Nicaragua warns of
intervention plans

By TOM MORRIS

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — A
press conference here last week,
attended by top Nicaraguan
government officials, warned of
a U.S.-backed conspiracy to use
Honduran troops and former
Somoza soldiers to carry out an
intervention against the Nicara-
guan revolution.

The conference, which in-
Cluded 150 foreign journalists,
heard Nicaraguan Defence Minis-
ter Humberto Ortega describe

- Secret meetings being held be-

tween U.S. military personnel
and right-wing Honduran army
Officers. He reported the

Mexico-based Latin American
Solidarity Committee revealled
that a meeting had taken place
April 17 between a group of Hon-
duran colonels to plan a coup and
establish a military regime in that
country.

Two militiawomen. These are not -
the children of the combatants —
they are the combatants.

. bolster

Tribune Assistant Editor Tom
Morris has just returned from
Nicaragua where he attended an
international journalists’ con-
ference and had an opportunity
to see the revolution in progress.
These are the first of his reports.

Ortega gave reporters a full
briefing on the military situation
along the 700 kilometre
Nicaraguan-Honduran frontier.
He traced on a map areas where:
attacks, infiltrations and other
provocations are taking place al-
most daily. These added up to 37
armed clashes, 44 air space viola-
tions and 15 infiltration efforts
during the past three months.
Eight Nicaraguan soldiers have
died.

The Defence Ministry attacked
the Reagan administration for
creating the tense situation in the
region. He singled out Washing-
ton’s tolerance of military training
camps in Florida where anti-
Cuban elements and former
Somoza national guardsmen are
carrying out military operations
and, contrary to U.S. federal law,
openly threatening invasion of
Cuba and Nicaragua.

He also criticized the United
States for transferring huge stocks
of war supplies to Honduras to
its attacks against
Nicaragua. These include over
seven million kilos of ammunition
which were shipped there in giant
U.S. C-130 transports. Some cap-
tured made-in-USA arms were
displayed at the conference.

Then, as cameras snapped, two
members of the Honduran army
were brought into the conference
and described their missions in-

Nicaraguan officer shows areas of regular border incursions by Hondu- dependent state under the leader-
ran army and former Somoza national guard. The U.S. is working toward ship of the Palestine Liberation

“Re,
# 2 ey
’ :

. (a
. 12
12

=

5
?

Wu
r

full-scale hostilities to topple the revolutionary government. .

iF

DANIEL ORTEGA: Nicaragua pro-
poses talks with Honduras to
normalize the border situation and
avert open hostilities.

side Nicaragua to determine bor-
der positions and other informa-
tion. They were also supplied
with names of pro-Somoza people
in the country. Both were eventu-
ally pigked up by Nicaraguan
security forces.

Ortega was followed by the
leader of the Revolutionary
Council, Daniel Ortega who re-
peated Nicaragua’s willingness to
hold talks with the Honduras
government to normalize the
situation. He returned to the mat-
ter of a planned right-wing coup
and said it would be in the best
interests of both Nicaragua and
the government in Honduras to
avoid a military takeover.

While appealing for talks to
avert open warfare, Daniel
Ortega reaffirmed Nicaragua’s
determination “to defend its
revolution and its territorial

integrity.

Arab leader
visits GDR

By FILS DELISLE
Tribune Berlin Correspondent

BERLIN — The League of
Arab States and Arabs fighting for
peace in the Middle East through
an independent, sovereign Pales-
tinian. state attach great im-
portance to the assistance they
receive from the German Demo-
cratic Republic and other socialist
states.

This was expressed by Chedli
Klibi, general secretary of the
League of Arab States who vis-
ited here as a guest of GDR
Foreign Minister Oskar Fischer.

At a banquet in his honor,
Fischer said that ‘‘this Arab
generation will never forget that
precisely the socialist states de-
fended the cause of Arab libera-

= tion.”

Klibi replied that ‘‘we base

ourselves on the solid friendship

stressed that ‘‘peace in the Middle
East is tied to the recognition of
the rights of the Palestinian
people ..: who must be able to
decide their own future in an in-

Organization.”’

f May Day in :
free Managua

i
|

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The international day of working
people was celebrated here under the broiling morning sun by

thousands of flag-waving Nicaraguans May 1.
By 9 a.m. the square was full. From where we stood the proud

figure of the father of the Nicaraguan liberation struggle, Gen-
eral Augusto Sandino, dominated the view surrounded by a sea
‘of banners.

_. The crowd sang, waved and danced in a blur of color and
motion. They had come from everywhere — factory, office,
farm and school — to mark their second May Day in free
Nicaragua.

It was a happy and proud morning. And as the strains of the
national anthem drifted across the huge throng, the young faces
became serious. Suddenly the youthfulness became pervasive.
You realized these were not the children of the revolutionaries
who had fought so bravely against Somoza’s gangs — these were
the revolutionary fighters.

These were the soldiers, the group leaders and the com-
manders of the Sandinista Liberation Front. Among them, were
teenage veterans in wheelchairs. You began to understand how
it could be that today’s leader of the Revolutionary government
is 24 years old and why it was that one of the national heroes of
the struggle, murdered by Somoza’s guards, died in his ninth
year.

May Day combined two key themes: the defence of the revolu-
tion, so dearly won, and the reconstruction of the country. The
tasks ahead are enormous. A 1973 earthquake decimated the
capital city and huge expanses of vacant land in the city-centre
still testify to the destruction.

Months of intense fighting and Somoza’s ‘‘scorched earth’’
policy added to the damage. The economy, ruptured and dis-
torted by decades of pillage is being restructured. A massive
literacy campaign is under way, health services put in place and a
whole nation mobilized.

But on May 1 the Nicaraguan people paused in their work to
join with millions around the world to honor those who sacri-
ficed for freedom, and rededicate themselves to building their
land.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 22, 1981—Page 9