Word: sandinistas
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Assaults into Nicaragua by anti-Sandinista guerrillas have in the past provoked occasional Nicaraguan shelling of border towns in neighboring Honduras, where the U.S.-backed contras of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force maintain their base camps. The most recent raid, late last week, drew an unusually heavy Nicaraguan mortar barrage near the town of Arenales; one Honduran soldier was killed and eight others were wounded. In response, the Honduran air force dispatched, for the first time, some of its U.S.-made F-86 jet fighters to attack Nicaraguan positions. The Hondurans said the aircraft fired on Sandinista troop concentrations and shot...
Until November, Edgar Chamorro was principal spokesman for the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest of the contra groups fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government. Chamorro, who carried out his mission from exile in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and Key Biscayne, Fla., revealed that he had been picked for his job by the CIA. The agency, he disclosed, had printed training manuals instructing the guerrillas in such activities as assassination, kidnaping and blackmail. For that revelation he was ejected from the contras. Now the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service wants to expel Chamorro from the country. Two weeks ago, the New York Times...
...Sandinista forces outnumber the contras by 110,000 to an estimated 17,000. Well supplied with Soviet arms and equipment, the Nicaraguan army has much more mobility and firepower than the rebels. Since April the Sandinistas have kept the contras on the run, pushing them north over the Honduran border and south into Costa Rica. Last month Nicaraguan troops actually drove about three miles into Honduras and shelled Las Vegas, the base camp of the largest contra faction, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN). The contras lack even the guerrillas' traditional element of surprise: Sandinista spies have thoroughly infiltrated rebel camps...
...contras with devastating effect, the government has not been able to move in for the kill. There are a number of reasons. Despite the assistance of several thousand Cuban military advisers, the Nicaraguan army suffers from "poor command and control," according to a U.S. military expert. Moreover, many Sandinista commanders prefer to stand off and lob rockets and shells rather than close with the enemy. Training is also slipshod: Nicaraguan draftees commonly enter the field after only two or three days of preparation...
Contra leaders insist that they are on the rebound from the Sandinista offensive. Fresh supplies of aid from the U.S. will improve morale and enable the contras to equip new recruits. The rebel leaders do not predict a military victory, at least any time soon. Their aim is to hold on and sap the shaky Nicaraguan economy by sabotaging power lines and blocking highways. "The contras are able to make a lot of noise and cause damage to the Sandinista regime," says Colonel Mark Richards, a U.S. intelligence analyst. "But they are highly unlikely to be the future rulers...