Contras Now Engaged in a ‘War of Patience’ : Despite Cutoff of U.S. Military Aid, Nicaraguan Rebel Forces Are Intact With Their Spirits High

In this mountain valley near the Nicaraguan border, thousands of idled Contra foot soldiers are training intensely for a war that may never be fully revived.

Having withdrawn all but a token guerrilla force to camps in Honduras, the rebel movement is staring at many signs of defeat. Its civilian support network is collapsing across rural Nicaragua. Its U.S.-supplied ammunition is running low. Feuding among its leaders is running high. And its most powerful supporter, Ronald Reagan, is leaving the White House.

But nearly a year after its military aid was cut off by Congress, the peasant army is largely intact and surprisingly spirited. If the rebels’ seven-year-old battle to oust Nicaragua’s Sandinista leaders is lost, no one has told them yet.

‘New Kind of Struggle’

“A lot of people predicted we could not stay together six months without military aid, but here we are,” said Juan Ramon Rivas, the Contra chief of staff, who is known as Commander Quiche. “We are in a new kind of struggle, a war of patience. We are going to find out how long we can hold our heads under water.”

On a bulletin board at Quiche’s strategic command post, a tree-shaded bivouac of tents and shacks at the end of a muddy trail, is the Contra motto of the day: “Only the opportunistic and the heartless will abandon us because of the nature this war has taken.”

Rebel officials estimate that since the retreat from Nicaragua began last spring, 500 to 1,000 guerrillas have deserted, leaving about 9,000 fighters in two main camps in Honduras. At least 1,000 are inside Nicaragua, and scores of new recruits are still joining up.

The Contras’ staying power is sustained by economic hardship and political polarization inside Nicaragua and by non-lethal U.S. aid that keeps the guerrillas fed, clothed and sheltered. It is reinforced by organized wishful thinking: steady assurances from commanders to the troops that the next U.S. Administration will rearm them in a matter of months.

The rebels have not broken their dependence on American military aid, and many diplomats and politicians in Central America doubt it will ever flow again. “The Rambo days are over,” an adviser to Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez said.

But however unclear their future may be, the cohesive presence of the Contras here affords President-elect Bush at least the option of reviving them as a weapon and keeps the Sandinistas from proclaiming victory.

Conscription Will Continue

“Just because Reagan is going, we cannot say it is time to bury our rifles,” Nicaraguan Defense Minister Humberto Ortega said last month, explaining that wartime conscription will be maintained. “We must sharpen our defenses and wait to see what Bush will do with the Contras.”

Apparently to show that the insurgency is alive and battle-worthy, Contra leaders have opened Yamales, a network of camps for about 7,000 soldiers, to U.S. congressmen and foreign journalists in recent weeks.

During a 48-hour visit by a reporter, some rebels were playing volleyball. Others were filing like ants to a supply depot and hauling food sacks home to stick-frame huts covered by black plastic sheets or jungle-camouflage ponchos.

Several miles away, at the new Military Instruction Center, more than 600 junior officers hunched over tables and sprawled on a parade ground. They were taking their first written exam of a six-week course on field tactics, map reading, Nicaraguan history, communications, intelligence and psychological operations.

Signs of Expansion

The sound of buzz saws indicated that the center is expanding. Soon there will be courses for all ranks in reading, writing, first aid, computer operations, sanitation, vehicle maintenance, human rights and explosives.

Each of the two dozen Contra soldiers interviewed said he soon expects to be fighting again inside Nicaragua. Contra leaders said increased training and better food distribution have boosted morale since the early, chaotic days of the retreat.

Still, there is much idle time and some fretting: Officers get money to spend in nearby towns and soldiers don’t; the camp has not been getting rice or steak sauce lately. One rebel, code-named Black Eagle, declared that if he cannot fight the Sandinistas he will soon leave to fight Marxist guerrillas in El Salvador. Another offered to sell his pistol for $500.

One field commander, known as Danilo, called his troops into formation one morning to warn against vices bred by idleness: sleeping late, eavesdropping on officers’ radio communications and selling U.S.-donated powdered milk rations to Honduran profiteers.

