THREE YEARS LATER, NICARAGUAN BOMBING IS STILL AN ENIGMA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100250001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 29, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100250001-6 STAT
WASHINGTON TIMES _MAY p91987
Three years later, Nicaraguan
bombing is still anenigma
B Glenn Garvin ! 3,4.-
wtSM*NOtoN TIMES
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - When
the bomb went off in a flash of blue
light, Nelson Murillo, a Costs Rican
televisoa cameraman. staggered
across the room, clutching a gaping
hole in his throat.
"I'm drowning;' he gasped over
the hideous gurgling from his own
chest.
Jose Venegas, a newspaper pho-
tographer, reflexively snapped pic-
ture after picture while at his feet
someone moaned: "Save me, help
me, don't leave me here"
And Reid Miller, The Associated
Press correspondent, leaned over
his friend Linda Frazier, clutching
her hand while her life drained away
through her severed legs.
Tbmorrow is the third anniver-
sary of the bombing that made La
Ponca -- a clutch of huts along the
San Juan River just inside Nicara?
gum, not even big enough to call a
village - an international
watchword for conspiracy, intrigue,
and death.
The bomb was planted at a press _ He was 6 feet tall, of medium
conference in an attempt to ki qEd, eA _ bye, with dark red hair and a re-
_s pti_tora. the charismatic and contro- ceding amine. His eyes were a dark
f
venial Nicaraguan guerrilla leader. biue-am He was in his earivto?
He walked away from the blast with
a mild burn on his face and a handful
of shrapnel fragments embedded in
his legs.
But three journalists died and 18
others were wounded. Some are still
trying to regain the use of arms and
legs shattered by the blast. Others,
whose physical injuries healed, have
scars on their minds.
La Pence has obsessed one re-
porter, Tb Avg of ABC. He
foes arcane a ter retort, spinning
plot within plot, in an endless loop of
paranoia and conspiracy.
mid-30s and spoke excellent Span.
ish, although linguists didn't believe
he was a native speaker.
He carried a stolen Danish pass-
ot Fen Anker Hansen. in the name
No one knew who "Hansen" was
working for But he apparently
wanted to kill Mr. Pastore very badly.
He stalked him for welts, posing as
a news photographer for a non-
existent photo agenc$%
it was odd
His colleagues thought
that he didn't snap photos in the con-
stant. obsessive manner of most
news photographers. And they
thought it even odder that he insisted
on carrying his gear in a heaMX
bulky metal can.
But in the Quirky, intense world of
Central American journalism -
where ideological camp followers,
rookies toting Instamatica and 01-
mercenaries stringing for obscure
bi-annual magazines often mm to
outnumber the legitimate newsmen
- no one dwells too tong an oddities.
And of course, nobody knew that
"Ha son's" camera can contained a
false bottom, or that inside was a
homemade, radioactivated bomb.
"Hansen" traveled around Latin
America for four years, through Pa-
nama, Mexico, Honduras, and Peru.
He was in all those countries in the
few months just before La Ponca. He
often traveled with a woman who
used a stolen French pa sport in the
name of Panicia Anne Boons
"Boone" also trawled to Nicara-
cand had a mvWPWqa&rY vin
that country, "Boon' was in
1/Z
He is not alone. The four pounds
.of C4 explosive that went off that
night at La Ponca are still echoing.
In the wake of the bombing, conspir-
acy theories new like shrapnel, and
because the bomber has never been
found, they continue to multiply.
Talcs your pick; there's a La Ponca
theory for every ideology, The San-
dinistas did it. The Cubans did it.
Another Nicaraguan rebel group did
it. Qaddafl did it. Costa Rican police
did it. ThfifJ&d"
Last ? Robert Owen, former
State Department liaison to the
Nicaraguan rebels, was forced to
deny in front of Congress that he did
it. Later this summer, when Oliver
North testifies, he will certainly be
asked what he knows about La
Ponca.
Thousands of newspaper stories
have been written about the bomb-
ing, but three years later there is still
nothing that eontradiots a single
paragraph that ran In the English-
language weekly Tito Times two
days after La Penca. "Who's to blame
may now be known."
