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The Commission is structured by a directive council. It is presided by Israel Reyes who has been the President of the Red Cross in Nicaragua, who was a distinguished and outspoken leader against the Somoza government.

To establish a human rights arm of UNO, we asked for advice and recommendations from other human rights organizations as to the best way to conduct our cause of human rights.

The problem of human rights violations in the Nicaraguan armed conflict has been tremendous, particularly by the Sandinista government but also by members of the rebel forces. Many of them have come from broken families and some have had a violent past.

UNO has been providing training to ensure the protection of human rights and more than 5,000 individuals have already been part of this training. Thanks.

QUESTION: As we all know, Congress is now considering military and humanitarian aid to the Contras. It seems that the number one problem in getting that aid through Congress is the question of human rights and the repo rts from many persons and organizations saying the Contras are frequently violating civil rights. What can be done about that and is it already being done?

MR. GAMEZ: The purpose of the Commission is to stop the violation of human rights by members of the rebel forces. Part of the problem is we are not dealing with educated people. We are dealing with peasants who sometimes resort to violence in reaction to Sandinista repression. we are sorry to say that there have been some violations by members of the r ebel forces. However,, these violations are not systematic. We do not organize any kind of human rights violations.

LYNN BOUCHEY: My name is Lynn Bouchey. I am President of the Council for Inter-American Security.

It is my pl easure and privilege to introduce to you Colonel Larry Tracy of the Office of Public Diplomacy at the United States State Department. Colonel Tracy has, among other things, served as a U.S. military attache in Bolivia. He has wide knowledge and experience of the region. He will discuss the military situation in Nicaragua.

Colonel Tracy was one of the principal authors last year, together with Miss Kay Stephenson of the Department of Defense, of a volume entitled The Soviet-Cuban Connection in Central Ameri ca and the Caribbean, which will be followed by a second volume soon.

COLONEL LARRY TRACY: I would like to recast the strategic view. That is, what will happen, what could happen, if there is an expanded Soviet military presence in the Western Hemisphere. Encouragingly,

there is a widening consensus in the city that the Soviet Union simply cannot be permitted to expand militarily in the region. The shared concern is that if we do not provide help to the resistance movement to stop that expansion, a more dire circumstance could result, such as the use of U.S. troops. We are very much at a watershed in our situation. An expanded Soviet presence in the region, for one thing, forces the U.S. much more closely to its own shores, limits its readiness, w illingness, and ableness to project its military power to the crisis areas of the world. The Soviets are outspending us greatly in this region. Over the last five years, it has spent over $4 billion in military equipment that has gone to Cuba and Nicaragu a . our military assistance to the entire region during this period of time has been less than a billion dollars, so there is a 4, almost 5 to 1 ratio. In economic assistance, the Soviets have provided to Cuba alone over $20 billion since 1980. our economic assistance to the countries of Central America has been about $4 billion. Why is a very rational political actor like the Soviet Union, itself under intense economic pressures, making such large investments in the area? It is to neutralize the U.S. in an area that the Soviets had long considered the strategic rear. They have also used the term where they would not be able to put pressure on the U.S. Until now, they simply did not have the ability to project their force to a then unreceptive Latin America.

Well that has changed dramatically in the last several years. I think we have to assess the consequences for the future if, indeed, we have a series of Soviet bases. We are already doing this. Admiral McDonald, our Commander in Norfolk wrote an article ab o ut the Cuban factor, and he pointed out how he must dedicate certain military assets to that region now, because of Cuba, which he would much rather dedicate to the North Atlantic and other areas. With Cuba's military buildup into the largest military in L atin America, larger even than Brazills, we now have a significant military threat that could at least be a nuisance and cause the U.S. to spread itself rather thin. We compound this greatly once we add Nicaragua on the mainland, with the ability of Punta Huete, the air base that has been built near Managua to be able to support Soviet operations, to be able to support any aircraft in the Soviet inventory. Right now, it is being used tactically by the Sandinistas for their gunship operations, but the runwa y is 10,000 feet long. It has about a meter thick strip and it could, in fact, support Bear aircraft, or even greater, the reconnaissance.

The infrastructure is possibly in place. Ports are being constructed by the Soviet Union as well, which coul d certainly give an anchor for the Soviet fleet both in the Caribbean and on the Pacific. And we know how the Soviets have burgeoned in their Pacific operations over the years.

There is an old Lenin description that you probe, and when you find mush, you continue to probe. When you probe and you find steel, you find someplace else to probe. Well, although the resolve has strengthened considerably, there is still a considerable amount of mush, so that the Soviets can continue to probe in this area. We must be able to send a clear signal to the Soviet Union that this adventurism simply is not going to be tolerated.

