No date! set for U.S. troop withdrawal

Press, 24 March 1988, Page 11

No date! set for U.S. troop withdrawal

NZPA-AP I . ( Tegucigalpa, Honduras ( United States troops on an emergency training exercise have no plans to pull out of Honduras despite Nicaragua’s withdrawal of soldiers from the border, an American military spokesman said yesterday. : ; 11 i “Right now the plans are to make it a 10-to-14 day exercise,” said Major Gary Hovatter, the public relations director for the United States military in Honduras. “We have not received any directive as To when to begin redeployment.” ( Training exercises between Honduran and United States ' soldiers

H . I' ; . J were to continue; yesterday at four sites,: but few details were available. I( Major Hovatter also said five or six |of 10 soldiers injured in a helicopter crash during an exercise on Tuesday Could be released for light duty. | ■ I

.Nicaragua announced on! Tuesday that its troops had withdrawn from the border, and the (Honduran military reported that Sandinista sojdiers had retreated. Colonel Reynaid Andino Flores, commander of] the Honduran army’s 101st Infantry .Brigade, said the Sandinistas had penetrated an area of about 50sq km inside

Olancha province while chasing : the United States-supported Contras in a'two-week offensive to evict Ithe rebels front Nicaragua. > ( President Daniel Ortega and the Nicaraguan Government I have denied (that Srihdinista soldiers -I crossed the border. (I The Contras maintain camps in 'an area called Bocay, which includes territory on both sides ]of the border. Nicaragua claims the camps, which the Contras use to store supplies |and to stage raids inside Nicaragua, are in Nicaraguan land. The rebels say they are in Honduras.