‘More Time to Think’

“When they are not fighting, they have more time to think of other things,” said Commander Denis, the rebels’ chief of personnel. “We’re trying to keep everyone busy.”

A year ago, the rebels were spread up and down Nicaragua’s central mountainous spine, holding the battlefield initiative. Their U.S.-supplied Redeye missiles had neutralized Sandinista air power. Twice in late 1987, they launched major offensives, sweeping in and out of eight major towns.

Their long retreat began after Congress, holding out hope for a negotiated settlement, refused last February to renew the rebels’ military funding. On March 23, Contra leaders signed a truce. The exodus from Nicaragua accelerated when follow-up talks with the Sandinista government, aimed at gaining political concessions in exchange for the rebels’ disarmament, broke off June 9.

Infighting over who is to blame for these setbacks has since occupied much of the Contra leaders’ energies.

Fifteen widely respected field commanders abandoned or were expelled from the guerrilla army after leading a failed rebellion last spring against the top commander, Enrique Bermudez, whom they accused of weak leadership, corruption and cronyism.

Killing of Aide

The rebel leadership was shaken again a week ago when Manuel Adan Rugama Acevedo, a former field commander who backed Bermudez in the rebellion and became his top aide, was slain by two gunmen on a Honduran highway.

Although the Contra leadership immediately blamed Sandinista hit men for the unsolved murder, several Contras said privately that Rugama, a powerful and often arrogant man known as Commander Aureliano, might have been killed by one of his many enemies in the rebel movement.

“Politically, the resistance is lost,” said Marta Sacasa, a former Contra spokeswoman who backed the dissident commanders. “So many Nicaraguans who supported it, in Nicaragua and abroad, have been turned off by the feuding. The old idealism is gone.”

The soldiers in camp here seem insulated from the infighting. But the weekly arrival of ragged, exhausted fighters from Nicaragua brings new accounts of Contra reverses there.

In rural areas where the rebels once roamed freely, Sandinista patrols are setting up new army outposts, building schools and chasing away what few rebels remain. In a hearts-and-minds effort known as “Operation Deluge,” black-beret troops of the Interior Ministry have followed the army, rounding up hundreds of suspected Contra collaborators for interrogation and propaganda lectures.

‘A Silent Offensive’

Each army accuses the other of violating the continuing truce in small clashes that occur about once or twice a day.

“You hear fewer rockets and mortars, but underneath the calm the Sandinistas are waging a silent offensive,” said Commander Mack, the Contras’ chief of intelligence. “They have reached areas where before they could not even put a bullet.”

With their clandestine CIA air routes shut down since last February, Contras inside Nicaragua no longer receive air drops of food or money, the glue for sealing rural allegiances. The Sandinistas are gaining political ground with food convoys to isolated hamlets, according to rebel patrol leaders arriving here.

Hundreds of peasant supporters have followed the Contras to Honduras, leaving few loyal allies in some hamlets. Many civilians arriving here are training to take up arms, when and if there are ever enough to go around.

One batch of 15 recruits straggled in from Nicaragua this month with 80 rebels of the Salvador Perez Regional Command, which once fielded more than 600 fighters near the northern town of Pantasma.

Today, just 20 rebels remain there--part of the minimal nationwide force assigned to keep some pressure on the Sandinista army and show peasant supporters that the insurgency is not dead.

‘Things Are Tough’

“The people see hundreds of Sandinistas and so few of us,” said a 24-year-old fighter named Johnny, who retreated with the group. “We have not completely lost the zone, but things are very tough.”

Other members of the patrol said they have spent most of the ammunition reserves they had buried in the zone.

Since the Sandinistas moved a 1,000-man artillery base to the area recently, Johnny said, sympathetic peasants have stopped running messages and feeding rebel patrols in their homes. Instead, the rebels often must disarm and don civilian clothes to enter even the smallest villages.

A separate visit to the Pantasma region confirmed this picture of rebels on the run. Farmers told how a Sandinista patrol posing as Contras was relayed from one rebel messenger to another until reaching a guerrilla leader named Pancho. He was arrested, along with six of the couriers, a Sandinista official said.

