Amnesty Plan Lures Deserters From Contras : Sandinistas Also Offer Land, Exploit Pleas by Kin; Hundreds Leave Rebels

The desertion of Nicaraguan rebel commander Jose Frel Mondragon Martinez was an opportunity that the Sandinista government did not waste.

The highest-ranking contra to return home under an amnesty law, Mondragon was put before the press and sent on a speaking tour of seven war-zone towns to denounce his former comrades as unscrupulous killers, rapists, thieves and drug addicts.

Soon, propaganda leaflets that pictured the tall, goateed warrior embracing his mother appeared all over.

The message said: “Mothers who suffer for your rebellious sons, tell them to return. The contras’ future is death. This man surrendered and saved his life.”

In the two years since, the Sandinistas have drawn hundreds of young men away from the enemy ranks with the same formula: appeals by defectors to the mothers, wives and other close relatives of rebel foot soldiers.

Exploits War Weariness

The effort has capitalized on war weariness, feuding among contra leaders and doubts over continued U.S. funding of the rebel cause. Aimed at a largely peasant army, it has been bolstered by the promise of land on state cooperatives to rebellious farmers willing to put down their arms.

As a bitter Mondragon now tells it, the government campaign has also relied on threats and deception.

Interviewed at his modest adobe home on a state coffee farm here, 30 miles southeast of Managua, the 27-year-old former commander made it clear that he is still a contra.

Disillusioned with bickering among his contra superiors and unable to get their permission to travel to the United States for treatment of a head injury, he sought political asylum in the Mexican Embassy in Honduras in March, 1985.

But instead of getting freedom in Mexico, he was turned over to Nicaraguan authorities in Mexico City and put aboard a flight to Managua. There, he said, he was given amnesty, held under house arrest, coached on what to say in public and told that members of his family would be jailed if he deviated from the script.

Kept Under Surveillance

Although his house arrest ended in late 1985, Mondragon said he is still kept under surveillance, harassed by pro-Sandinista gangs and obliged by Interior Ministry officials to sign letters urging rebels whom he knows to come home. The ministry had no comment on his charges.

The Sandinistas often use arrested contras to discredit their comrades in public statements. But Mondragon’s arrest had a major impact because he headed a 500-man regional command of the Nicaraguan Defense Force, the main rebel military group.

“They have used my picture and made me tell lies,” he said in the interview. “Their propaganda is fierce. Along with the hunger and fatigue of the battle, it has caused many to return home.”

According to the government, an amnesty decreed in 1983 has been accepted by 3,288 rebels who surrendered to the Sandinista army, most of them in the last two years. Under the decree, they are exempt from prosecution under state security laws.

Leaders of the Nicaraguan Resistance, now with as many as 12,000 fighters, concede that the amnesty campaign is effective but dispute the Sandinista figure as too high.

Replaced by Recruits

While offering no numbers of her own, rebel spokeswoman Marta Sacasa said in Miami that these lost soldiers are being replaced by new recruits and have not necessarily become converts to the Sandinista cause.

The government’s appeals for surrender have intensified as most of the contras filter into Nicaragua from bases in Honduras for a new military offensive that includes the recruiting of disaffected peasant farmers.

In many cases, wives and mothers of combatants say they have hiked to rebel camps to offer government safe-conduct passes to their men. They are encouraged not only by local authorities but by the pro-Sandinista National Farmers and Cattlemen’s Union, which counts hundreds of former contras among its 125,000 members. Last month the Nicaraguan Red Cross offered to accompany any armed rebel who wants to surrender to the army.

Rebel commanders have reacted by moving new recruits to war zones far from home, to avoid contact with relatives trying to get them to return, Sandinista military officers said.

The place where the Sandinistas say the amnesty law has worked best is El Cua, a hilly farming region of 38,000 people in northern Nicaragua.

Capt. Miguel Castro, the local secretary of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, said 1,800 men from the area joined the contras after a strong rebel offensive in 1983 made it appear that they could quickly defeat the Sandinistas.

Says 400 Have Returned

As the war drags into its sixth year, 480 rebels have returned to El Cua to accept amnesty, including 312 in 1986 alone, Castro said. No more than 10 have rejoined the rebel ranks, he said.

“We cannot end the war just by killing,” Castro said. “Many of the contras have been deceived or recruited by force. Ideologically, their families are not contras. They suffer as much as ours. To bring peace to their homes, we have to be flexible.”

That attitude marks a shift from the early days of the amnesty, when many contras who accepted it were jailed anyway to stand trial or for long security checks.

But there are signs of sharp differences in the Sandinista leadership over just how lenient to be in the face of the new contra offensive. On April 25, Defense Minister Humberto Ortega announced a tough new policy of “violent revolutionary justice” in which citizens were encouraged to kill anyone suspected of rebel activity. Later the same day, President Daniel Ortega flatly contradicted his brother in a speech, saying such violence would destroy confidence in the amnesty law and its ability to weaken the contras.

Rights Sometimes Violated

Amid the high-level dispute, there is evidence that amnesty rights are being selectively violated.

Such appeared to be the case with Sebastian Bobb Hendy, a 20-year-old Miskito Indian rebel on Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast. Inspired by propaganda about the amnesty law, his mother, Teresa Hendy Diaz, said she sent him a letter at a rebel camp in Honduras urging him to come home. After being captured once by the contras while trying to desert, she said, he reached Nicaragua last July and surrendered to the Sandinistas, only to be imprisoned.

Owyn Hodgson, a civil rights lawyer from Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, said eight other Miskito rebels were arrested the following month after surrendering in the coastal town of Pahara.

First, he said, they were paraded before townspeople, confessed their contra connections in speeches and were promised their freedom. Then they were flown by the Interior Ministry to Managua, ostensibly to give a press conference. Instead they were jailed there.

Wilma Nunez de Escorcia, head of the government’s Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, said she was investigating the jailed Miskitos and had evidence that some of them had been captured in combat. This, she said, would make them ineligible for amnesty.

Some Oppose Amnesty

“If they turn over their arms peacefully, they cannot legally be tried as counterrevolutionaries,” Nunez said. But she added that there is strong sentiment in the ruling party against amnesty.

Interviews with more than a dozen townspeople in El Cua, however, showed broad acceptance for the amnesty program, even among widows and mothers of people slain by the rebels. Some residents said they also wanted talks between the government and contra leaders, which the Sandinistas oppose.

“People here are genuine about wanting the contras back as a way to end the war,” said David Ramaley, an American peace activist who frequently visits the coffee- and grain-growing center. “And the Sandinistas are realizing they have to respect the amnesty if they’re going to win support.”

Of six men interviewed in El Cua about their days as contras, all said they were recruited by force and later escaped. However, town authorities said many of those who say this really joined the contras voluntarily before being coaxed back.

Watched Brother’s Return

Two brothers, Angel and Benedicto Salgado, said a rebel band seized them from their small private farm in 1982. Two years later, a couple of rebel deserters persuaded the Salgados’ wives to follow a contra guide into the hills and bring them home.

Benedicto returned but Angel stayed with the contras, waiting to see if the Sandinistas would punish his brother. Nothing happened and he “escaped” last year, after Benedicto went to fetch him.

Like many former contras, they have been resettled--voluntarily, they say--on a Sandinista cooperative farm at Bocaycito, near El Cua. Today, Angel, 38, is president of the cooperative and Benedicto, 26, serves on its 32-man militia.

Three months ago, they said, both helped defend the place from a hilltop fortress during an unsuccessful predawn raid by a band of rebels, including their 55-year-old brother, Francisco, who remains in the contra ranks.