LETTER TO JOHN KERRY FROM RICHARD G. LUGAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90B01390R000700780054-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 21, 2011
• Sequence Number: 54
• Publication Date: May 20, 1986
• Content Type: LETTER

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 The ~tltion.
At that crucial time, the United States began pouring
~,oney into Costa Rica. In focal 1980, the lazt year of the
Carter Administration, Costa Rica got 516 million. By 1983,
U.S. aid had reached more than 5200 million a year, and
nearly 5190 million is already assured for 1986. If the San-
dinistas had eighteen comandantes instead of nine, a
popular joke goes, Costa Rica would be receiving twice az
much money.
For the current year an additiona1580 million is expected
from the World Bank, 550 million from the International
Monetary Fund and smaller amounts from other multilater-
al sources, such az the Inter-American Development Bank.
Private banks will provide about S75 million more. Costa
Rica now ranks second only to Israel in U.S. direct aid per
capita. Most of this money goes to paying interest on the ex-
ternal debt rather than to economic development.
There is more bad news. In 1984 unemployment was re-
corded at 8 percent and underemployment at 17.5 percent,
figures commonly acknowledged to be far too low. A report
from President Mange's office late in 1983 put the percent-
age of rural people in poverty at 83 percent, a figure that haz
probably improved somewhat. In 1981, one-tenth of 1 per-
. cent of the farmers owned about 15 percent of the land, and
just 1 percent owned .36 percent.of the land. Looking at it
from the bottom up, 48.8 percent of the farmers held only
1.9 percent of the land, and the trend toward land concen-
tration ,haz accelerated since then.
The official hope is that Costa Rica can pull itself up by
increasing its exports, but it faces competition from every
other country in a similar situation. Such prominent and
restrained economists az Eduardo Lizano Fait, head of the
Central Bank, and Francisco Gutierrez, programs director
of the respected think tank Economic and Financial Coun-
selors, say that the government that comes to power next
May will have only two or three years to set the country's
economic house in order. After that time, unless conditions
improve, social unrest could come. -
There is widespread agreement that the quality of life in
Costa Rica is deteriorating. Opponents of militarization are
vilified; the 78-year-old Figueres haz been called senile,.a
communist and even a fifth columnist. At a demonstration
last year, two striking workers were killed by the Civil
Guard, and in June, to the embarrassment of the govern-
ment and many Costa Ricans, a riot broke out in front of
the Nicaraguan Embassy. When La Naci6n printed a
photograph of the latter incident, it .blotted' out the Free
Costa Rica Movement emblem on the shirt of one of the
rioters. (That is not surprising considering that the
newspaper's subdirector, J.A. Sanchez Alonso, is one of the
leaders of the movement. When its president, Bernal Ur-
bina, was asked by journalists who his intellectual mentor
was, he pointed ~ to a picture of Francisco Franco.) The
Commission for the .Defense of Human Rights in Central
America reported in July that human rights violations are
jncreasing.
" Militarization is not likely to be much of an issue in the
elections next February. The two leading candidates to suc-
ceed I~tonge, Oscar Arias Sanchez and Rafael Angel
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Calderon Fournier, oppose the Sandinistas. Calderon may
take a harder line; an arch-anticommunist, he haz been
received at the White House by Ronald Reagan and is the
darling of far-right political contributors in the United
States. -
With President Mange's abandonment of neutrality,
open political opposition to militarization has almost disap-
peared, except for Josh Figueres, a few deputies in~ the
Legislative Assembly and opposition politicians like Juan
JosE Echeverria Brealy. Former Minister of Public Security
and of the Interior, and thus onetime head of both the Civil
and the Rural Guard, Echevema fears that an army, even if
it is called a police force, could be turned against the people.
He complains that the press igriores his criticisms, and he is
convinced that social unrest is imminent. The only other
open opponents of militarization are those in that coalition
of grazs-roots Costa Rican organizations and the U.S.
Citizens Committee, working together out of the Friends
Peace Center. Other leftist organizations are weak and
engaged in factional disputes.
The Reagan Administration argues that it is acting to
preserve democracy in Costa Rica. But Pedro Lebn, a young
cellular biologist at the University of Costa Rica and head
of the board of the Friends ~ Peace Center, says that if
Ronald Reagan really wants to foster democracy in Central
America, he should not force Costa Rica to take sides in his
quarrel with Nicaragua. "Just being here and offering an
alternative is a service to democracy," he says. "If you
don't see that, there's no hope."
