A VOICE FOR INDIANS PLIGHT IN NICARAGUA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404030030-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: March 4, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000404030030-9
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WASHINGTON TIMES
4 March 1986
A voice for Indians' plight in Nicaragua
By Marc Lee
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Russell Means, the American Indian
activist known for his 1973
shootout with the FBI at Wounded
Knee, S.D., yesterday called Dan-
iel Ortega's Sandinista government in Nica-
ragua one of the 20th century's most violent
regimes.
"They stand next to [former Cambodian
leader] Pol Pot in their thirst for genocide,"
said Mr. Means, still smarting from a shrap-
nel wound sustained during a just com-
pleted clandestine tour of Indian villages in
eastern Nicaragua.
"Support of the Sandinistas is unholy. I
just don't want to have to be proven right
after the holocaust," he said, following his
monthlong adventure.
Mr. Means, a founder of the American
Indian Movement, is in Washington to ask
the Reagan administration to give financial
and military aid to Indian tribes opposing
the Sandinista government.
Sandinistas frequently, raid Indian vil-
lages, taking children away in Soviet-made
helicopters, he said. "They take them off
and kill them. I saw 29 teen-age boys, ages
12 to 16, taken from one village. They are
never seen again once they're taken."
Mr. Ibleans said the Sandinistas are bent
on genocide, killing and torturing Miskito,
Suma and Rama Indians. He described the
Sandinistas' common methods of torture as
electric shock to the testicles, breaking
bones with 2-by-4s and pulling off finger-
nails.
"Burning people alive and raping women
is also commonplace;' said Mr. Means. "Vil-
lage churches and schools have been
transformed into torture chambers."
Mr. Means was accompanied on his trip
by two other North American activists,
Hank Adams of Olympia, Wash., and Clem
Chartier, a Canadian who heads the World
Council of Indigenous People.
The group set out secretly from Costa
Rica Jan. 7, protected by Misurasata
fighters, an Indian rebel group led by
Brooklyn Rivera.
During the group's stay in Nicaragua, the
Sandinistas issued over public radio a death
warrant for Mr. Means and told village In-
dians that Mr. Means "had to be exterm-
inated because the team was in the country
to discredit the government.
"They threatened to murder anyone giv-
ing us aid;' he said.
The Nicaraguan armed forces set up a
naval blockade to catch the group, Mr.
Means said. "They hunted us with helicop-
ters during the night."
Although pursued by government
troops, the team escaped serious injury. But
Mr. Means suffered an abdominal wound
when a bomb exploded near him. The group
paddled out of Nicaragua in a canoe and
made a 24-hour trip to the island of San
Andres in Colombian territory.
Mr. Means said the Misurasata Indian
rebels are "fearless fighters;' but they now
must capture all of their weapons from the
Sandinistas.
"They just need guns, ammunition, boots
and medicine," he said. "You'll never hear
them asking for anything more, be-
cause they're a self-sufficient peo-
ple"
The Indian activist said American
liberals and radicals have not helped
the Indian cause. "We certainly have
no liberal friends," he said. "From
hippies to Walter Mondale, they are
a bunch of welfare clients. They're
great at championing someone else's
revolution, but they never do any-
thing themselves.
1 describe liberals as opinion
pollsters. Whatever the latest opin-
ion poll shows, they move in that di-
rection," Mr Means said. "They are
now vehemently condemming me on
grounds that I've been bought by the
ZT.A. Can you imagine that
%Ir Means opposes U.S. aid to the
Nicaraguan resistance fighters, be-
cause he says the Contras are
fighting a war that could last for an-
other 60 years, whereas the "Indians
and Creole," who claim to control 45
percent of Nicaraguan soil, could
wage a winnable war.
"You're fighting a sophisticated
communist regime, and the Contras
lack the manpower and the military
might needed to wage a successful
war.- he said.
The Sandinistas are dangerous
because they are such "sophisti-
cated liars," Mr. Means said. "They
have managed to turn the word
'atrocity' into the word 'mistake:
They have systematically perse-
cuted Catholics, and yet they get
Catholic support from this country"
During his stay in Washington,
Mr. Means said he will try to arrange
a meeting with President Reagan to
report his findings and gain support
for the Indians' plight in Nicaragua.
"I admire (Mr. Reagan] because
he lets you know exactly what he
stands for." Mr. Means said. "Hope-
fully, he'll be able to give us some
support. The Reagans are not the
dangerous people in the world. It's
the Carters and the Mondales who
are really dangerous,"
If the United States doesn't offer
assistance, Mr. Means said he will
seek support from other nations and
international organizations. Mr.
Means said he will present doc-
uments of his recent trip to the
United Nations Commission of Hu-
man Rights and to Congress.
"My people only have two
choices," he said. "Fight or be ex-
terminated,"
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