Central America: Zero Scores One

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A success at the contras' southern front

Forty weatherbeaten shacks and a grassy airstrip by a swampy river delta may not seem like much of a military stronghold. "But in the year-old guerrilla war along Nicaragua's southern border with Costa Rica, the jungle hamlet of San Juan del Norte has taken on a symbolic importance well beyond its dubious strategic value. After three days of pitched battle two weeks ago, contra guerrillas from the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE) overwhelmed the Sandinista garrison in the town and scored their first major military victory. After a few uneasy days of quiet, Nicaraguan troops counterattacked last week. As several hundred soldiers advanced, planes and helicopters swooped down and bombed the town. The guerrillas quickly slipped back into the jungle, leaving the smoking remains of San Juan del Norte to be reclaimed by the Sandinistas.

The fall and recapture of San Juan del Norte are not so much military struggle as they are psychological warfare. Before the battle, fighting on Nicaragua's southern front had seemed little more than the personal crusade of Edén Pastora Gémez, 47. The charismatic "Commander Zero" of the Sandinista revolution, Pastora went into exile in 1981 when he became disillusioned with the growing Soviet and Cuban influence in Nicaragua. Within months the fortunes of ARDE had reached such a low point that his financially strapped army moved into Costa Rican refugee camps. Critics joked that the "zero" in his title stood for the number of battles he had fought. After taking San Juan del Norte, the bearded commander could finally add some bite to his bluster. As Pastora told TIME, "San Juan del Norte means more than a beachhead to us. It represents the weapons that will now come to us because we have convinced many democratic governments that ARDE is on the road to victory." The retaking of the town by the Sandinistas did not faze Pastora, since he never believed he could hold on to the territory indefinitely. The initial victory made his point. "You don't think I'm so stupid as to stay there and wait for them [the Sandinista attackers], do you?" Pastora said last week after his retreat.

What Pastora did not say is that ARDE'S new-found muscle is largely due to help that he is receiving through CIA channels. The contra commander had long refused, publicly at least, to accept American "conditions" for aid. But last November he traveled to Washington and since then, food and uniforms are no longer in short supply, and ARDE has even built up a small air fleet of three used helicopters and eight light planes. Pastora insists that he made no deals with the "gringos" and that the funds for the equipment come from private donors in Miami, Panama and Colombia. But he wryly adds, "If the CIA goes to them to contribute, what am I going to say?"