DONATIONS KEEP ANTI-SANDINISTA FACTION FIGHTING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000504880078-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 15, 2010
• Sequence Number: 78
• Publication Date: September 10, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/15: CIA-RDP90-00552R000504880078-3
ARTICLE APPEARED. BALTIMORE SUN
10 September 1983
ONPk6
Donations keep
anti-Sandinista
faction fighting
ARDE rebels now operate with relative ease, be
said, in a largely uninhabited jungle in southern
Nicaraguan tucked between the Atlantic' coast,
'Lake Nicaragua and the Costa Rican border..
ARDE's next move, Mr. Robelo said, will be to
push northward and``by December link up with Mis-
kito guerrillas who are allied with the rival FDN
and are moving south from Honduras. .
An ARDE military commander said control of
the-eastern half . of Nicaragua would isolate the
--Caribbean port of. Bluefields, often used by Cuban
and Soviet ships that be said are delivering mili-
tary aid to Nicaragua.
ARDE guerrillas would later wheel westward,
Mr. Robelo said, and move into the central high-
.lands and Pacific-flatlands that hold 80 percent of
Nicaragua's2.7.million people and virtually.of all
its industrial, business and agricultural wealth:
'While ARDE and its twar -plans appear,far-
.fetched, one former U .S. Special Forces member
^'who has traveled 'with Its fighters said they ap-
.peared "pretty professionalW'
-ARDE is in pretty.good shape," said a Western
'diplomatic source who tracks its progress. "It is
isolated, but it has grown and has the potential to
become a serious threat"
ARDE claimed credit-for a Thursday air .attack
on an airfield atManagua.- ' -
Mr. Robelo denied published T eports that ARDE
would soon join forces with the FDN, which is filed
largely by former members of $he Nicaraguan Na-
tional Guard, which -defended dictator Anastasio
Somoza in the 1979 revolution that overthrew him.
"The FDN high command is 100 percent Guard,
and until they change, there is no hope," Mr. Robelo
.said.
He claimed that 60 percent to 65 percent of
ARDE's fighters are former Sandinista guerrillas
or sympathizers who fought against the National
Guard. ,
"We are not counterrevolutionaries," be said.
"We are rescuers of a betrayed revolution."
ARDE's key problem appears to be the Costa
Rican government's refusal to cooperate with the
guerrillas, although it has allowed ARDE to carry
on political activities.
"Our people often spend as much time avoiding
the Costa Rican authorities as they do fighting the
Sandinistas," said Brooklyn Rivera, political leader
.of ARDE's 600 Miskito guerrillas.
"They can shout, but they can't shoot," said Ar-
mando Vargas, Costa Rica's minister of informa-
tion. Mr. Vargas noted that the government recent-
ly fired three police officials who cooperated with
ARDE guerrillas; confiscated a rebel gunrunning
helicopter and arrested 28 guerrillas, who were
later deported,.mostly to"Panama.
Mr. Rivera also complained that, while his Mis-
kito guerrillas .are fighting. well, they, are M.
equipped and have to be .resupplied by sea. Small
dugout canoes carrying supplies take 24 hours to
make the 250-mile trip from Costa Rica's north-
eastern corner to isolated beaches along Nicara-
San Jose, Costa Rica Mysterious donations
believed-to-have come from the CIA have turned a
ragtag band -of 300 anti-Sandinista guerrillas into h
reported 3,000-man fighting force with pretensions
that it will control half of Nicaragua by December.
The goals of the Revolutionary Democratic Al-
liance ?(ARDE), a Costa Rican-based coalition of
liberal politicians, one-time Sandinistas, Miskito In-
dians and .Nicaraguan -blacks,,appear farfetched,
however.
Against a Sandinista army of 25,000 and a Nica-
raguan militia of at least 50,000, even the other
anti-Sandinista group, the 8,000-man Democratic
Revolutionary Force (FDN), has had its troubles. ,
The FDN is also financed by the Central Intelh-
gence Agency and backed by the.Honduran-govern-
ment
. ARDE believes, however, that it has an ace in
the bole - Eden Pastora,a charismatic hero of the
1979 Sandinista revolution and now an bitter critic
of its Marxist politics.
Mr. Pastora, who jokingly calls himself
"Comandante Kodak," announced earlier this week .
that he would soon tour the United States - as
much to raise funds as to dog the steps of Sandinis-
ta leader Tomas Borge, who also has a U.S. swing,
planned. ?
To hear Alfonso Robelo, former Sandinista junta
member and now ARDE's political chief, however,
Mr. Pastora hardly needs the money.
Mr. Robelo said in a recent interview that
ARDE had only 300 fighters when Mr. Pastors
launched his war last May 1. He said that it now
has 3,000 rebels and will arm an6 train 2,000 to
3,000 more in the next two months.
Mr. Robelo said ARDE's turnaround since June
- when Mr. Pastora announced be was quitting be-
cause his army's treasury was down to $3,000
was the result of increased donations from individ-
uals in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and i
some European countries as well as "private
American organizations and some Jewish groups."
He also acknowledged receipt of arms ship-,
ments and "five or six" donations "in the tens of
thousands of dollars" from "mysterious" donors.
"We have great suspicions about who they are,
but we don't want to say because we want to con-
tinue receiving money," Mr. Robelo said.
Asked if he believed the money came from the
CIA - which the leftist Mr. Pastora has criticized
almost as much as the Sandinistas - Mr. Robelo
smiled and said, "I have my suspicions."
gua's Caribbean coast, he said. .
COMEVUED
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/15: CIA-RDP90-00552R000504880078-3