"A Whole New Universe"

By George Russell

A left-wing military buildup worries Washington

By the multibillion-dollar standards of the international arms trade, the deal that came to light last week was almost unworthy of notice. The Socialist government of French President Francois Mitterrand had quietly agreed to sell $17.5 million worth of "nonoffensive" military equipment to the Marxist-dominated Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The items: two patrol boats, two Alouette III helicopters and 15 trucks. Paris also contracted to train a dozen Nicaraguan pilots and an equal number of sailors in the use of the equipment. Yet when word of the deal reached Washington, both Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger registered their "strong disappointment" at the decision of the French government. The reason: the sale ran directly counter to a growing sense of alarm in Washington over the arms buildup in Nicaragua. The arsenal is reaching unprecedented proportions for Central America, and has already turned the country into the predominant military power of the region.

What is more, Nicaragua is willing to use its force, as it illustrated unmistakably last week during a skirmish in the remote swamplands of eastern Honduras. Some 75 members of the revolutionary army of Nicaragua collided with roughly equal numbers of Miskito Indians, members of a Nicaraguan tribe that has rebelled against their country's Marxist-dominated Sandinista government. When the shooting stopped at least eight Indians were dead, according to sketchy local reports, and the Honduran government was enraged at a clear violation of its borders by the Sandinista forces. The ill-equipped Honduran army went on full alert, Honduran troops sped to the trouble zone, and the foreign ministry angrily berated Nicaragua.

There was no immediate danger of a war between the two countries, but the flare-up was yet another sign of the tense atmosphere in a region that is increasingly aboil with Marxist guerrilla activity. The aims, ambitions and military preparations of the Sandinista regime worry Washington and Nicaragua's neighbors. Says Lieut. General Wallace Nutting, head of the Panama-based U.S. Southern Command: "All of a sudden, Nicaragua has become a military base of substantive potential. It's a whole new universe."

Ever since the Sandinistas overthrew the late dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in July 1979, the revolutionary government has zealously embraced Marxism. The Reagan Administration has long charged that the Sandinistas, backed by Cuba and the Soviet Union, give substantial aid to the broadening guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador, where the U.S. is the principal backer of the civilian-military government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte. The U.S. is also a firm supporter of Honduras. Furthermore, the Administration fears that the Nicaraguan military buildup will start a regional arms race, something that no country in the area can afford.

In a series of increasingly bellicose statements, Secretary of State Haig and other top White House officials have decried the "drift toward totalitarianism" of the Nicaraguan regime and have pointedly refused to rule out any U.S. action short of military invasion if Nicaragua does not mend its ways. The U.S. has also cut back its aid to the Sandinista government, but Haig has said that "we do not close the door to the search for proper relations" if Nicaragua "addresses our concerns about interventionism and militarization."

Haig's warnings have notably failed to impress the Nicaraguans. With the help of some 1,500 Cuban advisers, and supplied with Soviet-bloc equipment, Nicaragua has expanded its regular army, which numbered some 8,000 troops in Somoza's day, to between 22,000 and 33,000. The force dwarfs the armies of Honduras (12,000), Guatemala (14,000) and El Salvador (15,000). Nicaragua also has a well-trained "ready reserve" of some 28,000 to 50,000. The country intends eventually to increase the size of its regular army to 50,000.

Just as important as the size of the Nicaraguan military is its relative sophistication. In comparison with the equipment of its neighbors, the Nicaraguan arsenal is formidable. The country has nearly a hundred 122-mm and 152-mm howitzers, dozens of Soviet BTR-60 armored personnel carriers, 1,000 East German and Soviet military transport trucks, and some 30 T-54 and T-55 battle tanks, the same types that are used in Warsaw Pact countries. For air defense, the Nicaraguans have shoulder-fired SA-7 antiaircraft missiles, and four-barreled ZPU-4 and 37-mm antiaircraft guns. U.S. military analysts expect that heavier Soviet antiaircraft missiles will soon appear in Nicaragua.

An even greater concern to Washington than the ground weaponry is the fact that the runways of at least three Nicaraguan airports are being extended to a length that could accommodate advanced Soviet MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighter aircraft. Although the Nicaraguans now have no MiGs, Pentagon officials fear that twelve to 18 fighters will soon arrive. One good reason for the suspicion: about 80 Nicaraguans have been sent to Bulgaria for pilot training, which will include the handling of MiGs. The MiGs would outperform the most powerful air fleet in the region, Honduras' 24 venerable F-86s, A-37s and more sophisticated French-made Super Mysteres, thus giving the Sandinistas another means of intimidating their neighbors. Says Major General William Masterson, the Southern Command's deputy commander in chief: "A high-performance aircraft would make a far greater impact psychologically than would a tank or armored vehicles." Adds a U.S. intelligence analyst: "The whole idea is to send a message to the politicians of the area."

The consequences of any such aerial arms buildup could extend beyond the Central American isthmus. So far as some anxious U.S. military officials are concerned, access to the new airfields would conceivably allow leftist air forces to strike virtually anywhere in the Caribbean region, including at the Panama Canal. If the MiGs arrive in Nicaragua, says General Masterson: "I'd be forced to recommend that the air defense system be greatly improved here."

The Sandinistas insist that their new armed forces are strictly defensive in nature. The Nicaraguans charge Honduras, for example, with tolerating the presence of as many as 2,000 supporters of former Dictator Somoza, who regularly launch guerrilla attacks on Nicaragua. The Sandinistas also claim that the U.S. is trying to undermine their government and cite the fact that ex-Somoza supporters have been getting military training in Florida.

In the eyes of the Reagan Administration, the size of Nicaragua's military buildup does not square with protestations that it is meant to be defensive. Says a State Department expert: "They would like to have an armed force sufficiently strong that they can, with impunity, participate in the subversion of neighboring states. They are, by their own definition, Marxist-Leninist, and it would seem fundamental that they would prefer to see their neighbors in the same bloc."

The Nicaraguan military splurge is financed largely by the Soviets and their allies, but the effort is diverting resources from the task of rebuilding the country after the devastating struggle against Somoza. Although they have been encroaching on their non-Marxist opposition, the Sandinistas have been beset by ultraleftist groups, members of the Nicaraguan Communist Party, who feel that the country is not moving fast enough to ward a total dictatorship of the proletariat. The Communists have encouraged wildcat strikes and farm takeovers that have further hurt the already troubled economy. The Sandinistas have jailed 22 members of the Communist Party and at the same time arrested and imprisoned three prominent businessmen who are members of the country's Superior Council of Private Enterprise. The government accused both the left and the right of criticizing official policy, a practice that is now a serious offense in Nicaragua. Last week, while U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd visited the country, the Sandinistas banned three radio news programs for reporting "misinformation and lies" about the Honduran incursion.

As armed incidents along the Honduran border continue to occur, the Sandinistas have been studying the possibility of declaring an internal "state of war" that would allow the government still greater justification for military mobilization and provide a popular rallying point. Meanwhile, the danger of a real "state of war" increases as Nicaragua's armed forces grow.

-- By George Russell. Reported by Jonathan Beaty/Washington and James Willwerth/Panama City

With reporting by Jonathan Beaty, James Willwerthy

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