiers of the leftist government stormed the rebel stronghold Sunday at the confluence of the Bocay and Hamaca rivers in Jinotega province, about 180 miles north of the capital and two miles from Honduras.
   "In 36 hours, the counterrevolutionaries were totally dislodged from their position and were obligated to retreat in disorder in the direction of Honduras," he said. "All that sector is clean and is now controlled by our troops."
   Sandinista forces didn't cross the border during the three-day operation because they didn't want to provoke Honduran and U.S. troops, Ortega said.
   Ortega, brother of President Daniel Ortega, said after the attack soldiers found 32 dead rebels and "various supplies" abandoned in the jungle. He said an additional 46 rebels had died since May 1 in fighting elsewhere in Jinotega province.
   The defense minister didn't say how many soldiers died in the operation, only that eight Sandinista troops had been killed and 63 wounded since April 25 when they began moving toward the stronghold.
   Ortega said four died when the Soviet-made Mi-17 helicopter gunship they were in exploded after rebel machine gun fire hit its fuel tank. The rebels, however, say they shot down a Mi-17 on Sunday with a surface-to-air missile.
   Ortega said artillery and gunships fired at rebels fleeing toward an airstrip across the border, adding, "It is possible some projectiles hit around the airstrip, but we do not know if it was damaged."
   The Sandinista government offered to fly reporters by helicopter to the zone to prove its claims.
   Normally, journalists are barred from combat areas by the government, so there was no way to immediately verify Ortega's statement.
   The relatively low casualty rate indicated the main body of rebels managed to slip back across the border to their camps in southern Honduras, although it could not be confirmed if they actually had crossed the border or moved deeper into Nicaragua.
   A Western diplomat in Managua with access to intelligence reports told The Associated Press two weeks ago the rebels had been expecting the assault because they noticed the massing of Sandinista troops in the area.
   The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the rebels would try to slip away if attacked and would attempt to avoid retreating into Honduras.
   The rebel high command had promised Honduran President Jose Azcona Hoyo they would try to keep out of Honduras and establish a permanent presence in Nicaragua, said the diplomat, who closely follows rebel affairs.
   The rebels have maintained bases inside Honduras since the war began five years ago. In December, rebels by the thousands began slipping into Nicaragua in small units, newly armed and equipped after receiving $100 million from the U.S. government.
   The Contras claim to have nearly 12,000 fighters inside Nicaragua, although the Sandinistas say the number is no more than 4,000.
   Ortega said the fact that the rebels have been forced to leave their stronghold would be a big propaganda blow against them.
   The Contras and U.S. officials believe the rebels must show visible military victories to win more aid from a reluctant U.S. Congress.
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May 20 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Amputees
^Nicaraguans, with Red Cross Help, Make Artificial Limbs
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Seven months after losing his legs in the explosion of an anti-tank mine, Isaias Guerrero was standing again.
   As four ceiling fans lazily stirred the sultry air in a hospital physical- therapy room, Guerrero took hesitant steps on his new artificial limbs, using two crutches for support.
   "How am I doing?" he asked a visitor.
   A sheen of sweat broke out over his face as he worked to move one foot ahead of the other. A half-dozen other amputees and a physical therapist looked on, while rock music played from a stereo cassette player.
   Down the hall in the Aldo Chavarria Rehabilitation Hospital, workers were building dozens more artificial limbs, laid out in rows in various states of construction in Nicaragua's only prosthetics manufacturing operation.
   Guerrero, who was serving in the Sandinista People's Army when he was wounded by the mine, presumably laid by U.S.-backed Contra rebels, is just one of hundreds of soldiers and civilians who have lost their limbs in Nicaragua's 5-year-old civil war.
   To meet the increased demand, International Red Cross technicians, in cooperation with the Sandinista government's Health Ministry, began one year ago to teach Nicaraguans how to make prosthetic devices.
   The program is turning out to be a success, says administrator Michel Lerroy, one of five Red Cross officials working on the project.
   Before 1982, when the war began in earnest, the only company that manufactured prosthetic devices in Nicaragua was small and did not meet the nation's demand, even in peacetime, said Lerroy, a Frenchman.
   Components for artificial devices were imported from the United States, but Washington imposed a trade embargo on Managua's leftist government in 1985, forcing Nicaragua to become self-sufficient in producing the parts.
   Lerroy said the Red Cross technicians and their 14 Nicaraguan trainees are beginning to meet the wartime demand.
   "Our production of prosthetic devices is going to jump from the 86 that were made here last year to 250 that we expect to make this year," Lerroy said in an interview in his office in the hospital.
   The supply has yet to meet demand - 200 amputees are on the waiting list to receive limbs from the Red Cross center. But the gap is closing, and soon the government will not have to send patients to East Germany, Bulgaria and other Soviet-bloc nations to get fitted with prosthetic devices, Lerroy said.
   The components of the artificial legs and feet, made of wood and steel covered with flesh-colored fiberglass, are made in the prosthetics shop of the Aldo Chavarria Hospital, said Esteban Barrona, the shop's assistant technical director.
   Only some components for artificial arms are imported, he said, adding that he expected all the parts to be made locally within a year or two.
   The trainees work in the mornings, making the prosthetic devices under the direction of the Red Cross technicians, and study their trade in the afternoon. The course takes three years to complete.
   "The demand for our work is high," said trainee Luis Velasquez.
   Nicaraguan officials said they could not estimate the number of soldiers and civilians who have lost limbs in the war. Barrona noted that most of those receiving artificial devices at the Aldo Chavarria center are soldiers who were wounded in action.
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May 21 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-US
^Nicaraguans Avid Fans of Probe into Iran-Contra Deals
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ U.S. congressmen probing the web of intrigue surrounding the Iran-Contra arms dealings have a captive audience in Nicaragua.
   The congressional investigation into the sale of arms to Iran and diversion of some of the proceeds to Nicaraguan rebels is frequently the lead story on the government-run television news broadcasts.
   President Daniel Ortega makes it a point to keep track of the developments.
   "We are following the hearings because the topic day in and day out is Nicaragua," Ortega told reporters Thursday.
   Nicaraguans buying the morning newspaper in this sprawling, impoverished city frequently find shrill banner headlines on the affair.
   "Desperate Plan of Reagan: They Will Declare North Crazy," announced the pro-government daily El Nuevo Diario earlier this month. A week later came this headline: "Reagan is Crazy," with the subhead: "He telephoned McFarlane twice while he was giving testimony in Congress."
   Barricada, the official newspaper of the governing Sandinista National Liberation Front, also has been giving prominent coverage to the affair.
   The official Sandinista news agency, Nueva Nicaragua, said in an editorial carried in Barricada this week that the congressional hearings and other evidence shows the Reagan administration "systematically ignored" congressional restrictions on U.S. assistance to the anti-Sandinista rebels.
   Ortega said Reagan "has acted outside of the law of the United States just as he has acted outside of international law, showing disrepect for the finding of the International Court of Justice."
   The Court, an arm of the United Nations based in the Netherlands, ruled that U.S. support for the rebels violates international law. The Reagan administration refused to recognize the tribunal's jurisidiction.
   Asked if he believed the Iran-Contra affair could cause the downfall of the Reagan administration, Ortega said: "The issue is not whether the Reagan administration should or should not fall. Instead, the issue is that the illegality, the lies, the deceit should fall."
   Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco told reporters at a another news conference Thursday that the affair has rocked the foundations of government in th United States.
   "It is evident that the system is in crisis," he said. "The relationship between the executive branch and the Congress and the cooperation and the confidence between the two powers are in crisis."
   "While the legislative branch recommends one thing, the executive branch violates that law," he said, referring to the so-called Boland amendment, which virtually prohibited official U.S. aid to the Contras between 1984 and 1986.
