CONTRA POLITICAL SIDESHOWS STRAIN SUPPORT INSIDE NICARAGUA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302210002-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: October 10, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302210002-5
ARTICLE APPEARED
\ ON PAGE -29
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WALL STREET JOURNAL
10 October 1986
Contra Political Sideshows Strain Support Inside Nicaragua
? ? ?
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras ? This
week's capture of an American who was
flying over Nicaraguan territory in a con-
tra supply plane once again highlights the
U.S. role in the conflict between the San-
dinista government and thousands of anti-
Marxist rebels fighting in and around Nic-
aragua. It's still not clear exactly who was
coordinating the captured American's ac-
tions. However, the question of direct U.S.
involvement in Nicaragua may now, as it
has in the past, act as an impediment to
The Americas
By Glenn Garvin
the final release of $100 million in U.S. aid
to the rebels. And while U.S. aid to the con-
tras has widespread support in Central
America, the issue of rebel independence
from the U.S.. particularly as concerns the
rebel leadership, is of no small matter to
the beleaguered supporters of the contras
within Nicaragua.
The extent of U.S. involvement in se-
lecting the leadership of the contras has
long been a sore point among dissidents
within Managua. Many U.S. critics of
President Reagan's support for the rebels
have argued that U.S. agencies exercise
too little control over them. But inside Nic-
aragua, the feeling is that they exercise
too much control.
Last year the U.S. forced the creation of
the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO)
as an umbrella group that would subsume
several other anti-Sandinista organiza-
tions. UNO was placed under the control of
three directors: Adolfo Calero, head of the
Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), the
largest contra army: Arturo Cruz. who had
organized non-armed oppostion movements
within Nicaragua: and Alfonso Robelo,
who had been one of the leaders of a
smaller contra group. The three men
didn't show much interest in working to-
gether until it became a condition of fur-
ther U.S. aid. Predictably, they have not
gotten along well.
When the three leaders of UNO met in
Miami in May to broker for power among
themselves?under the constant, if distant.
scrutiny of U.S. "administrators" ?opposi-
tion groups within Nicaragua listened for F"
more than two weeks. Finally, they sent a i
delegate to Miami. We told them, 'If you I
can't get this thing resolved, don't come
back to Nicaragua,' " recalls one opposi- o
tion leader. "We told them we would pub- c
licly denounce them if they didn't stop all 1
the bickering." That harsh message th
sparked a temporary outbreak of publi
tranquillity.
However, last week UNO directors me
again to argue over who will wield th
most clout in the organization. The meet
ings threw into high relief two things tha
U.S. policy makers would just as soon for
get: The UNO alliance, cobbled together i
Washington in response to U.S. Nica
raguan?political exigencies, shows severe
signs of strain. And opposition leaders
within Nicaragua increasingly feel es
tranged from the armed rebels. The latter
may be the more serious problem.
UNO soldiers fighting and dying in th
mountains of Nicaragua are far removed
from, and generally ignorant of, the politi
cal sideshows that their leaders period!
cally stage in the U.S. But opposition
groups in Managua grow more discour
aged by these political wranglings every
day. Nicaraguan businessmen and political
leaders speak of UNO's political infighting
with anger and disgust. "Obviously we
can't have an open relationship with the
contras." says one. "But we could have a
kind of mental relationship. I'll tell you, no
mental relationship exists. No relationship
of any kind exists."
Ultimately the contras, to have a
chance to win, must open an internal politi-
cal front in Nicaragua's cities. Before they
came to power, the Sandinistas staged
armed raids on Anastasio Somoza's patrols
in the mountains for years without any vis-
ible effect on the regime. It was only after
they linked up with businessmen. middle-
class professionals, students and labor un-
ions in the cities that the revolution gained
momentum. But the way things are going,
the internal opposition leaders are unlikely
to make even an informal alliance with the
armed rebels.
Many Nicaraguan dissidents, while
agreeing on the necessity of U.S. aid, have
long resented the meddling that comes
with it. That meddling started literally on
the first day that the U.S. got involved.
when CIA agents in Miami rewrote the
first public statement by the directors of
the FDN to delete what they regarded as
unpleasant references to the sanctity of
private property.
The most dramatic example of U.S.
control over the contras was the Central
Intelligence Agency's undermining of Eden
astora, the charismatic former Sandin-
sta war hero who joined the contras in
983. Mr. Pastora had by far the biggest
popular following inside Nicaragua of any
f the contra leaders, but his refusal to ac-
ept U.S. advisers and their instructions
ed the CIA first to cut off his money and
en to bribe his subordinate officers to
? desert to a rival contra group with their
units. Mr. Pastora. to be sure, had his ec-
centricities?he once made a radio broad-
? cast suggesting that Sandinista sol-
diers quit shooting at his men and save
their bullets for the FDN? but his treat-
ment by the CIA undermined an effective,
? popular movement against the Marxist
Sandinistas.
The "elimination" of Mr. Pastora left a
? bad taste, even among those opposition
leaders who didn't like him. And the U.S.
insistence that Mr. Calero placate Messrs.
Ftobelo and Cruz has aroused anger among
e much of the internal opposition, both be-
cause it affronts their pride and because
- they are leery of the last two men.
Many opposition leaders think Mr. Cruz,
who has spent most of the past two dec-
? ades in Washington as an official of the
Inter-American Development Bank, has
few political roots in Nicaragua. Mr. Ro-
belo, who served in the Sandinista's first.
governing- junta before breaking with
them, is viewed with suspicion and even
open hostility by some of the opposition.'
They still remember his eight months in.
the junta, when he helped engineer the na-
tionalization of Nicaragua's banks, when
he traveled to Cuba to meet with Fidel
Castro. and when he presided over a flood
tide of expropriations.
Curiously, Mr. Calero?who has become
to contra critics something of a symbol of
supposed anti-democratic tendencies of the
rebels?is the one rebel leader who seems.
to have the greatest popular following in-
side Nicaragua. Far from being a Somo.
cista. he was a longtime opponent of the
regime?he was even jailed once for help-
ing to organize a general strike?but
stayed aloof from the Sandinistas as well
after they ,took power. He was an activist
in the anti-Somoza conservative party,
which still exists and is generally thought
to be the largest of the domestic opposition
groups still active in Nicaragua.
But Mr. Calero, like the others, comes
under fire from the opposition for placing.
too much emphasis on military operations
at the expense of a sound political pro-
gram, and for spending too much time
fussing over UNO's internal pecking order:
"UNO is only an armed movement," says'
a leader of an opposition party. "They.
come and they go, but they never write on
the walls to say, 'we were here.'"
Mr. Garvin is the Latin American cor-
respondent for the Washington Times. In
July, he was expelled from Nicaragua ap_
ter being held incommunicado for nine
hours, but he has since been allowed back'
in Nicaragua twice.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302210002-5