NICARAGUA/)UTLEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000301450011-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: November 12, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301450011-5
NBC NIGHTLY. NEWS
12 November 1984
NICARAGUA/>UTLEY: And so that real war faces a serious escalation. <
>FIGHTING>Nicaragua may not have gotten MiG jet fighters from the
Soviet Union, but it is receiving helicopter gunships, and
today an American official said that with the new weapons,
'the Sandinistas could blow the rebels out of the
country.' That's a quote. The rebels, the contras, were
of course financed by the United States until Congress
stopped the money. But as Fred Francis reports now, they
are still fighting. In fact, they are growing.
FRANCIS: This is the cadence of a counterrevolution, of a
Nicaraguan rebel army which did not collapse when CIA
funding ended five months ago. The opposite has happened.
Thousands of Nicaraguan peasants and students are quitting
the Marxist regime and following rebels, known as contras,
into the training camps of northern Nicaragua. They
arrived hungry and tattered and disenchanted with the
Sandinista revolution. Eighteen-year-old *Christian came
to the mountain training camp two weeks ago. She was once
a model student sent to study in Cuba. She says there is
a growing movement to overthrow Nicaraguan communism.
*CHRISTIAN (translated by unidentified woman): There is
no freedom of expression.. For students, the treatment is
bad. There is forced recruitment and a shortage of food.
It is bad.
FRANCIS: So bad that, according to intelligence analysts,
in-the past month the rebel ranks have grown by 50
percent, from 10,000 to almost 15,000. Many are peasants,
like these who came last Thursday. Fourteen-year-old
*Adrian picked up a Russian machine gun in a battle along
the way. Most brought only contempt for the Sandinista
system. Some joining for economic reasons--losing a
chicken, a pig, a house--poor, angry men. Others came for
political reasons, (Francis translates for unidentified
man) He said, 'Whoever is not part of the Sandinista
organization cannot even work and has no rights at all.'
That anger has filled the rebel camps, although there is
less money to support them. The rebels had a $80 million
CIA budget until last summer. On their own, they've
raised only $2 million. The volunteers train in the rags
they came in, with rifles that don't shoot. The
commanders complain that these men will remain in the camp
weeks after their training, waiting for weapons and
ammunition. The end of CIA money and control forced the
Nicaraguan rebels to arm themselves, scratching for
bargains on the worldwide black market, appealing to
right-wing Americans and going to anticommunist
Continue
Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301450011-5
 Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301450011-5
governments. It's been a real struggle for survival.
With the Soviets now sending attack helicopters to
Nicaragua, rebel leader Adolfo Calero warns of an
escalation of the war, saying that he'll order his men to
destroy sugar mills and refineries, if necessary.
ADOLFO CALERO (rebel leader): We hereby serve notice to
the Sandinista regime that if they use those helicopters.
against the Nicaraguan people, we will and we have the
capability to attack targets that we-have previously
avoided.
Z
FRANCIS: While the Sandinistas mobilize their forces,,the
new rebel volunteers wait in the mountain camps, believing
that their country, Nicaragua, stands at the edge of an
all-out civil war. Fred Francis, NBC News, on the
Nicaraguan border.
Approved For Release 2010/01/06: CIA-RDP88-01070R000301450011-5