The Carlos I`ile
MARTHA HONEY AND TONY AVIRGAN
San losE
or the pazt eighteen months we have been in-
vestigating the explosion of a bomb at a May 30,
1984, press conference called by EdE_, n Pastors
Gomez, head of the Democratic Revolutionary
Alliance ( R)?~), which operates along the border between
Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Three journalists and five con-
tras died in the blast, which took place in the Nicaraguan
border town of La Penca, and twenty-six others, including
Tony Avirgan, were injured. Propelled by our personal link
to the tragedy and by the growing realization that no gov-
ernment or police agency was seriously investigating the
bombing, we sought to uncover the identity of the bomber-
a man who, journalists at the press conference say, posed as
a Danish photographer, planted a metal box containing the
bomb and vanished, uninjured, shortly after the explosion.
Our research was supported in part by the Newspaper
Martha Honey is a j'reelance journalist who reports jor
The Times and The Sunday Times oJLondon, the BBC and
other television networks. Tony Avirgan is a cameraman Jor
CBS and reporu jor the BBC and National Public Radio.
They have lived in Costa Rica jor more than two years.
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The ration. ~~
Gwld,and the Committee to Protect Journalists,
A year's worth of interviews with more than one hundred
people in Central and South America, the United States and
Europe failed to uncover the bomber's name or many of the
details of the plot. We did, however, gather proof that U.S.
officials and Costa Rican security officer planted stories in
the press, pinning the blame on the Sandinistas and the
Basque separatist organization, Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna
(E.T.A.). A number of leads also pointed to Central In-
telligence Agency.parL~pation in the bombing. Several cur-
rent or former C.I.A. agents and informants-including a
high-ranking Urugua
a
l
y
n po
ice officer and a Cuban from
Miami-told us th
at the agency was behind it. And in the
course of nur c.,.,~.:.....:__
October S, l9t,
N?rth Americans with des to the C.I.A. Tbey operated from
safe houses and contra camps In Honduras, Costa Rica,
Panama, Nicaragua and Miami, he said, moving "in and
out of Costa Rica like a dog from its own house." He said
the group was responsible for the La Penp bombing and was
Planning a series of terrorist attacks which would be blamed on
the Sandinistas. These include bombing the U.S. Embassy
in Costa Rica and In Honduras, attacking the offices of
Costa Rican president Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez and
assassinating the U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica, Lewis
Tambs; Miskito leader Brooklyn Rivera; and Urbina Zara,
a well-known contra.
-
--.., ~..??oi names recurred: ]ohn
-----.`" `~ ?,~ spvxc ana seemed near tears. "I'm
Hull, an American who owns and manages a 'ranch and an anti~andirusta," he told Carlos. "But these
other extensive properties in northern Costa Rica; a hi h_ much more evil than the Sandinistas." people are
ranking official in the Costa Rican Ministry of Public ~afficked in cocaine, marijuana and He also claimed they
Security; and an anti-Caztro Cuban named Feli Vidal , g money off the blood of my brothers and using our cause
Santiago. Many of our sources implicated these three men in to the Costa Ri
Pc to get rich. When Carlos asked why he didn't tell his story
the bombing and said that they all have ties to the C.I.A. In
an interview with us, Vidal denied he had a C.I.A. connec- can authorities, David replied that a number
( of government and security officials were collaborating with
lion, and Hull told other reporters that he waz not involved his
group. Out of desperation, he had chosen to confide in a
with the agency.) Despite all our efforts, we were still no pathetic-looking stranger. Carlos explained that he
closer to discovering the identity of the bomber. could not hide David in his house.
Then, in March, a young Nicaraguan walked into a San entered the bar, David urged the carpentehto keep n touch
Jose bar and sat down next to, a Costa Rican ca Carlos mulled over David's story for several weeks. On
named Carlos, the neighbor of a North American rw~orntan three se arate
who works in our office. The Nicara uan who called p ~io~ he saw David's companions near
the U.S. Embassy. Once the
himself David, .told Carlos about the existence of a dirt without license plates. But whagover to a gray limousine
tricks squad working for the IYicara Y lance to get involved waz the announc mentCon Apri1l25,
(F.D.N.), the leading contra rou 8uan Democratic Force that Costa Rican Rural Guardsmen had arrested nine
identity of the La Penca bomberp~ and said he knew the ~ Nicaraguan contras and five foreign meroaiaries at an
Carlos contacted us, and in the mon hs that followed W~ F?D.N.
him with questions to ask David az well az with carrip located on a farm managed by John Hull of
supplied ~ the United States. David had told Carlos that part of his
approximately SSO for David's cab fare, to facilitate their bassy reallytmaght be bombed. He con
p. Now Carlos feared that the U.S. Em-
meetings. David's story raises numerous
questions, and thinking that she might be able to alert UIS. officialsh She
some of it cannot be verified. But az long az there is a chance notified us
that he was telling the truth, his story must be published so ficer, Georgee Mitchellp who eem he embazsy's security of-
that journalists and members of the U.S. Congress can in-
vestigate his charges. David's story represented a possib a breakthro gh for us.
