Emergency declared as Nicaragua predicts war

Press, 20 March 1982, Page 8

Emergency declared as Nicaragua predicts war

NZPA-Reuter Managua Nicaragua has announced an emergency civil-defence programme, including the construction' of air-raid shelters throughout the country in preparation for a foreign attack. On Monday, the Government imposed a month-long state of emergency, saying that it feared a possible invasion of Nicaragua about March 28, when nearby El Salvador is scheduled to hold a General Election for a National Assembly. Nicaragua’s Defence Minister, Humberto Ortega, said that the building of air-raid shelters was the first stage of a civil-defence programme to protect Nicaragua from a foreign attack. Neighbouring countries were preparing to invade Nicaragua, but did not identify them. Another threatening sign was intelligence information indicating that top military officials from South American countries had arrived in Central America “to collaborate with the aggressive plans of North American imperialism.” The civil-defence programme would “defend the towns of Nicaragua brick by brick and house by house.”

Instructions on civil defence for Nicaragua's two million people would be broadcast on radio and television and would be published in local newspapers. The actual digging of the air-raid shelters would be under the supervision of neighbourhood and factory defence units supported by the Militia, which is estimated to number about 50,000. The Defence Ministry on Thursday reported the first serious incident of the state of emergency. It said that 11 guerrillas and three Nicaraguan soldiers had been killed in fighting on Wednesday in the remote northern coastal region of Zelaya, the scene of many recent clashes between Government forces and Right-wing guerrillas and local Indian separatists. Nicaragua has said that the guerrillas are based in neighbouring Honduras and that they are trained by the United States.

The Nicaraguan Government has said that it is ready to hold negotiations with the United States on all subjects including alleged Sandinist arms shipments to Salvadorean rebels.

Sergio Ramirez Mercado, a member of the three-man

ruling junta, said: “We' have never accepted the United States' charge of an arms flow through here but this does not mean that we are unwilling to discuss the point.”

He said that the Government was holding consultations with Mexico’s Foreign Minister, Jorge Castaneda de la Rosa, who, last week-end, agreed to resubmit a fivepoint negotiating plan first presented by the United States to Nicaragua in August. Among the United States’ demands was the withdrawal of all Nicaraguan support for the Salvadoran rebels and .a reduction in the size of the Sandinist Army in exchange for which the United States would control the activities of Nicaraguan exiles in Florida, would seek a resumption of economic aid, and would sign a non-aggression pact with Nicaragua. Nicaragua’s Interior Minister, Tomas Borge Martinez, one of nine top Sandinist leaders, said that the General Election in El Salvador would complicate the atmosphere for negotiations.

He said. “We should starts as soon as possible: We should start in 10 minutes.” But Nicaraguan officials

also renewed their charge that the United States wants to destabilise the 32-month-old Nicaraguan revolution and they defended their decision to declare a state of emergency following the bombing of two bridges near Nicaragua’s northern border with Honduras. Mr Ramiez said, “How should we feel, a tiny, poor, weak country, threatened with a big stick by the most powerful nation on Earth? The least we can do is to organise our resources to defend ourselves. "We are now in a pre-war situation. We have heard that we may be attacked at any moment.” Opposition political and business groups are worried that the state of emergency may be extended beyond its 30-day duration establishing Grmanent censorship of the jal news media and maintaining restrictions on the freedom of the Government’s main critics to leave the country. . .The alarm has been stirred by. a Government order preventing officials and prominent opposition politicians and businessmen from. leaving Nicaragua without special permission.