SPYING FLOURISHES IN CENTRAL AMERICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201180015-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: May 10, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

`S1 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA
ARTICLE Al;'PEARED
ON PAGE i I - I
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
WASHINGTON POST
10 May 1985
Spying Flourishes in Central America
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, May
4-Tall and slim, blow-dried even
in the rugged military camp, the
long-legged operative-known as
"the crane"-was a welcome sym-
bol of Nicaraguan womanhood for
anti-Sandinista guerrillas enjoying a
respite from the ugliness of battle.
But to leaders of the rebel Ni-
government in Managua, the lead-
ers told visitors to the camp, or an-
other infiltrator sent as a spy by the
Sandinista General Directorate of
I State Security. `
t As the U.S.-backed contra, or
counterrevolutinary, guerrillas have
expanded their fight to overthrow
the Sandinista government, so has
the Sandinista security apparatus
expanded its efforts to penetrate
the rebel group and obtain informa-
tion on its plans and activities in
Honduras, guerrilla leaders report.
According to Honduran and U.S.
officials, the Sandinista shadow war
also has included several attempts
to promote subversion within Hon-
duras by training and supplying left-
ist Honduran revolutionaries seek-
ing to establish an 'underground
movement to overthrow the Tegu-
cigalpa government.
Honduran and U.S. officials have
accused the Sandinistas of starting
su rt for Honduran rebels even
before anti-Sandinista forces began
` to organise here in 1981 wit helD
fr_om~ffie Honduran Army and the
CIA.
i The Reagan administration cited
what it called the latest sign of such
support-capture of seven Ni-
caraguan agents in southern Hon-
duras-in' announcing its economic
embargo against the Sandinistas to
punish "aggressive activities in Cen-
tral America."
Whatever the start-up date, sub-
terranean Sandinista activities here
appear by now to be part of a mul-
tilateral struggle in which the nit-
ed States is also involved and whose
most visible element is the so-ca ed
covert war being waged by the
Nicaraguan Democratic Force from
bases in Honduras, with vociferous
encouragement from Washington.
According to U.S. officials citing
Honduran intelligence reports, the
seven Nicaraguans captured in mid-
April had infiltrated into southeast-
ern araiso province with a double
! mission: to supply arms and other
equipment for a leftist Honduran
guerrilla network, but also to en-
courage the Honduran leftists to at-
tack anti-Sandinista guerrillas. Their
central camp lies in the area where
t e seven were apprehended.
A Honduran source who monitors
leftist activity here expressed skep-
ticism at the administration reports
emphasizing help to leftist guerrillas.
Sending Nicaraguan agents to fo-
ment a Honduran guerrilla network
would be an unlikely tactic, he said.
Several hundred Honduran left-
ists from five different groups have
been reported in exile in Nicaragua
or Cuba seeking help to build such
networks, he said. They, not Ni-
caraguans, would be the obvious
candidates for infiltration into Hon-
duras, the source said.
The more likely purpose of the
Nicaraguans' mission here, he
added, was to enlist Hondurans to
help them sabotage or infiltrate the
contras' camp, at Las Vegas in
southeastern El Paraiso.
The Honduran Army, which is
holding the captured Nicaraguans,
declines to-explain their mission,
confining itself to confirming re-
1 ports from Washington and saying
interrogation is continuing.
caraguan Democratic Force, the
beauty with the purple eye shadow
also was a reminder of a broad un-
derground conflict that has arisen
during the past three years, with
the Honduran-Nicaraguan border
hills as its main arena.
"The crane" was either a recruit
to the . rebels' battle against the
-RDP90-00965R000201180015-7
Many Nicaraguans who have said
they crossed the border fleeing mil-
itary draft have been similarly in-
terrogated in recent months. Hon-
duran officers suspect that Mana-
gua has dispatched many agents
among the scores of Nicaraguan
youths entering Honduras every
month, some of whom end up in the
ranks of anti-Sandinista rebel
forces.
Despite the attention focused on
large-scale U.S. military maneuvers
and U.S. complaints about Ni-
caraguan armor and troop buildups,
secret Sandinista support for Hon-
duran subversives has been re-
garded by many military officers
here as the major threat to their
country. Reflecting these concerns,
U.S. Special Forces teams from
Fort Bragg, N.C., and Panama have
held frequent counterinsurgency
exercises in Honduras during the
past year, often unannounced.
Helping the anti-Sandinista reb-
els, say some Honduran officers,
increases chances of Sandinista re-
taliation through subversion in Hon-
. duras, particularly if Honduras can-
not rely on U.S. backing.
Rebel officials have acknowl-
edged Sandinista infiltration, saying
they, too, have their own plants in
the Sandinista government.
The way "the crane" t Its it; she
was sent to infiltrate the'rebel lead-
ership last year to provide intelli-
gence to the Sandinistas, but decid-
ed to remain with the rebels. Ac-
cording to her story, this was her
second change of mind.
The young woman told reporters".
that she started as a courier with a
clandestine anti-Sandinista network
inside Nicaragua. As part of her
work, she said, she met and-even-
tually became the mistress of a Ni-
caraguan known only as "the fish."
Although he claimed to be part of
the network, she recounted, "the
fish" turned out to a Sandinista spy.
Rebels said he came to Tegucigalpa
posing as an underground anti-San-
dinista operative, obtained a list of
clandestine rebel sympathizers and
went back to Nicaragua to denounce
them all-including his mistress.
WMirt led
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201180015-7
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201180015-7
a.
In an extensive interrogation by
Sandinista security agents, "the
crane" said, she was persuaded to
switch sides and go to Honduras to
join the Democratic Force as a spy.
But once, inside the group here, she
said with its officers looking on, she
decided that the rebels were right
after all and told them of her mis-
sion.
Col. Enrique Bermudez, the
force's commander, said the young
woman has been allowed to stay in
the main rebel camp while the lead-
ership tries to figure out which of
her loyalties is authentic.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201180015-7