$100 Million to Aid Nicaragua’s Contras: Pro and Con
To each member of the Senate and the House who voted for the $100-million aid package for the contras , I would like to recount the type of activity the contras engaged in over the last month:
May 20: Attack on two potato-growing cooperatives. Eight people were killed, including three children, and 15 others were wounded. The contras destroyed 14 homes, three trucks and the community’s school and warehouses.
May 24: Ambush of a vehicle transporting workers participating in a polio vaccination campaign. Eight Nicaraguans were killed, along with a Spanish nurse who had been in the area since 1981.
May 31: Mortar attack on another campesino cooperative. Fifteen were killed, including an 8-year-old girl; 22 were wounded.
June 4: Paul Dessers, a Belgian engineer, was killed by a contra who tried to stop Dessers’ vehicle. Dessers had been working for two years as a European Economic Community adviser for a rural development project.
The $100 million means more of this kind of destruction and killing.
MARILYN T. SCHAFER
Los Angeles
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