Contras Deny Replacing Military Chief

The top leaders of the Nicaraguan Contras met with Secretary of State George P. Shultz on Wednesday and later denied reports that their senior military commander, Enrique Bermudez, is being replaced.

Bermudez, who took part in the session with Shultz and Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, said that despite the opposition of some of his field commanders, he intends to remain in charge of the forces that have been fighting Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime.

“I still am the military chief, and I will continue to be,” he told reporters. Bermudez acknowledged that “a few commanders” under his leadership had demanded his removal, but he maintained: “We have a democratic organization. We have a right to dissent.”

In recent weeks, both U.S. officials and Contra officers have said the Contra leadership has been shaken and weakened by an acrimonious feud between Bermudez and Adolfo Calero, the top civilian leader of the resistance movement. Supporters of the military commander have charged that Calero and his allies have been making too many concessions in negotiations with the Sandinistas.

Asked after the State Department meeting about reports the Contras would name a new military commander, Calero replied, “That just isn’t true.” And State Department officials insisted that the subject of the feud within the Contra leadership did not come up during the meeting between Shultz and the Contra leaders.

Last month, Calero tried unsuccessfully to have the Contra leadership oust Bermudez as military commander.

According to dissident rebel sources in Honduras, as many as 51 Contra field commanders have signed a petition within the last two weeks demanding that Bermudez be replaced. The petition accuses Bermudez of corruption and abuse of power.

‘Bermudez Has to Go’

Among those who reportedly signed the petition are 15 of the 18 commanders of battalion-sized Contra units inside Nicaragua. One leading dissident, Walter Calderon Lopez, known as Comandante Tono, said in a radio interview this week that “Bermudez has to go” and branded him a dictator.

These complaints have cropped up before and are reemerging now under the strains of the cutoff of U.S. military aid to the Contras in February and the preliminary peace accord signed in late March.

Those who oppose Bermudez within the Contra military leadership say some commanders have withdrawn their support from the movement to oust him because of what they call pressure from Bermudez and his backers. Bermudez told reporters Wednesday that only “half a dozen” Contra field commanders were opposing him.

Shultz and Abrams met for more than an hour with the Contras’ five-man political directorate and Bermudez. Department spokesman Charles Redman said the meeting was “part of our continuing effort to stay in touch with the resistance leadership.”

However, Redman added, “This is a time in which unity is going to be needed.” He said Contra leaders told Shultz that the Sandinistas “seemed to be trying to string these talks out, and to string the cease-fire process out, in an effort to weaken the resistance to force its surrender or to starve it out.”

On March 23, Contra leaders signed a preliminary peace agreement with the Nicaraguan government in Sapoa, Nicaragua. That agreement called for a 60-day truce beginning April 1 and for follow-up negotiations on a permanent cease-fire and a future political role for the Contras.

Since then, there has been little progress in the negotiations. One of the Contra leaders, Arturo Cruz, told reporters Wednesday: “We have expressed our worry that the Sandinistas may be using the Sapoa agreement to better their own position, without moving ahead on any concessions to democracy.”

Jim Mann reported from Washington and Richard Boudreaux reported from Managua.