Sandinistas Display Arms, Warn Reagan

The Sandinista government Saturday put on its largest military display ever, warning the Reagan Administration that neither its “mercenaries nor its troops” can force the Managua regime from power.

Before thousands of cheering Sandinista supporters, President Daniel Ortega compared the U.S. government to drug traffickers who use clandestine airstrips and front companies “to traffic in death against Nicaragua.”

Ortega spoke at a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Sandinista National Liberation Front. The event also marked the 10th anniversary of the death of one of the party’s founders and major ideologues, Carlos Fonseca.

Troops, Weaponry Paraded

The Marxist-led government put on a two-hour parade of troops and Soviet-made military hardware, including more than 50 tanks, scores of anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery and 21 helicopters--six of them MI-24 gunships.

The parade was Nicaragua’s first military show in six years and the largest since the Sandinistas came to power in 1979. Although military analysts have said the government received new arms shipments from Moscow recently, the Managua regime did not display any weapons that it was not already known to have.

There have been reports that the Sandinistas recently acquired SAM-3 anti-aircraft missiles, but observers at the parade saw only the less-powerful SAM-7s, which the army used last month to shoot down an American-piloted cargo plane that was being used to resupply the U.S.-supported Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras.

The Sandinistas do not disclose figures on their weapons inventory. The Pentagon says they have 10 to 15 MI-24 helicopters, including about half a dozen received last month, and about 34 transport helicopters.

The Nicaraguan regime is fighting a war against the contras who this year are to receive $100 million in military and other aid from the United States, plus training and CIA assistance.

Addressing President Reagan by name at the celebration, Ortega said: “Although you represent a nation that is economically and militarily powerful, you will never defeat the Nicaraguan people. Your mercenaries have not passed and they will not pass. And if you send your troops, they also will not pass.”

The cheering crowd responded with “They shall not pass! They shall not pass!” and waved red-and-black Sandinista party flags.

Representatives of predominantly leftist political parties from 80 countries attended the sun-baked ceremony at Carlos Fonseca Plaza. But high-level representation from abroad appeared minimal, with only one foreign head of state, President Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, in attendance.

“The CIA’s last airplane, shot down by the people’s arms, left two Americans dead and one captured,” Ortega told the crowd. “We will continue shooting down CIA planes with our anti-aircraft weapons in the hands of the people.”

The aircraft to which he referred was a C-123 cargo plane shot down over Nicaragua Oct. 5 while carrying arms and ammunition for the contras. American pilots William J. Cooper and Wallace Blaine Sawyer were killed in the crash along with an unidentified Nicaraguan radio operator. Air cargo specialist Eugene Hasenfus, 45, was captured and is standing trial on terrorism and related charges.

A large billboard depicting Hasenfus and the Sandinista soldier who captured him was a vivid backdrop to Saturday’s parade. It bore the inscription, “More than one of your battalions, blond invader, will have bitten the dust of our wild mountains.”

In his statement comparing the U.S. government to drug runners who “traffic in death against Nicaragua,” Ortega was apparently referring to the contra supply missions.

The Sandinista National Liberation Front was formed in 1961 by three revolutionaries, including Fonseca, who was killed 15 years later in a battle with dictator Anastasio Somoza’s National Guard. Before the parade, Ortega and other Sandinista leaders laid a wreath at Fonseca’s tomb.

The Sandinistas led a popular insurrection to oust Somoza. Saturday’s rally was intended to show that they are politically strong and determined to stay.