Ortega Hints at Use of Missiles in El Salvador

President Daniel Ortega said Friday that the downing of a Nicaraguan helicopter by U.S.-backed rebels with a SAM-7 missile has “opened the floodgates” for the use of similar weapons by other Latin American guerrilla groups.

He clearly was hinting at the possible future use of ground-to-air missiles by leftist guerrillas, including those in El Salvador.

In a news conference, Ortega repeatedly evaded questions about whether Cuban advisers have a combat role in the Nicaraguan fighting and whether any Cubans died in the helicopter that was shot down Monday by the anti-Sandinista rebels known as contras.

Use Could Spread

He accused the United States of supplying Soviet-designed SAM-7s to the contras, “stimulating a wave of international terrorism and leaving the way open for anybody to use truly dangerous weapons.” A contra leader in the United States said, however, that the missiles had been obtained from Soviet Bloc sources.

“The United States is demonstrating that it does not want a peaceful solution to problems in Central America,” Ortega charged.

He called on the international community to pressure the United States to stop supplying rockets to the rebels, comparing it to the mining of Nicaragua’s seaports by the rebels last year.

“Now they’re mining Central America’s airspace and threatening to mine the airspace of the continent,” he said.

Asked what Nicaragua’s attitude would be toward the use of such missiles by leftist guerrillas in El Salvador, he said, “It is the government of the United States that is legitimizing the use of that type of weapon by irregular forces.”

Ortega also said the United States “is giving a new dimension to the Central American conflict” and “is opening the floodgates so that any irregular force in Latin American may use this type of missile.”

El Salvador Vulnerable

The United States has repeatedly accused Nicaragua’s leftist government of helping to supply arms to the guerrillas of El Salvador. The U.S. government provides military equipment and advisers to the Salvadoran government, which has more than 70 helicopters that could be vulnerable to ground-to-air missiles.

There have been no reports so far that such missiles have been used against Salvadoran helicopters.

During Ortega’s press conference, hundreds of Nicaraguans, chanting, “Yankees, here no one surrenders,” marched on the U.S. Embassy to protest the downing of the helicopter. Police erected barricades that kept the crowd about a block from the embassy, which closed two hours early to avoid confrontations.

In the past six months, Nicaragua’s Popular Sandinista Army has made increased use of Soviet-supplied MI-8 and MI-24 helicopters against the contras. The army has received at least 12 MI-8s, which are used mainly for transport but also as gunships, and at least six MI-24s. The MI-24 is the fastest and most heavily armed helicopter gunship in the Soviet arsenal.

Had Missiles 6 Months Ago

The contras had shown reporters SAM-7 missiles in their possession more than six months ago and threatened to use them against army helicopters. The Sandinista helicopter downed Monday was the first reported to have been hit by one of the heat-seeking missiles.

The Nicaraguan Defense Department said all 14 who died in the MI-8 were members of the Sandinista army and listed a Nicaraguan hometown for each one.

Elliott Abrams, U.S. assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, said Thursday that Cubans were among the 14 dead.

Evades Question

Reporters asked Ortega three times in his Friday press conference whether any Cubans had died. Each time, Ortega evaded the question, saying that the Reagan Administration always cites the Cuban military advisers in Nicaragua as “the best excuse” for increasing aggression against the Sandinista government.

Ortega also avoided giving a direct answer to questions of whether Cuban advisers have a combat role in Nicaragua.

“We have Cuban advisers but not the numbers that the United States says,” he said. Abrams told a congressional subcommittee in Washington on Thursday that there are 2,500 Cuban military advisers in Nicaragua. At the United Nations in October, Ortega said there were 700.

In Nicaragua, the SAM-7 missiles--not the Cuban advisers--were the center of official attention. A banner headline in Friday’s Barricada, the official Sandinista newspaper, said in a report on the missiles, “U.S. Escalates Terrorism.”

Recalls Ambassador

Thursday night, the Nicaraguan government announced that it was formally protesting to the U.S. government and recalling its ambassador to the United States, Carlos Tunermann, for consultations. Tunermann is expected to leave Washington today.

Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco said that in mid-1985, U.S. agents delivered about 30 SAM-7 missiles to a contra camp called Las Vegas in Honduras, near the Nicaraguan border.

“American technicians at Las Vegas trained the contras in handling the SAM-7,” Tinoco said. He attributed the information to Nicaraguan intelligence reports.

A Defense Ministry statement said the MI-8 helicopter was shot down at about 5 p.m. Monday, shortly after it took off from Mulukuku, a major Sandinista army base in north-central Nicaragua.

The ministry said the helicopter was flying in formation with three others, carrying troops into a war zone. It said the downed copter was flying at about 1,000 feet when the missile hit an engine, and all 14 men aboard died in the crash.