Rebel officials say a renewal of their U.S. military aid and CIA air drops could help them rebuild the civilian networks in a matter of months. But even if the aid comes, many of their old friends will be gone.

“I’m moving away,” said an aging rebel collaborator near Pantasma. Two months ago, he said, the army forced him and a dozen other peasants to bury three dead Contra suspects. “Everybody is afraid here. With the Contras gone, our lives are worth little.”

Upbeat Mood Sought

To counteract the grim tales from Nicaragua, U.S. and Contra officials have worked to create an upbeat mood here.

Just after Christmas, the troops were assembled for a speech by Robert Schweitzer, a retired U.S. Army general who was visiting the camp with California Rep. David Dreier (R-La Verne).

Several soldiers, who were told that the general was an official spokesman, recall his saying that U.S. military aid to the Contras is a “good possibility” and that the Sandinistas “will not last another year.”

Bush has said he supports the Contras. But his aides say he is preparing a Central American policy that will emphasize diplomatic efforts to settle the Nicaraguan conflict.

Bush’s choice for secretary of state, James A. Baker III, has told senators he wants to keep the Contra war on hold while using the threat of renewing it as “leverage” to press the Sandinistas in negotiations toward a more pluralist democracy and less alignment with Cuba and the Soviet Union.

Optimistic Forecast

In a recent radio broadcast to his troops, rebel commander Bermudez gave a hopeful prediction of future U.S. policy.

“We are certain,” he said, “that Bush will take diplomatic initiatives that will achieve the bipartisan support he needs (in Congress) to obtain military aid.”

Many rebels who endured an 18-month cutoff of official U.S. arms aid in 1985 and 1986 said they believe that this was just another hiatus. But some Contra leaders said the troops’ expectations of new aid will be hard to sustain for more than a few months if the new Administration fails to act quickly on Nicaragua.

Meanwhile, the rebels themselves are quarreling publicly over how to confront the Sandinistas.

A faction led by Alfredo Cesar threatened in October to break away from the leadership and negotiate a political settlement with the Sandinistas. The other group, led by Adolfo Calero, the senior Contra director, then agreed to call for a return to the bargaining table, but with a less flexible proposal that the Sandinistas would probably reject.

The seven Contra directors have met several times in recent weeks, with the mediation of U.S. officials, but failed to agree on a unified proposal.

‘Long, Long Shot’

“There are people in the right wing of the Republican Party who have told the (Contra) hard-liners that they have the power to oblige the Bush Administration to seek military aid by March,” Cesar said. “I consider this a long, long, long shot. It would be irresponsible to take the resistance down that road.”

“Now that the war is virtually paralyzed, diplomacy and economic pressures have to be tried,” Cesar said. “I believe these pressures can be more dangerous to the Sandinistas than military pressure.”

Calero said that his plan is backed by the guerrilla commanders and a majority of the directors.

“Any other proposal is out of the question,” he said. “We cannot struggle against the Sandinistas while we are struggling among ourselves.”

Another rebel leader said there was little difference between the two proposals. Instead, he said, they reflect “a negative, absurd confrontation” between two men trying to oust each other from the directorate, wasting its bargaining power in the process.

Time Running Out

“The perspective for us is very negative,” said Contra director Roberto Ferrey. “Time is not on our side. If our fighters do not see any real political pressure on the Sandinistas, they might return to Nicaragua and roam around like gangs out of control, without possible or legitimate objectives.”

Many young soldiers in the camp spoke of that very possibility, with a bravado born of growing up in war and thinking of little else.

Sitting in his tent one afternoon, a 23-year-old fighter named Walter recalled how he had taken up arms in Nicaragua’s cattle-raising province of Chontales in 1981, a few months before the CIA started organizing the rebels. He reflected without bitterness about the long war that is not being won.

“Only with the help of God and your Congress can we liberate Nicaragua,” he said. “But if we do not get your help, we will go back and fight with whatever weapons we can steal from the enemy. Those of us who have fought can never live peacefully under Sandinista rule. It may never be the same war, but we will keep fighting it. We are very patient.”