1985 WAS A BAD YEAR FOR NICARAGUAN REBELS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201610013-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: December 30, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
ARTICLE APP
M1AM1 HERALD
30 December 1985
Around the Americas
-1985
Nicaraguan rebels
By SAM DILLON
Herald Staff Writer
MANAGUA, Nicaragua - The
Sandinistas in 1985 gained on
three fronts against U.S.-backed
rebels, shoving them from strate.
gic northern coffee hills, overrun.
ning their "southern front," and
persuading many Atlantic coast
insurgents to quit fighting, accord.
ing to government officials and
diplomats.
But the Sandinistas failed to win
the "strategic victory" they had
vowed for the year, and with
Washington more firmly than ever
behind the rebels, known as
contras, officials predict that the
Nicaraguan fighting will intensify
in 1986..
During the year, Sandinista
troops evacuated nearly 100,000
peasants from dozens of contra-in-
fluenced microregions across the
Nicaraguan outback, then - in
the first air-mobile operations of
the war - called in Soviet
helicopters and other new arma-
ments for unrelenting pursuit of
the rebels. Meanwhile, the Sandi-
nista infantry mounted larger,
more complex hunt-and-kill opera-
tions than ever.
"This year has developed very
favorably for the Revolution, In its
battle with the mercenary arm of
U.S. policy," said Commander
Joaquin Cuadra. chief of staff of
the Sandinista Army, in a recent
press conference analyzing the
war.
Increasing airpower
The contras surprised everyone
Dec. 2 by shooting down a
government troop transport heli-
copter with a shoulder-fired sur-
face-to-air missile, calling into
question the Sandinistas' increas-
ing airpower advantage.
Otherwise, 1985 was a bad year
on The battlefield for the rebels,
though they opened up a new war
front in Nicaragua's lonely eastern
cattlelands and bloodied the Sandi-
nistas occasionally with killing
ambushes.
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was a bad vear for
The contras' major gain came in
Washington, where Congress for
the first time gave them its public
stamp of approval by voting $27
million in "humanitarian aid."
Administration officials have al-
ready begun lobbying to boost that
support with "lethal defensive
aid; a campaign that diplomats
and Nicaraguan,officials here pre-
sume will be accompanied by a
rebel offensive in the first months
of 1986.
The rebels' setbacks in the field
in 1985 deepened doubts among
several Western diplomats. here
that the contras can ever threaten
the Sandinista army. That skepti-
cism, coupled with Washington's
thickening antagonism toward the
Managua government, has led
some hitherto skeptical foreign
officials to conclude that the
chances of an eventual U.S.inva-
sion are mounting.
The rebels increased their num-
bers dramatically during 1985.
Today even the Sandinistas con-
cede that there are 16,000-17,000
contras under arms. Nicaragua's
troop strength also grew. Today it
fields an astounding 60,000 regu-
lars and 60,000 militiamen and
reservists, and tens of thousands
of armed sympathizers.
More modest goals
The contras, who once hoped to
seize a chunk of Nicaraguan
territory and declare a "liberated
zone," aspire to more modest goals
in 1986. According to a U.S.
intelligence analyst, the rebels
hope to reopen the southern front
they lost this year, continue to
harass Sandinista units deep inside
Nicaragua, and "take the war to
the cities."
"The goal is to create the
perception among the Nicaraguan
population that the Sandinistas are
not invincible and that they have
lost the ability to control the
country," the analyst said.
As 1985 draws to a close,
however, the Sandinistas look
very much in control, diplomats
here agreed.
most obvious In the northern
mountains hugging the Honduran
border, strategic terrain dotted
with rich coffee farms and etched
with the contras' longtime infiltra-
tion routes into the Nicaraguan
Interior.
During last winter's harvest,
contra units had already ambushed
several trucks jammed with pick-
ers and burned dozens of farms.
By the end of the harvest In April,
officials reported that contras had
killed more than 35 pickers - and
had forced the government to
leave $20 million worth of coffee
beans to rot on the bushes.
