U.S. uneasy about Nicaraguan cargo

Press, 9 November 1984, Page 8

U.S. uneasy about Nicaraguan cargo

NZPA-AFP Washington

The United States has warned Moscow not to deliver advanced combat aircraft to Nicaragua, and United States Intelligence is keeping watch on a Soviet freighter that could be carrying MiG2l fighters. American officials said yesterday that the ship had arrived off Nicaragua’s Pacific coast after sailing from a Soviet port. The President, Mr Ronald Reagan, told a Los Angeles news conference, “We ourselves have been alerted and are surveilling that ship, but we cannot definitely identify that they have MiGs there or planes of any kind.”

He would not comment on what action the United States might take if advanced combat aircraft were delivered to Nicaragua’s Leftist Government.

Mr Reagan said that such planes were “absolutely unnecessary ... and would be an indication they are contemplating being a threat to their neighbours here in the Americas.”

The frequent United States expressions of concern about the prospect of MiGs in Nicaragua have led to speculation that Washington would knock them out if they were delivered. Official sources in Managua said yesterday that the Sandinist Army had been put on alert because of the presence of a United States Navy frigate in Nicaraguan waters, off the Puerto de Corinto coast in the Pacific,

150 km north-west of Managua.

They said that the frigate had been spotted 20km south-west of Corinto, the the arrival of the Soviet ship. Nicaraguan authorities refuse to say what cargo the ship carried.

The governing junta denied that any combat planes were being delivered to Nicaragua, although Nicaraguan officials have said previously that new aircraft were being awaited. Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister, the Rev. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, said in an interview with Britain’s Independent Television News yesteday that a United States warship had moved into Nicaraguan waters and that American planes had flown over its territory during the day. The ship had unloaded speedboats, he said.

Father d’Escoto said that Nicaraguan forces had fired warning shots at a United States plane that had violated Nicaragua’s airspace. he had protested to Washington over the incident. The Hercules had approached to within Bkm of Corinto.

State Department officials said that the Soviet Union had been told yesterday that the United States ' would view delivery of advanced combat planes with the utmost concern. “Concerns have been raised about the contents of that ship,” a spokesman, John Hughes, said. “And certainly we are reiterating our position and underlining how imprudent it would be for aircraft, should they be in that ship or any other ship, to arrive in Nicaragua.” The Pentagon denied that United States ships and planes had violated Nicaraguan territorial waters and airspace.

A Pentagon official said that no ships were in Nicaraguan waters and none had been. He also said that no small craft had been landed off the port of Corinto. One United States ship was sailing off the western coast of Central America but was not inside Nicaragua’s territorial waters. In keeping with Defence Department policy he did not identify the vessel. Earlier this year Managua accused the Reagan Administration of mining Nicaraguan ports with just such an operation by a mother ship and speedboats.