Managua Starts Major Attack Against Contras

The Sandinista army has launched a major attack against 600 to 800 contras gathered in northern Nicaragua, Defense Minister Humberto Ortega said Saturday.

He said that units of the Honduran army fired artillery shells into Nicaragua after the Sandinistas began their attack on the contras Friday near the village of Wina, not far from the frontier.

No details of the fighting were available. It involves the largest single concentration of U.S.-backed rebels reported by the Sandinistas to be inside this country since the contras began infiltrating from Honduran bases last December to prepare for a spring offensive.

President Disavows Policy

Speaking to reporters and diplomats, Ortega also declared a tough new policy of “revolutionary justice” in which citizens are officially encouraged to help “eliminate” anyone suspected of rebel activity in the war zones or the cities.

Later, however, President Daniel Ortega, the defense minister’s brother, publicly disavowed such a policy, saying it would discourage rebels from surrendering and accepting a government amnesty.

U.S. and rebel officials say that as many as 11,000 contras have penetrated into Nicaragua since Congress renewed their U.S. military aid in late 1986 after a two-year lull. They have launched a campaign of sabotage against electric power lines and other economic targets of the Marxist-led government.

Most of the contras inside Nicaragua, whose number the defense minister estimated at fewer than 6,000, have divided into small units to avoid direct combat as they spread through the country to assigned zones.

Recently, however, a large rebel force has gathered near Wina, on the Bocay River, to try to set up a base for moving men and supplies by boat deeper inside Nicaragua, according to travelers from the area. The village, inaccessible by road, is in the jungle, 190 miles northeast of Managua.

Humberto Ortega said the contras there were trying to show that they can hold territory inside Nicaragua. He noted that several Western journalists have been taken by the rebels to Wina from Honduras in recent weeks.

Landed in Helicopters

Nicaraguan troops landed in helicopters near Wina on Friday and were fighting the rebels with support from artillery units, Ortega said.

“We expect in a short time to push them back to bases in Honduras,” he added.

He said that shelling from Honduras, apparently provoked by the Sandinista attack, was carried out by “small units” of the Honduran army to “harass” the Sandinistas.

But he said there was concern that the fighting could lead to serious conflict with the Honduran army, which is scheduled to play host to joint military maneuvers with the United States next month.

“The position of the United States is to have a Damocles sword hanging over Nicaragua--the permanent threat of an invasion,” the defense minister said. “The maneuvers are to keep that threat hot.”

Late last year, before the contras began infiltrating into Nicaragua, the Sandinista army crossed into Honduras in search of contra bases, and Honduran planes hit two targets in Nicaragua in retaliation.

Raided Contra Center

Humberto Ortega said that the army recently resumed cross-border operations with a commando raid against a contra training center in Honduras. He said “an important number” of rebels were killed or wounded but gave no details.

The defense minister spoke at a ceremony opening a permanent display of weapons captured from the rebels during the five-year-old guerrilla war.

Saying that the army needs help to keep the rebels from attacking civilian targets, he declared: “We are instructing the people to apply violent revolutionary justice, with total rigor, against these elements.”

“We are going to try not only to detain them, but to eliminate them immediately, and we are going to stimulate this attitude among the people,” he added.

On Wednesday, the Interior Ministry reported that three contra suspects were shot to death when they allegedly tried to flee police custody during a search for hidden explosives. They had been accused of blowing up two electrical towers.

Signal of New Toughness

Ortega cited the shootings as a signal of new toughness against suspected rebels and rebel supporters.

“What happened, certainly, is that they were allowed to try to escape and were killed . . . as exemplary punishment,” he said. “In the future, we are going to treat all these individuals in the same spirit.”

A few hours later, President Ortega flatly contradicted his brother in a speech to about 1,000 priests and lay workers of Managua’s Catholic base communities.