- ~ At last we might have a source who could confirm the
David's story opens with a string of coincidences .that rumors we had been hearing and fill in the a
strain North American credulity but are plausible in the VestiBation: We ~ ed 8 Ps in our in-
overheated, factionalized atmosphere of Central America, oth s near the U g Carlos to contact David again, and
On Frida Y not long after, he saw David and the two
Y. March 29, 1985, Carlos was sipping a beer in the ?S. Embassy. When David's companions
Rendezvous Bar near the U
left to make a tele
S
Emb
ho
.
.
p
ne call, Carlos sli
assy in downtown San
Jose. Three men came in; from their accents Carlos 'ud ed our number. David refused to meet with u him a note with
them to be Nicaraguans. Two~of them then left, tellin the danger of bein because of the
g seen talking to "gringos," but over the
of er to wait for them. This man, described az short, dark-
g following weeks, he met with Carlos at a series of pre-
skinned and young, with a smooth round face and strai ht ~? ed s ots- p
black hair, immediately turned to Carlos, "You must help ~~ g p a ark near the university, a hotel, a bus.
g ~ We supplied specific quadons and Carlos
mr," hr \vhi:l~ctc~i, "llidc tile, I v-'ant to ~-recorded
~ Dw! ~ verb ~-~' tnok norca ?` ~y
\\ Ai;t t~l 1\ ii:\\~\`~ X17\1110t't M L>f-eir L~\It$3, Z7tt~* it't ~Z h>m.
to d)~namite the U.S. Embassy and man ~~ SOS des~~ David u bein ex
will die. I want to get out." Y innocent people repeatedly telling Carlos that the others in heis Hy nervous,
For the next ten minutes, David poured out his sto He trust him and had threatened to kill him and hisubrothert
clai ed to be part of a ri ht?win ry' ?~'ho waz with the F.D.N, inside Nicaragua, if he was caught
B g group composed of anti- passing information. David waz planning to flee but was
Castro Cubans, Nicaraguan contras, Costa Ricans and awaiting his brother's arrival from Nicaragua with
the rest
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The \Ktion.
of the hit team. In the meantime, he told Carlos, he wanted
to expose the dirty tricks squad. .
David told Carlos that the man who had planted the bomb
at the press conference and who had identified himself
as Per Anker Hansen, a Danish photographer, was aright-
wing Libyan exile named Amac Galil. He was hired in Chile
by two F.D.N. officials and a C.I.A. agent who poses as a
journalist, David said. Galil was considered ideal for the job
because if his identity became known, most people would
assume that he was working for Col. Muammaz el-Qaddafi.
David said the bombing was planned at meetings in Hon-
duras attended by F.D.N. leader Adolfo Calera Portocar-
rero; two Miami Cubans, Felipe Vidal Santiago and $~-e
Co~rb_o~John Hull; and a North American who was iden-
tified to David's group as being from the C.I.A. ?
This story meshed with other accounts we had heard.
After analyzing a voice recording of the man later identified
as the bomber, made by journalists on the scene, linguists
concluded that he was not a native Spanish speaker, and
several speculated that he was either Libyan or Israeli. Some
of the people whom David and others had implicated in the
plot circulated a story that the bomber was a Libyan work-
ing for Qaddafi.
In addition we knew something about several of the al-
leged conspirators. Calero's desire to get rid of Pastors so
the F.D.N. can open a second front in southe 'cares ua is
well known in contra circles We have a copy of the diary of
a U.S. mercena soldier who served with the F.D.N.
In it he describes a meeting at Calero's house in
Miami at which the murder of Pastors was discussed by
Hull, some unnamed Cubans and another man, who iden-
tified himself as being "from the company." Pastora's aides
claim to have evidence linking the C.I.A. to a plot to
eliminate "Comandante Zero."
