Bermudez Proud of Guerrilla Army of 18,000 : Contras Field Leader Exudes Confidence

In terms of basic resources, Enrique Bermudez has just about everything a guerrilla leader could ask for: thousands of experienced fighters at his command, a secure sanctuary from which to stage his war, millions of dollars in fresh U.S. support.

Yet Bermudez and his army of contras face formidable problems as they prepare to intensify their fight against the Marxist-led Sandinista government of Nicaragua while the controversy over their funding rages in Washington and threatens the political might of their greatest supporter, President Reagan.

Critics, including some former contras officers, say that after more than five years of fighting, the rebels still lack the spirit, the strategy and the skills needed for successful guerrilla warfare. Some say that the key problems are mismanagement and corruption and that Bermudez is to blame.

“That is part of the psychological propaganda to create a bad image of us in Washington and keep them from giving us aid,” Bermudez said in an interview. “I have no knowledge of absolutely any kind of corruption.”

Pistol in Waistband

Bermudez, 53, was in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, for a series of meetings with other contras officials. He is a sturdy man, with dark circles around his deep-set eyes, and he had a pistol tucked in the waistband of his jeans.

No one, he insisted, is more qualified than he to be the chief military officer of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the contras’ main guerrilla army.

“Since the first groups of 50 men, I have been at the head of this force, and no one has been able to replace me,” he said. “I have overcome all the problems, and all of the difficulties and crises of this struggle.”

Bermudez said his main success has been the organization’s growth into a force of 18,000 men. Other estimates of his strength range from 10,000 to 15,000. Indian guerrillas along the Caribbean coast and other rebel groups are believed to field a total of 2,000 to 3,000 additional fighters. But Bermudez’s army dominates the guerrilla movement.

Blames Lack of Supplies

“If there is something I have been successful at, it is in keeping this force united and fighting,” Bermudez said. “To keep 18,000 men who are risking their lives united and fighting is not an easy task.”

If the movement has not enjoyed great military success so far, he said, “it is because of a lack of supplies.”

Nevertheless, he said, the contras have gained valuable experience.

“Our experience is solid, and I’ll tell you why,” he said. “We have gone step by step, experimenting. . . . We know the people, we know the territory, we know the reactions of the people.”

From 1981 to 1984, the contras received an estimated $80 million in clandestine U.S. aid through the CIA. Congress cut off that aid in 1984, after the CIA helped mine Nicaraguan harbors, and the contras had to seek help from other sources.

1985 a ‘Hard Year’

“Nineteen eighty-five was a hard year for us,” Bermudez said. “We pulled back from terrain we had won, and the Sandinistas took it.”

In mid-1985, Congress approved $27 million in non-lethal aid to the contras, but little of it arrived until late that year and it was running out by the middle of this year. In October, after a long campaign by the Reagan Administration, Congress gave final approval to $100 million in new aid, including $70 million in military equipment, supplies and training.

The contras will need more money to keep their war going next year. But Congress seems increasingly hostile to the rebels in light of disclosures that the Reagan Administration sold arms to Iran and channeled the proceeds to the contras in a possibly illegal effort to circumvent the previous congressional ban on military aid--which Congress has since overturned.

The contras say they have not received any money from the arms sales and were unaware that any such funds were funneled to them. Adolfo Calero, the contras’ top civilian leader, said in an interview last week that he does not believe the scandal in Washington will hurt the contras in the field.

Effects of Iran Affair

“The controversy over Iran has affected us in that what affects the United States affects us,” he said. “But directly, it has not affected us. The crisis in Central America is independent of Iran, and the situation in Nicaragua continues to worsen. Congress and the people who help us know that the crisis in Nicaragua is independent of what happens in Iran and has to be considered separately.”

He said he doubts it will be any more difficult to go back to Congress for more money because of the controversy, adding, “First we have to use the money we have been given and make gains with that, and after that see what happens. We are just beginning to use the $100 million.”

Asked when the results of the aid and training might be seen, Calero said, “In a few months.”

As part of the current package, the CIA is again empowered to train and advise the contras. Some analysts predict that the CIA will give the contras needed expertise in irregular warfare, but others recall that past CIA aid had no decisive impact on the war.

Scorned as Mercenaries

The Sandinistas scornfully portray the contras as U.S. mercenaries and Somocistas, followers of the late Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, who was ousted in 1979. At the time, Bermudez, a colonel in the Nicaraguan National Guard under Somoza, was military attache with the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington.

About half of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force’s senior military leaders were members of the old National Guard; about a third of them were once Sandinista officers. Most of the contras troops were campesinos-- peasant workers and small farmers.

