PACIFISTS REACH NICARAGUAN TOWN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180089-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 89
• Publication Date: August 10, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RD
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WASHINGTON POST
10 August 1985
'90-00806 R000201180089-2
Pacifists Reach Nicaraguan Town
Identity of Group That Stopped Them on River Is Disputed
By Filadelfo Aleman
Associated Press
SAN CARLOS, Nicaragua, Aug.
9-The 29 American peace activ-
ists who said they were held captive
by rebels for a day arrived in this
town on Lake Nicaragua today.
Questions about the incident con-
tinued, with members of the Wash-
ington-based Witness for Peace
group and others offering contra
dictory statements about what had
happened and who had stopped
their boat on the San Juan River
that forms the border between Nic-
aragua and Costa Rica.
The Americans arrived at San
Carlos, a port town at the mouth of
the river, 125 miles south of Ma-
nagua, by boat at about 1:30 p.m.
(3:30 p.m. EDT) and were greeted
by the townspeople. All of the
Americans appeared to be in good
condition.
Fourteen journalists traveling
with the group-11 reporters and
three photographers-had arrived
earlier.
The organization had said there
were 18 journalists with the group
when anti-Sandinista rebels report-
edly fired automatic weapons over
the boat Wednesday and forced the
group to disembark on the Costa
Rican side.
The peace group and the leftist
Sandinista government in Managua
accused the Revolutionary Demo-
cratic Alliance, known by its Span-
ish acronym Arde, of kidnaping the
activists, who wanted to hold a
peace vigil at the site of a recent
battle between the U.S.-backed
guerrillas and Nicaraguan soldiers.
Representatives of the Revolu-
tionary Democratic Alliance cate-
gorically denied that it had kidnaped
anybody, and said other anticom-
munist guerrillas operate along the
river near El Castillo de la Concep-
cion where the incident occurred. It
also noted that the group disap-
peared in an area that government
troops had retaken from the guer-
rillas.
A free-lance photographer on the
trip, Bolivar Arellano of New York,
said, "It is not true, as was re-
ported, that they shot at the boat
and fired many bursts into the air.
The truth is that they fired two or
three times in the air to warn us to
stop."
Arellano, said that when the gun-
men took the activists off the boat
"they told us they were from [Eden]
Pastora's Arde group." He said the
"They fired two or
three times in the
air to warn us to
stop."
next day a guerrilla . commander
said the rebels did not belong to
Arde and were "independent Ni-
caraguan anticommunists in exile."
Former Sandinista commander
Eden Pastora headed the military
arm of Arde until the group made
common cause with a larger guer-
rilla group based in Honduras. Pas-
tora's group apparently still uses
the name Arde, or Arde Sur.
NBC News reporter Peter Kent,
who was with the group, said the
guerrillas fired only one shot to stop
the boat. He said the rebels' leader,
who identified himself as Coman-
dante William, "didn't know who the
Americans were. He said his men
simply stop all boats on the river."
Kent said the activists were al-
lowed to return to the boat after
several hours. The next day, Kent
said, "yet another guerrilla arrived
and contradicted his men's claim
that they were members of the Pas-
tora faction. The parting protesters
and the accompanying journalists
were not convinced by the disclaim-
er."
Last night, Witness for Peace
spokeswoman Sharon Hostetler
modified her earlier statements ac-
cusing Arde and said the kidnapers
had told the activists they were "in-
dependent anticommunist" rebels.
Today, Witness for Peace
spokesman Dennis Marker said in
Washington that the kidnapers
were members of the Revolutionary
Democratic Alliance, but the activ-
ists on the boat had been ordered to
say otherwise. The activists on the
boat communicated with their office
in Managua by radio.
"The people on the boat believe it
is Arde," Marker said. "We were
told they [the activists] were wait-
ing to be released when an Arde
commander came. This person
came, apparently, and we were told
to say on the [boat's] radio that the
rebels were not Arde." He added
that the activists then made a "spe-
cific transmission ordered by the
contras."
Witness for Peace opposes the
Reagan administration's policy of
trying to destabilize the Sandinista
government because of its ties with
Cuba and the Soviet Union. The
activist group has sent about 1,500
people to hold peace vigils in Nic-
aragua during the last two years.
The-CIA supplied the two largest
anti-Sandinista rebel groups with
money and weapons until last spring
when a congressional aid cutoff
took effect. But this year Congress
reached a compromise with tfi-e-77
ministration, and Reagan si ne a
pro-
foreign aid bill yesterday that
vided for resumption o nonlethal
aid to the contras.
Activist Griffin-Nolan, of Al-
buquerque, N.M., said the group
might stay the weekend in San Car-
los and return to Managua Monday.
One of the activists, Shubert
Frye, 80, of Port Jervis, N.Y., was
reportedly ill. The government sent
a helicopter to San Carlos to take
him to Managua at the group's re-
quest. Warren Armstrong of
Wayne, Pa., who acted as spokes-
man, said that "it was not an emer-
gency," but he did not elaborate.
The group included Bob Heifetz,
53, of San Francisco, Calif., son of
violinist Jascha Heifetz.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180089-2