Word: ilopango
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...mysteries concerning U.S. aid to the contras has been why Washington for a time funneled supplies through Ilopango air base in El Salvador rather than through Honduras, the rebels' sanctuary. Administration officials now say the move enabled the U.S. to dodge a sting...
...wildly inflated prices -- to the CIA for delivery to the contras after the U.S. resumed open, legal military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels. Buy, said the Hondurans, or we will not let supplies of any kind reach the contras. At that point, the supply operation was shifted to Ilopango. There it remained until a mini-coup in the Honduran armed forces last November threw out officials who were accused of fiscal misbehavior...
...Ilopango was also the jumping-off point for the supposedly private shipments of weapons to the contras that had been organized with the assistance of Oliver North of the National Security Council. Robert Deumling, the State Department official in charge of delivering the humanitarian supplies, reportedly got in trouble with North for resisting efforts to mix the two operations. Says one Administration official: "Ollie acted as though he had the power to get Deumling fired." Deumling denies being pressured. He concedes that planes carrying humanitarian supplies to the contras sometimes delivered cargoes of weapons as well but contends that that...
...World Freedom, headed by retired Army Major General John Singlaub. Singlaub, who has denied any involvement with the C-123K flight, met earlier this year with General Juan Rafael Bustillo, the Salvadoran air force chief who reportedly issued ID cards to U.S. gunrunners that gave them access to the Ilopango air base...
Even so, experts testifying last week before the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs were not convinced of Washington's innocence. Robert White, Ambassador to El Salvador under Jimmy Carter, charged that the "CIA bears primary responsibility for U.S. (supply) operations inside the Ilopango airport." White's claim was buttressed by a nine-month report conducted by the staff of Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. Kerry, who released the study last week, said it "raises serious questions about whether the U.S. has abided by the law in its handling of the contras over the past three years. Until...