A LOOK AT GOALS, ORIGINS OF REBELS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210020-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: March 19, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210020-9
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BOSTON GLOBE
19 March 1985
. WITH THE CONT
Second of three articles about
the anti-Sandinista rebels.
'\By Julia Preston
Globe Staff _ ? '
ONHONDURAS-NICARA-
GUA BORDER - When Mike
Lima rides by on his bay horse.
with his steel spurs jangling and
his Doberman guard dog loping
along betide, the guerrilla fight-
ers he leads watch him admir-
ingly.
The 25-year-old field com-
mander for the anti-Sandinista
Nicaraguan Democratic Force
(FDN), with his camouflage fa
tigue and his easy grin, is the
epitome of a Nicaraguan rebel...
For three years in the late
1970s while a popular uprising
against the former Nicaraguan
ruler. Gen. Anastasio Somoza
Debavle, was gathering momen-
tum, Mike Lima was a cadet in,
the military academy of Somo-.
za's National Guard. The youth
did not fight in the revolution,'.
and, concluding their reforms
were communist, fled to Guate-
mala three months after the,
Sandinistas'. July 1979 tri-
umph:
In 1982 he adopted the nom
de guerre "Mike Limit" (.now the
only name he will use) and led
small bands of volunteers on the
first forays into Nicaraguas Jun-
gles. By October 1983 he had
commanded one of the rebels'
most destructive incursions, to
-date. at the town of Pantasma,
where he robbed a bank, execut-
ed three persons and left behind
a swath of smoldering farm ve-
hicles and government build-
ings.
Later Mike Lima blew off his
"own right hand and killed four
of his men in a mortar accident.
Now, he has a steel hook. After
he
learned to shoot his AR15 rifle
left-handed, a Sandinista grenade
last year fractured his left hand
and leg. But he's still leading 2700
guerrillas, the FDN's largest single
unit.
Recently FDN leaders allowed
reporters an extensive visit to
their headquarters in the wet for-
ests along this border. The visit
was allowed. on the condition the
exact location of the camp not be
published.
i President Ronald Reagan, com-
paring the rebels, or contras, with
the founding fathers of the United
States, is urging Congress to re-
lease $14 million in Central Intelli-
gence Agency aid for them, mainly
'for the FDN. But Reagan is facing
stiff opposition in Congress.
Critics charge the FDN, the
largest of the rebel armies. Is
made up of US-financed merce-
naries drawn from Somoza's Na-
tional Guard who have committed
atrocities against Nicaraguan ci-
vilians. Supporters described the
FDN as a grass-roots insurgency
capable of stemming the develop-,
ment of communism in Nicaragua
by forcing the Sandinistas to "say
uncle," as Reagan said.
In three days of interviews at
the base. FDN leaders said their
basic goal is to defeat and oust the
Sandinista government. There is
little support among FDN military
commanders. for peace negotia-
tions.
Leaders of the contras, a word
!'that comes from the Spanish for
counterrevolutionaries, describe
the evolution of the..FDN from a
core of former National Guard offi-
cers contacted in 1981 by the CIA.
Later, the CIA forced out some ofAm~.
cers because they were incompe-
tent, undisciplined or. too closely
associated with Somoza, but
many of the original guardsmen
remain in key positions. They
have been joined in recent years
by civilians who had little to do
with either Somoza or the Sandin-
istas, as well as by some former of-
ficers in the Sandinista army.
The FDN also includes thou-
sands of conservative Nicaraguan
peasants whose traditional sub-
sistence farming was disrupted by
Sandinista policies of collectivism.
The FDN claims to have 14,000
fighters.
Decentralized
The FDN runs a decentralized,
loosely controlled army in which
the commander-in-chief, Enrique
Bermudez, often does not know
until weeks later what operations
his men carried out. Field com-
manders like Mike Lima .handle
the war, and would be in positions
of power if the FDN overthrew the
Sandinistas. =
According to its founders, the
embryo of the FDN was a group of
about 60 former National Guard
officers who banded together in
March 1980 to form the Septem-
ber 15 Legion, named for Nicara-
gua's Independence Day. Former
National Guard Capt. Armando
Lopez, now Comma' ider "L-26,"
head of logistics fox, the FDN, re- .
calls that in 19811 legionnaires
went in groups of 23, for refresher
training courses to Argentina,
"the first country that believed in =
us.
"We weren't Somoza followers,
we were a professional army," ar-.
gued "L-26." "We couldn't be ex- _
pected to create guerrillas to fight
the Sari dinistas from bakers or
shoemakers."
FDN military chief Bermudez
also was among the first legion-
naires. A US-trained 27-year vet-
eran of the National Guard, Ber-
l mudez spent most of his career as
an instructor or administrator,
never heading his own combat
unit. He was Somoza's military at-
tache in Washington for three
years to 1979.
