Groups Opposed to Central America Policy Hit in Burglaries : Rep. Edwards to Seek FBI Probe in Church Break-Ins

Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose) said Thursday he will ask the FBI today to investigate whether foreign agents have conducted several dozen burglaries across the country of churches and small political organizations opposed to Reagan Administration policies in Central America.

“We are going to demand an investigation,” said Edwards, chairman of the House subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights, which oversees the FBI.

Edwards spoke in a telephone interview after the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based nonprofit lawyers’ group, compiled a list of 35 reported break-ins in the last two years into offices of political organizations that monitor Central America, churches that have offered sanctuary to refugees, a religious magazine, and cars and homes of several activists.

FBI Involvement Denied

Lawyers for the center, and members of several of the political groups, have questioned whether the FBI or other law enforcement agencies participated in the break-ins to observe or intimidate the groups. FBI Director William H. Webster has repeatedly denied any such involvement.

The most recent break-in occurred last weekend at the International Center for Development Policy in Washington, where burglars rifled dozens of files and computer disks, and stole a document reportedly concerning arms supplies for Nicaraguan rebels. The organization is headed by Robert E. White, a former Jimmy Carter Administration ambassador to El Salvador who is an outspoken opponent of current Central American policies.

As in most other break-ins, television sets, typewriters and other valuable office equipment were ignored. Other burglaries have been reported in New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago, Los Angeles and Louisville, Ky.

Michael Rattner, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the pattern of burglaries suggests that the groups were being harassed for their political activities.

“It leads me to a strong belief that the government is involved,” Rattner said.

But FBI Director Webster told reporters in Washington early Thursday that no evidence so far links any government agency to the break-ins. He specifically denied that the FBI was conducting surveillance of the political opposition groups, or that FBI agents had conducted the break-ins.

“The FBI has not engaged in such surveillance, nor have we participated in any such break-ins,” Webster said. “We have no evidence that any other federal agencies are involved in such activities.”

In reply to a question, Webster acknowledged that there was a “case for a pattern” in the break-ins. But he said that Justice Department lawyers had advised that the FBI has no jurisdiction to investigate the burglaries under federal civil rights statutes because there is no evidence of involvement by law enforcement officers. Burglary is not a federal crime.

“What we are left with are apparent burglaries, for lack of a better term, by individuals who have not been identified, and provide no special jurisdiction for us,” Webster said.

FBI spokeswoman Sue Schnitzer said later that the bureau would have jurisdiction to investigate if looking for possible action by foreign agents, under laws dealing with international terrorism or foreign counterintelligence.

Edwards has asked Webster several times in letters and in hearings about the break-ins. He said he now plans to demand an investigation because “it’s either the U.S. government or foreign agents or private organizations that are fanatical.”

“There is a pattern to it, certain groups are targeted, and the purpose is to harass these people,” Edwards said.

Local law enforcement agencies are investigating the incidents, but most remain unsolved.

In California, a 20-year-old man told Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies last February that he had broken into four Pico Rivera churches that had supported sanctuary for refugees, including the United Methodist Church, to steal money. But he was not charged with the crimes because deputies said his confession was improperly taken. However, he was charged with other burglary counts.

In Boston, two men were convicted in October of breaking and entering at the Old Cambridge Baptist Church. The break-in last June was the eighth burglary since November, 1984, at the sanctuary church, which rents space to several Central American activist groups.

Beverly Treumann, director of the New Institute of Central America, which is based at the Cambridge church and runs a school in Nicaragua, said the two men confessed only to the last break-in. “It doesn’t explain the other seven break-ins,” she said.

In Washington, Mary Patterson, assistant to the director of the International Center for Development Policy, said burglars tossed a brick through a second-story window of the three-story building and climbed in from an adjacent roof either late Friday or early Saturday.

She said office workers found “all the file drawers were open in every office on the second and third floor,” computer disks were out of order, sealed letters had been opened, appointment books were rifled, and papers were strewn on the floor.

The only item apparently stolen, she said, was a handwritten manual on White’s desk that allegedly documents a covert flight from the United States in April, 1983, carrying 44,000 pounds of small arms and ammunition to Nicaraguan rebels. She said the manual was from the files of Southern Air Transport, a Miami-based company that has provided planes used to ferry arms and ammunition to the rebel forces.

“We assume it’s for political reasons,” Patterson said of the break-in. Washington police have made no arrests in the case.

Bob Drogin reported from New York and Ronald J. Ostrow from Washington.