   Witnesses at the hearings have testified that Lt. Col. Oliver North, while he was working for the National Security Council in the White House, sent the Contras some of the proceeds from covert arms sales to Iran.
   Tinoco said the rebels fighting Nicaragua's leftist government would have withered away without the clandestine U.S. support.
   "The relationship between the government of the United States and the Contras is like the relationship between a mother and an infant totally dependent on her to function, to act, to live and to survive," he said, addeing that the rebels exist only because of their "umbilical cord" to the United States.
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May 22 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-US
^Iran-Contra Hearings Have Steady Audience in Nicaragua
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ As the U.S. congressional hearings on the Iran-Contra affair unfold in Washington, thousands of Nicaraguans follow the reports closely.
   In the government-controlled media, the hearings often are the lead story in the two morning newspapers and on the evening television news.
   Radio stations often interrupt their normal broadcasting to present news bulletins on the hearing as U.S. congressmen probe the web of intrigue surrounding the covert sale of American arms to Iran and the funneling of some of the profits to the U.S.-supported Nicaraguan rebels, known as Contras.
   "I read about it in the papers every day, and it sounds like dirty politics," said Oswaldo Lopez, as he sold tropical fruits from wicker baskets Friday in Managua's busy Eastern Market.
   "Every day (President) Reagan and his administration seem more involved," Lopez told a customer.
   He said he and his friends discuss the affair but "it does not scandalize us. However, it should be a big embarrasment for the United States, which is a great power."
   Some Managuans say they just glance at the headlines, such as the one that appeared earlier this month in the Nuevo Diario newspaper saying, "Reagan's Desperate Plan."
   "The situation in our own country is pretty critical," said Maria Elena Loaisija, a 24-year-old secretary. "My friends and I talk about the problems in Nicaragua. We don't discuss the problems in Washington much."
   Much of the conversation among the residents of this impoverished city, where scarcity is a way of life, is devoted to exchanging tips about what stores are selling meat, eggs or milk that day, which gas stations are open or when the rainy season, which is three weeks overdue, will begin.
   But many Nicaraguans are avid viewers of the evening television programs, which are broadcast after a Brazilian soap opera dubbed from Portuguese into Spanish.
   Among them is President Daniel Ortega.
   "We are following the hearings because the topic day in and day out is Nicaragua," he told reporters Thursday.
   He was asked it he believed the affair could mean the downfall of the Reagan administration, and he replied, "The issue is not whether the Reagan administration should or should not fall. Instead, the issue is that the illegality, the lies, the deceit, should fall."
   Ortega said the congressional hearings demonstrate that "the president of the United States has shown disrespect for the American people, has shown disrespect for the American Congress, and has also shown disrespect for international opinion."
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Jun 3 1987
^AM-AP Arts: Walker
^Hollywood Invades Nicaragua
^With LaserPhoto
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   GRANADA, Nicaragua (AP) _ On Nov. 26, 1856, an obscure American cutthroat and journalist burned this stately old city on the shore of Lake Nicaragua to the ground.
   With his ragtag army of misplaced mercenaries, William Walker, a supporter of slavery from Tennessee, invaded Nicaragua, declared himself president and set about to convert this Central American country and its neighbors into a slave society.
   Ed Harris ("The Right Stuff,'"'Alamo Bay") portrays the American invader in the movie, "Walker," which is being filmed in Granada by maverick British director Alex Cox for Universal Pictures.
   Cox, whose movies such as "Repo Man" and "Sid & Nancy" often have a surrealistic glow, has added visual jokes to the story about the "gringo malo" - the bad American. Here and there one sees contemporary props - a bullet saturated plane, a decaying auto - stuck in the 19th century story.
   The $6 million project, with Edward Pressman as executive producer, is being filmed entirely in Nicaragua and is full of parallels between Walker's failed attempt to build an empire abroad and American foreign policy in the 20th century.
   The New Wave director, who wears torn, faded jeans and has long, lank reddish hair, said he hopes the film will speak out against American interventionism and the Reagan administration's support of the Contra rebels.
   Cox does not think his use of modern props in a movie set in the 19th century will distract from the seriousness of the project.
   During one recent day's filming he used a Sandinista Air Force helicopter for a scene in which Walker and his men are evacuated from the ruins of a cathedral.
   But the aircraft was late for day's shoot because it had been sent to the war zone to pick up soldiers of the leftist Sandinista government wounded in their fight against the U.S.-supported Contras.
   "By the time we got it, it had blood stains in it," said Lorenzo O'Brien, one of the film's producers.
   Harris portrayed a mercenary in the film, "Under Fire," which was about the revolution that brought the Sandinistas to power in Nicaragua.
   It took several takes during a recent night-shoot for Harris to deliver a line about quashing a rebellion in Central America. After flubbing the line, he slammed a desk with his fist several times, and, furious with himself, went on to repeat the line with the sort of menace that fit the scene and his character, Walker.
   Marlee Matlin, this year's Academy Award-winning actress for her role in "Children of a Lesser God," portrays Walker's fiancee, who has a hearing impairment. Rene Auberjonois ("Big River") plays a soldier of fortune.
   Much of the film is being shot in Granada, a lakefront city 30 miles south of Managua that boasts Spanish colonial architecture and was the site of some of the key events in Walker's adventures. The set is a natural for Cox, who had dirt thrown on top of the paved streets and had telephone and power lines taken down to convert part of the town into a 19th century city.
   The hundreds of Nicaraguan extras are each making 6,000 cordobas a day, which is the equivalent of $1.
   Maria Veronica Sandoval, a resident of Granada who was playing a fruit seller in the market, said she was not complaining about her wages as an extra because her average salary as a cook was 13,000 cordobas per month. The average monthly wage for Nicaraguans is 60,000 cordobas, at best.
   Residents of Granada well know the story of William Walker. He spent a year in power until he was forced out of the country. He fled to the United States where Americans, with a fervor whipped up by the yellow journalism of the time, made him a hero.
   He returned to Nicaragua a few years later to try to regain power but was captured by the British Navy and executed by a Honduran firing squad.
   Jose Joaquin Cuadra, a gray-haired man who owns a printing shop, watched as American actors, many dressed in blue campaign shirts, brown slouch hats and knee-high boots, strode through a building being used as an interior set.
   "My grandfather's cousin, Mateo Mayorga Cuadra, was executed by Walker's men," Cuadra said. "He is buried in my family's graveyard." The previous week, the execution had been recreated for the film.
   "The character in the film is about a man who is self-obsessed," O'Brien said. "Rambo is the modern version of Walker."
   The movie is scheduled for release in the fall.
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Jun 16 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Plane
^Nicaragua Say 3 Contras Injured when Plane Shot Down
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The chief of the Contra guerrilla air force was seriously wounded in the crash of a rebel aircraft that was hit by army ground fire, a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said Tuesday.
   Capt. Rosa Pasos said Juan Gomez, chief of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force's tiny air force, and two other Contras were seriously wounded when the twin-engine Beechcraft Baron crashed and burned after being hit Monday in northern Nicaragua.
   She said the others aboard were Gomez's son Juan Jr., the co-pilot, and Alvaro Carrasco, the gunner. Capt. Pasos said the information came from "intelligence sources" she did not identify.
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Force - known as the FDN, its initials in Spanish - is the main fighting force of the U.S.-backed rebels.
   Ms. Pasos said the plane fired a rocket at a Sandinista army command post 4 miles north of Murra, 108 miles north of Managua, before it was hit. She said the rocket missed.
   She said the aircraft limped across the Honduran border, 15 miles from the command post, and crashed about 4 miles inside Honduras. Sandinista soldiers at a hilltop border observation post could see smoke and flames coming from the crash site, the ministry spokeswoman said.
   President Daniel Ortega said the incident "shows once again that the mercenary forces are operating with airplanes supplied by the North American goverment in operations directed by the CIA."
