SUPPORT URGED FOR CONTRAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302050047-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 47
• Publication Date: January 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

_ Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302050047-4
ARTICLE APPEAR
c,N PAGE V>, n, 4 January 1985
WASHINGTON TIl?S
Support
urged for
Contras
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A leading Nicaraguan opposition
leader, Arturo Cruz, has urged that
U.S. aid to resistance forces in that
country continue until Soviet and
Cuban military assistance is with-
drawn and a peace "based on
mutuality" be achieved.
In a prepared statement given
here yesterday at a news confer-
ence, Mr. Cruz said there was a con-
sensus among all democratic
groups in Nicaragua that "there
should be no unilateral withdrawal
of U.S. aid to those in the armed
Opposition." At the same time,
Pedro Juaquin Chamorro, editor of
Nicaragua's remaining indepen-
dent newspaper, after endorsing
Mr. Cruz's statement, also
announced he would not return
until freedom of the press was
restored in his country.
"I cannot stand this situation any
longer," he declared. "Unless there
is a genuine change in the direction
of permitting the right to dissent,
and of allowing freedom of the
press, both for the daily newspaper
La Prensa and for the people's com-
munication media, which have been
outrageously monopolized by the
FSLN [Sandinista] party, I will not
return to Nicaragua."
(In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, For-
eign Minister Edgardo Paz Barnica
said yesterday that Honduras will
expel Nicaraguan rebels who have
operated from its territory since
1981.
("All these people will be kicked
out immediately from our territory
because they have compromised
our sovereignty," he said.
(The Reagan administration has
backed the rebels, calling them
freedom fighters for their efforts to
oust the leftist Sandinistas who
took power in Nicaragua in a 1979
coup.)
Mr. Chamorro at the same time
denounced the arrest last week of
Salomon Calvo Arrieto, a reporter
for Managua's Radio Impacto who
was detained on the 29th, and the
forced hiding of Luis Manuel Mora
Sanchez, another Radio Impact?
reporter.
Mr. Chamorro currently lives in
San Jose, Costa Rica.
Under questioning, Mr. Cruz, a
former ambassador to the United
States in the early part of Sandin-
ista rule and the democratic opposi-
tion's leading presidential
candidate in Nicaragua's Novem-
ber elections, said for "any solution
to be feasible, it is essential that the
opposition can discuss these mat-
ters from a position of strength ?
otherwise the Sandinistas will
become even more inflexible."
He said that while he had "no
organic link" with the armed oppo-
sition, "a unilateral withdrawal [of
American aid] would be insane,
senseless" because the political
options continue to narrow in Nica-
ragua.
Mr. Cruz's statement repre-
sented his first expression of
unconditional support for U.S.
backing for the insurgent forces.
Mr. Cruz, who plans to return to
Nicaragua on Sunday, added,
"Since the Sandinistas are reluc-
tant to give a real political opening
toward the establishment of a per-
manent peace in Nicaragua, unfor-
tunately those who have chosen the
military struggle in my judgment
have a point."
He acknowledged that his per-
sonal safety could be at risk in light
of his new position on aid to the
rebels.
"I am not afraid," he said. "I don't
know what will happen, but I am
going."
? Roger Fontaine
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302050047-4