Details given on war games

Press, 4 August 1983, Page 10

Details given on war games

NZPA-Reuter Washington

United States military exercises with Honduras will include troop landings in one of two areas felt by the Government there to be threatened by guerrillas from neighbouring Nicaragua, says the commander of the planned manoeuvres. But United States troops would be “instructed to avoid any and all situations that could involve them in hostilities,” said LieutenantGeneral Paul Gorman yesterday. He spoke as United States officials expressed cautious hope about a diplomatic settlement in Central America, wracked by civil war in El Salvador and threatened with war between Leftist Nicaragua and Honduras.

Republican congressmen who met President Ronald Reagan at the White House described his general attitude as optimistic and said that he planned to pursue vigorously recent peace overtures by the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro.

Dr Castro said last week that Cuba would halt mili-

tary aid to Nicaragua if an agreement could be negotiated for all nations to stop sending military aid and advisers anywhere in the region. General Gorman told the Senate Armed Services Committee that one site chosen for the exercises was on the north coast near Puerto Castilla, where Honduran officials were concerned about guerrilla infiltration.

General Gorman, head of the United States Southern Command, based in Panama, said that there would be a big Marine landing there, along with anti-guer-rilla exercises.

The second site was along the Gulf of Fonseca, a strip of coastline in southern Honduras between Nicaragua and El Salvador which the Nicaraguan Government is alleged to have used to funnel arms to rebels fighting the United Statesbacked Government in El Salvador.

Mr Reagan ordered the exercises, by up to 5000 troops and 20 ships, to demonstrate United States concern over the situation in the region.

General Gorman said that the first party of United States troops would arrive in Honduras between August 12 and 15, and the exercises would be staged in a series into early 1984. The manoeuvres along the Gulf of Fonseca would entail improving an airfield for use if Honduran forces had to be rushed to the area to repel a guerrilla infiltration.

Meanwhile, the Soviet cargo ship Ulyanov, identified by Mr Reagan as carrying arms to Nicaragua, had been intercepted by a United States Navy destroyer off the Nicaraguan coast, said crew members of the Ulyanov. The destroyer, identified only as U.S. Navy 8, had stopped the Ulyanov on Saturday, 55 nautical miles off the Nicaraguan Coast and asked for identification.

“Jane’s Fighting Ships” describes the guided-missile destroyer Lynde McCormick as having that hull number. The Ulyanov arrived on Sunday in the Nicaraguan bay of Corinto and was due to begin unloading its cargo today. “They said to identify

ourselves, asked what cargo we were carrying and where we were going. We answered that we were the Alexander Ulyanov, that we were going to Corinto, Nicaragua, and that we were carrying general merchandise,” said the crew.

The destroyer had responded that the ship could continue its course. The communication was by radio.

The Nicaraguan port director, Cesar Delgadillo, said earlier that the Ulyanov was carrying medicine, tractors, construction equipment and consumer goods.

A Salvadorean guerrilla leader, Ruben Zamora, has arrived in Managua unexpectedly for talks with Leftist rulers, the Government newspaper “Barricada” reports.

The paper said that Dr Zamora’s arrival had come just 30 minutes after the departure of the United States special envoy, Richard Stone, at the end of a 12-day swing through Central America aimed at defusing tension.