CIA mines ports
1984 1984-04Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 1 →
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The U.S. Senate approved April 5 an additional $21 million in funds for the CIA-backed "contras" seeking to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The following day, Reagan administration officials acknowledged the CIA's direct role in making and deploying the mines which damaged vessels from six nations in three Nicaraguan ports.
The anti-Sandinista terrorists have already been handed $24 million in funds for fiscal year 1984. One CIA official claimed last month that some 15,000 counterrevolutionaries are currently fighting—up from only a few hundred armed men before they began to receive substantial U.S. aid in 1982.
On April 1, Undersecretary of Defense Fred Ickle praised the counterrevolutionaries for tying up Nicaragua's army in defense operations. The "contras," according to U.S. diplomats, have spent their multi-million dollar bankroll well. Expenditures include the bombing of the airport in Managua; the destruction of oil facilities at Puerto Sandino and Corinto; mine damage to seven merchant ships (carrying oil, food, and medicines); the destruction of farms, schools, and clinics; and the murder of hundreds of civilians.
Meanwhile, 30,000 U.S. armed forces will begin maneuvers this month in a region of Honduras close to the Nicaraguan border. U.S. army engineers have been sent ahead to construct an airstrip 20 miles from Nicaraguan territory within a staging area for the CIA-backed "contras."
U.S. HANDS OFF NICARAGUA! Mondale on the run (See page