Sandinista Abuse Alleged : Killing of Former Contra Raises Amnesty Questions

When Jose Efrel Mondragon returned to civilian life under an amnesty law three years ago, at the war-weary age of 25, he said he wanted to leave behind his Contra past and farm the land in peace.

But after retiring to a farm, the one-time rebel field commander spent the rest of his days in torment. Sandinista security men kept him under surveillance--and, using threats against his family, he said, they forced him to make speeches and sign letters denouncing his former comrades. Five times he was roughed up, and twice he was arrested.

In an interview last year, Mondragon said he felt trapped. “I have begged the Sandinistas to put me in prison, once and for all, or leave me alone,” he said. “I think they would rather kill me.”

Last month, Mondragon’s ordeal ended, as he anticipated, in death. His body, clad only in jeans and undershorts, turned up in the dusty town square of Somotillo, along with that of a cousin who also had left the rebel army. According to four relatives who viewed the corpses, each had been shot at least 20 times, beaten and stabbed.

Their still-unexplained deaths occurred March 18, five days before Sandinista and rebel leaders signed a preliminary peace accord in Sapoa, Nicaragua. But the reports that have since come to light raise questions about the security of Contras who are supposed to lay down their weapons under the agreement.

In follow-up negotiations Tuesday, the rebels accused the Sandinista military of executing Mondragon and his cousin, Adalberto Espinoza, 26. And on Wednesday, they demanded an investigation by the Organization of American States, which is supervising the peace agreement.

“How can we join a political process based on terror?” rebel spokesman Bosco Matamoros asked. “Unless the guilty parties are punished, what are the guarantees that we will not be taken away in the night and eliminated one by one?”

Sandinista officials have told the Mondragon family that both men had joined up with a rebel patrol and were killed in a nighttime battle with army border guards between here and the Honduran frontier.

Account Disputed

That account has been challenged by Mondragon’s widow and another cousin, who said he was summoned from his farm in southern Nicaragua that afternoon to ride with a Sandinista security agent to the Honduran border area.

Other relatives, who buried the two men without an autopsy, also disputed the battle story.

In response to inquiries this week, army and Interior Ministry spokeswomen said they knew of no such battle.

Maj. Gen. Joaquin Cuadra, the deputy defense minister, told Contra negotiators in Sapoa that Mondragon’s death is under investigation.

In the first official comment on the case, he told reporters there was a clash near Somotillo on March 18 but raised doubt whether Mondragon was involved. He said Mondragon was seen that night in a Somotillo bar. “The situation is still being clarified,” he said.

Borge Warns Editor

The government seems worried that Mondragon’s death could derail the already troubled peace process. Neither pro-government newspaper has reported it. When the opposition daily La Prensa did so in a brief news item March 25, Interior Minister Tomas Borge summoned an editor to warn against “perturbing” the peace accord. Relatives of the dead men say they have been threatened with prison if they discuss the case.

Officials say they are sincere about forgiving former Contras. Under a 1983 amnesty law, more than 4,000 rebels have had their war records legally erased by turning in their weapons. Interviews with dozens of them over the past year indicate that the great majority suffered no reprisals.

But most are peasant farmers who were recruited into the Contra army by force. The Sandinistas’ treatment of former field commanders like Mondragon has yet to be fully tested because he is the only one to come back so far.

While his defection was a propaganda coup for the government, there is no lack of speculation about why some Sandinistas might have wanted him dead. No one in the government, meanwhile, has suggested he was killed by the Contras.

“People around here thought it strange (the Sandinistas) didn’t kill him sooner,” said Humberto Cerda, a civil rights lawyer in Jinotepe, near Mondragon’s farm.

Lived on Coffee Farm

People who knew him believe Mondragon outlived his usefulness to the Sandinistas by refusing, about a year ago, to sign more letters urging rebels to come home. Others say security police were jealous of his relative comfort on a 24-acre coffee farm provided by the state.

Lino Hernandez, head of the anti-government human rights commission in Managua, said Mondragon’s death raised the possibility that someone in the Sandinista leadership wants to wreck the peace accord.

“They (the Sandinistas) will always hate the Contras,” said Enriqueta Martinez, Mondragon’s 46-year-old mother. “They just don’t pardon anyone.”

Mondragon was born in same two-room adobe house where his mother still lives in Cinco Pinos, a bleak border town 20 miles from here. To escape the poverty of his peasant origin, he joined President Anastasio Somoza’s National Guard in 1976, at age 16.

But he seemed incapable of escaping the legacy of two wars. He fought against the Sandinista insurrection and was arrested for 45 days in 1979 after Somoza fled and the guard collapsed. Absolved of war crimes, he returned to Cinco Pinos. But people told him he was crazy to stay; the Sandinistas would surely kill him, they said, so he went to Honduras to look for work.

Joined Contra Army

Threatened with expulsion from that country, he was persuaded to join other ex-guardsmen organizing what was to become the Contra army.

In March, 1982, he led the squad that blew up a highway bridge over the Rio Negro in what historians call the opening salvo of the Nicaraguan war. He became “ Comandante Moises,” leading 500 guerrillas.

In the interview last year, he said he quit the Contras because he was disillusioned by bickering among his superiors. He took refuge in the Mexican Embassy in Honduras.

But instead of getting freedom in Mexico, he was turned over to Nicaraguan authorities and put aboard a flight to Managua. From there he was sent on a speaking tour of war zone towns, denouncing the Contras as killers, rapists, thieves and drug addicts.

“The Contras’ future is death,” read a propaganda poster bearing Mondragon’s photo. “This man surrendered and saved his life.”

‘Forced to Tell Lies’

Mondragon made it clear in the interview that he was still a Contra at heart. He said he returned to Nicaragua against his will and was “forced to tell lies” to protect his family. In return, he said, an imprisoned brother was freed. His mother said last week that Borge, the interior minister, gave him a 9-millimeter pistol and swore in front of her that his life “will always be protected.”

Security police of Borge’s ministry visited the farm at least once a week and often took him away for several hours, said his widow, Zaida Baltodano. “He would come home depressed, unable to sleep,” she recalled. “But he didn’t want to talk about it.”

The day he died, Mondragon handed his wife a note as he left the farm. It said a security agent known only as Emilio was coming to the crossroads, a few miles away, to pick him up. Mondragon brought his cousin along for company. “Don’t worry,” he wrote, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Linked to Contras

His wife and Mario Mondragon, a cousin who lived with them, recalled him saying he was going to be driven to the Honduran border area to help the agent find an uncle named Danilo Mondragon. They said the uncle was suspected of helping the Contras.

Nobody has reported seeing a security car pick up Mondragon. Emilio, reached through a Managua phone number on the note, denied having seen Mondragon that day.

But Zaida said her husband could not have gone off to join the rebels. She said he left the farm at 4 p.m., not early enough to get to the border by dark, did not wear boots and went equipped only with a canteen.

Some speculation about Mondragon’s death focuses on Capt. Bayardo Obregon, chief of the border guard battalion in Somotillo. Matamoros, the Contra spokesman, said he had information that the captain had arrested Mondragon in a bar the night of his death. The story could not be confirmed here, and Obregon was said to be on vacation.

Townspeople on the way to early Mass said Obregon summoned them to view the bodies of Mondragon and his cousin the morning after. “These damn dogs, these killers, came to invade Nicaragua and fell into our hands,” one woman quoted Obregon as saying, as soldiers took turns kicking the corpses in the town square.

“They were tortured and murdered,” said Nubia Mondragon, an aunt of the victims. “Who is going to believe in amnesty after this?”

Times staff writer William R. Long contributed to this story.