U.S. ‘right’ to mine ports

Press, 13 April 1984, Page 8

U.S. ‘right’ to mine ports

NZPA-Reuter Washington

The United States House of Representatives was expected today to join the Senate in challenging the Reagan Administration’s right to mine harbours in Nicaragua. The Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Kenneth Dam, said yesterday that the United States had the right to mine harbours in Nicaragua as an act of “collective self-defence” but he refused to admit any United States connection to such activity. The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved by a 23 to one vote yesterday a resolution calling on the Government to halt participation in the mining. The resolution was sent to the House for a vote, expected today. The House is controlled

by the opposition Democrats and the resolution, similar to one approved by an overwhelming 84 to 12 vote of the Senate earlier this week was likely to pass easily. The Senate is controlled by the Republican Party of the President, Mr Ronald Reagan.

The resolutions have no binding effect on the White House and only express the intent of Congress. Published reports that the Central Intelligence Agency helped anti-Government rebels in Nicaragua to sow mines in ports of the Left-ist-ruled country have angered Congress and caused a big problem for Mr Reagan’s Central American policy. Two briefings by Mr Dam yesterday, one open and one secret, failed to win over

opponents of the- Administration’s support for antiSandinist rebels in Nicaragua.

In the public session before the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Dam declined to say what United States officials have privately confirmed: that the C.I.A. directed the rebels in the mining. He also refused to say if the operations had ceased. The Nicaraguan Foreign Minister, the Rev. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann said at the United Nations yesterday that the United States was obstructing the peace efforts of the “Contadora group” of States.

The group, comprising Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama, has been trying to ease the crisis in Central America.

Father d’Escoto told reporters, “The United States has become a fundamental obstruction to the Contadora peace effort.” He did not elaborate, but was clearly alluding to the mining. Commenting on the Senate vote repudiating that activity, Father d’Escoto said, “It demonstrates that there are many people in the United States and the Congress who believe in a commitment to the law of the sea and disagree with the Reagan Administration’s disregard for international law.”

More than half a dozen ships from five countries have been damaged by the mines, which some Administration sources have said are low-explosive to harass the Sandinist Government rather than sink ships.