Contras Attack 4 Towns, but Key Road Is Still Intact

Anti-Sandinista rebels fought their way into four towns in a series of coordinated attacks along the country’s strategic east-west highway but failed to cut the road, government and rebel officials said Friday.

The Defense Ministry said 20 Sandinista soldiers and militiamen, 18 rebels and a civilian died in the fighting Thursday, and two Sandinista soldiers were missing in the crash of a helicopter shot down near the road Wednesday.

Several hundred guerrillas took part in the largest contra offensive since the Aug. 7 signing of a Central American peace accord that calls for the United States to stop assisting them.

Sandinista Supply Route

It was the contras’ biggest effort to cut the Rama Road. The highway runs from Juigalpa east to Rama, a port on the Escondido River that flows to the Caribbean. Most of the war materiel that Nicaragua receives from the Soviet Union and Cuba reaches Managua over the river-highway route.

Defense Minister Humberto Ortega said the rebels tried to dynamite a bridge on the road near Muelle de los Bueyes but caused only minor damage.

The 2:40 a.m. attack was followed by raids on Muelle de los Bueyes, La Batea, San Pedro de Lovago and Santo Tomas, site of a major army garrison. The towns lie along a 60-mile stretch of the road, where heavy fighting was reported until the contras retreated in the afternoon.

“Cutting this highway has been an objective in strategic plans of the United States for several years,” Ortega said. “But in spite of the millions spent by the United States, the strategic highway is still controlled by our people.”

Sandinista soldiers sealed off the entire highway Thursday and reopened parts of it Friday.

Bosco Matamoros, a contra spokesman in Washington, said the rebels failed to cut the road but had proven its vulnerability.

“We have damaged the security of the Sandinistas’ logistical system,” he said. “This will force them to deploy more and more troops along the road to secure their supplies from the Soviet Union.”

The helicopter downed by a contra missile Wednesday near Villa Sandino was the second that the Sandinistas have admitted losing this week and the eighth this year.

Rebel Attacks Increased

Rebel forces have stepped up their attacks since the five Central American nations signed a peace accord calling for a cease-fire and a cutoff of outside aid to the contras by Nov. 7.

The Sandinistas, refusing to talk to contra leaders, have declared a unilateral truce in four small war zones. Rebel leaders have rejected any truce they do not negotiate.

Meanwhile, Nicaragua’s Foreign Ministry said the contras have kidnaped and threatened to execute two clergymen who were working with a local peace commission near Waslala in northern Nicaragua.

The ministry said a Roman Catholic priest, Father Enrique Blandon, and a Seventh-day Adventist preacher, Gustavo Adolfo Tiffer, were kidnaped Oct. 10.

Marta Sacasa, a contra spokeswoman in Miami, denied the Sandinista allegation. She said that five members of a peace commission, including Blandon, met with rebel troops Oct. 10 and that two of them, both military officers, were detained. They were released three days later, she said.

Blandon and the two others were never taken into custody, she said, adding that she had no information on Tiffer.