WORLD'S LEFTISTS FIND A HAVEN IN NICARAGUA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706620004-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 13, 2011
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: March 3, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
J Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706620004-0
AETICLE
ON PAGE, 1.4
MIAMI HERALD
3 March 1985
World's leftists find
a haven in Nicaragua
STAT
Some sought on charges of terrorism
By JUAN 0. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer
MANAGUA, Nicaragua --
Scores of left-wing militants from
around the world - some of them
wanted on terrorism charges in
their home countries - have
settled in revolutionary Nicaragua
since the Sandinista triumph of
1979.
Some are treated by the Nicara-
guan government. as virtual diplo-
mats. representing their organiza-
tions. Others are fugitive
militants, granted jobs, identifica-
tion papers and safe haven.
An overwhelming majority are
simple political exiles or leftist
sympathizers come to express
solidarity with the Sandinista rev-
olution and mingle with ideologi-
cal brethren in a friendly environ-
ment.
Sederal Sandinista officials ac-
knowledge, however, that a signif-
icant minority, mostly Latin
Americans, are active guerrillas,
plotting the overthrow of home
governments. They hold strategy
meetings and, sometimes, undergo
military training here and in Cuba,
the officials say.
The Reagan administration has
used the presence of so many
people with ties to left-wing
groups as proof that Nicaragua has
become a nest of international
terrorism. U.S. officials say they
will focus on these links in asking
Congress to resume U.S. assistance
to anti-Sandinista rebels. Anti-
Sandinista leader Alfonso Robelo
calls Nicaragua ."the center of
terrorism in Latin America today."
But several knowledgeable
sources interviewed in Managua,
elsewhere in Central America and
in the United States argue that
Nicaragua is less a terrorists'
training ground than a tropical
sand-and-surf watering hole for
the international revolutionary set.
One leftist intellectual close to
both exile circles and the Sandinis-
ta leadership called Nicaragua "a
winter barracks for over-re-
pressed guerrillas." Training of
foreign terrorists, he said, "is not
government policy."
Whether they are guerrillas-at-
ease or terrorists-in-waiting, It is .
clear that Nicaragua is attracting
them by the droves.
On almost any day, Argentine
and Uruguayan guerrillas gather
at the Yerba Buena, a beatnik-
style coffee shop-bookstore in the
heart of Managua. Salvadoran
rebels can often be found dining at
the Los Gauchos restaurant. Ital-
ians and Germans gather for small
house parties.
Some are indeed fugitives: Ital-
ians from the Red Brigades and
Unita Combattente Comunisti;
West Germans linked to the
Baader-Meinhof Gang; members of
Spain's Basque ETA separatist
guerrillas; leaders of Honduras'
Cinchonero guerrillas; militants
from Peru's Shining Path; Monte-
neros from Argentina; Tupamaros
from Uruguay; and a hodgepodge
of Salvadorans, Costa Ricans, Co-
lombians, Chileans, Guatemalans,
Parapuayans and Bolivians.
On Feb. 8, the Italian govern-
ment handed the Sandinistas a list
of 22 left-wing Italian extremists
believed to be living in Nicaragua,
some already sentenced in absen-
tia to 22 years In prison, some
wanted on arrest warrants, others
described only as "subversives."
`Clean conscience'
The Nicaraguan Foreign Minis-
try has denied any knowledge of
the 22 Italians. Sandinista officials
also say their "conscience is clean"
regarding the Reagan administra-
tion allegations they consider most
damaging to their image: Reputed
links to Libyan strongman Moam-
mar Khadafy, Iranian Moslem
extremists and Colombian drug
traffickers.
Ho n inis-'ever, one ranKing ta official acknowledged that "we
can't deny everything.... It is
perfectly possible that on special
occasions there would be [train-
IngJ courses scheduled." The offi-
cial, like almost every other
knowledgeable source contacted,
agreed to talk about the sensitive
issue on promise of anonymity.
Some Nicaraguan officials,
though not many, say they regard
the aid to leftists as retaliation for
U.S. support for anti-Sandinista
guerrillas. And they say the Euro-
pean leftists are fighting NATO,
"the symbol of American imperial-
ism in Europe."
Conversations with a variety of
sources indicate that the Sandinis-
tas draw a careful distinction
between guerrilla movements that
have armies in the field and
terrorist organizations that spe-
cialize in bombings, kidnappings
and assassinations. Guerrillas, es-
pecially those from El Salvador
and other Central American coun-
tries, can get training and guns.
The others, mostly from Europe,
are kept at arm's length.
Help was denied
But on occasion the Sandinistas
have even denied help to Latin
American guerrillas. Leaders of
Colombia's April 19 Movement
have told friends they were denied
permission to use Nicaragua as a
staging base for their 1981 incur-
sion into Colombia's Caqueta prov-
ince. A Peruvian writer known to
be close to Shining Path guerrillas
was expelled from Nicaragua last
year. And Salvadoran rebels said
that the Sandinistas almost re-
fused them permission to use the
Managua airport as a stopover last
month for 10 crippled guerrillas
traveling from Costa Rica to
Europe for medical treatment.