The most important problem that we are confronted with now is the momentous vote coming up in the next few weeks on assistance to the resistance force. If the resistance movement does not get the military assistance, they simply do not have the capability to go against a very heavily armed military with virtually unlimited supplies from the Soviet Union.

Let me just talk a bit on the tactical situ ation. I will just make this general statement, and I think Colonel Bermudez will be able to amplify this. A criticism that is frequently made of the resistance movement, the FDN in particular, is that it has not captured an inch of territory. If one look s at the firepower that they are facing, I would believe, from a military standpoint, it would be ludicrous for them to capture a large enclave and declare that, in some way, a liberated territory, because then the Sandinistas would be able to pound that a way.

The best thing for them is to constantly fight guerrilla warfare, constantly moving and keeping the Sandinistas off balance. This tactic is quite logical when you look at the relative combat power they are facing.

The Sandinistas have brought in T-55 tanks that remain a battle tank in many of the Warsaw Pact armies. Cuba continues to use and receive the T-55 tank. Experts in tanks in the U.S. Army consider the T-55 as an ideal fighting vehicle for Third World countries because of its durability and e asy maintenance. The T-55 also provides a psychological threat against neighboring countries that do not have tanks. Costa Rica and Honduras do not have anything that could go against the T-55.

The Hondurans have British Scorpions and SaladianB which are basically reconnaissance vehicles that were never designed to go against a heavy tank like the T-55.

The resistance is also up against helicopters with the MI-8, the HIP helicopter, whi ch is both a troop transporter and can also be configured into a gunship. Then, of coukse, there is the MI-24, which is very solidly underarmed--armorplated on the bottom--which makes it relative impervious to machine gun or small arms fire. You need a su rface-to-air missile to bring that down.

The Mujahadin in Afghanistan, as you know, have done an effective job with the Hind, because they have been able to lure it into valleys and then been able to fire down on its soft spot. The terrain in Nicaragua does not lend itself to that.

The Sandinista military has now grown to 75,000. The frequent argument is that it grew to that size as a result of the resistance forces. However, the Sandinistas in 1980--before the end of 1980--had already achieved the largest army in the history of Central America. They had about 25,000 men in their army at that point. That gave them an army somewhat larger than Guatemala's army which has a population three times as great. By the end of November 1981, the Sandinista army had increased to over 40,000 active duty, plus their reserves.

Now, Ambassador Carlos Tunnerman, who is the Nicaraguan Ambassador here in Washington, wrote a letter to the Washington Post on March 30, 1985, blaming all the woes of Nicaragua on the United State s in general and on the Central intelligence Agency in particular. I read the letter and I thought there was something strange. I read it a second time and then it jumped out at me like it was in neon lights. He said, "By November 198111--the date that he ascribed to a decision to fund the resistance movement--"all we were confronted with on our border were a few hundred ex-national guardsmen whose principal occupation was extortion and cattle rustling."

So in a sense, I would say, this is the Sandinistas' threat perception as of late 1981--a few hundred cattle rustlers. But they had a posse of 40,000 already.

So the idea that this is a cause and effect, that they have built this large army because of the resistance movement, is simply false on the structu re of that military. In building their military, the Sandinistas follow a pattern that has developed in virtually every Marxist-Leninist government around the world.

An article in the Wall Street Journal in early April by Professor James Payne from Texas A&M gave a comparative analysis of Marxist-Leninist governments around the world, and it pointed out that of the 34 self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist governments, every one has a far higher percentage of people under arms than do their neighbors, whether o r not the country has a legitimate threat to face. So building a large military is certainly a means of social mobilization.

What we see in this conflict is a lightly armed but well organized resistance with high morale going against a military that is heavily armed but with rather questionable morale. There are defections from the Sandinistas. I think increasing the pressure on that military could, indeed, cause significant problems within their own ranks.

The idea is that this is the Somoza Nation al Guard in a new uniform is, of course, preposterous from a straight mathematical analysis. Somoza had 7,000 in his National Guard up until the final year when he doubled it to about 14,000 with a lot of cannon fodder that he brought in. Many of those re main in prison right now in Nicaragua.

The resistance movement is approximately 20,000, with the majority of them about 18 to 20 years of age, which means that they were about 12 years of age when the Somoza National Guard disintegrated. of the leadership, there is an almost equal division between former Sandinistas and former Somoza National Guardsmen. Indeed, there are some former Somoza National Guardsmen in the Sandinista army itself, so membership in that, certainly even by the Sandinistas, is not con sidered an automatic negative.

