Fighting the "Rabid Dogs"

On patrol with the contras in Nicaraguan territory

As the Sandinistas struggle to preserve their revolution, U.S.-backed contras continue to harass the regime from across Nicaragua's northern and southern borders. The largest of the counterrevolutionary groups, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (F.D.N.), based in Honduras, claims 8,000 troops. Although able to move freely over thousands of square miles of northern Nicaragua, the contras are worried that their operations will be restricted if U.S. aid is cut off. Correspondent Ricardo Chavira and Photographer Bob Nickelsberg accompanied an F.D.N. patrol on a six-day foray that took them some 30 miles into the desolate hills of Nicaragua's Nueva Segovia department. Chavira's report:

From a base camp in Honduras no more than two miles from the border, we can hear the boom of Sandinista artillery. The 26 fighters who will accompany us into Nicaragua are part of a 1,000-man F.D.N. task force that operates in Nueva Segovia. They wear U.S. Army-issue fatigues or blue-green Honduran-made uniforms or, in the case of new recruits, civilian clothes. Armed with Belgian FAL or Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles and trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in demolition and information gathering, they appear to be a well-conditioned, highly motivated team. Some members of the unit have crossed the border before us with mortars to reinforce other F.D.N. patrols battling advancing columns of Sandinista militia. Our patrol's standing orders are to move forward as far as 50 miles into Nicaragua, setting ambushes, campaigning among the peasantry and sabotaging electrical lines and bridges. "Within the past 18 months we have pushed the Sandinistas out of here," says the patrol's leader, Comandante Alfa, waving his hand across a ten-mile-wide strip of hilly forest.

As we shuffle into pine and scrub-oak hills, twice we find ourselves within half a mile of a village in which several hundred Sandinista troops are stationed. Because they control the department's extensive system of roads, the Sandinistas can quickly move their 20,000 troops and supplies to any point in the area. My companions are equipped by the U.S. from Honduras, but they grumble that they had to carry the arms and supplies across the border on their backs. The F.D.N.'s single, ancient C-47 transport plane cannot be used in Nueva Segovia because of heavy Sandinista defenses.

Over the past year, the civilian population has grown used to the contra presence and now provides a network of assistance. Our patrol carries rations of dried beef, rice, roasted cocoa beans and sugar, but peasants along the way offer us tortillas, bananas and water. More important, the local campesinos act as couriers and give our patrol intelligence about Sandinista troop movements. On the third and fourth nights of our trek, we are invited to sleep at peasant homes. During the days, we frequently take long rests at farmhouses. The contras chat easily with our hosts, some of whom are their friends and relatives.

The civilians of Nueva Segovia are not shy about telling us why they dislike the Sandinistas, whom they call piricuacos (rabid dogs). Some of the peasants say they have had family members tortured or property confiscated. Others are angry over government efforts to make them form agricultural cooperatives and sell their products exclusively to the state. At a farmhouse atop a hill, 13 peasants tell me they are disappointed that the Sandinistas have not met promises for better economic conditions, and in fact have allowed prices to rocket and wages to stagnate. "A bag of detergent costs ten times more than it did during the dictatorship," complains one barefoot campesino. Says another: "It is like that for everything. We were better off under Somoza."

Few Nicaraguans lament the 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle and his right-wing dictatorship, of course, but many of the peasants of Nueva Segovia oppose the Sandinistas strongly enough to support the contra cause at great risk. Those who are caught aiding the guerrillas are often killed by the Sandinistas. The contras can be equally brutal when they uncover Sandinista informers or seize enemy troops. "If we capture them in a fight and they have no more ammunition, then they must die," said a subcomandante known as Pelon. "That shows they were trying to kill us and gave up only because they had no more shells." If a Sandinista soldier surrenders with a full clip, however, the contras conclude he does not want to hurt them and he is spared. Says Pelon: "We give them the choice of going to Honduras with us or simply going back home."

At one point, the Sandinistas spotted our patrol and waited in ambush for us to link up with another F.D.N. unit. But a scouting patrol discovered the trap, and instead of marching to the rendezvous we stayed put, spending the night on the dirt floor of a farmhouse less than two miles from the ambush site. "Our mission is to protect you journalists," Comandante Alfa says the next day. "But if we had been alone, we would have fallen on them from the rear and sent them running."

Back in Honduras, F.D.N. leaders fret about whether the U.S. Congress will approve the pending $21 million in aid. "These Congressmen should not think just about the next election," says Mack, a muscular former Nicaraguan military officer. "They should look ahead five or six years. If we are not around, the U.S. will have to send Marines in. Then it is going to take the sacrifice of American lives to solve the problem of Nicaragua." Says a high-ranking F.D.N. official: "If the Americans think they can now just say, 'It was a mistake, let's all go back home,' they're wrong. You can't play with people like that. If the Americans leave us, it will be worse than the Bay of Pigs."