Despite these occasional rejec-
tions, Nicaraguan government of-
ficials said, the Sandinistas have
built an extensive, intricate and
highly discreet system for main-
taining and cultivating contacts
with the foreign leftists and
funneling different kinds of assis-
tance to them.
Many Sandinista officials ac-
knowledge that in a sense they are
repaying past favors. The Pales-
tine Liberation Organ nation
trained at least 150 Sandinistas in
Lebanon during the 1960s an
70s, said a former Israeli intelli-
gence agent who used to live in
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a.
Nicaragua. And Argentina's Mon-
tonero guerrillas sent 20 to 30 foot
soldiers to fight in the revolution,
said Eden Pastora, a one-time
Sandinista turned opposition guer-
rilla leader, in a Miami interview.
Cuba relationship
The Sandinistas' relationship
with Cuba dates back to 1961,
when Interior Minister and Com-
andante Tomas Borge underwent
guerrilla training there. Hundreds
of Sandinista rebels eventually
trained in Cuba. And in 1979,
Havana sent several planeloads of
guns and ammunition for the final
offensive against President Anas-
tasio Somoza.
Controlling today's aid system
in Nicaragua is the Sandinista
Front's Directorate for Interna-
tional Relations, supervised by
Bayardo Arce, like Borge one of
the nine comandantes who have
ruled Nicaragua since 1979. Arce
is regarded as one of the most
radical of the nine, which also
include Nicaraguan President Dan-
iel Ortega.
The directorate, all of the
sources agreed, manages the San-
dinista party's "fraternal" rela-
tions with everybody from official
ruling parties,. to loyal oppositions,
to broad front coalitions, leftist
alliances, guerrilla groups and
bands of terrorists.
"This includes groups battered
by repression because of their
active opposition to their govern-
ments," said one Nicaraguan offi-
cial. "Many of these are under-
ground groups."
And many of them are still
virtually underground in Nicara-
gua, under Sandinista orders to
stay out of public view. Long-time
Sandinistas said this is the same
wink-and-a-nod arrangement the
Cubans imposed on them when
they lived in exile in Havana in the
1960s and 1970s.
The sources said at least 30 of
the clandestine groups have dele-
gados in Managua who are offi-
cially recognized by the director-
ate. A delegado has three duties:
maintain official contacts with the
Sandinista Front; organize his
group's meetings, publications and
other political work; establish
links with other foreign groups
and potential sponsors.
PLO embassy
The Palestine Liberation O gani-
zation has an embassy and diplo-
matic staff in Managua. Colom-
bia's April 19 Movement has a
political office. The Salvadoran
guerrillas have three news and
propaganda offices, as well as a
clandestine radio transmitter.
Once a delegado has established
himself, his key job is to find work
for down-and-out compatriots liv-
ing in Nicaragua, Sandinista offi-
cials said. The directorate will not
help here, but allows the delegado
to exploit his personal contacts
within the government.
One Latin American exile living
in Managua said that Montoneros
in 1980 offered to use some of
their savings, amassed in dozens of
ransom kidnappings, to build -a
Managua factory that would em-
ploy some of their guerrilla coun-
trymen. There is no indication
whether the project was carried
out.
Several of the delegados have
taken advantage. of the Sandinis-
tas' hospitality to summon follow-
ers abroad to strategy-setting ses-
sions In Managua. Peru's Shining
Path held a "spiritual retreat" last
year to study Von Clausewitz's
book On War and "the theory of
betrayal" according to Shake-
speare's Macbeth, said one person
who attended.
Sandinista officials usually stay
away from such revolutionary
seminars, sources said, although
they almost certainly know about
them. "They are notoriously care-
ful about who they let Into the
country, so It must be with their
knowledge," one official said.
A former official of the Nicara.
guan Interior Ministry who now
lives in Costa Rica said the
directorate also occasionally helps
fugitive guerrillas and terrorists
by arranging financial aid through
labor unions and other Sandinis-
ta-run organizations. It also can
provide safe houses, false pass-
ports, Nicaraguan Identification
cards and false license plates, he
said.
The Interior Ministry's General
Directorate for State Security and
the Sandinista army, the source
added, both have officers specially
assigned to help any foreign leftist
that gets Into trouble - a car
accident or a drunken brawl.
For the first four years of the
revolution, the sources said, the
Sandinistas provided a steady flow
of aid and assistance to their leftist
friends, especially the Salvado-
rans.
`Ripe for revolution,
"The Sandinista triumph
brought a certain revolutionary
euphoria," said one Sandinista
official with close ties to the
exiles. "We thought all Latin
America was ripe for revolution,
so there was a lot of assistance
going out. Those people could
count on support."
