Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 30, 1990 TAG: 9003300839
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/7 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS LENGTH: Medium
Oscar Sovalbarro, a military chief of the Nicaraguan Resistance, the rebels' umbrella group, said Thursday that most rebels left the camps, taking their weapons, and would reach Nicaragua by the end of this week.
"In our camps in Yamales there are few weapons and few combatants left," Sovalbarro said, referring to an area 125 miles southwest of Tegucigalpa that had been used by an estimated 12,000 rebels in their nine-year war against Nicaragua's Sandinista government.
He said "only about 3,000 war-wounded and their families remain in the camps" in Yamales, which became home to the bulk of the rebel force after U.S. military aid to the Contras ended in 1988.
U.N. forces of about 200 were gathering in Managua and Tegucigalpa to monitor Nicaragua's transition from a decade-old leftist revolutionary government to the conservative United National Opposition.
In an accord with representatives of Nicaraguan President-elect Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, Sovalbarro agreed the rebels in Honduran camps would disband and hand over their weapons by April 20, five days before the new administration takes over from the Sandinistas.
Rebels in Nicaragua are to gather in U.N.-supervised security zones under the accord but there is no deadline for their demobilization.
But Sovalbarro, 29, said Thursday most rebels returned to Nicaragua without waiting to hand in their guns to U.N. forces. The Contra leader, known as Commander Ruben, signed the agreement March 23 with the incoming government.
"We want to turn in our rifles in Nicaragua, because if there is going to be democracy in our country, then we will exchange our weapons for the plow to cultivate the land," Sovalbarro said.
It was unclear whether the rebels' rank-and-file would honor the accord.
by CNB