Bermudez dismissed the Somocista label as “pure propaganda” and emphasized that rebel troops are volunteers without pay.

“The people come voluntarily, and if they don’t like it, they leave,” he said.

At least 20 contras field commanders have left the Nicaraguan Democratic Force in the past year, many of them disillusioned with Bermudez’s leadership. Four of them bitterly voiced their complaints over lunch recently at a Miami restaurant.

Critical of Bermudez

They said that Bermudez is an unpopular leader with little military knowledge. They accused him of promoting field commanders for their loyalty to him rather than their leadership ability. They charged him with using rebel funds for his own enrichment and for paying off loyal lieutenants.

“The Sandinistas are happy that he is there,” one of them, Ivan Hidalgo, said. “As long as Bermudez is there, they are sure we won’t make it to Managua.”

Hidalgo, 38, was the Democratic Force’s top explosives expert before he was wounded in an accidental explosion in June. He now works as a private security guard in Miami but still uses his contras code name, Halcon, which is Spanish for Falcon.

He said the Democratic Force, known by its Spanish initials FDN, is top-heavy with paid officials who live well in Tegucigalpa and Miami.

Growing Bureaucracy Seen

“The bureaucracy of the FDN has grown while the military part has atrophied,” he said. “Before it is even in power, the bureaucracy is eating the funds that are needed to overthrow the Sandinistas.”

Hidalgo and the other former officers said the contras are deeply infiltrated by spies who keep the Sandinistas informed of their battle plans.

“There have been cases of operations that the FDN was going to carry out where the Sandinistas were waiting for us,” said Marlon Blandon, 29, a former field commander known as Gorrion.

Bermudez acknowledged that the contras have been infiltrated by Sandinista agents. He said there is no procedure available for checking the backgrounds of volunteers coming out of Nicaragua. But “the problem is not serious,” he said.

He also acknowledged that the contras have other problems, but he said they are mostly the result of difficulties connected with adapting the art of guerrilla warfare to an enemy that uses Leninist techniques of controlling the population and the economy of a country.

Hard to Live Off Land

“We are the first guerrilla army to fight against a Marxist-Leninist government in the history of Latin America,” he said.

One problem lies in the traditional guerrilla principle of living off the land. In neighboring El Salvador, supporters of Marxist-led guerrillas can easily buy supplies for the rebels on the local market, Bermudez said.

“In Nicaragua, a peasant who wants to buy a second pair of boots is immediately suspected of wanting to take the second pair to the contras,” he said.

When contras run out of supplies in Nicaragua, they often return to their base camps in Honduras and wait for what they need.

In recent months, more than half of the contras have been inactive, awaiting the arrival of the $100 million in U.S. aid.

“The war is extinguished when it lacks resources,” Bermudez said. “Guerrilla warfare against a totalitarian government has to depend in large part on outside aid.”

Progress Would Justify Aid

Now that the American aid has begun to flow again, Bermudez said, a key to the future of the contras will be to show progress that justifies additional aid.

“We hope that when this aid runs out, we are going to have a different set of conditions that will favor the continuation of American aid,” he said.

Some U.S. officials say privately that they hope the contras will be able to establish control over a piece of Nicaraguan territory, a “liberated zone” that will serve as a sanctuary and a symbol of success. Present contras sanctuaries lie across Nicaragua’s northern border in Honduras.

Other Americans contend that a guerrilla army should not use its limited resources to seize and defend territory but should stick with the small-unit, hit-and-run tactics that are traditional in irregular warfare. Bermudez said he favors small-scale mobility.

Territory Not Goal

“The Sandinistas would like for us to become engaged in a struggle for territory, operating in big units,” he said. “We don’t fight for territory. Our forces are constantly on the move. They don’t sleep twice in the same place.”

A Western diplomat said the contras have been unable to operate effectively in small guerrilla groups because they have not had a reliable system for resupplying widespread units and have lacked effective communications for “command and control.”

The diplomat predicted that the new U.S. aid will help the contras establish an effective air-supply system that will enable small units to stay in the field “much, much longer, if not permanently.” He said two-way field radios with scrambling devices should solve the communications problem.

“Down to the smallest unit (the contras) would have radios so that their activities could be directed and coordinated,” he said.”

Missiles Will Add Power

The $100 million in new aid will also include infantry support weapons such as machine guns and shoulder-fired missiles. Bermudez said that will give the guerrilla tactics more impact.

“In an ambush, with much greater firepower, the results are going to be more damaging,” he said. “Now we have muscle. Now we are going to use it in a very selective way, and we hope that every military action will have a political and propagandistic goal.”

