Sandinistas Give Arms to Followers : Nicaragua: Thousands of weapons are being passed out to civilians. The incoming government says this could threaten its ability to take over and govern.

Since losing last month’s elections, the Sandinista government has handed out thousands of guns to its supporters in urban neighborhoods, factories and collective farms in the name of self-defense during the post-revolutionary era, aides to President-elect Violeta Barrios de Chamorro said Wednesday.

The weapons distribution was confirmed by those who received them in two northern provinces and by witnesses elsewhere in the country.

“Everyone here is getting arms. It’s incredible!” exclaimed Luis Serrano, an Organization of American States official monitoring post-election developments in northern Nicaragua. “It’s a bomb that could explode at any moment.”

The sudden expansion of informal Sandinista militia and reserve units is helping the ruling party to offset large-scale defections from its power base, the Sandinista regular army. Chamorro has vowed to reduce the size of the army by ending the draft when she takes office April 25.

Her aides asserted Wednesday that more than 10,000 Soviet-designed AK-47 assault rifles and pistols have been distributed since the Feb. 25 election. They said the guns could prevent her from taking effective control of the country, even if the Sandinistas hand over the Defense and Security ministries.

“These arms in the hands of civilians--irresponsible civilians, as many Sandinistas are--could lead to conflicts that nobody can control,” declared Virgilio Godoy, the vice president-elect, who said that two of his neighbors in Managua had been armed in the past week.

Sandinista officials here in northern Nicaragua insist that the arms handouts are closely managed by the military and aimed at protecting cities such as Jinotega from the U.S.-backed Contras, who might be emboldened by Chamorro’s victory to attack Sandinista party militants.

But Col. Manuel Salvatierra, the Sandinista army commander in the north, conceded that some people are being armed to give them greater security about property and other rights gained during the decade-old Sandinista revolution.

“There is a lot of tension and expectation over what will happen when the new government takes over,” Salvatierra said in an interview. “A poor old lady who is worried about some rich s.o.b. taking away her little plot of land has to feel like she can defend it.”

One such woman is Francisca Castilblanco, 52, an illiterate tortilla merchant who supports four children in a two-room house in the Roger Angin slum neighborhood of Jinotega. Hers is one of 340 families given parcels of land seized by the Sandinistas from a wealthy farmer who now, according to residents, is threatening to take the land back.

On Feb. 27, two days after the election, 400 AK-47s were unloaded from two army trucks at the home of a Sandinista leader in the slum and distributed to selected residents, with those as young as 15 receiving them. Ten old rifles belonging to the neighborhood’s inactive vigilante force were collected.

“If (the old landlord) returns, he won’t come here with sweets,” Castilblanco said, proudly showing her assault rifle and two ammunition clips. “We will have to defend ourselves with bullets.”

Like other Sandinistas, she calls Chamorro and the 14-party National Opposition Union (UNO) “enemies of the poor” and covers her walls with large newspaper photographs of defeated President Daniel Ortega.

“We will give up these arms when Daniel orders us to do so,” she said. “He will still be the leader of the people.”

The arms delivery to her slum appears to be part of a major decentralization of the Sandinista armed forces in the wake of Ortega’s defeat--one that could make them harder to control.

At the height of an eight-year Contra war in 1986, Sandinista officials counted 100,000 citizens under arms and another 300,000 ready to take up arms--weapons that are presumably still in stock.

By election day last month, the war had been winding down for two years and the armed forces had been cut to 75,000, according to official figures--20,000 officers and permanent troops, 20,000 young men drafted for two years’ duty and 30,000 militiamen and reservists on active call-up at any one time.

Since the election, hundreds of draftees who went on leave to vote have not returned to their units, according to former soldiers interviewed here and in the capital of Managua. Others said they simply abandoned their posts, sometimes with the consent of their commanders.

“Two days after the election, our officer told us that anyone who wanted to leave could raise his hand, because he wanted an army of patriots only,” said Manuel Pineda, 19, who served in the 368th Brigade in Jinotega.

To the dismay of the officer, Pineda said, about 100 of the 120 soldiers in his unit went home.

At least 300 of the 800 draftees at the Omar Torrijos Tank Battalion in Managua have abandoned the service in the past week, a former soldier said.

“Those who don’t want to continue with us are not going to be forced,” said Carlos Zamora, the top Sandinista party official in Jinotega and nearby Matagalpa. But he added, “If this keeps up, the army could end up without conscripts. We have to fall back on our reserves.”

Technically, the Sandinista union workers now being armed in their factories are being classified as active reservists, while newly armed Sandinistas in city neighborhoods or collective farms are being incorporated into an expanded volunteer militia. In lieu of the draft, teen-agers are being recruited for four months of volunteer combat duty.

Hundreds of people in five neighborhoods of Matagalpa have been armed and put into weekend training courses in recent days, residents said. Two collective farms outside the city have received about 2,500 assault rifles, several witnesses said.

“The guns are to fight against the Contras if they attack, but if the UNO people come around making trouble, we will be ready for them,” said Jose Alexis Guido, 16, the new owner of an AK-47 in Matagalpa.

UNO activists have reported arms deliveries to the Pacific beach resort area of Masachapa and other places far outside the northern war zones. Assault rifles and pistols have been distributed in at least 10 barrios and a handful of factories in Managua, opposition leaders say.

On the night of Feb. 28, two army jeeps delivered a cargo of weapons to the state-owned construction company headquarters near Managua’s lake front, according to a worker there. The next day, he said, Sandinista union leader Rodolfo Fajardo announced the formation of a new reserve unit of 150 party loyalists “to defend the fatherland against the UNO.”

“Their intention is to create chaos so Dona Violeta cannot take power, or at least cannot take control of the construction industry,” the worker said.

On Wednesday, Chamorro’s representatives met with Defense Ministry Humberto Ortega and warned him that the Sandinista arms handout will make it harder for Chamorro to persuade the Contras to disarm. UNO leaders have asked the United Nations, the OAS and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who monitored the election, to support their call for disarmament on both sides.

“We’re not sure whether the Sandinistas are simply trying to pacify their supporters or preparing a hidden agenda of destabilization,” Chamorro adviser Carlos Hurtado said.. “Whatever the case, it’s a mortally dangerous game.”