Kissinger tour talks set to trigger fury

Press, 13 October 1983, Page 10

Kissinger tour talks set to trigger fury

NZPA-Reuter San Jose A former • American Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, in a gesture certain to anger Nicaragua's Leftist leaders, has met the chief of a guerrilla group fighting to topple the Nicaraguan Government. Yesterday’s surprise meeting with Alfonso Robelo, of the Costa Ricabased Revolutionary Democratic Alliance, conflicted with earlier statements that Dr Kissinger and members of his bipartisan commission on Central America would meet no insurgents during their tour. Mr Robelo, the political leader of A.R.D.E., said before sitting down with the commission, that he would discuss “the general situation in Nicaragua.”

The talks came at a time of increasing United States assistance for A.R.D.E., whose operations from Costa Rican bases have strained relations between Costa Rica and Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinist National Liberation Front.

In the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, officials had no immediate comment on the meeting. But it reinforced

fears that Dr Kissinger’s tour was little more than a smpke-screen for United States attempts to topple the Sandinists. A commission member, the House of Representative majority leader, Jim Wright, criticised secret United States aid to insurgents fighting Nicaragua from bases in Honduras in the north and Costa Rica in the south. “It is dishonest and unworthy of the United States as a nation to say we are not involved in recruiting. training and equipping an army of people when in reality "we are," he said. Mr Wright added, however, that he thought rather than peace, the Sandinists wanted a “continual process of ferment in which they can create dissension in neighbouring countries.” In July, Mr Wright voted in favour of suspending Central Intelligence Agency aid to anti-Sandinist insurgents.

The Costa Rican vicePresident. Mr Alberto Fait, has called on the United States to hand over SUSI billion a year in aid for the next 10 years to support democracy in the Central American State.