Nicaraguan foes prepare for final big battle

Press, 11 July 1979, Page 8

Nicaraguan foes prepare for final big battle

NZPA-Reuter Managua The two sides in Nicaragua’s bitter civil war yesterday prepared for what many diplomats in Managua thought would be a final battle for supremacy as President Anastasio Somoza still clung to power.

The President’s National Guard, equipped with armour, artillery, and air support, aim to dislodge Sandinist guerrillas from their stronghold in the city of Masaya, only 26km southwest of the capital, Managua.

Diplomats said the crucial point could be the speed with which the National Guard tried to retake Masaya. They said that if the Sandinists, fighting to end more than 40 years of power by the Somoza family, managed to tie the guardsmen down, the guerrillas would be free to build up forces elsewhere for a march on Managua. The guerrillas already hold 24 cities and towns, including five provincial capitals. The threat of further bloodshed came after a United States-backed peace formula was rejected. The guerrillas turned down the plan because it included having a Nicaraguan senior Army officer as part of a provisional government.

They felt that it meant “cheating their struggle against Somoza which has cost thousands of lives.” Government officials said international diplomatic efforts to end the war seemed “very difficult after guerrilla field commanders turned down a United States-spon-sored initiative to achieve a cease-fire.”

Meanwhile, Sandinists seized the country’s largest hydro'-electric dam in northern Nicaragua and threatened to attack the power house.

The power company president, Adam Cajina, said, “If the hydro-electric plant suffers . damage, Nicaragua’s power system would be disrupted and it would cause

: problems not only to this Government but to any future one.”

In the northern city of Matagalpa, more than 20 Government soldiers holed up for three- d»ys inside the cathedral, surrendered yesterday to the guerrillas who handed ttem over to the city's bishop, the Italianborn ’ Monsignfcr Julian Barni, who had promised that their lives would be spared. In Leon, the country’s sec-ond-largest city, also in guerrilla hands, tie rebels announced on their radio station that they had captured a United States-made Second World War Sherman tank, two light tanks, two armoured vehicles, aid several heavy machine-guns, after about 50 soldiers withdrew from a nearby forress. Residents reported guerrillas and government soldiers locked in fierce batles on the Managua-Leon highway, midway between the two centres. Diplomats said it was lot a heavy assault on Managia, but a way of testing tie ground and forcing the Na, ional Guard to bring som, of its troops now deployec around Masaya. Meanwhile a Lloyds insurance investigator has said that the guerrillas have raided a lucrative mine near the rebel held town of Leon, killed 17 employees, and made off with an estimated SUS6OO,OOO worth of gold. The guerrillas also stole SUSI7O,OOO in cash that was to be used as a payroll, said the investigator, Reginald Moore. In neighbouring Costa Rica, officials said a United States Air Force Hercules Cl3O transport plane and two helicopters had landed at an airport about 55km from the border. The officials said the aircraft were equipped with highly sophisticated radar. The American State Department says they were on standby for the evacuaiion of American nationals from Nicaragua.