   The government radio Voice of Nicaragua said Tuesday the crew members were at a hospital in Honduras, but it gave no details.
   In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, spokesman Aristides Sanchez of the Nicaraguan Resistance rebel coalition said Monday night the plane crashed inside Nicaragua and the pilot and co-pilot were rescued by other rebels. He did not mention a third person.
   Sanchez said the plane was "not armed or on a resupply mission to our troops in Nicaragua," but he would not describe the purpose of its flight. He denied an attack on a Sandinista military position.
   No figures are available on the rebels' air force, but they are known to have several aging craft that drop supplies to ground troops by parachute. Journalists who have traveled with the Contras say they also have a Hughes 500 helicopter and a Huey helicopter.
   Contras used light planes for numerous air attacks in 1982-84, but the activity has declined since.
   Last Oct. 5, the Sandinistas shot down a C-123 supply plane, killing two American crew members and a Nicaraguan and capturing a third American, Eugene Hasenfus of Marinette, Wis. He was released in December.
   About 12,000 rebels are believed to operate in Nicaragua, with 6,000 more at bases in southern Honduras near the border.
   The leftist Sandinistas came to power in July 1979 after a civil war that ousted the U.S.-supported government of the late President Anastasio Somoza.
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Jun 20 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Protest
^Relatives Of Draftees Take Over Red Cross Office
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ About 1,000 people who occupied a Red Cross building to demand assurances that relatives drafted into the army reserves would not be sent to war zones ended their protest early Saturday.
   They had taken over the building Friday morning after the body of a 40- year-old draftee was dumped on the doorstep of his home. People in the town of Boaco, 56 miles noratheast of Managua, gathered to demand an explanation and then marched to the Red Cross office.
   Authorities said the man was accidentally shot by another draftee, and the protesters then demanded that conscripts from Boaco serve at posts closer to the town.
   The demonstrators, most of whom were women, left the Red Cross building at 4 a.m. after receiving assurances that draftees from their area were not serving in war zones, Monsignor Rafael Obregon of Boaco told The Associated Press by telephone.
   The dead recruit, identified as Salvador Fernandez, was one of 400 men taken Wednesday from Boaco, a town of 15,000 residents in a cattle-raising area frequently raided by U.S.-backed rebels battling Nicaragua's left-wing Sandinista government.
   Nicaraguan Red Cross official Adolfo Beteta said Fernandez was killed by a stray bullet fired from the rifle of another conscript at a training camp 37 miles northeast of Boaco.
   "We do not trust the version of the authorities that the death of the recruit was accidental," Aleydac Campos, wife of one of the Boaco draftees, said by telephone before the occupation ended.
   Service in the Sandinista army reserves is mandatory for all Nicaraguan men between 24 and 40. The reservists are required to take a 45-day course of basic training and can then return home, ready to be called up in an emergency.
   Obregon said Fernandez' wife, Silvia Sanchez Espinoza, told him she was not at home when army personnel brought the body and left it at the doorstep Friday morning.
   There were no serious incidents during the protest, Obregon said.
   However, Efrain Salinas, the leader of the opposition Social Christian Party in Boaco, was arrested Saturday morning for taking part in the demonstration, according to officials at the party's headquarters.
   Demonstrations are banned under a state of emergency decree that has been in force since 1982. The Sandinistas were the major force in the civil war that ousted right-wing President Anastasio Somoza in July 1979.
   Nicaragua has an estimated 100,000 people under arms, including the army, reserves and militia.
   While many Nicaraguans object to the compulsory military service, there have been few open protests. Two years ago, mothers of young draftees demonstrated in Granada and several other cities and in some cases tried to take their sons off the military trucks.
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Jun 21 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Protest
^Relatives Say At Least Five Opposition Members Arrested
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ At least five political opposition members were arrested when people occupied a Red Cross building, demanding assurances that relatives drafted into the army reserves were not being sent to war zones, family members said Sunday.
   About 1,000 people, most of them women, took over the building in the town of Boaco Friday morning to demand an explanation for the death of a 40-year- old draftee whose body had been dumped on the doorstep of his home.
   The opposition figures were arrested in the town of 15,000 residents 56 miles east of Managua during or after the protest, which broke up early Saturday, relatives said by telephone.
   They said some of the arrested had participated, while others had not.
   "The state security took my husband from me at one o'clock in the morning Saturday," said Argelia Medal de Rojas, the wife of Horacio Rojas, leader of the opposition Independent Liberal Party in Boaco.
   "They put him in handcuffs and took him away like a common criminal. I do not know what he is accused of and I have not seen him since," she said.
   The demonstration was illegal under the leftist Sandista government's state of emergency, which has been in effect since 1982.
   The protest was sparked by the killing of Salvador Fernandez, one of 400 men taken from Boaco Wednesday for military training in a camp some 36 miles to the northeast.
   Military officials said Fernandez was accidentally shot by another reservist and that the other army reserves recruits taken from Boaco were not in combat areas.
   The military on Sunday took about 50 relatives by truck to the training base, so they could see the recruits were in no danger, residents said in telephone interviews.
   Service in the army reserves is mandatory for all Nicaraguan men between 24 and 40. The reservists are required to take a 45-day course of basic training and can then return home, ready to be called up in an emergency.
   Meanwhile, relatives tried to find out where state security agents had taken the arrested opposition members.
   Marina Gutierrez Sequeira said she visited state security offices in Boaco on Sunday to find out where her son, attorney Mario Sequera, was and why he had been arrested.
   "They told me to not to ask questions or they would take a worse attitude toward my son," she said by telephone. "This is an injustice, he did not take part in the demonstration."
   Repeated telephone calls went unanswered Sunday at the press office of the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of state security. Officials of other branches of the ministry refused to answer questions about the arrests.
   While many Nicaraguans object to the compulsory military service, there have been few open protests. Two years ago, mothers of young draftees demonstrated in Granada and several other cities and in some cases tried to take their sons off the military trucks.
   Nicaragua has an estimated 100,000 people under arms, including the army, reserves and militia. The Sandinistas were the major force in the civil war that ousted right-wing President Anastasio Somoza in July 1979.
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Jun 22 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Protest
^Relatives Seek Information about Arrested Opposition Members
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The Sandinista government has refused to provide information on five members of the political opposition who were arrested following a demonstration on the treatment of military conscripts, relatives of those arrested said.
   About 1,000 protesters took over a Red Cross building in the town of Boaco Friday morning to demand assurances that relatives drafted into the army reserves were not being sent to war zones.
   The protesters, most of them women, also wanted an explanation for the death of a 40-year-old conscript whose body had been dumped on the doorstep of his home. They left the building early Saturday, and the arrests took place Saturday before dawn.
   The demonstration was illegal under a state of emergency declared 1982 by the Sandinista government. Not all of the five detained opposition members had participated in the protest, their relatives said.
   Marina Gutierrez Sequeira said she visited state security offices in Boaco on Sunday to ask about her arrested son, attorney Mario Sequeira.
   "They told me to not to ask questions or they would take a worse attitude toward my son," she said by telephone from Boaco, a town of 15,000 people about 36 miles northeast of Managua. "This is an injustice. He did not take part in the demonstration."
   Horacio Rojas, leader of the opposition Independent Liberal Party in Boaco, was taken from his home shortly after midnight Friday by state security agents who handcuffed him "like a common criminal," said his wife, Argelia Medal de Rojas.
   Mrs. de Rojas said she did not know where or why her husband was being held. She said her husband asked the agents why he was being arrested and was told, "You know what you did."
   Antonio Gomez, another leader of the Independent Liberal Party, was also arrested by officers who came to his home at night, said his wife, Alma Almanza de Gomez. She said her husband had gone to the demonstration but had not helped organize it.
   Also reported arrested were Efrain Salinas, president of the opposition Social Christian Party in Boaca, and Francisco Almanza, an official of the Independent Liberal Party.
