Mystery Flight from Beirut

Somoza, meanwhile, was watching out for himself

While Sandinista guerrillas consolidated their positions in 25 towns throughout Nicaragua, President Anastasio "Tacho" Somoza seemed in no hurry to fulfill predictions of his imminent demise. Despite the continuing international pressure that he resign, Somoza secretly flew to Guatemala to confer briefly with other military heads of state in Central America and, presumably, to discuss the resupply of his embattled National Guard.

Meanwhile, the U.S. was still involved in complicated diplomatic maneuverings aimed to guarantee that the canny dictator, when and if he goes, will be replaced by a broadly based democratic government rather than an extreme leftist regime. In San Jose, the capital of neighboring Costa Rica, American Envoy William Bowdler held a series of talks with members of the Sandinista-backed provisional government, which includes two moderates, two leftists and one center-left member. Among the main issues discussed: the creation of a new Nicaraguan army to replace the National Guard, which will be included in the new government, and human rights safeguards for the dictator's supporters in post-Somoza Nicaragua.

Somoza has admitted that he is willing to resign. Trouble is, he keeps making preconditions that are difficult for the U.S. and the opposition junta to accept. He wants guarantees that his Liberal Party will survive as a Nicaraguan institution. More important, he insists that he be given assurances that his 12,000-man National Guard will be preserved, in one form or another, and that his chief subordinates, both military and civilian, will not be imprisoned or executed by the next government. Says one foreign observer who knows Nicaragua well: "Somoza is watching out for himself. If he doesn't get those guarantees for his Guard he might not get out alive."

After several hours of discussion with Bowdler, the opposition junta responded with a program that the U.S. envoy described as "quite a bit different from the one that we were thinking of." In brief, the junta demanded 1) Somoza's immediate resignation, to be accepted by Nicaragua's present servile congress; 2) the installation of the junta as the country's new government under a new constitution; and 3) the amalgamation of acceptable elements of the National Guard with Sandinista fighters in a new law-and-order force. The group promised that all Somoza officers and civil servants, except those involved in "grave crimes against the people," would be allowed to leave the country.

The population is enraged over the Guard's indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas and by its summary execution of "suspects." The bodies of scores of young people, blindfolded, with their hands tied, litter the shore of Lake Managua. Last week, in an effort to limit the bloodshed of a civil war that has resulted in at least 15,000 deaths so far this year, the U.S. appealed for an end to arms shipments to both sides in the conflict. It remained to be seen whether that call for calm would be honored. Somoza's battered air force was reinforced by several T-28s, which can handle low-level bombing missions against guerrilla forces. U.S. officials in Managua were investigating reports that the planes had been illegally imported from America.

Meanwhile, TIME has learned, the Sandinistas have received a dozen or more planeloads of arms from the Palestine Liberation Organization in the past three months. The ties between the P.L.O. and the Sandinistas extend back for at least ten years, but the latest connection came to light only last week during an incident involving a chartered American cargo plane.

The 707 jetliner, owned by Global International Airlines of Kansas City, had been hired for $89,000 by a Belgian company called Young Air Cargo. The plane left Beirut for Costa Rica supposedly carrying 60,000 Ibs. of medical supplies. The 707's pilot, Paul Marable, 58, thought it odd that anyone would be flying that kind of cargo from war-torn Lebanon across the Atlantic.

Before takeoff, Marable briefly examined several of the cardboard cartons aboard his plane; they were reassuringly marked with the imprint of the Lebanese Red Crescent, supposedly an equivalent of the Red Cross, although as it happens, no Lebanese organization by that exact name exists. Also on the plane were four passengers who carried false Jordanian and Libyan passports.

As the plane approached Tunis, where it was scheduled to take on more medical supplies, the control tower of Tunis-Carthage Airport diverted it to the Sidi Ahmed military airbase at Bizerte, about 40 miles away. The following day, after spending the night in a nearby hotel, Marable returned to his plane to discover that he had 105,000 Ibs. of cargo aboard--15,000 Ibs. more than the plane is certified to carry. The pilot could see immediately that the new cargo contained weapons and ammunition. He explained to his passengers that he needed to make some repairs and to get in touch with his employers in Kansas City.

Marable then made an unscheduled stop at Tunis. The plane was so heavily loaded that on landing it narrowly missed the control tower. Once on the ground, it was quickly surrounded by soldiers. The mysterious passengers disappeared. After 24 hours of negotiation between the U.S and Tunisian governments, the plane was unloaded, and Marable and his crew were permitted to fly the empty craft to Amsterdam.

In Kansas City, the Iranian-born owner of Global International, Farhad Azima, expressed dismay that his airline might have been bamboozled into gunrunning by the charter firm in Belgium In Beirut, sources familiar with P.L.O. operations told TIME that other planeloads of weapons had been successfully flown to Central America from Libya and Algeria. All the-cargoes were disguised as medical supplies.

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