Honduras Threatens to Expel Indian Rebels Battling Nicaragua

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras —  Foreign Minister Edgardo Paz Barnica has called for the expulsion of Nicaraguan Indian rebels who have been using Honduran territory as a base for launching attacks against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.

He made the expulsion threat after reports circulated of a Thursday news conference held in the Honduran capital by Steadman Fagoth, leader of a coalition of eastern Nicaraguan Indian tribes called Misura--the Miskito, Sumo and Rama.

The Indian rebels have been battling the Sandinistas for more than two years in remote eastern Zelaya province, using bases in Honduras.

“They are abusing our hospitality,” Paz Barnica said in response to questions from reporters after hearing of threats by Fagoth to execute 23 captured Sandinista soldiers if the Nicaraguan army attempted a rescue.

Emerging from a national security council meeting, Paz Barnica said, “Those people (the Nicaraguan Indians) should be expelled immediately from Honduras.”

He added that the Honduran government has been taking measures for several months to prevent rebels from using Honduran territory to launch hostilities against other governments, but he gave no specifics.

Fagoth, hearing of the expulsion threat, said Thursday that Honduras has the authority to carry it out, but he vowed to take his Indian rebels to another country in Central America or to the United States.

However, diplomatic observers in Tegucigalpa expressed doubt that Paz Barnica’s remarks signal any significant change in the government’s policy toward anti-Nicaraguan rebels as a whole.

As a strong U.S. ally, Honduras has not only tolerated the presence of the main anti-Sandinista rebel group, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, but has provided it with money and supplies. The Nicaraguan Indian coalition has collaborated closely with those rebels, known as contras.

While Paz Barnica’s words were formally directed at the eastern Indians, they may also have been aimed at a Washington audience.

Honduras and the United States are renegotiating a 1954 mutual cooperation treaty. Besides seeking more economic and military aid, the Hondurans want assurances that the United States will take responsibility for the contras if their military effort against Nicaragua collapses.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported from San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, that another top leader of Nicaragua’s Indian guerrillas, Brooklyn Rivera, has been wounded in a Sandinista attack and is hiding in remote hills on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua.

Aides to Rivera said they believe that his presence in Nicaragua was revealed by a Sandinista infiltrator and that an attack launched a week ago by the Sandinista army was an attempt to kill or capture the rebel leader.

If true, they conceded, this would cast into great uncertainty recent attempts by Rivera to conclude a separate Indian peace agreement with the Sandinista government in Managua, perhaps ending them.

Rafael Zelaya, a Rivera deputy in Costa Rica, and another Indian official, Guillermo Espinoza, said Rivera sneaked from Costa Rica into Nicaragua on Dec. 22 or 23 to speak to guerrillas and Indian villagers about his contacts late last year with the Sandinista leadership.