Diplomatic drive to oust Somoza grows

Press, 17 July 1979, Page 8

Diplomatic drive to oust Somoza grows

NZPA Managua President Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua and his supporters have shipped their belongings out of the country over the last few days as Government troops continue to battle Sandinist guerrillas trying to overthrow the Government, official sources have said in the capital, Managua.

The sources said that the President and his supporters were “covering all possibilities,” including exile.

| The information came as ‘the New' York Times News Service reported from San Jose in neighbouring Costa Rica that the United States has acknowledged the Nicaraguan rebel junta as the Government, of Nicaragua, according to junta members.

Members of the rebel junta say they have satisfied American concerns over their plans to succeed President Somoza and that a special State Department envoy has assured them of imminent public support from the United States.

At a late-night interview in his home on Saturday, Sergio Ramirez .Mercado, the five-member junta’s acknowledged leader, said, “At this moment I think there is no

point of disagreement be tween us.”

The group’s Foreign Minister, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, said that the Washington emissary, Ambassador William G. Bowdler, had told them earlier in the day that “you are the government of Nicaragua.” In another move, the Venezuelan President (Mr Luis Herrera Campins) said yesterday he had called a meeting of about 50 Nicaraguan Opposition leaders for today to try to adopt effective measures to oust President Somoza. The Andean Pact Ministers from Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela met in Caracas over the week-end to map out joint plans to end the conflict. Separate talks w'ere also believed to have been held between American officials and Sandinist leaders in San Jose, Costa Rica. President Herrera sent an Air Force plane to Managua to bring as many Opposition leaders as possible to the Caracas meeting.

Sandinist guerrillas and troops loyal to President Somoza yesterday pounded each other in the strategic city of Masaya, only 26km south-east of Managua. “We have now retaken

about 50 per cent of the city,” a National Guard general, Fermin Meneses Gallo, said above the din of crackling machine-gun fire and mortar explosions. But troops returning from the battle zones said they had managed to penetrate only a few blocks. General Meneses Gallo said he had not yet called in Air Force planes to bomb the city, but residents in surrounding areas told reporters that helicopters came in almost daily drop- ! ping home-made napalm bombs —jerry tanks of petrol fitted with explosive devices.

The National Guard is based in Fort Coyotepe, built in 1827, on top of a 50metre hill at the entrance to Masaya and overlooks the highway to Managua.

General Meneses Gallo’s troops retreated to Fort Coyotepe from the Masaya garrison on June 24 after trying for more than two weeks to halt the guerrilla advance into the city. The general estimated that about half of Massya’s population of 40.000 vere still in the city despite Government appeals to them to abandon their hemes for their own safety.