   Repeated telephone calls were not answered Sunday at the press office of the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of state security. Officials of other branches of the ministry refused to answer questions about the arrests.
   The protest was sparked by the death of Salvador Fernandez, one of 400 men taken from Boaco on Wednesday for training at a Sandinista Army Reserves camp.
   Military officials said Fernandez was accidentally shot in the head by another reservist and that the other recruits from Boaco were not in combat areas.
   About 50 relatives of conscripts were taken by truck to the training base Sunday so they could see the men were in no danger, residents said.
   All Nicaraguan men between the ages of 24 and 40 must go through 45 days of basic training. They usually then go home, to be called up in an emergency.
   Nicaragua has an estimated 100,000 people under arms, including the army, reserves and militia. The Sandinistas were the major force in the civil war that ousted right-wing President Anastasio Somoza in July 1979.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 22 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Arrests
^Confirm Five Opposition Figures Arrested
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The Interior Ministry on Monday confirmed that five people were under arrest for questioning in connection with their possible participation in an anti-government demonstration.
   Ministry spokeswoman Marta Arroyo, contacted by telephone, said the five prisoners were "under investigation" at an undisclosed location but refused to give their names or provide any other details.
   Relatives said the five were arrested Saturday in the town of Boaco, 36 miles east of Managua, following a protest in which about 1,000 people occupied the local Red Cross building.
   They seized the building Friday morning shortly after the body of a Boaco man, who had been drafted into the army reserves, was dumped on the doorsteps of his home. He was one of 400 men taken from the town on Wednesday to undergo 45 days of training at a reserve camp.
   The protesters, who left the Red Cross building at about 4 a.m. Saturday, were demanding that conscripts being taken into the reserves not serve in war zones because they lacked proper training. Officials of the Sandinista armed forces said the draftee had been shot and killed accidentally by another conscript at a training camp.
   Relatives of the five Boaco people arrested said the detainees were leaders or members of opposition parties and identified them as Horacio Rojas, Francisco Almanza and Antonio Gomez of the Independent Liberal Party and Efrain Salinas and Mario Sequeira of the Social Christian Party.
   A state of emergency imposed five years ago because of increasing attacks by U.S.-backed rebels against the left-wing government bans public demonstrations and allows security forces to arrest people without court warrants and hold them indefinitely without trial.
   Roberto Silva Beltran, a legal adviser to the Nicaraguan Permanent Commission for Human Rights, an independent group, said in a telephone interview: "We will protest these arrests (of the Boaco residents) to state security authorities tomorrow, but really we are powerless to do much else."
   The Sandinista government came to power in July 1979 following a civil war that ousted the right-wing regime of President Anastasio Somoza.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 25 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Fighting
^Surprise Contra Attack at Farming Cooperative
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   LAS MERCEDES, Nicaragua (AP) _ Survivors of an early morning raid by Contra rebels on a northern farming cooperative said they were taken completely by surprise.
   The rebels struck Tuesday at Las Mercedes, 94 miles northwest of Managua. The town had last been touched by combat in 1983.
   "The attack came all of a sudden as we were getting ready for work," said Juan Vicente Castillo Ramirez, a 42-year-old farmer, speaking Wednesday from his hospital bed in Leon, 70 miles southwest of the farming cooperative.
   "We never expected combat there (Las Mercedes)," he said. "The only thing I did was try to save myself."
   Among the seven people reported killed in the raid were three of Castillo Ramirez' eight children. They were killed when his house was hit by a rocket- propelled grenade. Eight people were wounded in the attack.
   The Contras have stepped up their attacks inside Nicaragua since the U.S. Congress approved $100 million in military and non-lethal aid for the rebels last year.
   The Contras are fighting to oust the leftist Sandinista government, which came to power in July 1979 after overthrowing the pro-American regime of Anastasio Somoza. The rebels operate mostly in northern Nicaragua and have bases in neighboring Honduras.
   The Reagan administration says the Sandinista government is a threat to security in Central America.
   A Nicaraguan Defense Ministry source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the attack was the 12th this month by Contra rebels on farms and farming cooperatives in the country.
   Up to now, the fertile valley in which Las Mercedes lies had up to now been considered safe from Contra attacks. The cooperative is in the foothills of a mountain range that extends into the war zone.
   Las Mercedes is one of the few state-run cooperatives in the region.
   The Contras' tactic of attacking farming cooperatives, which are organized by the government, is controversial. Civilian casualties are considered inevitable because wives and children of the farmers and militiamen live on the cooperatives.
   But the rebels maintain that once a farmer carries arms given him by the Sandinista government, he ceases to be a civilian and becomes a target.
   In the latest attack, the rebels quickly penetrated the cooperative's weak defenses, surprising the militiamen guarding the farm. The Sandinistas withdrew, witnesses said. Witnesses estimated Contra numbers at between 30 to 150.
   It was during a similar Contra raid on a government hydroelectric project in April that an American volunteer, Benjamin Linder, died.
   Castillo Ramirez, who said he has a weapon but did not use it, was outside the family's cinder-block house when the grenade hit.
   "The children did not have a chance," Castillo Ramirez said as he fought back tears.
   Among the dead were his 19-year-old and 6-year-old sons and 2-year-old daughter. Three of his other children were injured, including one requiring hospitalization.
   His wife also suffered injuries, Castillo Ramirez said.
   Castillo Ramirez' legs were wrapped in bandages that covered bullet and shrapnel wounds.
   "The Contras came in here and did what they wanted and then they left," said Mario Sergio Castillo Ramirez, as he stood next to the rubble of what had been the cooperative's supply center.
   Three other buildings were burned by the rebels.
   Also Tuesday, two government soldiers were killed and two others wounded in an attack by rebels in the eastern part of the country, another military source said.
   The source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Contras ambushed a government sec----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 26 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-La Prensa
^Quiet Demonstration On First Anniversary of La Prensa Closure
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ About 150 people held a quiet protest rally Friday to commemorate the government's shutting down a year ago of the opposition newspaper La Prensa.
   The demonstration was held at the headquarters of the independent Nicaraguan Workers Central labor union. The protesters said the meeting was legal because it was held indoors.
   Under its state of emergency decree, the left-wing Sandinista government has banned unauthorized demonstrations.
   Police stood outside the building but made no arrests. About 10 officers walked up to the building and tore down four anti-government posters, one of which said "Silenced but never surrendered."
   Many protesters were employees of La Prensa and of Radio Catolica, which the government closed in January because it did not broadcast a year-end speech by President Daniel Ortega.
   A year ago Friday, the owners of La Prensa received a terse note from the Sandinista's censor.
   "From now, the daily newspaper La Prensa is closed for an indefinite time," said the note, which was written a day after the U.S. House of Representatives approved $100 million in aid to Nicaraguan rebels, known as Contras.
   The Sandinistas accused La Prensa of being a mouthpiece for the U.S. government and of receiving money from the CIA, charges the newspaper denied.
   La Prensa still exists even though the newspaper is no longer being published. Its staff has been reduced from 230 to about 40 in efforts to keep the paper alive.
   "We did not think the closing would last a year," Violeta Chamorro, the newspaper's owner and president, said during an interview in her office. "But now it is clear the government is afraid of La Prensa and does not want it to be published."
   To pay the salaries of its remaining employees, La Prensa has sold vehicles, desks, typewriters, the coffeemaker and other articles, she said.
   "We write about truth and justice, and we write about things that are going well or badly, but the government does not like criticism," Mrs. Chamorro said.
   Nicaragua's ambassador to the United Nations, Nora Astorga, said recently that the government will allow La Prensa to reopen when the civil war ends.
   On Tuesday, Mrs. Chamorro sent a letter to Ortega that called Friday a "sad anniversary for freedom and democracy in Nicaragua."
