U.S. REPORTER IS KILLED IN PASTORA BOMBING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000504880052-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 15, 2010
• Sequence Number: 52
• Publication Date: June 1, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/15: CIA-RDP90-005
ARTICLE APPEARED PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
ON PAGE_ _ 1 June 1984
52R000504880052-1
? ? V11"I 1116 wwW IVIGCJ WILL aUVtUCF
~.~.. AM q" V eN , q 11 n rebel group, the Honduras-based Nic-
U
? j The two groups reportedly receive
training, money and weapons from
in PastOra bombing the CIA' although the Honduran
group is clearly more influenced by
the CIA and Pastora refuses to ac.
$sid Pastora suffered first- and sec- knowledge CIA assistance. Pastora
By Eloy 0. Aguilar and-degree burns on his chest, and has refused to link up with the Hon-
1 As?dstid P" lad shrapnel in his face and legs, but duras-based group because Its mili-
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -`An Ameri- skid the "injuries are not mortal." tary command is dominated by for-,
Lean working for a Costa Rican news- 'The official said Pastora was ac- mer. followers of the man the
paper was killed In the explosion companied by aide Roberto "Tlto" ? Sandinistas overthrew in July 1979,
that ripped through a news confer- (;bamorro, who was wounded in an Anastasio Somoza.
ante at the secret jungle headquar- eke, the nose, chest and legs. "U to now, is no offs ial
tens of Nicaragu$n rebel leader Eden Z 'They are not In danger of death, ~.,. ,....._ F
Pastors on Wednesday night Four end they have been given adequate reaction. But there will bea commu-
other people were killed and 28 were treatment. They are in satisfactory nique later in the day," Manuel
wounded, including Pastora. , ' condition, and we don't know how Espinoza, a spokesman for the ruling
The American killed was Linda 'long Pastora will stay," he said. three-man Sandinista junta, said yes-
Frazier, a reporter for the English- Costa Rican President Luis Alberto terday.
language Tico Times of San Jose. .Monge, who is in Madrid, Spain, on a Costa Rican security agents seec-
!Also slain was Jorge Quiroz, a Costa state visit, ordered that Pastora be ing clues in the bombing questioned
1Rican television cameraman from arrested upon crossing the border many of the wounded yesterday, in.
San Jose from Nicaragua, Nicaragua, information according to minister, ArCosta-
Rica's cluding several journalists, at a hos-
A third victim was a guerrilla, mando Vargas. There was no inde- pital where they were being treated
in Quesada, 63 miles north of the
.identified only by her battle name, pendent confirmation that the order Costa Rican capital.
1"Rosita," who was in charge of the had been carried out.
rebel camp near La Penca, a Nicara- .-Vargas said Pastora would be ex--, La Penca is 32 miles northeast of
guan hamlet across the San Juan pelled to a country other than Nica- Quesada and can be reached only by
ivei from Costa Rica. Police and ragua. He said the rebel leader had - unpaved country roads and small
,Red Cross officials said the other two not asked for political asylum. boats.
people killed had not been identi- Monge has been cracking down on
fied. fighting elements of the Democratic
Pastora, the military head of the Revolutionary Alliance on the
,Costa Rica-based Democratic Revolu- ground that it is compromising Costa
'tionary Alliance fighting Nicara- Rica's neutral status.
'gua's leftist Sandinista government, Pastora, who became a Sandinista
suffered burns and shrapnel hero as Commander Zero, broke with
wounds. his former comrades two years ago
No group claimed responsibility and accused them of betraying the
j or the attack at the two-story wood revolution through their close links
1frame house with a tropical-style with Cuba and the Soviet Union.
,open front. Pastora's cousin and aide, Orion
In Moscow, the Soviet news agency Pastora, said before the bombing
Tess accused the CIA of engineering
the explosion. In Washington, the. the rebel leader had planned to
.
CIA denied "categorically" that it announce at the news conference his
had "anything to do with the bomb- withdrawal from the Democratic
ing of the press conference," said Revolutionary Alliance in an inter.
nal dispute.
agency spokeswoman Patricia Volz_ Orion Pastora said the group was
The blast occurred as reporters
drowded around Pastora for a ques
ton-end-answer session on the sec-
end floor of the, house.
`"There was a blinding explosion
teat knocked me back 10 feet into a
-wall," said Reid G. Miller, an Associ-
ated Press reporter who suffered
shrapnel cuts and burns?"The explo-
sion seemed to come from the middle
df the circle of journalists."
-Pastora, 48, was taken across the
river into Costa Rica and by ambu-
litnce to the Biblical Clinic, a private
4ospital in San Jose. A hospital offi-
cial who refused to identify himself
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/15: CIA-RDP90-00552R000504880052-1