Colonel Bermudez, I would remind you all, when he was the military attache here in Washington, was considered by the Carter Administration as the man that could clean up the National Guard. A possibility Somoza natu rally rejected. During the Carter Administration, this Colonel Bermudez was not identified with any of the abuses of the National Guard in its final years in power. He was here in Washington. He was an engineer, a technical man, and has an extremely clean record.

MR. BOUCHEY: I would like to ask you all to welcome Colonel Enrique Bermudez. As Colonel Tracy mentioned, Enrique Bermudez spent some time here in Washington. It is widely known amongst people who have followed the Central American situation, alth ough it has been little reported, that one of the reasons that Colonel Bermudez was here in Washington was because certain people back in Managua thought that it was politically safer to have him here rather than there.

This is a gentleman who has committ ed himself to the democratic principles, and who is leading in the operation sense, the democratic resistance inside Nicaragua. It is thus a pleasure for me this morning to ask Enrique Bermudez to share with you his analysis, his perception, of where thin gs stand in the struggle and precisely how we can, perhaps, assist that struggle. Colonel Bermudez.

COLONEL ENRIQUE BERMUDEZ: Thank you. Good morning to all of you. I will apologize because I am not so fluent in English, but I will try

to do my bes t. If, on any occasion, I cannot express myself in English, I will say it in Spanish, and we have a translator here. Well, we in the liberation movement do not have enough time to prepare our statement. My feelings, my personal opinion, is that our moveme n t has been misunderstood and the American opinion is not very well informed. We are a democratic movement. We are fighting a war against a totalitarian regime. Few people are aware of what is going on really in Nicaragua. We, in our movement, the anti-San d inista movement, seek to establish democracy in Nicaragua. We are trying to achieve a unified front. our principle has been expressed in many brochures or papers that we have published in the past. Since 1983 we have clearly established what we are fighti ng for, what we want for Nicaragua.

We are not a political party, we are a movement for democracy. We are not seeking personal power. We want the Nicaraguan people to have the opportunity to express themselves through free elections.

We ex ect from the Un ited States an understanding of our p struggle. We expect you to support us in the same way that President Reagan supports democratic forces or popular forces in the Philippines now and participates also in the establishment of a democracy in Haiti.

QUESTION: Sir, I have a three-part question for you. One, what do you see as the biggest problems for your forces? Two, what kinds of equipment do you see as necessary to achieve for success on the battlefield?

And three, there are some apparent command and co ntrol problems with the forces. What are you doing to rectify those? COLONEL BERMUDEZ: Let me explain. We have been a very dynamic movement. We have pushed for a unified front. But, as you know, in this type of struggle, historically, always there are man y divisions. In association with your third point, we have been willing all the time to get together with all the anti-Sandinista groups, to find the way to solve our problems, establish a procedure and go together in this fight, because it is necessary to stay together. No one single movement will have the capacity to defeat the Sandinistas. Our main problem, and this you must understand very clearly, is the United States. In 1984, there was a good momentum. We were pressing hard on the Sandinistas. The po l itical parties were pressuring the Sandinistas as was the Church and all the Nicaraguan sector. When funds were cut off, the Nicaraguan people were very disappointed with the U.S. Anything that Washington does or Congress does affects not only the politic al sphere but also the labor sector,

the Church, and the whole Nicaraguan population. The United States has lost prestige as a trusted ally.

Let me give you an example. Many countries--and I have heard the opinion of many military personnel in Centra l America--do not trust the United States. They think the United States will abandon them, as they have abandoned other countries. So our main problem is the decision of the United States. People will not get involved against the Sandinistas if they do no t see the U.S. support the resistance.

The Sandinistas have exploited that. They have paraded the military apparatus to intimidate the people. You know, they bring the tank through the cities. They bring the helicopter, the artillery. They make a show of the military forces. So any citizen will think twice before he goes to join us.

I remember when we started this struggle with no aid from anybody, we had groups, very badly dressed with shotgun or with 22 calibre rifles. And the people did not pay any attention to us. So when we started to receive funds, we emphasized good uniforms, good equipment, and that provoked a very enthusiastic reaction in the population. And this is the reason why we grew up so large and so fast .

Now we are running out of supplies and funds, people are becoming disillusioned. They will be more conscious of Sandinista repression and the Sandinistas, of course, have taken some measures such as forced relocation. They have taken repressive action ag ainst those people who they suspect were sympathizing with our forces.

