REBELS EFFORTS SPUTTER IN CITIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302420001-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 18, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/10/22 :CIA-RDP90-009658000302420001-3
ARTICLE MIAMI H E RAL D
ON PAOEN~ 18 June 1986
~ebre~ ~ ~~forts s utter
-+rt~r:
T~ ~~~~ ? ~; ~-~ minded former
MANAGUA. Nl~ ''~ i~',rlp- have made ~rig-
~- ,
pled by SandiniRa. ldifit~iltittlrrs. orously control- '
spied on by Cuban atylr d~enae ling peoples'
~~~ sad unsbb ~ P~~ movements a
either a a-tanit;g image or a national securi-
t rea
iro~ m Y P Y?
wp ould-be supp~rten. the Nte~rt- t To contra critics and even some
guar re0elt ve tailed to-set up backers, however, the rebels' fail-
NecaragNeeio~r~Milnis~ter ure to display a military and
Tomas eor a sa he "could not Political presence in Managua or
g Ys other major cities is perha s the
count" the cumber of times that clearest sign of the limited threat
contra groups have tried to tarry of the insurgent movement.
POLICY AT A CROSSROADS
Last of four parts
out military operations or estab-
lish sabots a cells in the dties. But
he is ~n of one thing:
"Every effort to establish an
iateraal front in this country has
tailed.,. Borge said.
There is uttie evidence to dis?
pule him.
In the south. former Sandinista
hero Eden Pastora's Democratic
Revolutionary Alliance (ARDI:~
shelved its internal imat pUAs
after Sandinista state security
agents rounded up one cell after
another as they readied sabotage
plans. Borge says several o!
ARDE's leading saboteurs were
really Sandinista agents.
In the north. the U.S.-backld
Nicaraguan Democratic Force
(FDN) also has watched its inter-
nal front dreams turn nightmare.
The most tangible result of FDN
efforts so far has been to provide
Sandinista officials with ammuni-
tion against domestic political
critics, who often are accused of
involvement in cracked sabotage
rings even when evidence is
lacking.
To many, including U.S. officials
involved with
the rebel pro-
gram, the con-
tras' failure is
predictable in a
small country
run by Commu-
nist-trained.
conspiracy-
"It would be one thing to not
have blown up (President] Daniel
Omega's house after five years,"
said one Western diplomat. "But
they (the rebels) haven't even
gotten anyone to spray-paint mean
things about his mother."
The Sandinistas know well the
importance of an urban presence
to a guerrilla movement. Even
when their war against President
Anastasio Somoza was going poor-
ly, spectacular attacks in Managua
kept attention 'focused on their`
cause and gave the impression of
popular support.
The tale of the FDN's first effort
to set up an internal front is
typical.
The FDN only tried to establish
its Managua front in 1983, and
even then the effort was almost an
accident. An anti-Sandinista rebel,
Adan Rugama Acevedo, who
fights under the nom de guerre
Aureliano, became separated from
his contra unit during a March
1983 battle in the northern Nicara-
guan town of Cua. Not knowing
what to do, he eventually hopped a
bus to Managua, and using a
phony drivers license as identifica-
tion began organizing sabotage
cells on his own.
In an interview last year at the
FDN's main base camp on Hondu?
ras' border with Nicaragua, , he
boasted of having left Managua
with lists of some 500 S-person
cells he had estabiIshed.
But Sandinista security officials
scoff at the claim. They say
Aureliano's network was broken
up with the arrest in 1984 of about
20 suspects, including Aureliano's
brother, Manuel Rugama Suazo,
and a priest, Luis Amado Pena. Ail
were charged and convicted for
planning acts of sabotage as FDN
internal front members.
in cities
`Fish' is hooked
The key to breaking the case,
Sandinista officials suggested at
the time, was the arrest of Pedro
Espinoza Sanchez, whom they
described at a press conference on
June 20, 1984, as the "chief of the
general staff of the internal front."
Today the contras are convinced
that Espinoza, whom they called
The Fish, was a Sandinista plant.
The Interior Ministry declined
repeated requests to interview
Espinoza.
But in a jail house interview
with Colombian author Carlos
Rincon and in court documents,
Espinoza told how he joined the
Honduras-based FDN in the Nica-
raguan city of Matagalpa in 1982.
He split oft a few months later to
join an urban rebel group orga-
nized by Jose Francisco Cardenal,
who had left the FDN in a dispute
over authority and money.
When Cardenal could not fi-
nance the urban group, Espinoza
turned again to the FDN, shortly
after Aureliano had arrived in
Managua. Espinoza said that when
Aureliano returned to Honduras,
his urban rebel cells were placed
under the command of Carlos
Acevedo, a leader of an opposition
labor union called the Nicaraguan
Workers' Central (CTN).
Before long, Espinoza said, "in-
ternal conflicts" developed be-
tween himself and Acevedo. As a
result, Espinoza said, he was
beaten and tortured as an FDN
"prisoner" in Honduras.
Fearing the contras would kill
him, he had "a brilliant inspira-
tion" and fled to the Nicaraguan
Embassy in Tegucigalpa. Armed
with a phony driver's license,
Espinoza asked for amnesty. It
was granted, and Espinoza was
squired back to Managua by the
economic attache of the Nicara-
guan embassy in Tegucigalpa.
