U.S. Trucks Food to Contra Base Camps

The United States, ignoring protests from Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime, this week trucked 69,000 pounds of food to Contra base camps in Honduras and could approve medical aid for rebels inside Nicaragua within days, a U.S. official said Thursday.

The supplies were the first of $47.9 million in congressionally approved non-military aid to be shipped to the U.S.-backed rebel army, which is observing a cease-fire while Sandinista and Contra leaders attempt to negotiate a permanent peace in Nicaragua.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega immediately accused the United States of a “flagrant violation” of the cease-fire terms, which call for both sides to agree on a neutral and verifiable method of sustaining the Contras during peace talks.

American officials insist, however, that the aid is being delivered under intense supervision that includes inspection of the cargoes for weapons by teams that include Roman Catholic priests and nuns. Price Waterhouse, a U.S. accounting firm, also is independently auditing the shipments.

“We want to be squeaky clean and open about this,” one official said, adding that shipments are being assembled in public view at a Tegucigalpa commercial airport.

Contra leaders in Central America called the U.S. aid a response to Sandinista efforts to make hunger a weapon in the peace talks, either by starving the guerrillas into submission or bribing them into surrender with offers of food.

The two sides have failed to agree on a means of delivering food and other aid to rebels since a cease-fire was signed March 23. Nicaragua wants deliveries to be made by the International Red Cross, but Contra officials contend that the Nicaraguan Red Cross is pro-Sandinista and are demanding private contractors instead.

Air Drops Suspended

The U.S. official, an Agency for International Development employee who refused to be named, did not accuse the Ortega government of starvation tactics and said he is hopeful that the aid issue will be settled next week. The United States is refraining from making air drops of food and clothing inside Nicaragua in the meantime.

However, the official said, Contra troops inside Nicaragua are in “very desperate” straits.

The rebels have been forced to resort to barter and credit to feed and clothe themselves, and several reports indicate that rebels have “requisitioned” food from local farmers at gunpoint, the official said.

U.S. officials said the first cache of American aid, consisting of food purchased in Honduras and a small amount of cash, was sent Tuesday to the two camps in Honduras reachable by truck. AID officials said other shipments of food and clothing are being prepared.

State Department officials plan to select private relief agencies this week to receive cash grants to provide medical aid to the Contras, their families and some war victims inside Nicaragua and Honduras.

Ortega, in a speech, called on Honduras “to expel the mercenary forces from its territory and not allow AID to go there to deliver food and everything else that they could be giving the Contras.” He also accused the United States of making secret helicopter drops of food inside Nicaragua.

Ortega said he will protest to the secretary general of the Organization of American States and to Nicaraguan Roman Catholic Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, who make up the verification commission overseeing the cease-fire.

Obando, meanwhile, withdrew a threat to abandon his role in peace talks after Ortega distanced himself from remarks on state-run radio which the prelate considered offensive, wire services reported from Managua.

Obando had objected to remarks on Radio Sandino that the cardinal was “the spiritual leader” of the Nicaraguan rebels and was therefore an accomplice of crimes and assassinations.

Richard Boudreaux reported from Managua, Nicaragua.