Word: nicaraguan
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...civic triumph: the inauguration of Julio Maria Sanguinetti, 49, as the tiny South American country's first democratically elected President in 13 years. But for much of the hemisphere, the spotlight in the capital of Montevideo was focused last week on two of the official guests at the ceremonies, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra and U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz. The question: After days of high-profile posturing by their respective governments, would the two men agree to talk over their differences...
Ortega made the first move. While the inauguration was taking place, Nicaraguan representatives ascended from their third-floor quarters in Montevideo's aging Victoria Plaza Hotel to the heavily guarded fifth floor. There, they formally asked Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs Craig Johnstone for a meeting with Shultz. The U.S. had already decided to agree...
...place a more pluralistic form of government that would include the contra rebels who have been fighting the Marxist-Leninist regime. "You can say we're trying to oust the Sandinistas by what we're saying," he noted opaquely, and returned to his oral bashing of the Nicaraguan regime. "I don't think the Sandinistas have a decent leg to stand on. What they have done is totalitarian; it is brutal, cruel...
That vote now looms large not only to Reagan but to the Nicaraguan combatants. A decision to release the funds would mean lifeblood to the contras. A vote not to would be an enormous morale boost to the Sandinistas. Each side knows that a successful major offensive in the next few weeks could help sway fence-sitters on Capitol Hill, and fighting has accordingly intensified. The fitful guerrilla war has spread to eight of the country's 16 departments, and the death toll is mounting. In the first two weeks of February alone, the Sandinistas claimed 189 contra casualties...
...Nicaraguan Democratic Force (F.D.N.), by far the largest contra group, has between 8,000 and 9,000 soldiers, up from 6,000 last year. Operating from enclaves in Honduras and bases in northern Nicaragua, they have swept as far south as the city of Matagalpa, about 60 miles north of Managua. New F.D.N. recruits must rely on rusty, World War I-vintage Mauser bolt-action rifles, given by the CIA in 1982. Though weapons and ammunition have been in woefully short supply, the stockpile is growing again. According to high- level F.D.N. sources, the contras possess an unspecified number...