Aid Cutoff Hurts Contra War Effort, Leader Says

The cutoff of U.S. funds has forced rebels in Nicaragua to reduce their level of combat by more than half since last summer, even though the number of troops has increased, the military leader of the largest anti-Sandinista guerrilla group says.

In a rare interview, Enrique Bermudez, commander of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, estimated that only 25% to 30% of his forces are engaged in combat operations at any one time. The rest avoid contact, he said.

Last spring, before Congress declined to continue to finance the rebels, up to 80% of the guerrillas were in action, Bermudez asserted.

Bermudez’s Nicaraguan Democratic Force--commonly called the FDN--is the most important element in an alliance of Nicaraguan Indian groups and smaller guerrilla organizations that are battling Nicaragua’s Marxist Sandinista government.

“Some forces are paralyzed,” he said. “We have had moments of crisis--not all places at once, but problems nonetheless.”

President Reagan is campaigning to renew funding for the rebels, known as contras . Congress ended financing of the three-year-old insurgency last year after a controversy over the mining of Nicaraguan harbors. The rebels’ mining operation was supported by the CIA.

Bermudez said that continued funding is vital and that if Congress does not renew the aid, it “would have a devastating psychological effect. Further, it would raise the morale of the Sandinistas.”

Despite the aid cutoff, Bermudez contended that his forces remain effective and have expanded substantially during the last year. From 8,500 troops at the end of 1983, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force has grown to 14,000, he estimated. Men fleeing the Sandinista draft are currently increasing the contra ranks, along with those who opposed the government for political and economic reasons.

Bermudez said that his entire force, for the moment, is adequately armed with rifles but is in constant need of ammunition.

The main effect of the money shortage has been to force a change in rebel tactics, Bermudez said. The insurgents no longer try to attack the Sandinista army head-on.

“The war is prolonging,” he said. “We have to be content with wearing down the enemy.”

Since June, 1984, when U.S. funds reportedly ran out, the contras have engaged in a series of ambushes, sabotage raids and small-scale attacks on outlying farm cooperatives. Sandinista officials charge that the rebels turned to terrorism when funds ran short.

Bermudez countered that the Sandinistas militarized Nicaragua to such an extent that farms and workplaces are suitable targets for attack.

“They force peasants to take up arms,” he argued. “If we let them do so unmolested, it would mean consolidating the Sandinista power base.”

Reporters visited Bermudez at his headquarters base last weekend. The visit was permitted on the condition that neither the location of the camp nor the reporters’ means of traveling there be disclosed.

Bermudez, 52, was a colonel in the National Guard of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, who was overthrown by the Sandinistas in 1979. A reclusive man, he has rarely welcomed newspaper reporters to his base.

However, with a congressional vote looming in Washington, the contras’ leadership has apparently decided to open up the military operation in order to gain publicity. “We have been losing the propaganda war,” Bermudez said.

Rebel leaders have also tried to unify diverse political and combat groupings in hopes of convincing Congress that the rebellion is broadly based and not merely a revolt of ousted right-wingers.

So far, unity efforts have failed. One of the obstacles is the presence of Bermudez and other former guardsmen in leadership positions in the Nicaraguan Democratic Force. To many who opposed Somoza, the National Guard was a symbol of the excesses of his regime.

In the interview, Bermudez defended his role as a National Guard officer.

“I have nothing to be ashamed of. I served in an institution that was constitutional in its time,” he said. “I am satisfied with my career.”