REBEL LEADER GIVES UP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000504880009-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: May 17, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000504880009-9
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ARnuEAPRAM PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER FILE ONLY
CNAW 1,A 17 May 1986
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Rebel leader gives up
From Inquirer Wire Services
Ends fight against Sandinistas
LA CURENA, Costa Rica - Eden Pas a
Sandinista hero who broke wit is com-
rades and became a rebel leader, crossed into
Costa Rica yesterday and gave up his three-
year struggle to overthrow the Nicaraguan
government.
Accompanied by a band of about 60 follow-
ers, the bearded guerrilla leader walked
across the dry bed of the San Juan River and
turned himself in to the Costa Rican govern-
ment in hopes of winning political asylum.
Pastora. 49, who was known as "Com-
mander Zero" when he helped the Sandinis-
tas take power in Nicaragua in 1979, handed
over a typewritten letter asking for asylum
and blaming his decision to surrender on a
lack of support from the United States.
Pastora - abandoned by most of his men,
battered by Sandinista troops and left short
of cash - had become increasingly isolated
in his fight against the Marxist Sandinistas.
He had resisted Reagan administration ef-
forts to unite his contingent with a larger,
rival group that receives U.S. funding, be-
cause he said it contained members of the
deposed Nicaraguan national guard.
On May 10, he was stripped of his command
when other leaders in his contingent decided
to join that rival group, the Nicaraguan Dem-
ocratic Force.
After he entered Costa Rica yesterday, Pas-
tore said, "There is no possibility for
a military victory (against the Sandi-
nistas) because of the incapacity im-
posed on' us by sectors of the U.S.
government.
"We do not want to be soldiers for
the United States in a war of pres-
sure, but rather Nicaraguan soldiers
in a national civil war to overthrow
the communist government of Nica-
ragua."
He blamed the Central Intelligence
Agency for causing the esertion o1
most of his troops. saving CIA agents
' tricked" his field commanders into
ceive U.S. aid as long as Pastora was
in command.
His entry into Costa Rica took place
near the remote outpost of La Cur,
ena, 150 miles north of San Jose, the
capital.
Several dozen Costa Rican civil
guardsmen lined the banks of the
river and the fringes of the thickly
forested jungle. The security was
tight because of concerns about an
attempt on Pastora's life. In May 1984,
a bomb went off during a news con-
ference given by Pastora just inside
Nicaragua, wounding him and kill-
ing four people. The bomber was
never found.
Last night, civil guardsmen were
to escort Pastora and his men to San
Jose, where they were to be kept in
the custody of immigration officials
while the government of President
Oscar Arias Sanchez studies the asy-
lum petition.
Karol Prado, a spokesman for Pas-
tora, said 450 rebels loyal to Pastora
began surrendering their weapons at
five points along the border with
Nicaragua just after dawn. All plan to
ask for political asylum in Costa
Rica, he said.
Pastora's former group, the Revo-
lutionary Democratic Alliance, was
one of the smallest of several bands
of rebels fighting the Nicaraguan
government. He used southern Nica-
ragua as a base for skirmishes that
prompted hundreds of complaints of
border violations by both Nicaragua
and Costa Rica.
In the late 1970s, Pastora was a
national hero, and his actions
against the government helped in.
spire Nicaraguans to throw out the
corrupt dictatorship of President An-
astasio Somoza Debayle.
On Aug. 22, 1978, Pastora led a
small group of guerrillas in storming
Nicaragua's capital. The attack elec.
trified the Nicaraguan people, long
chafing under Somoza's heavy-
handed rule.
Within a year, with overwhelming
public support and with Pastora as
commander of the guerrillas' south-
ern front, the Sandinistas drove So-
moza into exile.
In the Sandinistas' early days of
power, Pastors drew crowds wherev.
er he went and served as the deputy
defense minister. But in duly 1981, lie
dropped from sight and reappeared a
year later in Costa Rica, bitterly re-
nouncing the "traitors and assas-
sins" of the Managua leadership.
He accused the Sandinistas of re-
neging on promises of political plu-
ralism and a mixed economy. But he
seemed to most resent the role Cu-
ban advisers were playing in shaping
the new Nicaragua.
In April 1983, he led 300 men across
the San Juan into southern Nicara-
gua to begin his new war. But the
larger, U.S.-aided anti-Sandinista
force, which was built on remnants
of Somoza's defeated national guard,
was already in the field on the Hon.
duras-Nicaragua border.
Approved For Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000504880009-9