Ortega to Expel Americans Over Envoy Incident

U.S. troops surrounded the residence of Nicaragua’s ambassador Friday, ordered all personnel inside to evacuate and searched the premises for weapons, the ambassador said.

In Managua, President Daniel Ortega said Friday night that 20 American diplomats and about 100 U.S. Embassy administrative and service employees will be expelled in retaliation for the incident, which he called “unheard of.”

In an announcement broadcast nationwide, Ortega said the 120 Americans, whose names would be made public within a few hours, will be given 72 hours to leave Nicaragua.

“This violates the principal foundations of the extraterritoriality of diplomatic missions,” Ambassador Antenor Ferrey told a news conference. “The North Americans are going to pay for it.”

Ferrey said he and several other people waited outside while American troops searched the building for about two hours.

The troops seized five rifles inside the residence that Ferrey said were there for self-defense. A U.S. Army colonel in charge of the operation later apologized and returned the rifles, Ferrey said.

Ambassador Ferrey said Ortega told him by telephone that the Sandinista government plans to protest the incident at the United Nations and the Organization of American States.

U.S. Embassy and military officials in Panama said they had no information on the incident.

Ferrey said he returned from Nicaragua’s embassy at 6:10 p.m. to discover about 60 U.S. troops had cordoned off several blocks surrounding the residence.

The Nicaraguan ambassador said the unidentified U.S. Army colonel told him to go inside the residence, then the troops used a megaphone to order everyone inside to evacuate within five minutes.

He said the colonel told him that he had been given orders to search the residence for weapons. A U.S. C-130 transport plane and a helicopter flew overhead.

The Nicaraguans eventually went outside and about 30 of the American soldiers went inside, Ferrey said, adding that he was prevented from accompanying the troops. “They searched the whole house,” he said.

Ferrey described the five rifles as “only light arms used to defend ourselves.”

He said the colonel ordered the arms placed in a U.S. military truck but later gave them back and apologized, saying there had been a mistake. The troops left the area of the residence shortly before 9:30 p.m. Ferrey said the U.S. troops had fired shots into the air before he arrived.

In Managua, a state-run Voice of Nicaragua report quoted embassy employees as saying the troops “fired in the air and intimidated the people inside and forced them to come out with their arms in the air.”

U.S. troops have surrounded the Nicaraguan Embassy since the Dec. 20 invasion but not the residence, a cluster of three homes in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. People living near the residence said they heard gunfire and shouts ordering people to come out of the residence.

On Thursday, Cuba protested that its ambassador and another diplomat had been detained an hour by troops surrounding the Cuban Embassy. U.S. officials denied the ambassador had been detained and said the other official had forgotten his diplomatic credentials, which eventually were retrieved.

A senior U.S. Embassy official said Thursday that under the terms of the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic procedures, U.S. troops have the right to search those entering and leaving missions for weapons.