House urges end to mining

Press, 14 April 1984, Page 10

House urges end to mining

NZPA-Reuter Washington An angry United States House of Representatives joined the Senate yesterday in demanding that the Reagan Administration halt United States activity in the mining of Nicaraguan ports. The House voted 281-111 for a resolution stating the “sense of Congress” that no American funds be used, “for the purpose of planning, directing, executing or supporting the mining of the ports of territorial waters of Nicaragua.” The resolution has no binding effect on the White House. But coupled with the Senate passage of a similar resolution by an 84-12 vote on Wednesday it represented the harshest repudiation yet by Congress of President Ronald Reagan’s policies in Central America.

Administration ~■<> officials have told fppgress in an in camera session that the mining, directed by the Central Intelligence Agency, has stopped. But some members said that they had not received adequate reassurances it would not be resumed.

Several members in the House and Senate said that the resolution could be a forerunner of Congressional refusal to provide any more aid at all for Nicaraguan guerrillas fighting against the Leftist Managua Government.

The State Department had no immediate comment yesterday on an assertion by Nicaragua that it was being attacked by rebel groups in a big, two-pronged assault.

Nicaraguan military leaders in Managua told a news conference that the country was under attack by 8000 insurgents thrusting from neighbouring Honduras and backed by the C.I.A.

Several days ago the United States-backed Nicaraguan Democratic Force announced that it had mobilised its entire 8000-man force for an offensive against Nicaragua. The military chiefs told the news conference that Nicaragua’s southern port of San Juan del Norte was being attacked by another rebel group, the Revolutionary Democratic Alliance,

based in Costa Rica. They described the attack as the “greatest offensive by the C.I.A. to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinist Government.” It was the first time that Nicaraguan officials had acknowledged extensive crossborder actions, previously dismissed in Managua as unimportant. Earlier yesterday in Washington, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Mrs Jeane Kirkpatrick, accused Nicaragua of, “a continuing, determined armed attack against its neighbours” and said that those countries had a right to act in selfdefence. “As of this time, there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that any of Nicaragua’s activities against its neighbours have ceased,” she said. “To portray Nicaragua as a victim ... is a complete Orwellian inversion of what is actually happening.” Mrs Kirkpatrick addressed two leading groups of international lawyers in what Reagan Administration officials described be-

forehand as an important statement of its position on events in Central America. The Administration has accused Nicaragua of exporting Leftist revolution and Soviet bloc arms to an anti-Government guerrillas in other areas of Central America. While United States to anti-Sandinist guerrillas in Nicaragua is in jeopardy, Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives indicated yesterday that they were willing to approve SUS32M ($48.6M) military aid for El Salvador, where the United Statesbacked Government is engaged in a war against Leftist rebels. In Managua military and civilian sources said that anti-Sandinist rebels had placed land-mines on roads leading from the important Atlantic port of Puerto Cabezas to the Honduran border.

The mines had been placed close to towns on roads leading from Puerto Cabezos to the border town of Waspan. The area is in the Zelaya department in isolated

north-eastern Nicaragua.

Meanwhile, Eden Pastora, one of Nicaragua’s leading anti-Government rebels, asserted yesterday that his organisation, not the C.1.A., had mined the ports. He also said that his guerrilla group would resist if France or any other country tried to sweep the mines. Mr Pastora, also known as “Commandante Zero,” heads the Nicaraguan Revolutionary Democratic Alliance. Reuter reported the Nicaraguan Navy commander, Captain Mario Aleman, as saying that a United States Navy frigate was lying 65km off Nicaragua’s main port of Corinto yesterday after helping to lay mines. “The North American frigate Gallery is still lying in front of Nicaragua, at this moment about 40 miles away,” Captain Aleman said. “We believe speedboats carrying Central Intelligence Agency commandos came from the frigate to attack our coastline and lay mines.”