Deadly Ambush

A grisly massacre of civilians

Even at the best of times driving a carmioneta--a pickup truck converted into a local bus--from the northern farming hamlet of San Jose de Bocay to the village of Jinotega, seven hours away, is a nerve-searing experience. The winding road runs through an area infiltrated by U.S.-supported contras who are waging a cat-and-mouse war along the Honduran border against Nicaragua's Sandinista regime. Although there have been contra ambushes before, last week's was particularly grisly.

Driver Jose Antonio Blandon, 28, was concentrating on potholes when a band of perhaps 50 armed men suddenly appeared in front of his Chevrolet pickup. As Blandon and two others in the cab ducked under the dashboard, rifle shots rang out for what seemed to them to be several minutes. After the firing stopped, a contra peered into the cab. He ordered the three men to get out and, some minutes later, to carry two passengers, an injured woman and her six-month-old daughter, to a nearby house. Once inside, the woman died and the contras abruptly left. As the three shaken survivors hurried to report the attack, behind them ten civilians and one Sandinista soldier lay dead.

Nicaraguan officials were quick to claim that the contras had been responsible for similar massacres of civilians in the past. But one of Blandon's friends had a different explanation. According to him, the Sandinista soldier had opened fire as soon as he saw the contras approaching, thereby provoking the savage reprisal.

One day after the massacre, three trucks slowly carried the coffins of four victims, draped with wreaths and national flags, from the trade union hall of Jinotega to the local church. At least 2,000 townspeople solemnly marched alongside. Their anger, however, was not reserved exclusively for the contras. Insisted Truck Driver Juan Ramon Hernandez, "It's the army's fault. They allow the soldiers to take these civilian buses. The contras know this and so they ambush them and innocent people are killed."

A few hours after the ambush the contras struck again, twelve miles away, dynamiting a bridge. Although the structure was said to be of limited strategic importance, its destruction was a symbolic warning that contras were living and working in the area. Taken together, the two assaults indicated that the relative lull that had followed the contras' offensive last spring was over. In a feat of good timing, Junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra appeared before parliament last week to propose a military draft that would make all men between 17 and 25 eligible for two full years of active service, followed by participation in the reserves until the age of 50. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.