Word: airfields
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Deep in the lush tropics near Quepos, a sleepy town on the Pacific side of Costa Rica, lies an airfield that services only small propeller-driven planes. Not long ago, Costa Rican security forces caught a band of smugglers on the runway as they unloaded 1,100 lbs. of cocaine. The cache, provided by Colombian drug lords, had been flown to Quepos aboard a Panamanian-registered Cessna piloted by a Colombian. A Costa Rican produce-export company served as the front. Had the operation run its course, the shipment would have continued on to Miami for sale...
...details certainly sounded impressive. According to contra leaders, more than 4,000 U.S.-backed rebels crept for days through dense jungle to launch a fierce surprise attack on three mining towns in northeastern Nicaragua. In the hamlet of Siuna, the invaders routed 750 defenders, blew up an airfield and seized enough Soviet-made weapons to supply 1,000 troops. Their biggest coup was the destruction of a Soviet GCI radar unit that formed the heart of Sandinista air defenses for the region. Jubilant rebel leaders called the two- day assault the most successful offensive of the six-year civil...
...towns, the attack indicated once again that the contras were far from finished as a fighting force. Unconfirmed reports monitored in Washington said the guerrillas destroyed a fuel storage facility and two electrical stations in the town of Bonanza. In nearby Rosita they overran a brigade headquarters and an airfield and cut two bridges before Sandinista reinforcements arrived aboard three Soviet Mi-17 helicopters to stop them from taking the town. Overall, the contras claimed to have seized more than 50 tons of food and weapons and killed more than 100 Sandinista troops. Managua contended that a similar number...
...When have we hidden from the world that we are seeking to acquire fighter jets to defend ourselves?" Ortega said, noting it was already known abroad that the Sandinistas have built an airfield at Puente Huete, about six miles north of Managua, for the aircraft...
Meanwhile the peace cavalcade proceeded in fits and starts. Contra leaders gathered in Guatemala City to examine their own future. In an unexpected gesture of goodwill, they released 80 Sandinista prisoners of war at an airfield in Costa Rica, 30 miles from the Nicaraguan border. Several days earlier, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra pardoned 16 Central Americans, none of them Nicaraguans, who had been imprisoned for rebel activity...