You have heard about the relocating people from the rural areas, to collective farms, in order to control areas they suspect are supportive of us.

QUESTION: If the President were to get his $100 million through Congress, would that be enough for the Contras?

COLONEL BERMUDEZ: Yes. Well, our logic is this. We have been able to resist and to keep this pressure on the Sandinistas with almost no help at all. With $100 million we are sure we are going to defeat the Sandinistas very fast.

Of course, we need some anti-aircraft weapons. Definitely, the MI-24 have influenced the tactical situation. For instance, we are operating in Esteli, Jinotega, and Nuevo Segovia, Madriz and Chinandega, wh ich are very well-cultivated lands, and have no dense vegetation to protect forces on the terrain. In that place, the helicopter is very effective.

We have to move our forces from that insecure area to more secure areas, which is why we abandoned our presence in this very important area of Nicaragua. QUESTION: Colonel Bermudez, could you discuss the Honduras border and how it figures as a Contra sanctuary with all the political aspects?

COLONEL BERMUDEZ: Yes. This is a very sensitive issue. Let m e say this. Any guerrilla movement against a totalitarian regime like the Sandinistas are creating is totally dependent on internal sources of support. And let me give an example. Let us make a comparison between the leftist guerrilla in El Salvador and d e mocratic guerrillas in Nicaragua. A guerrilla in El Salvador--which is not a police-controlled population--can change to civilian clothes, go to the city, go to a movie, go to a restaurant, have a good rest. Next day, he will go downtown to a shoe store a nd he will ask to buy 200 pairs of boots.

The owner of the store will try to convince him to buy 500 and will give him a special price. That has happened with medicine and any article. In Nicaragua, which is totally controlled, you have a rationing card, y ou have neighborhood committees, so you cannot do that. First of all, there is no medicine in Nicaragua. Medicine is controlled by the government. All the boots are controlled by the government for the army.

You have to make a written requisition--request --if you want to buy two pair of boots. If you want to buy two pair of boots, you immediately are under suspicion as a Contra and you have to explain why you want the second pair of boots. So in Nicaragua, the guerrilla cannot get supplies.

QUESTION: As y ou know, one of the chief arguments used by those who are opposed to aid to the Contras is that a majority of the top officers, including yourself, are former members of the National Guard. I wonder if you could give us some ammunition to use against this argument. COLONEL BERMUDEZ: Frankly, this has been a good achievement of the Sandinista propaganda. We have a voluntary army. This is not a conventional army. People do not receive any pay at all. They have their own motivation to fight. Our leadership is not politically appointed. The regional commanders, the task force commander or small unit commander, are not leaders because somebody appointed them to be a leader. They have gained that leadership fighting. It is not a vacation. They have been fighting against Sandinistas, risking their lives.

We have 71 commanders. We have 17 regional commanders, which are the higher commander. Next is task commander commanding between 200 and 400, a battalion size. Then the unit commander and then groups, which is about between 60 and 100.

We have commanders that were members of the National Guard, we have nineteen. Most of them were soldiers. Some of them were lieutenant, second lieutenant. Two were cadets, and the only colonel is myself.

I have been living in the United States since 1975. This year, I will be eleven years living out of my country. I came from Washington where I was living in 1975 to Central America because, as a Nicaraguan, I feel compelled to something for my country.

The former members of the National Guard have their own motivation. I ha ve a list here of 20 who were in the Sandinista army. And I have a list of 32 who were called from different sectors, peasants, most of them, farmers, businessmen, professional, student, and so forth.

So the participation of former members of the National Guard is voluntary. They were not closely associated with the Somoza regime. They consider themselves professional military persons. A legal instrument that was submitted and approved by the Sandinista junta, by the U.S. government, and by the majority o f the democratic members of Congress, it was called the Plan for the Consolidation of Peace was sent by the Sandinista junta before they took power to the OAS. In that plan, they established the new national army will be composed by Sandinistas and Nationa l Guardsmen based upon the principle that not all the members of the National Guard were bad. Now they are exploiting and saying that all the members of the National Guard are bad.

MR. BOUCHEY: Let me stop on that question and turn to our next panel member , Dr. Joachim Maitre, who is Professor of International Relations and Journalism at Boston University. He is a foreign affairs editor for Strategic Review and has recently completed a documentary dealing with the Contras.

