Contras Must Alter Tactics, U.S. Military Chief Warns

The Pentagon’s top military officer warned Thursday that Nicaraguan contras must unite and change their tactics or face losing U.S. financial support in their opposition to Managua’s Sandinista government.

Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that contra groups have shown almost no success in forcing political change in Nicaragua with hit-and-run tactics across the border from Honduras.

“You have got to have some kind of success or you’re not going to get a continuing commitment. I don’t know of anybody that would ask the American public to go on and on indefinitely without progress,” Crowe said.

He said that splintered factions in the rebel movement must unite and begin operating from within Nicaragua, broadening their base of support in the country and pressing for political change in the government.

The contras are currently receiving $100 million in U.S. military and other aid, and the Reagan Administration hopes to win approval from Congress for additional help for the rebels.

But Crowe said at a meeting with military correspondents that if the contras “are going to be viable as a military force, if they are going to be viable in forwarding their political aims, they have to change the way they are doing business. They have got to do it better.”

Crowe stressed that he opposes any direct U.S. military intervention in Central America, where the Reagan Administration has accused Nicaragua of repressive internal policies and of fomenting leftist revolution in other countries.

“I have never heard it (intervention) discussed, and the chiefs certainly would be opposed to direct U.S. involvement,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Chicago-based American Medical News published a report by a group of U.S. doctors and other health professionals charging that the contras have attacked Nicaraguan health clinics in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions and as part of a terrorist campaign.

The group, organized by the National Central American Health Rights Network, said that it independently confirmed the attacks during three separate trips to Nicaragua, beginning in 1984. It said it visited the sites of six rural clinics allegedly bombed or burned by guerrillas of the Nicaraguan Democratic Front, the largest U.S.-backed force seeking to overthrow the Sandinista regime.

The report was written by Sandy Smith, a Washington-based free-lance journalist who accompanied the health workers during trips in November, 1985, and in 1986. In both cases, four doctors, a nurse and a development worker also made the trip.