Espinoza said after lying low for
two weeks, he resumed his contra
activities. He made contact with a
group that included Luis Amado
Pena, a Catholic priest. Sabotoge
plans were drawn up, Espinoza
said. Shortly before the plans were
to be carried out, 10 Sandinista
secret service agents showed up at
his door. Espinoza said.
At the June 20 press conference.
Qpptinued
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/10/22 :CIA-RDP90-009658000302420001-3
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/10/22 :CIA-RDP90-009658000302420001-3
Espinoza implicated Pena and
leaders of the CTN, another oppo-
sition union and the opposition
Democratic Conservative Party.
A Sandinsita pinnt?
Enrique Sotelo Borger, a Con-
servative Democratic Party leader
and lawyer for some defendants in
the case, said he is all but certain
that Espinoza was an informant
working for Sandinista state secu-
rity.
Sotelo noted that after being
sentenced to 18 years' imprison-
ment, Espinoza was mysteriously
pardoned along with Pena. Pena's
freedom had been sought by some
members of the Nicaraguan Legis-
lative Assembly, but no request
had been filed on Espinoza's
behalf, he and other opposition
politicians said.
Oppositions politicians and dip-
lomats said that one the govern-
ment's key strategies has been to
discredit figures in the mainstream
Catholic church -the strongest
political threat to the Sandinistas
- and to dissuade and intimidate
opposition activists most likely to
consider ties with the contras.
Perhaps the clearest example of
this came last October when
Interior Minister Borge announced
the arrest of five people implicated
in an FDN plot to carry out
terrorist bombings in the capital.
Only days before, with opposition
union, political party and Catholic
Church political activity on the
rise, President Ortega had reim-
posed sweeping restrictions on
civil liberties to control "internal
allies" of the contras. Borge in
explaining the emergency decrees
explained that a dangerous inter-
nal front could be "terrorist,
political or ideological in nature."
At a January news conference,
Sandinista state security officials
said the five and 20 others were
part of. "a vast terrorist plan"
called Plan Scorpion.
The key witness to the plot,
Guillermo Aguilera Rodas, told the
press conference that he had been
recruited to reorganize the inter-
nal front by the Tabor leader
Acevedo during a trip to Hondu-
ras.
Among those Aguilera said he
had met with during the "organi-
zational period" was Jose Altami-
rano, then the deputy general
secretary of the CTN. Altamirano
was among the 25 people eventu-
ally arrested for involvement in
the cell.
But Aguilera later admitted in a
jail house interview arranged by
the Sandinistas that although he
had approached Altamirano on
recommendation from Acevedo,
Altamirano had firmly refused to
be involved.
In later interviews in Managua,
Altamirano, 43, said that after he
was arrested for involvement in
the plot, Sandinista state security
agents had ordered him to confess
at the press conference to being a
"contra leader ...involved in Plan
Scorpion." When he balked at
doing so at the January press
conference, Altamirano said state
security officials told him he
would be jailed "for 20 years
minimum."
Carter intervenes
He was released at the request
of former U.S. President Jimmy
Carter when Carter visited Nicara-
gua in February.
Costa Rica-based ARDE's most
spectacular urban assault took
place back in 1983 when it blew
up an electrical substation. Two
saboteurs were killed in the pro-
cess.
In October 1983, ARDE rebels
flubbed an attempt to burn down
the Managua bull ring. They also
tried to kill several Sandinista
z
comandantes with an incendiary
bomb at a Managua youth celebra-
tion. But that caper failed too.
A Managua cell organized by
Silvio Robelo, a cousin of Alfonso
Robelo, then an ally of Eden
Pastors and now a director of the
United Nicaraguan Opposition
(UNO) coalition that governs most
rebel affairs, was perhaps the
most technically advanced of the
urban-based rebel organizations.
Its tools included incendiary
bombs, tape players and mega-
phones to broadcast recorded fire
fights to panic busy neighbor-
hooda, and a powerful FM trans-
mitter that enabled them to break
into government radio broadcasts
with a taped Pastors speech,
according to rebel sources and
Nicaraguan news accounts.
Despite the elaborate gadgetry,
six cell members were arrested in
February 1983. State Security
chief Lenin Cerra said the group
was detected while practicing
with the FM transmitter just down
the road from the Interior Minis-
try.
ARDE officials said they are
convinced that Sandinista agents
had infiltrated the group.
Two former ARDE otfi i w
~' v v e urban front
blamed their IA narrn.,c ~.,. a
cell s meff rriv n cc
"They insisted on maintaining a
line of command to the outside and
on knowing all the names," one of
rebels said. "In a police state like
Nicaragua, it just won't work."
"We did beautiful things against
Somoza," another ARDE official
said, fondly recalling his days as a
Sandinista guerrilla. "I could carr}?
a bomb around like it was a lunch
bag."
But today, the people who
govern Nicaragua are more vigi-
lant, perhaps because they have
seen an insurgency from both
sides.
Said the ARDE official: "Every-
thing the Sandinistas did they
know can be repeated."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/10/22 :CIA-RDP90-009658000302420001-3