BOLANOS DESCRIBES FEARS THAT LED TO DEFECTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100630003-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: July 25, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP9O-00552ROO0100630003-0
APT iuLE !.PFEARED
25 July 1983
Bolanos describes
dears that led
to defection
Former guerrilla Miguel Bolanos
on defecting from Nicaragua,
and the workings of that country
Miguel Bolanos, 24, led a 60-man
guerrilla unit in the final battles that
brought the Sandinistas to power in
1979. He defected from Nicaragua
about 10 weeks ago by hijacking a light
plane to Costa Rica.
From January 1980, until his defec-
tion May 7, Bolanos was an official of
state security. He said he was schooled
in Cuba for four months, and helped
stage the public demonstrations during
the pope's visit to Nicaragua last
March. Thousands of anti-Sandinista
Catholics were kept away while the
pro-Sandinistas heckled the pontiff. He
participated in a two-year plan to dis-
credit opposition forces. "Operation
Spiderweb" led to the recent expulsion
of three U.S. diplomats from Nicara-
gua..
Bolanos served briefly after the.
Nicaraguan revolution as special
assistant to the Sandinista army chief
of staff, Joaquin Cuadra. He defected
because he felt that genuine principles
of the Nicaraguan revolution have been
berreved by the Sovie: and Cuban con-
tingent of the Sandinistas. He fears
that Nicaragua is headed for
totalitarism.
Before fighting in the revolution,
Bolanos attended college in the United
States. His mother, Gloria Hunter, is
an American. When he landed in Costa
Rica in a hijacked plane he was carry-
ing an expired U.S. passport. Bolanos
has been debriefed by the State
Department and the CIA. Bolanos
spoke in English during the following
interview conducted by free-lance
writer Richard Bodurtha for The Wash-
ington Times.
Q: Are the Soviets planning to huild
nuclear missile bases in Nicara, aa?
Tomas Borge (a powerful member of
the Sandinista junta) has said, "I
can assure the United States that that
is one thing it need not worry about."
A: They don't need to (build the mis-
sile sites). The strategy of the Soviets
and the communists is to maintain the
view that the big conflict, the battle
against communism, will be a nuclear
war. Then they can take over countries
step by step by exporting the rev-
olution and fighting little wars. With
this kind of movement they plan to iso-
late the United States, France and
some other European countries they
can win without fighting.
Q: Some members of Congress have
publicly doubted whether the Sandin-
istas are supplying the El Salvadoran
guerrillas with arms. Are they?
A: Not any more. Just ammunition
and whatever it takes to maintain what-
ever they've sent in the last four years.
Sandinistas have supplied the El Salva-
doran guerrillas with 6,000 or 7,000
machine guns. When I was
fighting with the Sandinistas in 1979
we had 150 machine guns in Manuaga.
In just Manauga. About 2,000 in the
whole country.
Q: What were your reasons for
fighting Somoza? You came from a
background that was, what would you
say, upper middle class?
A: In the final two years Somoza was
crazy. Until then he had always let the
oppostion party run against him. And
the press, too. An opposition press. But
then in the last two years it became a
crime to be young. If you were 18
you were a communist. He was killing
too many people. It was a humanitar-
ian motivation that made me fight
against Somoza.
Q: Recently in Washington there has
been talk about the possibility of
"peeling away" the hard core Marxists
and communists among the El Salva-
doran guerrillas. What do you think
about that,
A: For the international communists
it is a matter of procedure to lead jour-
nalists and others into thinking that
some of the guerrillas are moderate
and others are hard communists. But
they are all pro-Cuban. All their talk
about dialogue is just getting them
time. It was the same way in Nicara-
gua. I was on the inside there and I can
tell you that all the talk about having a
dialogue is a lie.
Q: You knew Melinda Monies during
the revolution in Nicaragua. She later
went to El Salvador to join the guerril-
las there. She was murdered by the
guerrillas. Why?
A: She wanted the Salvadoran guer-
rillas to have a dialogue with the gov-
ernment. Honest dialogue with the Sal-
vadoran government.
Q: Fellipe Gonzalez, the president of
Spain, said during his recent trip to
Washington that the current U.S.
administration lacks "vision" regard-
ing Latin America. What about
adopting a policy formed by the Con-
tadora Group or something like the
San Jose Declaration signed in Costa
Rica last year by the region's prime
ministers? It states that the Salva-
doran government talks to its external
opposition and the Sandinistas do the
same with their external opponents.
Also that Cuba withdraws its advisers
from Nicaragua and the United
States brings its military advisers
home from Honduras and El Salvador.
A: Then the Sandinistas and commu-
nists can work in peace. They will
be able to consolidate their commu-
nism and neutralize their internal
opponents. At that moment there will
be a static situation and they will have
a dialogue to change international
opinion, which has been generally bad
for them.
Q: What are some of your thoughts
about the contras? Some of them have
said that they can topple the Sandin-
istas in a few months. Is that Latin bra-
vado, big talk?
A: The contras cannot win the San-
dinistas in that short of time. But you
see, they have many factors on their
side. All of the.Indians are with them.
The contras are making Sandinistas
retreat from the Atlantic coast to the
Pacific.
Q: Hogs is the junta holding up? Is
there dissension among the nine mem-
bers?
A: The people see them join hands in
public and they think that the junta has
unity. I was an intelligence officer and
I can tell you that the junta is not
united. Underneath the surface there
are fractions.
GO_'\TTJNL'Ev
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP9O-00552ROO0100630003-0