No Troops in Honduras, U.S. Bombs Villages, Nicaragua Claims

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Foreign Minister Miguel D’Escoto denied Sunday night that any Nicaraguan troops are in Honduras and claimed instead that U.S. warplanes bombed two Nicaraguan villages Sunday afternoon, wounding eight people.

Michael O’Brien, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, said that D’Escoto’s charge was “completely false,” calling it “a maneuver by the Nicaraguan regime to distract public attention from the Sandinista aggression against Honduras.”

In Managua, D’Escoto said: “If the Honduran army is having a confrontation with some Nicaraguans (inside Honduras), it would have to be with the contras because they are the only ones (Nicaraguans) who are in Honduran territory.”

He also claimed there were U.S. air raids on Nicaraguan territory Sunday afternoon.

“Today Nicaragua has been the object of a series of air bombardments in the northern zone of the country,” D’Escoto said. “Everything indicates that the planes . . . are North American.”

He said the first raid occurred at 3:30 p.m. near the headquarters of the 1st Brigade, four miles northeast of the village of Murra, 120 miles northeast of Managua and about 14 miles southwest of the Honduran border. Later, warplanes bombed the village of Wiwili three times, D’Escoto said. Wiwili is 100 miles northeast of Managua and 16 miles south of the Honduran border.

D’Escoto said three Sandinista militiamen, two civilians and three soldiers were wounded in the attacks. He also said the troops did not return the fire.