   It said that if La Prensa is allowed to be published without censorship, it will "favor civil solutions and self-determination for Nicaraguans, who have never lost their hope of electing our governors by ballots and not by bullets."
   Mrs. Chamorro's husband and La Prensa's outspoken publisher, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, was shot to death in Managua in 1978.
   He had been a fierce critic of the rightist regime of President Anastasio Somoza, and his assassination helped spark the Sandinista-led revolution that toppled Somoza the following year.
   La Prensa's owners initially supported the Sandinistas, but soon became disaffected as the government turned far to the left and established close military ties with Cuba and the Soviet Union.
   Pro-Sandinista editors and reporters left La Prensa and founded a pro- government daily, El Nuevo Diario. Its publisher is Xavier Chamorro, brother of the slain publisher.
   The only other daily newspaper in Nicaragua is the official Sandinista publication, Barricada, which is published under the direction of Mrs. Chamorro's son, Carlos.  urity patrol near Villa Sandino, a small town 123 miles east of the capital.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 27 1987
^PM-La Prensa
^La Prensa Pinching Pennies in Effort to Stay Alive
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The owner of the opposition newspaper La Prensa says that, one year after the daily was shut down by the government, even the office coffeemaker has been sold in the effort to keep it alive.
   "We did not think the closing would last a year," Violetta Chamorro, the president of the newspaper's board of directors, said in an interview Friday in her office.
   "But now it is clear the government is afraid of La Prensa and does not want it to be published," she said. "We write about truth and justice, and we write about things that are going well or badly, but the government does not like criticism."
   Mrs. Chamorro said the newspaper has had to lay off all but about 40 of its 230 employees, and that vehicles, desks, typewriters and even the office coffeemaker have been sold off to pay their salaries.
   One year ago Friday, the owners of La Prensa received a terse note from the Sandinista government's censor.
   "From now, the daily newspaper La Prensa is closed for an indefinite time," said the order, which was issued a day after the U.S. House of Representatives approved $100 million in aid to Contra rebels battling the leftist government.
   The government accused La Prensa of being a mouthpiece for the U.S. government and of receiving money from the CIA. The newspaper denies the charges.
   Nicaragua's ambassador to the United Nations, Nora Astorga, said recently that the government will allow La Prensa to reopen when the 5 1/2 -year-old war ends.
   The newsroom is darkened, the dozen desks cleared of papers. A single machine in the wire room chatters out the day's news from around the world. The other wire machines are silent because La Prensa cannot afford the subscriber's fees.
   A colorful paper sign on the wall of the front office says: "Today 365 days of being shut down indefinitely by order of the Sandinista government. Until when?"
   Each day, a new number is inserted into the sign.
   On Tuesday, Mrs. Chamorro sent a letter to President Daniel Ortega, saying that Friday marks a "sad anniversary for freedom and democracy in Nicaragua."
   The letter said that if La Prensa is allowed to be published without prior censorship, it will "favor civil solutions and self-determination for Nicaraguans, who have never lost their hope of electing our governors by ballots and not by bullets."
   "We still have hope that we can publish one day," Mrs. Chamorro said, adding that if the government authorizes publication, the skeleton staff can put out a newspaper the following day.
   She vowed never to sell the newspaper, and said the printing machines and other equipment necessary to publish the newspapers would not be sold.
   "We still have a lot of furniture and other things we can sell, including the air conditioning system," she said.      On the walls of her office are photographs of her husband, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, La Prensa's outspoken publisher who was gunned down in 1978.
   He had been a fierce critic of the rightist regime of Anastasio Somoza, and his assassination helped spark the Sandinista-led revolution that toppled Somoza's dictatorship the following year.
   La Prensa's owners initially supported the Sandinistas, but soon became disaffected with their attempts to impose Marxism in Nicaragua and because of the close military ties they established with Cuba and the Soviet Union.
   Pro-Sandinista editors and reporters split from the paper and founded a pro-government daily, El Nuevo Diario, whose publisher is the late Chamorro's brother, Xavier.
   The only other daily newspaper in Nicaragua is the official Sandinista publication, Barricada, which is published under the direction of Mrs. Chamorro's son, Carlos.
   Mrs. Chamorro said that on Wednesday, she tried to buy advertising space in Barricada for a book written by her late husband. The proposed advertisement said proceeds from the sales of the book were to go to keeping La Prensa financially afloat.
   Barricada refused to publish the ad, Mrs. Chamorro said.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 3 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Opposition
^Five Opposition Politicians Sentenced Without Trial
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ An opposition leader said a police magistrate summarily sentenced five rural politicians to six months in jail for inciting public disorders.
   Virgilio Godoy, president of the Independent Liberal Party, said Thursday in an interview he received word of the sentencing without trial from one of the prisoners, Horacio Rojas. Rojas is an Independent Liberal official in the small town of Boaco, 46 miles east of Managua.
   The five men were arrested after about 1,000 demonstrators seized Boaco's Red Cross office in June to demand that army reserve conscripts not be sent to war zones. The demonstration followed the accidental death of a local conscript during training.
   In a communique issued a few days later, the Interior Ministry accused the five men of inciting the demonstration.
   Godoy said a police magistrate in Boaco sentenced the five without a trial while they were in the Zona Franca prison, on the outskirts of Managua.
   "This is not a regime of rights we are living under. It is a regime of deeds, where arbitrary acts are the norm," Godoy said of the leftist Sandinista government.
   He identified the other men sentenced to six months as Efrain Salinas of the Social Christian party, Francisco Almanza and Antonio Gomez of the Independent Liberal Party and Mario Sequeira of the Popular Social Christian Party.
   Godoy said the five prisoners would be transferred to a jail in Juigalpa, 60 miles east of Managua, to serve their sentences.
   When asked for comment, Marta Arroyo, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman, claimed she had no information on the case, other than that the five men were still in prison. The Interior Ministry is in charge of state security.
   The government has wide powers of search and arrest under a 1982 national emergency law enacted to help it fight U.S.-supported Contra rebels.
   Roberto Silva Beltran, a legal adviser to the independent Permanent Commission on Human Rights, said in a telephone interview the emergency law apparently included the right of police magistrates to sentence suspects without trial.
   Joaquin Mejia, an Independent Liberal legislator in the National Assembly claimed that more than 200 members of his party have been detained for up to two years in Sandinista jails without trial.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 3 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Ambush
^Contras Reportedly Ambush Truck, Kill 11 Civilians
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ U.S.-backed Contra rebels on Friday ambushed a pickup truck used for public transportion, killing 11 civilians and wounding five, the state radio reported.
   The Voice of Nicaragua said the ambush occurred at near Quebrada El Zapote, a small town 11 miles northwest of Nueva Guinea and 115 miles southeast of Managua.
   A government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he talked by telephone with one of the wounded, Carlito Mejia Moraga, a 14-year-old boy. The official said the boy was being treated for a bullet wound in his leg at a hospital in Juigalpa, 48 miles northwest of the ambush site.
   According to the official, the boy said all aboard the truck were civilians, and that they were attacked by a large group of Contras on a country road.
   "They did not ask if we were civilians or military. They just shot at us," the source quoted the boy as saying.
   Also brought to the Camilo Ortega Saavedra Hospital in Juigalpa was a 30- year-old health worker named Maria Huete Obando, who received bullet wounds in the back, an arm and a leg.
   The other wounded were taken to a hospital in Nueva Guinea, where the transport had been bound, the source said, although the state radio said they were all taken to Juigalpa.
   The Contras are fighting to overthrow Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government. The Sandinistas led a revolution that toppled the right-wing dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 4 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Priest
^Salvadoran Priest Killed By Land Mine
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A Catholic priest from El Salvador was killed when his car ran over a land mine in an area where Sandinista troops have been fighting Contra rebels, the state-run Voice of Nicaragua reported Saturday.
