Word: nicaragua
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...make an impressive military showing, have managed to pile up a dispiriting record of human rights abuses, and have earned a reputation for internal squabbling. Last week Congress found new cause for concern in reports that the CIA is providing the contras with detailed information on targets inside Nicaragua, including maps and blueprints of bridges, dams and other facilities built by U.S. agencies in the 1960s and 1970s. Legislators may find such involvement perilously close to the kind of CIA activities that led to a cutoff of congressional funds in 1984, after U.S. agents mined a Nicaraguan harbor...
Ironically, Congress seems to be running out of patience with the contras just as the rebels are finally beginning to look like a fighting force. By the Sandinistas' own count, the rebels have infiltrated 5,000 men into Nicaragua (the contras claim closer to 7,000) since U.S. aid began flowing again last October. Freshly armed and newly trained, the rebels are currently keeping some 60,000 Sandinista soldiers engaged in the northern and central departments. Statistics kept by the Sandinista People's Army allege that rebels and government troops clashed 330 times during a recent five-week period, taking...
...Nicaragua's comandantes believe the army can readily handle the military threat posed by the contras. "We expect we will have mercenaries in Nicaragua for a long time, but we have made many advances in cutting their social base," President Daniel Ortega Saavedra recently told TIME. "They are now a weakened, reduced force." The President's younger brother, General Humberto Ortega Saavedra, the Defense Minister and an increasingly visible member of the Sandinista directorate, concurs. Of last week's attack in Managua, he says, "They have moved to this kind of activity because they have no political program. But this...
Such statements reflect a new confidence on the part of the Sandinista leadership. Until now it has been standard practice to downplay rebel attacks, so as not to enhance the contras' standing inside Nicaragua. The admissions that contra disruptions are taking place suggest the comandantes no longer feel intimidated either by the rebels or, for that matter, by the Reagan Administration. For years the comandantes steadfastly denied that they paid attention to Washington's every move. Now they are less bashful. President Ortega, for instance, candidly admits that he watches U.S. television newscasts daily, and has followed the Iran-contra...
...action is of utmost importance, not just to the department, but to the White House, and the NSC so that IBC, which finds itself temporarily in dire financial straits, may have funds in days ahead to intensify its efforts...on behalf of the president's Easter peace proposal for Nicaragua...