Contras Making Progress, U.S. Official Asserts

Nicaraguan rebels are making slow and steady progress in their guerrilla war against the leftist government in Managua, but they still suffer “serious shortcomings” in discipline and training, a U.S. military official said Tuesday.

In a formal briefing for reporters at the State Department, the official was determinedly upbeat about the contras’ performance in the field and suggested that the rebels could gain the upper hand in the six-year-old war in little more than a year.

“They’ve moved the bulk of their force . . . rapidly into Nicaragua (from neighboring Honduras), and that force has stayed inside,” he said. “They’ve had major success in terms of sabotage and destruction of the power grid system in Nicaragua.”

He said U.S. intelligence agencies estimate that the rebels now have some 14,000 armed men inside Nicaragua, have successfully airdropped 355 tons of supplies, and have hit at least four Sandinista helicopters with anti-aircraft missiles.

Under the ground rules of the briefing, the military official’s name and title cannot be divulged.

“The trends are moving in our direction,” he said.

But he added that the contras still suffer from political disunity, uncertain discipline, and geographical isolation in Nicaragua’s sparsely populated north and east.

Many contra units “remain outside effective command” of the rebels’ U.S.-sponsored leadership and “lack the type of discipline that is necessary for this type of (guerrilla) warfare,” he said. He acknowledged the accuracy of reports that some contra units have engaged in virtual banditry, stealing food from peasants instead of waging effective combat against government military units.

“They remain very weak in western Nicaragua, and western Nicaragua is the key,” he said. “That’s where the population is, and that’s where the political balance and psychological balance of this war will be.”

The military official’s assertions, which paralleled similar Administration forecasts, could not be independently confirmed. But Sandinista officials in Managua have acknowledged that the contras have made some headway in moving troops and supplies into the country, while insisting that they remain “strategically defeated.”