   Also injured in the blast were a Nicaraguan priest and two church workers who were in the car when it struck the mine Friday evening on a road in Matagalpa province, 72 miles north of Managua, the radio said.
   The dead priest was identified by Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto as the Rev. Tomas Augustin Zabaleta, 35, a Salvadoran with the Roman Catholic Franciscan order who had been working in Nicaragua for about three months.
   The leftist government blamed the U.S.-backed Contras for laying the mine. The explosion occurred the same day the Contras reportedly ambushed a truck carrying civilians 115 miles southeast of Managua, killing 11 of them and wounding five others, state radio said.
   There was no way to verify either report since the government restricts movements of journalists in combat zones.
   Injured in the Matagalpa blast was the Rev. Jose Ignacio Urbina, a senior Nicaraguan Franciscan, Empenatriz Martinez and Digna Martinez, who are cousins.
   Urbina's physican, Dr. Harvey Soza, said the priest had multiple fractures on the spinal column, but that his nervous system was not damaged and he was not paralyzed. He said Empenzatriz Martinez was in a coma and in "very poor" condition. The extent ot Digna Martinez' injuries was not clear.
   "This is a new act of state terrorism perpetrated by the United States against Nicaragua, perpetrated by groups financed, organized and directed by the United States," D'Escoto said after a brief visit with Urbina. "The United States has a responsibility for these criminal acts."
   In a statement broadcast over state radio, President Daniel Ortega said, "The killing was committed by the president of the United States. President Reagan has become a killer of priests in Nicaragua."
   Ortega said Zabaleta was the first priest killed in Nicaragua since the Sandinistas came to power after ousting right-wing dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.
   D'Escoto is a priest of the Maryknoll order, although the Vatican suspended him from priestly duties in 1984 after he refused to leave his government post.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 5 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Priest
^Sandinista Leader Accuses Reagan In Priest's Death.
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega blamed President Reagan Sunday for the death of a Salvadoran friar killed when a truck he was in hit a land mine the government claims was placed by U.S.-backed Contra rebels.
   The body of the 35-year-old Franciscan friar, Tomas Augustin Zabaleta, lay in state Sunday in a Managua church.
   A church secretary wounded in the explosion remained in a coma in a Managua hospital and a Nicaraguan priest was reported in stable condition with spinal cord injuries. A fourth passenger, also a church worker, was not brought to Managua and the extent of her injuries, if any, were unclear.
   The priest also belongs to the Roman Catholic Franciscan order.
   When the church-owned Toyota pickup truck they were in hit the mine about sunset Friday night, the four were traveling in an area 72 miles northeast of Managua where there has been increased fighting between government and rebel troops.
   Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto asserted in a protest note to U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz on Saturday that Contras laid the mine.
   Zabaleta had been working on a church-sponsored project to loan seed, pesticides and tools to poor farmers near Matiguas, 65 miles northeast of the capital.
   There has been increasing combat in that area and in other war zones of Nicaragua since the rebels, newly outfitted with U.S. military aid, began infiltrating deep into Nicaragua earlier this year.
   In a speech carried live on state radio Sunday, Ortega blamed Reagan for Zabaleta's death.
   "Friar Tomas was killed by Reagan," Ortega said. "I insist he was killed by Reagan, because he who arms the mercenaries is Reagan, he who sends them mines is Reagan, he who promotes the war is Reagan."
   Ortega made the comments in Jinotega, 70 miles north of Managua, to members of farming cooperatives run by the leftist Sandinista government.
   On Saturday, Ortega had identified Zabaleta as a priest, but church officials contradicted that, saying Zabaleta had no aspirations to become a priest.
   "It is a sign of humility that he did not want to become a priest," fellow Franciscan friar Celso Ventura said as he sat dressed in a hooded robe near Zabaleta's closed coffin in the Managua church. "He just wanted to serve the peasants."
   The church's agrarian project had no ties to the government, Ventura said, and to his knowledge, Zabaleta had received no threats from the Contras and had never had any contact with them.
   Zabaleta's body was to be shipped to El Salvador aboard a commercial flight, church officials said.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 6 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Priest
^Fellow Franciscan Says Friar Just Wanted To Serve Peasants
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega blamed President Reagan for the death of a Franciscan friar killed when his truck hit a land mine.
   Tomas Augustin Zabaleta, a 35-year-old Salvadoran, was killed Friday when the pickup truck in which he was riding hit a mine about 70 miles northeast of Nicaragua. He was a member of the Roman Catholic Franciscan order but was not a priest.
   Two other passengers were injured. The Marxist Sandinista government blamed rebels called Contras, who receive financial support from the United States.
   "Friar Tomas was killed by Reagan," Ortega said in a speech carried live on state radio Sunday. "I insist he was killed by Reagan, because he who arms the mercenaries is Reagan, he who sends them mines is Reagan, he who promotes the war is Reagan."
   Ortega was speaking in Jinotega, 70 miles north of Managua, to members of government-run farming cooperatives.
   Zabaleta's body lay in state Sunday in a Managua church. It will be shipped to El Salvador aboard a commercial flight, church officials said.
   A fellow friar, Celso Ventura, said as he stood near the coffin that Zabaleta had no ties to the Sandinista government but "just wanted to serve the peasants."
   Zabaleta had been working on a church-sponsored project to loan seed, pestcides and tools to poor farmers near Matiguas, 65 miles northeast of the capital. Ventura said the project had no ties to the Sandinistas.
   He added that to his knowledge, Zabaleta had received no threats from the Contras and never had any contact with them.
   The pickup truck hit the mine in an area about 70 miles northeast of Managua where there has been increased fighting between government and rebel troops.
   A church secretary wounded in the explosion remained in a coma in a Managua hospital and a Nicaraguan priest was reported in stable condition with spinal cord injuries. The fourth passenger, also a church worker, was not brought to Managua and it was not known if she was injured.
   Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto asserted in a protest note to Secretary of State George Shultz on Saturday that Contras laid the mine.
   Fighting has increased since the Contras, newly outfitted with U.S. military aid, began infiltrating deep into the nation earlier this year.
   Franciscan friars are educators and missionaries. Their order was founded by St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th century.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 10 1987
^PM-North-Central America
^Interest in North's Testimony Less Intense in Central America
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The testimony of Lt. Col. Oliver North at the Iran-Contra hearings in Washington is front-page news in Nicaragua, but is getting less attention in other parts of Central America.
   The two newspapers that publish in Managua, the official Sandinista daily Barricada and the pro-government Nuevo Diario, carried stories about the hearings on their front pages Thursday.
   But in El Salvador and Guatemala stories on the hearings appeared inside the newspapers. Salvadoran newspapers gave especially brief space to North's appearance.
   Nicaragua appears the most interested in the unfolding testimony of North and details of how secret money was sent to the Contra rebels fighting the Sandinista government for the past five years.
   The state-run Voice of Nicaragua radio frequently interrupted its regular programming this week to read news dispatches from Washington about North's testimony.
   President Daniel Ortega said Tuesday night, after North's first public testimony about the affair, that "it is clear North is protecting Reagan up to the last minute."
   Ortega said he believes Reagan knew about the transfer of profits of Iran arms sales to the Contras but that if he didn't, he should resign.
   Comments from Sandinista officials have been more low-key during the hearings than they have been in the past, when predictions of an imminent U.S. invasion were made repeatedly.
   One of the few editorials that has appeared in Central America since North began speaking was published Thursday by the independent Tribuna newspaper in Honduras.
   "When others flee a ship that seems to be sinking, North remains on board facing forward. When others seek desperately to save their skin, blaming whoever, he sustains with deep conviction that what he did was right, in defense of the interests of the United States and of its allies," the editorial said.
