Foes of Castro in Miami Aiding Nicaragua Rebels : Central America: Effort aims to escalate Contras’ battle against President Chamorro. Assistance excludes weapons.

Hoping to escalate a simmering war against President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, anti-Castro militants in Miami are providing money, advice and other assistance to Contra rebels operating in northern Nicaragua.

The assistance, which may violate U.S. law, does not yet include weapons but could give a boost to the rebels, conducting a campaign of sabotage and sporadic attacks aimed at forcing concessions from the Chamorro government.

Tony Bryant, a former Black Panther from San Bernardino, Calif., who joined the fight to oust Cuban President Fidel Castro after spending 11 years in a Cuban prison on hijacking charges, is leading the effort. Bryant heads an armed Miami group called Comandos L, which in May signed a pact forming an alliance with leaders of the Nicaraguan group.

Late last month, Bryant sneaked into the northern Nicaraguan hills to visit the rebels, former Contras who have rearmed after first laying down their weapons when Chamorro defeated the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front in 1990 elections.

Other Comandos L Cuban-Americans had traveled to see and assist the Contras in Nicaragua in late May, Bryant said in a telephone interview from Miami. Some of the Contras were quoted last week by people who have visited them as saying the Cuban-Americans provided them with training.

Bryant said the purpose of his visit was to observe the conditions under which the rebels are living and to investigate the best ways to deliver what he called “humanitarian aid.” He would not put a dollar figure on the aid given so far but said it was “more than several thousand dollars.”

The foreign help reminds people here of the way the original Contras got started in the early 1980s. At first a ragtag band of former guards for ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza, plus a handful of disaffected peasants, the Contras became a formidable fighting force after receiving millions of dollars in sometimes-secret U.S. aid. They also benefited from substantial fund raising by private right-wing American groups, who called the supplies they provided “humanitarian aid” to circumvent laws prohibiting U.S. citizens from giving military supplies to foreign groups.

Reports of Bryant’s activities, however, have prompted a stern reaction from the Clinton Administration. The U.S. State Department said the activities are possibly illegal and “particularly repugnant in that they could support violence directed against a friendly government.”

The rearmed Contras, known as “Re-Contras,” oppose Chamorro because she allowed the Sandinista Front to retain control of the military and police after her election. For most of the 1980s, the Contras had fought to oust the Sandinistas from power.

Diplomats here said it is unlikely that the assistance will shift the balance between what is still a small contingent of rebels, numbering perhaps 1,200, and a powerful army that can easily contain them. But the money and supplies could provide a psychological boost for the rebels and help them attract new recruits, the diplomats said.

“It gives the peasant the impression that he’s important,” a Latin diplomat said. “For him, these are gringos” who have come to help.

Blamed for dozens of killings and kidnapings, the rebels represent more of a nuisance to the government than a threat. Led by Jose Angel Talavera, who uses the nom de guerre “The Jackal,” they appear to enjoy some popular support among rural peasants but have little capacity to operate outside of a confined area in the countryside.

“The danger is in internationalizing the conflict,” Sergio Ramirez, the Sandinista politician who heads the national legislature, said of the Miami group. “The conflict is very damaging to the country because of the instability (armed groups) create where they operate.”

The Sandinista-controlled military detected the presence of Bryant and other Comandos L members in Nicaraguan territory and last week blamed the Miami militants and the “Re-Contras” for an alleged plot to assassinate the army commander, Gen. Humberto Ortega.

However, days later, two former army officers were arrested in the alleged plot. Civilians in the Chamorro government and critics suggested that the plot was a smoke screen.

“Everything the (rebels) do helps Humberto,” said prominent businessman Gilberto Cuadra. “He allows them to exist. . . . The moment they become a real danger, they automatically disappear.”

Bryant denied that his group had hatched a plot to kill Ortega, saying the allegation was a “Castro-created lie to divert world attention from the true nature of our struggle” to topple Castro and the Sandinistas.

Sandinista officials were also extremely critical of Vice President Virgilio Godoy, who took the unusual step of visiting the rebels in the northern village of Quilali on July 5. Godoy, who split from Chamorro and is now an opposition figure, said he wanted to hear the rebels’ demands firsthand. He was accompanied by four other opposition legislators and denied his actions were subversive.

One of the legislators, Humberto Castilla, had paid an earlier visit to the rebels and met Bryant on that trip.

“They introduced him to me as ‘a friend from the United States who is helping us,’ ” Castilla said.

Bryant was a Black Panther in the 1960s who hijacked a jetliner to Havana in 1969. He mistakenly assumed the “Revolution” would welcome and harbor him. Instead, he was jailed and spent the next 11 years in bleak Cuban prisons until his release in 1980 under an amnesty program.

Since then, he has lived in Miami and worked to overthrow Castro. He took over leadership of Comandos L after the death early this year of militant Tony Cuesta. The group was responsible for an armed attack on a Cuban hotel--the militants fired from a passing boat--and last year threatened to attack any ship sailing in Cuban waters.

Bryant said his group is actively raising funds for the Contras and that aid so far has consisted of medicine, money and equipment but no guns.

“If we decide to change that, I’m sure our enemies will know,” he said.