Hull is by his own admission a contra patron. Prior to the
bombing he aided Pastors; since then, he has quietly sup-
ported the F.D.N. Pastors, Costa Rican security officials
and mercenaries we have spoken to all claim that Hull works
FOOTNOTE ON AN HISTORIC
CASE: IN RE ALGER HISS
William A. Reuben, In his 1983 booklet, Ident(fles
114 factual errors in the Federal District Court of New
York's 1982 decision upholding Niss's convldion for
perjury in 1950. That flawed decision, upheld by the
U. S. Supreme Court in 1983, stands os the lost legal
word on one of the most celebrated cases in modern
history. 1 copy ~5, 10 copies a40, 50 copies X150, 100
copies x250. Make checks payable to The Nation In-
stitute and send to "Hiss," The Notion Institute, 72
Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011. ~ ~~
EDUCATORS: USE THE NATION IN YOUR
? z - CLASSROOM. SPECIAL LOW RATES.
CALL STEPHEN SOULE [phone].
October 3, 1985
for the C.I.A. ?and coordinates F.D.N. operations in Costa
' Rica.
Two soldiers of fortune, Peter Glibbery and Steven Carr,
who say they worked under Hull, told us that he dis-
cussed with them several schemes to provoke direct U:S.
military action against Nicaragua. These included staging
attack against the northern Costa Rican town of Los Chiles
and "spreading around some Sandinista bodies" to make it
appeaz as if Managua were responsible. Glibbery said that
on one occasion Hull forbade him to take some Claymore
mines because "we may need them for an embassy job
later on."
Contra and Cuban sources say that Hull introduced Vidal ?
and Corbo into ARDE as military trainers. The two, who
have been connected with ultraright Cuban exile groups in
Miami, arrived in Costa Rica in mid-1983, and Pastors
aides told us they have long suspected that Vidal had a role
in the.bombing.
We already had reason to believe that several Costa Rican
officials assisted in the plot, helped the bomber escape and
planted stories in the press. David named two of them:
the man from ~ the Ministry of Public Security and Col.
Rodrigo Paniagua, a former agent for the ministry who
maintains close ties with it. Former and current ministry
employees had told us.?that the high-level official was ?
responsible for circulating the stories and phony documents
blaming the E.T.A. and the Sandinistas for the bombing.
They also had said he works closely with the C.I.A. Both
government and contra sources say that Colonel Paniagua
serves as liaison between Hull and security officials. ARDE
sources suspect that Paniagua knew of the bombing because he
personally urged Pastors to hold the t11-fated press confercna.
David also told Carlos that Galil sometimes stayed in
Managua at the home of anti-Sandinista relatives of Presi-
dent Daniel Ortega Saavedra, who are involved in drug and
arms smuggling.
On July 17, David told Cazlos that Galil and his hit team
would arrive in Costa Rica in a few days and carry out at-
tacks on the embassy and other tazgets. Soon after, other
strikes would be carried out in Honduras. On July 17, in a
diplomatic note delivered to Managua, the U.S. government
warned that Nicazagua would be held responsible for ter-
rorist attacks against U.S. personnel anywhere in Central
America. Horrified by this message, we contacted a Costa
Rican government minister we knew to be a strong sup-
porter of neutrality and an opponent of contra activities in
the country and told him about the plot. He went straight to
President Mange, who instructed him to work with several
other officials in carrying out an investigation and snagging
the hit team if it entered the country. We exchanged infor-
mation with Maj. Harry Barrantes, an official of the Costa
Rican Rural Guard, who had infiltrated the F.D.N.
Several days later, as David and Carlos were about to part
after a long meeting, they were pushed at gunpoint into a
jeep by three Costa Ricans, who cried, "We caught you,
? we've caught the informers." They were driven four hours
until they reached what David recognized as one of the con-
tra camps located near Hull's ranch house. By assaulting
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~-a
The \ation.
one of the guards, the two managed to escape. When Carlos
reached San loses, he called us. Tony found him, near tears
from exhaustion and fright, and got him an out-of-town
hiding place. Several days later Carlos insisted on returning
to his house. -- ?
During the next few days, Carlos received anonymous
telephone calls warning him not to talk to anyone. Known
contras and Cubans ertiised past his house, according to
government security guards who had been stationed outside
at our request. Then, one night, five shots rang out. Several
days later, ARDE officials, who knew David because he had
once fought with their group, said that they had learned that
he had been murdered, and that the contras were after
Carlos. Costa Rican officials told us the same thing.