Northern offensive
Starting in January, at the
harvest's peak, the Sandinista
army fired up a northern offensive
that laste4, with few interrup-
tions, 'until September, officials
said. For the first time, the army
mounted multiple-unit sweeps,
complex encircle-and-destroy op.
erations orchestrating six and
seven of its elite, 1,000-man
irregular warfare battalions.
During the same period, the
government relocated an estimat-
ed 100,000 peasants living in areas
of strong contra influence to
government-controlled coopera-
tives. The evacuation was aimed at
isolating the contras from their
collaborators, and opened free-fire
zones for artillery and air bom-
bardment.
Sandinista officials now claim
the nine-month northern offensive
blocked many traditional infiltra-
tion routes and largely cleared the
coffee slopes of contras.
"This year we plan to harvest
every bean on every farm," said
Henry Matus, in charge of the
coffee harvest for the Agriculture
Ministry. He said harvesters so far,
have not suffered a single casual-
ty.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201610013-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201610013-1
Starting in March, Sandinista
troops in the south also swept
eastward through the steamy
swamps bordering Costa Rica,
rolling up the rebel camps con-
trolled by Eden Pastore. By late
May, there was little left of the
"southern front" Pastora had been
building since early 1983.
Sandinista artillery strayed
south of the border, killing a Costa
Rican soldier during the campaign.
After a Honduran soldier- was
killed In similar circumstances In
September, Honduran A37 jets
reacted by strafing artillery em-
placements in Nicaragua and dam-
aging a Soviet-built M124 Hind
helicopter. They were the worst
border incidents of the contra war.
"As long as there are contras in
Honduras or in Costa Rica, fric-
tions of this type will continue,"
said Nicaraguan army chief Cuad-
of town in open ground.
On Dec. 2, as a Sandinista Mi8
helicopter clattered away from
Mulukuku in eastern Zelaya prov-
ince, the rebels for the first time
locked on to its hot exhaust vents
with a surface-to-air missile. Four-
teen soldiers died in the crash,
including, U.S. officials claimed,
two Cuban pilots.
Washington denied having sup-
plied the Soviet-built SAM-7s, but
various administration officials ap-
plauded the challenge they repre-
sented to the Sandinistas' increas-
ingly devastating counterattacks.
u.S. intelligence analysts believe
that the Nicaraguans. too, have
i their own anti-aircraft missiles,
which could threaten Honduras-
based transDor-t-DIEZEEEsuppi
contra columns-inside Nicaragua.
At his presidential inauguration
In January, Daniel Ortega pledged
that the Sandinistas would deal
the contras a "strategic defeat" in
1985, and today Sandinista offi-
cials express great confidence
about the course of the war.
But in November, Defense Min-
Ister Humberto Ortega slipped the
contras' "strategic defeat" off for
another year.
ra.
Hitting cattle ranches
In May, with Nicaraguan troops
hunting them down along both
borders, the rebels penetrated
deep -into the country's center to
hit cattle ranches and small towns
dotting the desolate range land of
Chontales and Boaco provinces.
The contra presence there espe-
cially annoys the Sandinistas be-
cause of their intermittent threat
to the highway linking Managua
with the river port of Rama, a
major off-loading point for arms
shipments.
The contras have kept up their
attacks for months - in mid-De-
cember ambushing several govern-
ment trucks and burning at least
four state farms - forcing the
Sandinistas to divert nearly a third
of its troops south from the
Honduran border, according to a
foreign analyst.
But the fierce Sandinista reac-
tion to two contra strikes demon-
strated Increasing government
control. On Aug. 1, when rebels
briefly took over La Trinidad, a
town straddling the Panamerican
Highway north of Managua, the
Sandinistas ferried in wave after
wave of airborne pursuit troops
and strafed a retreating contra
column caught in the open with
Soviet-built Mi24 Hind attack
helicopters.
"They really ripped them
apart," a diplomat said. Casualty
reports ranged up to 150 contra
dead and another 51 captured.
On Nov. 19 rebels attacked the
cowboy town of Santo Domingo in
Chontales province. Again, the
contras took costly losses after
helicopters surprised them outside
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201610013-1