Thirty Seconds over Managua

Rebels open a new front against the Sandinistas: the sky

Most residents of Managua were still asleep when the first attack began. Swooping low over the southwestern part of the Nicaraguan capital, a twin-engine Cessna dropped a bomb near the home of Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto, who happened to be in Panama City at a meeting of Latin American foreign ministers. The bomb missed D'Escoto's house, no one was injured and the plane flew off into the predawn darkness. A few minutes later a second Cessna appeared, over Augusto Cesar Sandino Airport, about eight miles outside the city. A 500-lb. bomb landed near the hangar of Aeronica, the national airline, causing minor damage, and Nicaraguan soldiers reportedly opened fire with antiaircraft guns along the runways. The propeller-driven plane crashed at the base of the control tower, killing the pilot and copilot and touching off a fire that destroyed part of the terminal.

As officials of Nicaragua's Sandinista government inspected the damage, the Revolutionary Democratic Alliance (A.R.D.E.), a group of anti-Sandinista rebels based in neighboring Costa Rica, claimed responsibility for the air raid. The rebel group is led by Eden Pastora Gomez, "Commander Zero," a hero of the revolution that overthrew Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979 and now a bitter opponent of the Sandinista government. Dozens of people were in the terminal at the moment of the attack, but only four people were injured, mostly by shrapnel and flying debris. One, a young military reservist, died the next day. Bertha Mayo, a waitress at the airport restaurant, was on her way to work when she saw the plane dropping its bomb. "When I arrived at the airport a few minutes later," she said, "the terminal building was covered with flames and many people were fleeing." Senators Gary Hart of Colorado and William Cohen of Maine were about to arrive in Managua for talks with Sandinista officials when the attack began. Their U.S. Air Force C140 transport was ordered into a holding pattern and then diverted to Honduras. The Senators arrived in Managua later in the day and surveyed the damaged airport with Nicaraguan officials, who wanted them to see what U.S. aid to the rebels was doing.

The dead fliers were identified as Agustin Roman, a Nicaraguan who once worked for Aeronica, and Sebastian Muller, an air force deserter. Nicaraguan authorities said that flight plans and other documents found in the wreckage showed that the two aircraft had taken off from a small airport near San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. Spokesmen for both the Costa Rican government and Pastora's rebels denied that the planes had come from Costa Rica. A.R.D.E. sources claimed that the flights had originated at a dirt airstrip that the rebels had recently captured in southeastern Nicaragua. Nicaraguan leaders placed the blame for the attack not on A.R.D.E. or Costa Rica but on the U.S., calling the raid "a cowardly and criminal act." Said D'Escoto: "The only true responsibility is President Reagan's and his Administration's, which has conceived, directed and financed the counterrevolutionary groups he calls freedom fighters."

A.R.D.E. is said to have an "air force" of eight small planes and a helicopter, though none had been used in air attacks on Nicaraguan targets until last week. A rival rebel force, the Honduras-based Nicaraguan Democratic Force (F.D.N.), is also thought to have a number of small planes. The F.D.N. is dominated by former members of Somoza's National Guard and is covertly financed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Both groups have been unable to score any major victories against the Sandinistas on the ground, and may find air raids a relatively inexpensive way to attract attention to their cause. Indeed, a day after the raid on Managua, unidentified planes attacked Corinto, a Pacific port city about 100 miles northwest of the capital, puncturing a large fuel tank. Nicaragua charged that the planes were T-28s flown from Honduras, presumably by the F.D.N., but an aide to Pastora claimed that A.R.D.E. had also been responsible for this attack, "to give a demonstration of our power and send a message of our presence." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.