U.S. Accused of Impeding Relief Effort for Nicaragua

The Reagan Administration, which has withheld official disaster aid to Nicaragua in the wake of Hurricane Joan, is also deliberately hampering relief efforts by private U.S. charities, aid officials charged Friday.

Several private charitable organizations complained that the Administration has refused to assist their efforts to deliver donated goods to Nicaragua and has even threatened to declare some aid shipments illegal under the U.S. economic embargo of the country.

“We’ve been told that the political directive came down: Nothing--no aid at all,” said Richard M. Walden, president of Operation California, a Los Angeles-based relief group that is organizing an airlift of supplies to Nicaragua next week. “It’s kind of appalling that the White House and the State Department are interfering in the process of disaster aid.”

White House and State Department officials denied that any deliberate effort has been made to block private aid, but they acknowledged that the Administration has taken few steps to assist the charities.

The White House announced earlier this week that it does not plan to offer any U.S. government aid to Nicaragua, where Hurricane Joan last weekend claimed at least 116 lives and left as many as 187,000 people homeless, according to figures made public Friday in Managua. The United States is sending disaster relief to neighboring Costa Rica but is withholding help from Nicaragua because of President Reagan’s goal of overthrowing the leftist Sandinista regime.

“We don’t trust the Sandinistas enough to give them aid,” a White House official said on Friday. “We don’t know how they would make use of it . . . and we expect they would try to take credit for it themselves.”

Walden said the Administration has told the aid groups that shipments of food, clothing and medicine are allowed under the embargo but that construction supplies and electric generators may not be shipped without special permission, which has not yet been granted.

A State Department official said the Administration had offered to “expedite the process” of granting permits for such shipments, “but we can’t promise that any permits will be granted.”

“We’re not getting any indication that there will be any additional financial assistance that we can use to supplement our privately raised resources,” said Russ Kerr, director of relief for World Vision, an aid organization based in Monrovia, Calif.

No Official Explanation

Several spokesmen for the State Department and the Agency for International Development, which handles disaster aid, refused to explain the Administration’s policy on relief for Nicaragua on the record.

But speaking on condition that he not be identified, a senior AID official noted that the Sandinista regime recently refused an offer of U.S. government medical aid because it was part of a program that also provided supplies to the U.S.-backed Contras, who are fighting to overthrow the Managua regime.

“We’re not going to stand in their way,” he said of the private charities. “But our ability to facilitate private aid is limited by virtue of what the Sandinista government itself has said. They’ve said our assistance is not welcome.”

One of the key issues is the use of U.S. military aircraft to deliver privately collected relief supplies to disaster areas.

AID and the Air Force frequently provide free cargo flights for relief aid, but Kerr and Walden said their inquiries on behalf of Nicaragua have been rebuffed.

A State Department official said the Sandinistas would not permit a U.S. military plane to land. Not so, said Walden: “The Sandinistas said they would permit an Air Force plane to land. Then the State Department told us they required a formal, written request for aid from the Sandinista government. The Sandinistas don’t really want to do that.”

As a result, he said, “we’re going to charter a commercial cargo plane, and it’s going to cost us $40,000 that we could be putting into supplies.”

“We are getting reports from our field staff in Nicaragua of a truly desperate situation, especially in rural areas,” Kerr said. “There’s an incredible shortage of supplies. Blankets and building materials are required right now for shelter. There’s a terrible health problem; because of contaminated water, epidemics are starting to break out.”

Ironically, the hardest-hit area of Nicaragua--the Caribbean coast--has long been a region where the Sandinistas’ political support has been weakest.

Would Prefer U.S. Aid

Residents of the devastated town of Bluefields have told American reporters that they resent the need to rely on “Communist help” and would prefer to receive aid from the United States.

On Friday, a group of 12 Democratic congressmen--including 10 Californians--wrote to President Reagan, asking him to reverse his policy on aid to Nicaragua and declare the country a disaster area, as he has in the case of Costa Rica.

Referring to the Sandinistas’ rejection of U.S. medical aid before the hurricane, the congressmen wrote: “We do not believe that foolhardy behavior by the Sandinistas should inhibit the United States from recognizing that a natural disaster has occurred and indicating willingness to help the people of Nicaragua.”