But by mid-1983, the official
said, and especially after the U.S.
invasion of Grenada in October of
that year, the Sandinistas "began
to realize that the tide of Latin
American history was moving
against us."
On Nov. 20, 1983, the Sandinis-
tas gave the Salvadoran guerrillas
two days to transfer some of their
people out of Nicaragua and close
down some safe houses. They
moved some of their logistics
operations, including a radio sta-
tion, to more discreet locations on
the outskirts of Managua. Salvado-
ran rebel officials said.
A year later, however, the
Sandinistas moved in still another
direction after noting that contro-
versial U.S. policies - the Grena-
da invasion and deployment of
U.S. cruise missiles in Europe -
had gone forward without effec-
tive international opposition.
Seeing themselves as the next
target for U.S. aggression, Nicara-
guan officials said, the Sandinistas
sought closer links with the radi-
cal European left, the failed anti-
missile movement, other Latin
American leftists and even U.S.
liberals.
Visitors from the United States,
Europe and Latin America now
return home, said one official,
"sensitized to the Central America
problem, and if they've spent any
time at all here they have passion-
ate sentimental links to Nicara.
gua."
Some of the visitors leave with
more than passions. According to
several of the sources, there is a
second level of Sandinista assis-
tance to Latin American leftist
volunteers - one that includes
military training.
GKOMW
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Cuba's top military representa-
tive in Nicaragua, Gen. Arnaldo
Ochoa, runs this program through
two parallel chains of command,
according to the former Interior
Ministry official and two present
Sandinista government officials.
`Cuban Force'
One, the "Cuban Force," is made
up entirely of Cuban officers. The
other, the "International Force,"
has only Latin American exiles,
many of them Argentines, Chile-
ans and Uruguayans, who live in
Cuba and hold officers' rank in the
Cuban military. All foreign mili-.
tary advisers are issued Nicara-
guan identification cards, the de-
fector added.
Sources with access to the
People's Sandinista %Army's payroll
records said about 700 Cuban
military advisers and 555 Interna-
tional Force officers were in
Nicaragua in 1980. The number
tripled the following year, they
added.
The pick of the Latin American
volunteers go to Cuba for instruc-
tion in special camps in the
western province of Pinar del Rio
and an installation near Guanabo,
close to Havana, known as "Base
00," the defector said. In 1983, he
said, he saw Cuban military offi-
cers at the Managua airport es-
corting 10-12 Costa Rican volun-
teers aboard a plane for a flight to
Havana.
Second-level prospects, the
sources said, are trained in Nicara.
gua, either in groups from the
same country or as individuals
integrated into regular Sandinista
army units. Several Honduran
guerrillas captured in 1983 and
1984 described 21/2 years of train-
ing in Cuba and Nicaragua, fol-
lowed by several months of fight-
ing with the Nicaraguan army
against anti-Sandinista rebels.
Still, most foreign leftists living
in Nicaragua did not come to hone
military skills or hide out.
The majority are political exiles
who fled right-wing governments,
or they are militant leftists who
moved to Nicaragua because of
what one South American intellec-
tual called a "moral imperative" to
support the Sandinista revolution.
Many of the exiles, usually
professionals and technicians who
would have difficulties working in
more developed countries, also
came to Nicaragua because they
can find jobs here, replacing a
managerial class rapidly fleeing
Sandinista rule.
And Nicaragua is a safe haven, a
place where enemies cannot easily
watch them, where they can
gather in groups and perhaps
persuade the government to grant
them the kind of international
solidarity that the Sandinistas
enjoyed during their long struggle
against Somoza.
"The Sandinistas received a lot
of help when they were guerril-
las," said a one-time high-ranking
Sandinista security official now
living in Costa Rica. "Now the
others are collecting the debt."
The International Connection
Nicaragua's network of the left
PLO - A PLO faction trained as many as
150 Sandinista guerrilla fighters in the
1970s, including the late head of the
Nicaraguan telecommunications office. A
Sandinista, Patricio Arguello, was killed
during a Palestinian hijacking attempt. The ,
PLO now has an embassy in Managua.
Red Brigades - Sandinistas reportedly
first met members of Italy's Red Brigades
in Palestinian training camps. The Italian
government has claimed that 22 terrorists
and political extremists now are living in
Nicaragua, a claim the Sandinistas say they
will investigate.
Baader-Meinhof - Sandinista contacts
with Baader-Meinhof terrorists also began
in Palestinian training camps. Two West
Germans now in the Sandinista army
reportedly have said they were Baader-
Meinhof members. Other Baader-Meinhof
members are reported to have visited
Nicaragua since the revolution.
Montoneros - Former Sandinista fighter
Eden Pastora says 20 to 30 of the
Argentine guerrillas joined Sandinistas
fighting Somoza. A' Montonero commando
team assassinated Somoza in Paraguay.
Several Montoneros now live in Nicaragua.
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