Rebel leader Pastora will be deported

Press, 2 June 1984, Page 10

Rebel leader Pastora will be deported

NZPA-Reuter San Jose The Nicaraguan rebel leader, Eden Pastora, who was wounded in a bomb explosion during a news conference on Thursday, will be deported to Venezuela, Government officials said. The officials said he would be flown out on a private Venezuelan aircraft, but they could not say what time. They said Mr Pastora was in a private clinic under heavy police guard, being treated for burns about the face and other parts of his body and shrapnel wounds in one of his legs. Five people, including an

American journalist, Linda Frazier, were killed and 27 others were wounded by the explosion, just over the border in Nicaragua. Mr Pastora was arrested yesterday on orders from President Alberto Monge, who is visiting Spain and did not give a reason for the arrest. The officials said, however, that their Government had declared Mr Pastora unwelcome because of his guerrilla activities in Costa Rica, which considers itself neutral in Central American conflicts. A Nicaraguan rebel group and Nicaragua’s militaryrun Government have swapped charges over who is responsible for the explo-

sion, the Associated Press reported. Although no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, the Costa Ricabased Revolutionary Democratic Alliance, of which Mr Pastora is the military leader, issued a statement from San Jose blaming the Sandinista rulers in Nicaragua. “We blame the totalitarian regime for this vile terrorist act,” the rebel group said. The group known by its Spanish initials A.R.D.E., said unspecified “past acts” point to the Sandinistas “as the intellectual and material authors of this bloody deed.” Mr Pastora issued a

statement from a private hospital in San Jose where he is being treated, saying, “within a month at the latest, when we recover from the light wounds caused by the terrorist bomb, we will be fighting again.” In Nicaragua, a member of the junta said the bombing was the product of rivalries between the counter revolutionary groups trying to overthrow the Leftist Sandinista junta and had the typical mark of the C.I.A. Sergio Ramirez Mercado called it a C.1.A.-inspired attack designed to “increase tensions between Nicaragua and Costa Rica.”