MOST CONTRAS REPORTED TO PULL OUT OF NICARAGUA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403790047-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 47
• Publication Date: January 30, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403790047-1
30 January 1986
Most Contras Reported
To Pull Out of Nicaragua
By JAMES L.MOYNE
Spedel W .M0 Neer Yuk TIM
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, Jan. 28
- At a time when they once promised
to begin a major offensive, Nicaraguan
guerrillas are instead back in their
camps in Honduras, checked by im-
proved Sandinista tactics and a critical
shortage of supplies, rebel officials and
Western diplomats here say.
Two years ago the American-backed
guerrillas. shut down much of the eco-
nomically vital coffee harvest in the
fertile mountain valleys that slice
across northern Nicaragua. This year
the harvest appears to be in full swing,
without serious threat from the rebels.
A guerrilla spokesman said that only
some 40 percent of rebel troops were
now in the field. Western diplomats put
the number tar lower, saying the great
majority of rebel tomes were inside
Honduras.
The only active rebel front is around
the Rama supply road in the central
Nicaraguan departments of Boaco and
Chontales, according to rebel and San-
dinista officials.
Guerrilla recruiting also appears to
be tar below the 1,000 new combatants
that Reagan Administration officials
once asserted were entering rebel
ranks each month. The same officials
also contended that the rebels had
nearly 20,000 men ready to fight.
Rebels' Growth 'Detained'
leading members of Congress that
even with renewed American military
aid it could take the guerrillas two to
three years to become a significant
military threat to the Sandinistas. The
Central Intelligence tunnel
minion ars miiiia!l ale to um
as
e
Rebel officials say they have been
most severely set back by a shortage of
basic supplies because much of the $27
million in so-called humanitarian aid
voted by Congress last year has not
reached them.
"We have thousands of men who
don't even have a pair of boots or a pon-
cho," said a rebel spokesman, Frank
Arena.
Honduras Blocks AM
The Honduran Government has
blocked the aid since last October in an
effort to persuade the Administration
to make concessions on a number of
contentious economic and political
issues, according to well-placed
sources in Honduras and Washington.
Rebel supply runs have also been set
back by the loss of a large transport
plane over El Salvador last week. After
a camouflaged cargo jet crashed under
mysterious circumstances, the Salva-
doran Air Force quickly cleaned up the
wreckage and refused to identify the
plane's origin and destination or say
who was flying it or what it was carry-
ing.
The new President of Honduras, Jose
Azcona Hoyo, is believed to have dis-
cussed the Nicaraguan rebels during a
three-day visit to Washington this
month that included meetings with sen-
ior Administration officials. Mr. Az-
cona is now expected to allow deliv-
eries of American aid to the rebels.
But some American officials and
members of Congress worry that the
Hondurans will use the issue to put
pressure on the United States in the fu-
ture. If Congress approves military aid
to the rebels and their forces begin to
grow rapidly, it would mark an intensi-
Knowledgeable Western and Con-
gressional sources now say the guerriL
las probably have no more than 14,000
armed men and may have fewer. A
senior rebel official conceded that the
guerrillas' growth "has been de-
tained," contending that their absence
from the field made it impossible to re-
cruit inside Nicaragua.
Those already bearing arms will
have serious difficulties in fighting this
year if Congress does not approve re-
newed military aid to the rebels, guer-
rilla officials say. They add that the
private donations they have used to buy
weapons have fallen off sharply at a
time when a growing Sandinista army,
equipped with helicopter gunships and
heavy weapons, is proving a formida-
ble foe.
Administration officials have told
Reuters
Rosa Hern*ndes, a Government
worker from Managua, picking
coffee bans at a plantation 126
miles from the Nicaraguan capi-
tal. She Is one of several thousand
workers who have volunteered to
help with the harvest. She and
others In her group were armed in
case of a rebel attack.
fication of Honduran involvement with
the Nicaraguan guerrillas, who would
almost certainly outnumber the 15,000-
man Honduran Army.
The American funds that have al-
ready arrived here are being spent
mainly to buy food, uniforms, boots
and medicine for the rebels from pri-e
vate companies in Honduras, Guate-
mala and El Salvador, according to
sources who monitor the guerrillas.
Two planeloads of goods reached
Honduras in October, they say, but the
second wyls returned to the United
States to demonstrate Honduran anger
that an American television crew had
been allowed to fly in on the plane and
film it unloading goods for the guerril-
las at the country's main public airport
in the capital.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403790047-1