NICARAGUA REBELS ACCUSED OF ABUSES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201100024-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: December 27, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201100024-3
PATi4t APPEARED 27 December 1984
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ACCUSED OF ABUSES
Senator Predicts Investigation
of Reports of Atrocities
By JOEL BRINKLEY
Special to The New York TImee
WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 - Members
of Congress and other Government offi-
cials say many reports of abuses by
Nicaraguan rebels against civilians
have come to their attention recently
as a result of Congressional investiga-
tions of the C.I.A.'s manual on guer-
rilla warfare.
Present and former rebel leaders
said in interviews over the last few
week that some of the
r
guerrillas had'
been guilty of atrocities. The leaders
said they deplored the acts, and they
c r tend dt that they h:.i evidence that
the Sandinistas were guilty of the same
kinds of abuses.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Ver-
mont Democrat who is a senior mem-
ber of the Select Committee on Intelli-
gence, said the committee was likely to
investigate the repo: is of atrocities
next yea..
Evidence About Crimes
In testimony to the House Select
Committee on intelligence this month,
the members of Congress and other
sources said, Central Intelligence
Agency officials and others presented
evidence that the United States-backed
rebels had raped, tortured and killed
unarmed civilians, including children.
The C.I.A. officials were said to have
raised that prnblemas one explanation
for the guerrilla warfare manual, say-
ing the primer was intended to moder.
ate the rebels' behavior. But that ex-
planation only irritated some members
of Congress, who said the agency had
not told them of the problem before.
Members of Congress and the other
sources said that among the reports
that have come to their attention, along
with the classified briefings from sen-
ior C.I.A. officials, were direct, sworn
testimony from at least one rebel lead-
er; press accounts, and reports and af-
fidavits from private individuals and
organizations that have interviewed
victims and witnesses in Central Amer-
ica.
The reports have included accounts
about groups of civilians, including
women and children, who were burned,
dismembered, blinded or beheaded,
the sources said.
Congress ended aid to the rebels last
spring but is to consider renewing aid
early next year. Democratic members
of Congress who are familiar with the
atrocity reports said the issue was
likely to bolster opposition to renewing
the aid.
C.I.A. Offered Reports
Early this month, Representative
Edward P. Boland, the Massachusetts
Democrat who is chairman of the
House Select Committee on Intelli-
gence, said C.I.A. officers had offered
the reports of atrocities as one explana-
tion for the agency's guerrilla warfare
manual.
The C.I.A. officials, including Direc-
tor William J. Casey, told the commit-
tee that "they were concerned about
the stories of kidnappings and assassi-
nations" of civilians, Mr. Boland said.
The agency published the guerrilla
warfare manual so the rebels "could
win the hearts and minds of the Nicara-
guan population," Mr. Boland quoted
the C.I.A. officers as telling his com-
mittee.
The manual advised rebels to kidnap
Sandinistas, to "neutralize" selected
Government officals, to blackmail or-
dinary citizens so they would be forced
to join the rebel cause, and to hire
criminals who would arrange the
shooting deaths of fellow rebels so they
would become martyrs. The manual
also included advice on political propo-
gandizing intended to persuade Nicara-
guans to become rebel sympathizers.
.Behavior Said to Improve
In separate interviews, rebel leaders
said they did not know whether the
number of soldiers disciplined for
abuses had increased or decreased in
the year since the manual was issued.
But one rebel official,.Bosco Matamo.
ros, said the rebels' behavior had grad-
ually Improved over the years.
"We have a voluminous file on San-
dinista atrocities" as well, Mr. Mata-
moros said.
He said the Nicaraguan Democratic
Force, the largest rebel group, had
documented "several hundred cases"
of rebel abuses against civilians in the
last two years. The abuses have ranged
from petty theft to murder, he said.
He and other rebel leaders described
the problem as a regrettable but inevi-
tablebyproduct of civil war and added
that.their military courts had Issued
sentences ranging from demotion to
imprisonment each time an abuse was
discovered.
Alfonso Callejas, a member of the
rebel group's directorate, said: "It is
very difficult to control an irregular
army. Many soldiers join because they
have people they want to get even
with"
Chamorro Briefed Committee
In'an interview, a former rebel lead-
er, Edgar Chamorro, said he told the
House Intelligence Committee in
closed testimony last month that some
rebel commanders routinely executed
their prisoners, even though rebel lead- i
ers found the practice "sickening and
disgusting,"
"The practice was common," Mr.
Chamorro said, "but it definitely was
not our policy.
Mr. Cbamorro testified to the House
Intelligence Committee for more than
two hours one' day in November. The
other members of the rebel directorate
dismissed Mr. Chamorro from the
Nicaraguan Democratic Force, partly
because of his public discussion of the
atrocity issue. '
This month, the Center for Consitu-
tional Rights, a New York civil liber-
ties group, gave the House Intelligence
Committee more than 150 pages of
written testimony gathered by its at-
torneys an rebel atrocities.
The center sued the Reagan Admin.
istration two years ago on behalf of a
dozen Nicaraguan citizens who said
they or members of their family were
victims of rebel abuses.
Suit Ruled Political
In one case, the center's testimony
said, the rebels "kidnapped and slit the
throats of 18 peasants and burned their
houses." The suit was dismissed as a
"political question" beyond the jurisi-
diction of the Federal courts and is on
appeal. This month, - the center ap-
pended the C.I.A. manual and related
--information to its appeal, saying the in-
formation bolstered the case.
An Americas Watch report published
last .April says: "In the northwestern
mountain areas, the F.D.N. has en-
gaged repeatedly in kidnappings, tor-
ture-and murder of unarmed civilians,
mostly in villages and farm coopera-
tives." It cited one case last December
when villagers were "tortured to
death."
Several leaders of the Nicaraguan
Democratic Force said Sandinista
Government officials and their sympa.
thizers had been publicizing the
atrocity issue.
Adolfo Calero, chairman of the
F.D:N., said the Sandinistas had car-
ried on "an orchestrated campaign to
make resistance fighters appear as
atrocious terrorists." He added: "We
draw our very blood from the civilians
they say we are killing.'
STAT
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201100024-3