Bermudez, who wears no insig-
nia to mark his rank on his sim-
ple green-blue Sears Roebuck uni-
form, said 13 former National
Guard officers have 'top military
posts in the FDN.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210020-9
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210020-9
Formed in Guatemala in Sep-
tember 1981, the FDN united the
September 15 Legion with conser-
vative civilians like the brothers
Aristides and Enrique Sanchez,
now the organization's secretary
general and chief of psychological
warfare, respectively. In 1979 En-
rique Sanchez was a congression-
al deputy from Somoza's Liberal
Party. Their family lost three lame
farms in the Sandinistas' first e
propriations, aimed at Somoza
and his closest associates.
Arms from CIA
In early 1982 the CIA began_
equipping the FDN wit fles and
mortars. "We fell on each other
with hugs, we kissed the rifles, we
jumped for joy," "L-26" remem-
bers. At first through Argentine
Intermediaries, then with Its own
agents, the CIA issued battle or-
ders. traine' contra commandos
to plant mines and gave them the
explosives to do it, and tried to
fashion an internationally accept-
able political face for the FDN.
Until early this year Reagan
justified US support for the con-
tras - which totaled $80 million
before funding ran out last June -
as a way of stemming the flow of
arms from Nicaragua to El Salva-
dor's leftists guerrillas. But contra
leaders, mentioning the interdic-
tion of arms only as an after-
thought, say the FDN's professed
goal is to "expel the Marxist-Le-
ninist Sandinistas and restore the
rule of law" in Nicaragua.
By late 1983 the` CIA faced a
crisis, because the rebels were not
advancing as rapidly as Washing-
ton had hoped. Power disputes
flared among the commanders. In
Nicaragua, villagers reported
rapes, mutilation of prisoners and
unwarranted destruction by the
guerrillas.
Under, CIA pressure, the FDN
court-martialed and executed a
former guardsman. Commander
"Suicide," and two of his lieuten-
ants. "They committed many
abuses against the civilian popu-
lation," was Bermudez' only com-
ment.
In December 1983, the 1&
pressed the FDN to form a new
"national directorate" to give a
more prominent role to civilians
like businessman Adolfo Calero,
squeezing out at least seven for-
mer guardsmen. -
"In order for us to get aid, it
was logical for our benefactor to
idemand something in return, to
guarantee the investment," said
'L-26." "We were just an armed
group. The national directorate
was hand-picked and selected [by
the CIA], and we accepted hap-
pily.`=-But Calero, now the FDN's top
civilian, bristles at the suggestion
he was recruited or imposed by
theJA,
"That's the damnedest lie in
the world," said the former execu-
tive, who managed an 800-worker
Coca Cola plant in Nicaragua, and
was jailed four times by Somoza.
"I had qualifications few people
had - experience, a personal way
of life over. many years. None of
the Americans I associated with in
this was older than me, or had
more education."
What the contras are fighting
against is clearer than what they
are fighting for. A triumphant
FDN, Bermudez said, would break
down farming cooperatives
formed by Somoza's properties
and distribute them among indi-
vidual peasants. Enrique Sanchez
said-he expects to regain his ex-
propriated lands. "I'm Nicara-
guan, too." he said. "The one
right the FDN logically defends is
respect for private property."
Bermudez said the FDN would
hold internationally supervised
elections. The Sandinistas, he
said, would become "citizens with
the same rights as everyone else."
But he said, "I doubt they'll accept
that - they're fanatic Marxist-Le-
Meanwhile, Bermudez sits atop
a burgeoning insurgent army in
which regional commanders plan
many of their own operations and
recruit their own troops.
FDN training includes no sys-
tematic teaching about the
group's political goals, or about
the rules of war. Asked whether
his troops get such courses, Mike
Lima said, "Negative. We don't
have any political goal except pre-
serving the individual freedom of
each person. Our fighters don't
have much culture or education.
All they need to know is that the
Sandinistas are bad."
The FDN is weighing plans to
seize territory in Nicaragua to de-
clare a provisional government to
be headed, according to Aristides
Sanchez, by Calero and Arturo
Jose Cruz, a conservative banker
who signed a pact with the FDN
earlier this month. But Bermudez
said the contras do not yet have
sufficient guaranties of interna-
tional recognition to attempt the
move. -
While Bermudez said the FDN
would impose "no limitations" on
a possible peace dialogue, many
commanders spoke vehemently
against it.
"We'll fight this war to the fin-
ish if we have to use picks and
shovels," said "L-26." "We won't
hold peace talks over the graves of
our dead."
Next: Can the rebels win?
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210020-9