Those who were then know who
blame.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100250001-6
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100250001-6
2?
Costa Rica the day of the bombing,
and like "Hansen;' vanished without
a trace the next morning.
Just a few days before La Pence,
his colleagues recall, "Hansen" was
deeply depressed. It didn't look like
he would ever be able to catch up
with Mr. Pastors to get any pictures.
But on May 29, Mr. Pastorali assis-
tants began calling a few journalists.
There would be a press conference
the next day in the guerrilla leader's
camp at La Pence. He would prob-
ably announce that he was quitting
the Nicaraguan guerrilla movement
-- again.
Mr. Pastors was saws $an-
nnundng that he was leaving the
war. in a quarrel with other rebel
leaders or with the CIA. Many of the
other leaders hated him. So did the
CIA, which thought he did too much
talking and not enough fighting.
On the other hand, so did the San-
dinistas. Mr. Pastore had been a mili
tary hero in the revolution that
brought the Sandinistas to power
and if there had been elections on
the day the Sandinistas marched tri-
umphantly into Managua, he would
have been elected president hands-
down. The Sandinistas feared Mr.
Pastors for his charisma, and for his
military skills.
Sandinista newspapers often
boasted about winning battles with
the rebels in the north of the country,
but they never ran a word about Mr.
Pastors in the south. They didn't
want to remind anyone he was
around. On at least three well-
documented occasions, the Sandin-
ista tiled to kill Mr. Pastors or other
officials of his organization with ex-
ves.
As other reporters crowded
around Mr. Pastors on that fateful
evening in La Pence, "Hansen" put
his camera case dawn, announced in
a loud voice that his camera wasn't
working and stepped outside. Costs
Rican television cameraman Jorge
Qui oa, who would be dead in a few
moments, inadvertently photo-
graphed his murderer edging to-
wards the door.
A rebel soldier asked "Hansen"
what he was doing. "Looking' for a
That cams the flash of blue light,
lbl awed by the Shrilly moaning
Raid Millar of the AP thought the
Sandinistas had launched a mortar
attack. He crawled across the floor,
paused briefly while he thought
about grabbing a rifle, decided
against it, and then slid down a two-
by-four support beam to the ground
and hid in a slit trench.
After a few minutes, when there
was no further attack, Mn Miller re-
turned to the house. There he found
his friend Linda Frazier, her heart
still pumping blood efficiently out of
bar logs. She was concious, and say.
ing something, but Mr. Miller was
quits deaf from the explosion. So he
held her hand. They stayed there
that way for a long time.
Within hours, everyone had a fa-
vorite suspect. The president of
Costa Rica said that the bomb was
planted by Sandinista spies inside
Pastors% group. The Nicaraguan
ambassador to Costa Rica said it
looked the rebels themselves
had decided to do away with Mr. s-
tora. 'la'ss said it was the CIA.
One Costa Rican newspaper, with-
out a shred of evidence, even
accused Linda Frazier of planting
the bomb. All that day, her friends
crept around hiding copies of the pa.
per from her family.
After the explosion, "Hansen"
was discovered lying in a pile of oil
drums, looking dazed. A photogra?
pher snapped his picture, and wire
services flashed it around the world.
Ironically, the murderer himself
came to symbolize the horror and
confusion of La Peens.
Of course, no one knew he was the
murderer yet The rebels carried
him out of La Pence in a boat, and the
next day he reached San Jose,
pecked his bags, and disappeared. It
wasn't for several days, until investi-
gators pinpointed the metal camera
case as the origin of the explosion,
that anyone began to look for him.
A few days later, a nurse came into
the hospital room where Mr. Miller
was being treated for his wounds.
The nurse put him in a wheelchair,
and took him down the hall to the
room where Mn Pastors was lying in
bed.
Mn Pastors fixed Miller with a
tierce gaze. "All right," he roared.
"Who was it?" Mn Miller just shook
his hmA
Last year Mi'Pastors announced
be was leaving the, rebel ranks. H.
rum Rica. a fish cooperative in Costar
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100250001-6