CENTRAL AMERICAN TUG OF WAR
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Collection:
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP90-00552R000100390015-4
Release Decision:
RIPPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
1
Document Creation Date:
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date:
June 22, 2010
Sequence Number:
15
Case Number:
Publication Date:
April 8, 1983
Content Type:
OPEN SOURCE
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100390015-4
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGEA1~
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
8 April 1983
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US `pressure' on Managua to
get close look from Congress
By Daniel Southerland
Staff correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Washington
There seem to be few secrets left in America's secret war
against Nicaragua. -
United States officials have all but openly admitted that
the Reagan administration is supporting the antigovernment
forces fighting in Nicaragua. The aim, they'say, is not to
overthrow the Nicaraguan government.but to persuade it to
stop supplying arms to Salvadorean insurgents and to get the
government in Managua to negotiate a regional peace
agreement.
Publication in the New York Times Thursday of a US Na-
tional Security Council document on American policy toward
Central America and Cuba confirmed what many people who
have been studying the problem in the Congress and else-
where already knew: The US Central Intelligence Agency is
involved in a mini-war in Nicaragua and pressure on the
Nicaraguan government has increased as a result of "covert
efforts."
What is still unclear to many observers in Washington is
how far the fighting in Nicaragua is likely to go. At the mo-
ment, it appears to be concentrated mostly in the northern
part of the country and does not appear to come close to
threatening the survival of the Nicaraguan government. At
the same time, however, there are unconfirmed reports of
increased antigovernment attacks on the Atlantic coast of
Nicaragua.
A number of American lawmakers have expressed con-
cern that the US-backed operations in Nicaragua may be il-
legal. The law prohibits American support to any group for
the purpose of overthrowing the Nicaraguan government or
provoking a war between Nicaragua and neighboring
Honduras.
But the real concern of many in Congress goes well be-
yond the issue of legality. They question whether the admin-
istration knows what it is doing. whether it can really exert
much control over the forces fighting inside Nicaragua, and
whether the whole operation might backfire by solidifying
support for the Sandinista regime.
Some in Congress also worry that American intervention
in Nicaragua, however indirect, will undercut the credibility
of US criticisms of Soviet involvement in Poland and Af-
ghanistan and revive anti-Yankee feelings in much of Latin
America.
The ultimate concern is that if the mini-war became a
major war, the fighting might spread to Honduras, and the
Sandinistas might call for help from Cuba. This might force
President Reagan to consider increasing the American in-
vol vement in the conflict.
With these points in mind, members of both the Senate
and House Intelligence Committees are calling for a review
of CIA activities in Central America over the next few weeks.
Lawmakers who are not privy to the classified information
available to the oversight committees have a tendency to
defer to their colleagues in these committees on such mat-
ters. But Rep. Michael D. Barnes (D) of Maryland. chairman
of the House subcommittee on hemispheric affairs,. -will. try
next week to attach to a foreign aid bill a ban against all
covert operations in Nicaragua.
Representative Barnes calls what is happening in Nicara-
gua a "1980s version of the Bay of Pigs," a reference to the
abortive CIA-backed invasion of Cuba in 1961. Another critic
of US policy in Central America, Rep. Gerry Studds (D) of
Massachusetts, calls it a "slow-motion Bay of Pigs. " _
Many on Capitol Hill are reluctant to go this far, however. .
Their distaste for the Sandinistas outweighs their distaste f
.covert operations. But it is now clear that they cannot ignore
the issue. The "secret war" has now been the subject -of nu-
merous newspaper and magazine-articles, not to speak of
prime-time television reports. The New York Times ,says
high-ranking State Department officials raised questions in
White-House meetings last weekabout the legality of the US
involvement.. Reporters from Newsweek ma-gaine sand :the
Washington Post have traveled into Nicaragua with antigov-
ernment Nicaraguan troops who speak openly-of the Ameri-
can support they are getting and oftheir desire to overthrow
the Sandinista regime.
According to Newsweek, the-top-counterrevolutionary"
combat leaders now inside Nicaragua once served under
Nicaragua's former strong man, Anastasio Somoza Debayle.
But. despite their "rather unsavory Somozan roots," -they
have won a surprising degree of local support in the northern
mountains, says Newsweek. This was a region from -which
l6omoza's national guard ire to d'beaviiy and many of the
relatives of the guardsmen still live in the region.
Honduran sources are quoted as saying that the Nicara-
guan Democratic Force (FDN), the largest anti-Sandinist
group, has 4,000 to 5,000 men fighting inside Nicaragua.
Sandinist estimates are much lower than that.
FDN leaders say that their aim for the immediate future
is to seize a town, possibly the town of Jalapa, not far from
Honduras. Having done this, they would then control an air-
strip and might conceivably declare the area a "liberated
zone."
The clearest and most elaborate public explanation of
what the US is doing in Nicaragua came earlier this week
from Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the US ambassador to the United
Nations. In an appearance on the ABC television program
"Nightline" Tuesday, Mrs. Kirkpatrick did not directly ad-
mit that the US was backing the anti-Sandinist forces, but she
came close to doing so. At the same time, she vigorously
denied that the administration was breaking the law.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick started one sentence by saying: "What-
ever we're doing inside..." and then stopped herself before
saying "inside Nicaragua." She then continued: "Whatever
support we're offering, and I don't say we're offering any,
but if we are offering support to anyone in Nicaragua, it's
with the permission of the Congress...." -
She said : "If you have economic pressure and it faita,?and
you have moral pressure and it fails, and you have political
pressure and it fails, because you've got a repressive regime
that's progressively totalitarian in character, then in fact the
United States might conceivably decide that it would like to
enhance the pressure on the government of Nicaragua." The
purpose, she said, would be to persuade the Nicaraguan gov-
ernment to negotiate a peace in the region and "cease fo-
menting and making civil war against its neighbors."
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100390015-4