Shortly thereafter, Major Barrantes suddenly left for the
United States. His startled superiors later learned that the
U.S. Embassy had issued a special invitation for him to at-
tend acourse at Fort Benning, Georgia. One of his superiors
said he has "no doubt" that Barrantes was lured out of
Costa Rica to cripple the government's investigation of the
terrorist unit: Although we were able to confirm that Bar-
rantes is at Fort Benning, we were unable to reach him for
comment.
We made arrangements for Carlos and his family to leave
Costa Rica for about a year, and on August 18 they boarded
a plane for Western Europe. Several days later, the Costa
Rican daily newspaper La Republica carried a distorted
story that Rural Guard officials had obtained information
from someone named Carlos that the La Penca bomber waz
a Libyan who fled to Managua after the incident. The paper
implied chat the bomber waz working for Colonel Qaddafi
and the Sandinistas.
How accurate is David's story? Does it solve the mystery
of La Penca or deepen it? We have confirmed some portions
of it; other sections are more difficult to verify. Some coin-
cidences can be explained, others cannot. For example, we
still don't know why David chose to confide in a stranger
who happened to be the neighbor of one of our co-workers. ,
r ~~ ~~ ~-
._ 'Z?~? roc/
i c
s,
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Nor did Carlos and David ever discuss why David's com-
panions left him in the Rendezvous Bar.
We can account for other strange assertions. It is difficult
on the fact of it to believe that a Libyan could pass for a?
Dane; and even harder to accept that a Libyan could con-
vince the Swedish television reporter with whom he traveled
for several wetks before the bombing that he was a Dane.
But "Hansen" claimed that he had been raised in Latin
America, which explained why he spoke Spanish but no
Danish. He and Peter Torbiornsson, the Swedish journalist,
conversed in English because Torbiornsson wanted his Boli-
vian assistant to learn the language. And Torbiornsson c~ocs
not appear to have been particularly curious about his com-
panion-not wondering, for instance, why Hansen's wallet
?waz always stuffed with 5100 U.S. bills although Torbiorn-
sson said he claimed to be working for an obscure (in fact
nonexistent) photographic agency; or, even more damning,
why Hansen didn't know the most popular brands of
Danish beer. Although Torbiornsson waz a suspect in the
bombing, David and our other sources denied that he was
involved.
How could David, a relatively minor figure in the terrorist
ring, know so many details of its operations? David said
that his immediate supervisor was involved in the Pastors
bombing and told him much about the operation.?
Still, there are details we have not been able to verify. In
many cases, David did not know names or positions-of a
woman in the ?Nicaraguan Embassy, for example, who was
supposed to be passing ?money to the contras, or of the
Costa Rican security officials who were cooperating with the
terrorist ring. And Nicaraguan officials have not been able
to check out David's assertions about Galil's links with the
relatives of President Ortega. Most important, we have not
. found independent confirmation of Galil's identity.
For all its ambiguities, however, David's tale strongly
suggests ?that the C.I.A. is involved in dirty tricks in Central
America which are designed to provoke U.S. intervention.
If that is true, Costa Rica may become the Tonkin Gulf of
America's next war. p
J
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2 ~-ield in Costa Rica Tell of Trip from tU.S. 'to Join `contras'.
By STEPHEN KINZER
tDav to 11. Nw Yurt 7'Imr
SAN JOSE, Costa Rlc;a, July 7-.-Two
hlrelgners being held here un weapons
charges have given detailed accamts
of Iww, they say, Way volunteered to
Join anti-5altdinistn forces, traveled W
Central America frc-m Florida aboanl
a plane luadexl with wealxxrs and took
Isnrt In r-alda In Nicaragua.
Tltetr acwunts, given last week, strg-
geared that merntwra of the Cosut
Rrcan Crvfl and Rural (,uatd have pn~
vWexf Intelllgenc:e and other help to
WWII-Sandinista groups operating along
the Nlcaragtran tartlet.
"The two men, Steven Carr, 28 years
old, urigirwily of Kingston, N.Y., seed
Peter F'redericlr Glibbery, ?A, n Britcxt,
were among five h-r?eigners raptured
by the Rural Guard orl April 25. 'The
threw others, an American, another
Briton artd a Frenchman, declined W
be Interviewed.
Cush Rrcan officials took strong ex-
eepuun ur the cnen's assertion that
Costa Rlc:an guardsmen wets collabo-
roting with anti-Sarrlinlata fighters,
wtrcr are known ascyn leas.
"What the pritrtrne4rs say is false,"
aaW the preaWer-tial s{wkesman, Ar-
mando Vargas. "We do rwt permit
tart NHW ruat'rteexa
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