   "After what North said, the most important thing is to observe his adherence without hesitation or detours to his deepest convictions. Thus we understand with more clarity the fiber that tempers the spirit of those we call national heroes," it said.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jul 11 1987
^PM-North-Nicaragua
^Sandinistas Glued to North Hearings
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associatud Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega's press office was especially busy this week - recording, translating and transcribing Lt. Col. Oliver North's testimony before the U.S. Congress.
   Daily, Ortega receives written translations of North's testimony, which is recorded on videotape in the Sandinista government's press building just 50 yards from Ortega's office in the downtown Government House complex.
   "He can have a translation in 20 minutes or a half-hour (after important testimony is given)," Ortega's spokesman, Manuel Espinoza, said Friday as he watched technicians rewind a videotape of testimony North gave earlier in the day.
   A satellite dish was installed four months ago next to the press building, and the hearings in Congress and many newscasts involving Nicaragua are monitored and recorded.     "Every day we watch ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN," Espinoza said in an interview in the monitoring room, where two televison sets were hooked up to videotape recorders.
   However, since the press building has only one satellite dish, only one broadcast can be recorded at a time.
   "Every day in its entirety, morning and afternoon, we are watching North," Espinoza said. Occasionally, the president watches the testimony live at his home, thanks to a satellite dish installed there, he said.
   Ortega does not speak English, and first lady Rosario Murillo sometimes translates for him, according to Espinoza. Ms. Murillo, who was educated in Britain, speaks fluent English.
   The Sandinista Television News also has its own satellite dish. It videotapes North's testimony, and segments of it are broadcast in the evening newscast.
   Ortega said Tuesday night, after North's first day of public testimony, that "it is clear North is protecting President Reagan up to the last minute."
   The president said he believed Reagan knew about the transfer to anti- Sandinista rebels of proceeds from U.S. arms sales to Iran.
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Jul 30 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-CIA
^Sandinistas Looking For Warplanes to Intercept Alleged CIA Contra Drops
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Nicaragua is looking for warplanes to intercept alleged CIA flights parachuting supplies to Contra rebels, the Sandinista army's intelligence chief said Thursday.
   "We do not have planes to intercept the supply flights, and while we do not, we cannot stop them," Maj. Ricardo Wheelock said at a news conference.
   He said the anti-government rebels in Nicaragua depend heavily on the airdropped supplies from what he said were CIA-manned and organized flights.
   Other military officials of the leftist Sandinista government have said the CIA is parachuting supplies to rebels inside Nicaragua once a week.
   Congress last year authorized a $100 million military assistance program to the Contras.
   The Reagan administration, which plans to upgrade the air force  of neighboring Honduras with American-made jet fighters, has said the United States would retaliate if the Sandinistas acquire such aircraft.
   Asked if Nicaragua has refrained from acquiring warplanes because of the threats, Wheelock said, "We have always said that we have the right to acquire that type of plane, and we will keep looking for them."
   U.S. Embassy press attache Alberto Fernandez said in a telephone interview that Wheelock's comments apparently mark the first time the Sandinistas have acknowledged they are actively looking for warplanes.
   "Obviously, the acquisition of warplanes by the Sandinistas, who have by far the largest army in Central America, would seriously upset the balance of power with its neighbors," Fernandez said.
   Since the Sandinistas came to power in 1979 in a revolution that toppled dictator Anastasio Somoza, they have built up an army of more than 60,000 full-time troops.
   Wheelock said the Sandinistas have been looking for warplanes since they came to power but that such planes are difficult to acquire and that their pilots and maintenance crews must be trained.
   Asked if Nicaraguans are able to repair Soviet-made MiG fighter jets, Wheelock said: "We have been studying to repair them since 1979."
   The Soviet Union has sent the Sandinista military dozens of helicopter gunships and troop transport helicopters, but no fighter jets.
   A man who answered the telephone at the Soviet Embassy said the press attache was away and could not comment on Wheelock's statement. The man declined to identify himself or comment on the matter.
   Sandinista officials have said many of the CIA supply flights originate in Honduras, where the rebels maintain bases.
   Wheelock announced that the Sandinista army is reinforcing its border with Honduras with anti-aircraft defenses. He did not go into detail on the types of defenses.
   But a report distributed at the news conference said that on July 22, a Sandinista soldier shot down a rebel helicopter with a portable C-3M surface- to-air missile.
   Wheelock said the C-3M missile is Soviet-made and is of "advanced technology."
   The helicopter, a Hughes 500, crashed in Honduran territory near the Contra rebels' Military Training Center, located in a section of Honduras that juts into Nicaragua called the Las Vegas Salient, the report said.
   The missile was fired from Nicaraguan territory and the helicopter was over Nicaraguan airspace when it was hit, the report said.
   Wheelock said his intelligence sources and news reports have said the occupants of the helicopter were seriously injured in the crash, but he was unable to identify the occupants by name or nationality.
   The Sandinista military has shot down 17 other rebel aircraft, including helicopters, light planes and transport planes, since the war began in 1981, Wheelock said. He did not give a breakdown on the types of aircraft shot down.
   He said the Contras, newly armed by the United States with heat-seeking surface-to-air-missiles, have shot down three Sandinista air force helicopters.
   The Contras are believed to have 29 aircraft in their fleet, including air transport planes, helicopters and light planes, Wheelock said.
   He said the CIA has equipped some of the airplanes with sophisticated RCR- 117 radio transmitters
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Aug 5 1987
^AM-Nicaragua-Peace<
^URGENT Ortega Says Nicaragua Wants to Discuss Reagan Plan<
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega on Wednesday offered to discuss with the U.S. government a peace plan announced in Washington that calls for a cease-fire between Sandinista troops and Contra rebels.
   "The government of Nicaragua invites the government of the United States to immediately initiate negotiations in Washington, Managua or in a third country to have an unconditional dialogue to discuss the said (American) initiative," Ortega said.
   He also said the meeting would be a time to discuss as well "Nicaraguan initiatives with the purpose of developing a negotiating process that would conclude with a signing of a just and verifiable accord that would guarantee the legitimate interests of Nicaragua and the United States."
   President Reagan said Wednesday in Washington he would hold off on seeking further military aid for Contra rebels if Nicaragua's leftist government agrees to a cease-fire and democratic reforms.
   The $100 million in U.S. aid for the Contra rebels approved last year expires Sept. 30. The Contras have been fighting the leftist Sandinista government here for the past 5 1/2  years.
   Ortega said a refusal by the United States to meet with Nicaraguan officials would show the the proposal from Washington is only a maneuver to appease the U.S. Congress.
   "The rejection of this dialogue would show that the Reagan administration, with its initiative, wants to boycott (other) peace efforts of the region ... to obtain a bipartisan consensus of Congress for the approval of more funds for the mercenaries and the strengthening of its current interventionist escalation which the administration insists on continuing," Ortega said.
   The president read the brief statement to journalists invited to the government headquarters. He announced before reading the statement that he would accept questions at some other time.
   Ortega is scheduled to attend a summit of Central American presidents Thursday and Friday in Guatemala City, where Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto earlier said President Reagan "is becoming more and more convinced that it's going to be difficult to obtain more funding for the Contras."
   "He's trying to create the impression that he is not a warlike president, that he is open to peace," D'Escoto said Tuesday night. "But he is a true 'bandolero,' a man who operates totally outside the law."
   The Sandinista newspaper Barricada here Wednesday called the Reagan proposal "a maneuver against the summit," and the pro-government newspaper Nuevo Diario termed it "unacceptable."
   The summit is intended to discuss a plan for peace first proposed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias in February. The Contadora Group of Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and Colombia has been trying since January 1983 to draft a peace treaty for Central America.
