Contras Holding Few POWs--and Even They Are Proving a Problem

Shoemaker Rufo Hernandez left his wife and two daughters to serve in the Sandinista military reserves in January, 1985, expecting to be home within a few months.

Instead, within a few weeks he was captured by anti-Sandinista rebels at an outpost in northern Nicaragua. He has spent the last two years in a rebel jail.

“I have a son I haven’t even seen yet,” Hernandez said in an interview recently.

The contras are holding 72 prisoners of war in three wood and barbed-wire cells on a steep hillside overlooking their main base camp. Like Hernandez, many of the prisoners have been held for two years or more.

Human rights and relief workers say negotiations are under way to free the prisoners, possibly within the next two months.

Too Many to Hold

“There are efforts being made to release them,” said Marta Patricia Baltodano, head of the U.S.-funded Nicaraguan Assn. for Human Rights. “There are too many for a guerrilla force to keep. It requires too much infrastructure and security, and there are political reasons for the contras to show the families that they have not killed these people.”

Baltodano declined to give any details except to say that there would be no exchange for prisoners in Sandinista jails. Sources close to the contras said the International Red Cross had been approached about aiding in returning the prisoners of war to Nicaragua. Red Cross officials declined to comment.

“This is very political and very sensitive,” said a Red Cross official in the agency’s regional office in Costa Rica.

The rebel commander in charge of the prisoners, who uses the pseudonym Leo, said only that contra chief Enrique Bermudez has made several public proposals to exchange prisoners with the Sandinistas but that they have been rejected.

‘Puppets’ of Washington

The Sandinistas refuse to negotiate directly with the contras, saying the rebels are “puppets” of the Reagan Administration and that talks of any kind must be with U.S. officials.

Contra officials said that they have a total of 105 prisoners in their jails but that several dozen are rebels accused of crimes or disciplinary offenses. Baltodano said the 72 Sandinista prisoners are either combatants, like Hernandez, or Sandinista infiltrators into the rebel force.

But other human rights officials say they believe that some of the prisoners may have been kidnaped by the contras. They also charge that many other prisoners have been executed in the field.

“That’s a hell of a small number of combatants to have as prisoners after you have fought a war for five years,” said Aryeh Neier, vice chairman of Americas Watch, a New York group concerned with human rights in Latin America. “There is testimonial evidence that the contras kill prisoners.”

Admit Holding 3,900

The Sandinistas admit to holding about 3,900 political prisoners, including approximately 2,300 who served in the old National Guard under dictator Anastasio Somoza. It is not known how many of the remaining prisoners are armed combatants or simply civilians suspected of having aided the rebels.

The opposition Permanent Commission on Human Rights in Nicaragua claims that the Sandinistas are holding 7,000 political prisoners.

Sandinista jails are generally off limits to reporters.

In a 15-page letter to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega last month, Neier asked the government to investigate several recent cases of alleged government human rights abuses, including:

-- Three cases of prisoners held incommunicado in jail.

-- Three cases in which people detained by the army or state security forces disappeared.

-- Two cases of torture in prison.

Neier also called on the Sandinistas to investigate the April deaths of three members of a contra unit involved in blowing up an electrical tower. According to the Sandinista Interior Ministry’s account, the rebels were captured and later killed by state security officials when they “attacked their guards and tried to escape.”

Deaths in Custody

The official explanation, Neier said, “raises serious questions. In cases in which prisoners die while in custody, we believe the government has the burden to demonstrate that their deaths were justifiable.”

The rebel Radio Liberacion claims that 16 alleged contra saboteurs have been killed after they were captured.

In a similar letter to contra leader Adolfo Calero on alleged rebel human rights abuses, Neier outlined three cases in which civilians were killed after being captured by rebels and also mentioned two unresolved contra kidnapings.

Neier also repeated Americas Watch’s findings that contra troops killed 10 government soldiers and a school night watchman after they were captured in the town of Cuapa, Chontales province, in 1985.

Six Believed Murdered

The case has recently become controversial again because Baltodano’s group, which is funded by the U.S. Congress under the contras’ $100-million aid package, investigated the killings and determined that the rebels killed at least six of the prisoners.

But unlike Neier, Baltodano does not believe that the contra executions of prisoners are routine.

“I can’t say there haven’t been executions, but it has never been a pattern of conduct,” she said. “The fact that there are prisoners is an indication that they do not intend to kill prisoners. If there have been some cases of executions, they have been isolated.”

In a report titled “Human Rights in Nicaragua for 1986,” Americas Watch accused the contras of “selective but systematic killing of persons they perceive as representing the government” and of “widespread kidnaping of civilians, apparently for purposes of recruitment as well as intimidation.”

Selected by Jailers

During a trip to the contras’ main base camp, a reporter was allowed to speak with four of the prisoners in the company of rebel military police and on the condition that their location not be revealed. Contra police selected the prisoners to be interviewed.

The prisoners said they were well treated in captivity, although they clearly were overcrowded in the jails. The largest of the three cells measured about 20 feet by 33 feet and housed 53 men.

The prisoners said they were given three meals a day, and the day a reporter visited, they were fed a lunch of beans, rice, tortillas and cabbage soup.

The prisoners said they had been visited occasionally by doctors and representatives of the International Red Cross and were allowed outside to exercise once a day “unless it is raining or the guards are too busy.”

They said they had not been beaten or otherwise abused by their jailers. Hernandez, 32, of the province of Nueva Segovia, said he had received mail from his family.

Sent to Infiltrate

Two of the prisoners interviewed said they had been sent by the Sandinistas to infiltrate rebel troops, and one of those claimed that his mission was to kill contra commander Bermudez.

“I came here to sabotage the contra aircraft,” said one, Guillermo Jose Garcia, 27, from Leon province. Garcia said he was discovered before he could do anything.

Rene Gonzalo Campos, 23, of Chontales province, said he was completing his Sandinista military service in a branch of the state security forces when he was captured by contras on a bus in August, 1985.

“I was asleep in the back of the bus when they grabbed me,” said Campos. He said he was in civilian dress but carrying a rifle at the time.

“At first I thought they were going to kill me, but after four or five days, I realized they wouldn’t. They said they were going to take me prisoner.”

‘Trained in Russia’

Comandante Leo, head of military police, shook his head as Campos was led away.

“What he didn’t tell you is that he was trained in Russia,” Leo asserted.

The jails were dark, with dirt floors and green military cots stacked like bunk beds against log walls. The prisoners said they had a radio, until it broke, a few books and dominoes. When there are materials, they weave bags and belts to pass the time, they said.

“Hey, lady!” one prisoner shouted through cracks in the walls as a reporter left. “Send books!”

“Hey, Comandante Leo!” yelled another. “We want a guitar!”

“ Guardia !” a third yelled sneeringly, using the Sandinista term for contras.

“What problem do you have with the guardia in jail?” asked Leo, who was once a sergeant in the National Guard under Somoza.

“None,” answered the prisoner.