MANAGUA - The Nicaraguan government announced here March 21 that it was confronting "the most aggressive military operation" launched by imperialism since the defeat of the dictator Anastasio Somoza in July 1979.
A total of about 2,000 former Somoza National Guardsmen have infiltrated into Nicaragua from their bases in Honduras. Some 1,500 of the heavily armed counterrevolutionaries have taken up positions in the northern mountains, while 400 to 500 have made their way into central Matagalpa Province, scarcely 50 miles northeast of the capital.
Counterrevolutionary radio broadcasts have called for an insurrection against the Sandinista government, declaring that "the hour of liberation is near. With God and with patriotism, we are combating Communism." Reserve battalions mobilized
"This escalation is being and will be totally defeated," Minister of Defense Humberto Ortega announced at a March 21 news conference here.
All reserve battalions have been mobilized indefinitely to carry defense preparations through to victory, Ortega said, and many militia units are being called up as well.
While Nicaragua's revolutionary government is confident that it can smash the rightist forces that have entered the country, Ortega told reporters in Managua that the situation remains "grave.
"The danger," he said,
"lies in imperialism's trying to use the military confrontations between our forces and the National Guard to provoke border conflicts between our forces and the Honduran Army."
This, Ortega warned, could lead to a war with Honduras.
Sergio Ramirez, member of the Government of National Reconstruction, read a statement at the news conference calling for "support and solidarity" from "all friendly governments" and "all political formations that support our revolutionary process."
Meanwhile, in New York, Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs Víctor Tinoco asked for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council. Tinoco charged that the bold new move by the counterrevolutionary forces was inspired and organized by "the Reagan Administration, which is determined to destroy the Nicaraguan revolution."
Ortega also spoke on this point, saying that Washington's political aim is to "distract world attention from the present situation in El
Salvador, " while seeking to "create better conditions" for its efforts to hold back the revolutionary upsurge that is taking place throughout Central America. The U.S. rulers, Ortega said, want "to interfere with and destabilize the development of our complex process, to destroy our country."
But the Somozaists and their U.S. backers will not succeed, Ortega pledged. "We will throw whatever forces necessary against them — the Sandinista Army, the reserve battalions, the militias, tanks, and planes. We are going to drive them out, to neutralize imperialism's political and military operation."
Invaders isolated
A two-day meeting of the Sandinista Assembly — the full national leadership of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) - preceded the announcement of the new attack and the steps being taken against it. The news conference was attended by nearly 60 correspondents from around the world. They were drawn by reports, circulated by Honduran-based counterrevolutionaries, that the invading force was on the verge of capturing several cities deep in the interior of the country. This was clearly aimed at convincing world public opinion that the Sandinista-led government has little domestic support, as well as creating confusion and disorder inside Nicaragua.
The actual military situation was explained in detail by Commander Lenin Cerna, head of Nicaragua's State Security, and Commander Leopoldo Rivas, vice-minister of defense. Rivas reported that the rightist forces in Matagalpa Province have "suffered heavy casualties.
"They haven't been able to carry out a single offensive action, apart from the [February 28] ambush when they killed 17 members of the Sandinista Youth."
Furthermore, Rivas pointed out, the former Somozaist National Guard forces "have no political base. The only help they can count on is from the old collaborators of Somoza. They must be supplied by air from Honduras, and we think we can cut that off on any sustained basis.
CIA's 'Plan C'
Preparations for the present escalation go back to 1981, Lenín Cerna said. At that time the CIA began to work to bring together all the dispersed ex-National Guard forces into one organization, the so-called Nicaraguan Democratic Front (FDN).
In November 1982, 800 heavily armed FDN
forces crossed the border in an effort to take the northern city of Jalapa and declare it a "liberated zone." This effort was defeated in two months of heavy fighting that culminated in early January of this year.
The current operation, called "Plan C" by the CIA, began in late January of this year. It had two major components — to take and hold positions in northern Jinotega and Nueva Segovia provinces, and to carry out diversionary attacks in northern Zelaya Province on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast. Later it was supposed to be joined by counterrevolutionary forces that would enter from Costa Rica, to the south, under the leadership of ex-Sandinista Edén Pastora.
Extensive training was provided for the forces involved in the operation, in Florida and California, as well as in Honduras and Costa Rica. Advisers from the CIA, Israel, and Argentina, Cerna said, helped set up a unified high command, logistical structures, field hospitals - in short, everything needed by an invading army.
Even a crushing military defeat of the present invading force will not end the problem, Ortega noted at the news conference. The war will continue as long as "the National Guard has the support of imperialism and a secure base in Honduras."
Right-wingers march
Encouraged by the widening of the war, support from the pope, and the Reagan administration's increasingly threatening words and actions, domestic opponents of the revolution are seeking ways to take the offensive.
On March 13, nine days after the pope's visit, they mobilized under the pretext of expressing apologies to the Vatican.
Organized out of El Carmen Church, one of Managua's wealthiest and most reactionary parishes, some 500 people, according to the Sandinista daily Barricada, marched through the streets carrying Vatican flags and portraits of the pope.
Chanting "Long live Catholic Nicaragua!" the demonstrators marched for about two hours. They claimed to be making amends for supposed "disrespect" shown to the pope during his visit here. But the class composition of the marchers showed their true aims.
Most were women from wealthy families, many of them owners of businesses in their own right. Also participating were leaders of three right-wing political parties — the Social Christian Party, Liberal Constitutionalist Movement, and Conservative Party.
Following the march they returned to church for an evening mass, whose main political point was a call from the pastor for willingness to shed blood to defend the church, to set an example against the "atheists" and "Marxist- Leninists."
The fact that the march occurred is much more important than its relatively small size. Barricada called attention to it with a frontpage news article and photograph March 14. The headline noted that the march had taken place "without incident," signaling that it had failed as a provocation.
Instead of commenting editorially on the political character of the march, Barricada quoted a bystander who said: "They might as well have been chanting 'Long live Reagan!" or 'Long live the counterrevolutionaries!""
The march represented a hard core of reactionaries willing to condemn as a show of "disrespect" the masses' appeal to the pope for help in achieving peace.
They clearly expect their numbers to grow. And in face of massive support for the revolution, they have made clear that they intend to focus on so-called religious themes to obscure their real political aims.