   The United States broke off a six-month series of bilateral talks with Nicaragua in January 1985, saying at the time the talks were not productive. The Sandinista government has refused to talk with the Contras, saying it will discuss the conflict with the Reagan administration, which it holds responsible for the war.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Aug 6 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-War
^Sandinistas Say 494 Contras Killed in Past Month With PM-Nicaragua-Peace, Bjt
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The Defense Ministry said 494 Contra rebels and 149 Sandinista troops died in combat in Nicaragua in the past month.
   The figures, released Wednesday, brought to 3,214 the number of rebels the leftist Sandinista government claims have been killed this year.
   The casualities occurred in 463 battles fought from July 5 to Aug. 5, the Defense Ministry said in its monthly report.
   According to the ministry, 796 Sandinista regular army troops, reservists, militia and special security troops have died in combat this year.
   It also said 39 civilians were killed and 46 were wounded in combat so far this year and that rebels kidnapped 41 other civilians.
   None of the figures could be independently verified.
   The Contras, who receive U.S. funds, have been fighting the Sandinista government since 1982. The Sandinistas took power in 1979 after the fall of rightist dictator Anastasio Somoza.
   The Defense Ministry report said most of the battles last month took place in the mountainous, isolated areas of northern and central Nicaragua and in southern Rio San Juan province.
   It did not specify how much of the fighting took place in southern Nicaragua, but the report indicates the rebels have extended their area of combat operations this year.
   The ministry said the rebels have increased their activities in southern Nicaragua to create "tension" between Nicaragua and its southern neighbor, Costa Rica.
   There has been little fighting in the so-called southern front of Nicaragua since Eden Pastora, the commander of a now disbanded Contra force, quit the war in May 1986.
   The Contras have been sending thousands of fighters into northern Nicaragua from their bases in southern Honduras.
   The report said the U.S. Air Force flew six spy missions over Nicaragua last month, using EC-130 and RC-135 aircraft. It also claimed Nicaraguan airspace was violated 82 times in July by aircraft on reconnaissance and supply missions, a "substantial increase" over the 61 airspace violations that it said occurred in June.
   Defense Minister Humberto Ortega said last weekend that Nicaragua needs Soviet warplanes to intercept the supply flights, which parachute equipment and supplies to the rebels.
   President Reagan has proposed ending funding to the Contras if the Sandinistas lift their state of emergency and institute democratic reforms.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Aug  6 1987
^PM-Nicaragua-Peace
^Ortega Says Nicaragua Wants to Discuss Reagan Plan
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega has offered to discuss with the Reagan administration  its plans for bringing peace to Nicaragua, but said he was skeptical of U.S. motives.
   President Reagan said Wednesday he would delay seeking further military aid for the U.S.-financed Contra rebels in Nicaragua if the Sandinista government agreed to a cease-fire and democratic reforms.
   "The government of Nicaragua invites the government of the United States to immediately initiate negotiations in Washington, Managua or in a third country to have an unconditional dialogue to discuss the said (American) initiative," Ortega said Wednesday in a statement read to reporters. He declined to answer questions.
   In Washington, Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams said U.S.-Nicaragua  talks are not part of the plan.
   "This peace plan ... is an effort to stop the killing and to get the people who are shooting at each other to talk to each other," Abrams said Wednesday on ABC's "Nightline."
   The announcements by Ortega and Reagan came on the eve of today's scheduled opening of a summit of five Central American presidents in Guatemala City. During two days of talks, the presidents are to discuss their own peace plan for the region.
   Ortega planned to attend the Guatemala City meeting.
   The Nicaraguan president said refusal by the United States to meet with the Sandinista government would show the Reagan proposal is only a maneuver to trick the U.S. Congress.
   Last year, the United States gave $100 million to the rebels, who have been fighting the leftist Sandinista government for 5 1/2  years.
   "The rejection of this dialogue would show that the Reagan administration, with its initiative, wants to boycott (other) peace efforts of the region ... to obtain a bipartisan consensus of Congress for the approval of more funds for the mercenaries and the strengthening of its current interventionist escalation," Ortega said.
   Prior to the plan's announcement, aides had suggested Reagan might seek $150 million for an 18-month period after the current aid runs out Sept. 30.
   Western intelligence sources in the region estimate about 14,000 Contras now are inside Nicaragua, compared to 4,000 in November, when the Contras first started receiving the aid.
   The United States broke off six months of talks with Nicaragua in January 1985, saying they were not productive. Washington then urged the Sandinistas to negotiate with the Contras.
   The Sandinistas have rejected that idea and demanded negotiations with the Reagan administration, which it holds responsible for the war.
   In Guatemala City Wednesday night, President Vinicio Cerezo said he and the presidents of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador would concentrate today on their own peace plan but also take a look at the Reagan administration proposal.
   "The efforts of the United States are the efforts of the United States," Cerezo said. "We are making our own. We will receive any initiative seeking peace in Central America with a lot of interest."
   The presidents are discussing a peace plan put forward in February by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.
   The original Arias plan called for immediate cease-fires in Nicaragua and in El Salvador, where U.S.-supported governments have fought leftist rebels for eight years, coupled with negotiations by those governments with their internal opposition.
   It stipulated an immediate end to American and Soviet-bloc aid to rebels in the region and required Nicaragua to make certain democratic reforms by 60 days after the agreement was signed.
   The Reagan plan reverses that sequence, requiring steps toward democracy before U.S. aid to the Contras stops. Included are restoration of a free press and the right of political parties to organize freely.
   The plan calls for an immediate cease-fire in Nicaragua followed by negotiations to be completed by the end of September.
   With the cease-fire in place, the United States would suspend Contra aid in return for Nicaragua lifting its state of emergency and restoring civil rights. Nicaragua also would have to agree to stop receiving aid from the Soviet Union and Cuba and set a timetable for national elections within 60 days.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Aug 8 1987
^AM-Nicaragua
^Ortega Says Sandinistas Will Continue Fighting Rebels With AM-Central America, Bjt
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega said Saturday that Nicaragua must continue "annihilating" U.S.-backed rebels and will lift a state of emergency only when the Contras stop fighting to overthrow his government.
   Ortega's nationally broadcast speech came the day after he and four other Central American presidents signed a peace pact. Among its provisions are the lifting of any state of siege or emergency and effort to obtain effective cease-fires in wars in the region.
   "We must establish a mechanism for a cease-fire, a cease-fire along the lines that those who are armed and are in the counterrevolution have the chance to give up their arms and enjoy all the guarantees of their security, and life and civil rights," Ortega said.
   The Sandinista military, he said, must "fulfill our own defensive plans - the mobilization of our combatants for the patriotic military service, for the reserves, to keep on hitting the mercenary forces, to keep annihilating the mercenary forces," Ortega said.
   Referring to restrictions on freedom of the press and certain liberties in Nicaragua, Ortega said, "We have always maintained that when the aggression stops, the state of emergency stops."
   The Guatemala accord also called for an "authentic pluralist democratic process" in each of the Central American nations.
   Ortega said that democracy came to Nicaragua on July 19, 1979, when Sandinista guerrillas defeated the right-wing dictatorship of the late President Anastasio Somoza.
   The Sandinista government brought democracy to Nicaragua, he said, by calling for elections, by institutiong a land reform program and by guaranteeing the right to work.
   Opposition leaders in Nicaragua have said the 1984 presidential and congressional elections were unfair because of lack of freedom of the press and because Sandinista mobs attacked opposition candidates.
   Ortega said the Guatemala accord was a "transcendental historic deed" and put the ball into Washington's court.
   "The United States will have to define itself - ceasing its terrorist politics against Nicaragua ... or insisting on its warlike policies, insisting on financing the mercenary forces," Ortega said.
   He repeated his call for a meeting between U.S. and Nicaraguan officials "for the purpose of normalizing our relations," and he reaffirmed his refusal to negotiate with the rebels.
   He briefly mentioned President Reagan's peace initiative, noting that it had some points in common with the Guatemala accord, but made no comment on it.