He hinted that the coming campaign will include “spectacular blows,” but he emphasized that the contras will not try to match battlefield strength with the more numerous and better-armed Sandinista army.

“We are going to attack weak positions, not fortified positions,” he said.

To Hit Economic Targets

The contras will also continue to hit economic targets, despite Sandinista claims that they are attacking “the people.” For example, he said, contras recently targeted a grain storage installation at San Juan del Rio Coco, in Nueva Segovia province.

“Our troops attacked the guards who kept watch over it and destroyed the granaries,” he said. “Then the Sandinistas said, ‘Come and see the damage the contras have caused, the mercenaries against the people.’ ”

Grain stored in a war zone is a supply source for the Sandinista military effort, Bermudez said, and added, “We are going to attack targets that are part of the military infrastructure.”

The contras will make a special effort to hit roads, truck convoys and transport helicopters, he said, and “are going to try to destroy the system that the Sandinistas have to resupply themselves.”

Hope to Down Copters

One of the main advantages of the Sandinista army during the past 18 months has been a growing fleet of Soviet-built transport and attack helicopters. As long as the contras lack shoulder-fired missiles, they say, their units can be overwhelmed by air-mobile operations and gunship attacks.

“With the missiles, we are going to reduce that possibility,” Bermudez said.

The increased vulnerability of the helicopters will be a psychological blow to the Sandinistas, he said, and “that affects the morale of the troops.”

He predicted that rebel military successes will result in increased defections from the Sandinista army. He also predicted that as the contras’ war effort takes its toll on the Sandinista military and economic systems, popular opposition to the Sandinistas will grow bolder.

“The crisis that the country is going through is going to increase--the economic, political, social and military crisis,” he said. “To the degree that we succeed in gaining the support of the population, to that degree the Sandinista regime is going to deteriorate.”

Popular Uprising

He said a popular uprising may ultimately be a bigger threat to the Sandinistas than a contra invasion of the capital.

“I personally think it should be the people who overthrow the totalitarian system,” he said. “Sandinista power could collapse without our having to go in and fight in the neighborhoods of Managua.”

It was popular revolt in the cities, not rural guerrilla action, that forced Somoza from power in 1979. The urban uprising, initiated in 1978 by Calero and other civilian business, church and community leaders, was reinforced and later coordinated by the Sandinista guerrillas working clandestinely with such urban groups as secondary and university students and trade unions.

Many analysts say that the contras lack the political commitment and training to prepare a popular revolt. Bermudez said that political indoctrination within the rebel army has not been a high priority.

Disclaims Ideology

“Our army is not a political army,” he said. “We are not trying to instill an ideology in our boys.”

But, in an effort to increase the contras’ political awareness, political instruction is being included in courses at the Nicaraguan Democratic Force’s military school in Honduras. About 11,000 contras have been at the school in the past year, the official said.

He said the contras have begun a program in which officers with guerrilla units will be responsible for coordinating political work among the civilian population.

“A political director will be named in each unit,” he said. “It is going to be done on a large scale.”

A foreign diplomat in Tegucigalpa said increased political action by the contras, coupled with escalating military success, could release a flood of popular involvement on their side.

Popular Revolt Discounted

“The people are out there waiting for a credible alternative that they can support,” he said.

Another diplomat, however, said that the contras have little chance of sparking a popular revolt against the Sandinistas.

“I don’t believe that when the contras blow the horn in Nicaragua everyone is going to rise up in their favor,” the diplomat said. “The problem is that the people in Nicaragua do not believe in the contras. The Nicaraguan people do not accept the contras.”

He said that rebel officers like Bermudez are still widely regarded as Somocistas and that Somocistas are still unpopular.

According to Bermudez, it is Sandinista pressure on the population that suppresses popular support for the contras.

Sees Sandinista Advantage

“The Sandinistas have generated a big psychological war among the rural population,” he said. “They are in a position of advantage over us in propaganda and psychological warfare.”

He admitted that the contras have had little success in organizing clandestine internal resistance.

“Because of the controls that exist, clandestine internal fronts are very difficult to establish,” he said. “There is spying. People are afraid.”

This makes political work by the contras all the more crucial to their campaign, according to Victor Meza, director of a research institute in Honduras. But Meza said the contras have failed to realize that creating a solid foundation of popular support for a guerrilla movement takes years of political work.

“They commit the error of believing that the battle for Nicaragua is mainly military,” he said. “It’s a little like wanting to construct a building starting with the roof.”