DR. JOACHIM MAITRE: In that parti cular movie on the Contras, which is running for 28 minutes, you see daily spots in television in this country. Right now I asked Commandants Bermudez about his strategic aim inside Nicaragua and I asked him a provocative question, primarily, are you goin g to march into Managua any time soon? It took him about a minute to recover from this question and he said, "Well, we would like to, but we have other things to do first."

He defined his primary aim inside Nicaragua as cutting the country into two halves. By cutting the Rama Road, which is the main

supply artery from El Bluff on the Atlantic Coast into Managua, he hoped to achieve a political breakthrough. That particular step has not been taken and, in order to pour, perhaps, some vinegar into the wine, cannot be achieved very quickly because another dramatic development is occurring in the south of Nicaragua hardly reported in this country at all, namely, a peace treaty between Costa Rica and the Sandinistas.

We--and primarily the Reagan Administ ration--can take pride in having achieved over four years the democratization of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and, clearly, has also helped free elections again in Costa Rica. There are, however, negative ramifications, in particular in the north in H onduras and, of course, in Costa Rica. Those countries wish to live in peace with their neighbor, Sandinista Nicaragua.

The editor Eduardo Ulibarri from the largest paper in Costa Rica, La Nacion, predicted approximately a year ago in a column printed in t he Wall Street Journal that increasing and continued American reluctance to help the Contras with real aid would have to result almost automatically in, number one, the Finlandization of Costa Rica; number two, militarization of Honduras.

Not being a member of the FDN, or of any organization within Nicaragua, I think I am free to talk a bit about Honduras. The $27 million in humanitarian aid voted by Congress last year has not been spent or, if they have been spent, the wares have not been delivered to the FDN through Honduras because I would claim the State Department there and other institutions in this country have failed to make Honduras into a proper strategic ally.

Most of the stuff is still sitting in New Orleans. Whatever has been sent is still in Tegucigalpa or in other depots within Honduras. This is primarily responsible for the drying up of supplies for the FDN.

When going into Nicaragua, in order to produce the television movie I just talked about, we took off from an airfield inside Honduras, with a C-47 to be airdropped into Nicaragua. That airfield is no longer available for supply runs into Nicaragua. How do you, then, supply a fighting force of about 20,000? You do not. That is the prime reason for the number of fighting C ontras inside Nicaragua having dwindled to, I guess, about 6,000 to 8,000 right now.

The assessment of the strength of the Contras? We should attempt to listen to a few Americans. Let me give you quotes from Americans you know very well, even if you do not like them.

"The government forces are well-funded. There are 60,000 troops ready; another 60,000 waiting. The Contras are a rag-tag army of 20,000.11 This, of course, is Tip O'Neill.

Since the government troops are so well-funded,. why help the underdogs? Run away. Be with the winners. He says, "It would be nothing but a slaughter and a humiliation for the Contras to equip them for war." But in order not to dump on the Democrats, let me also criticize, or rather mention, at least, with a negative note, General Gorman, former SOUTHCOM Commander in Panama, who said,, "It will take the Contras years, if at all, to overcome the Sandinistas."

Another famous American, "There is no chance that they will be able to overthrow the government. In the resistance, you have perhaps 15,000 members, rifles scattered around the open, unpopulated part of the country. They can't go into the cities, which the government is protecting with tanks, 75,000 men in the army, the militia and the security--in other words, the Contras may just as well give up.', This was--you may be surprised--William Casey.

General Nutting who was also rather negative about the prospect of the Contras' victory should remain unmentioned with a quote.

And here a Senator, a Repub lican, who says, "In order to defeat aid for the Contras, Contra aid is only one-three thousandth of the overall military spending plan, but for every Contra we supply with a new gun, countless elderly Americans will go without meals."

And the final asses sment, this time from a liberal, I should almost say a former liberal, who wrote a series in the Boston Globe about a week ago where he says--and this is a very important quote, because the country is changing, I claim, although Senators and Representativ e s here in Washington remain behind the power curve--' Sheehan says, "I arrived in Central America with the conventional liberal wisdom that the Contras, through their past links to the Argentine Colonels and the CIA were so many ex-National Guardsmen as t heir Commanders, were a reactionary right wing force. After nearly one week with them, I modified this preconception. I see them now more as actors in a terrible national tragedy of civil war, as actors bearing a legitimate grievance in Nicaragua."

He talk s about the Somozistas. Did not see many of them. But he says, "The remaining Comandantes are heterogeneous, including some ex-Sandinistas. The troops are an army of simple, Nicaraguan peasants, no ideology save their ardent Catholicism. Some are in their early 20s, but many are much younger boys and girls who have barely reached puberty. "My heart went with them, for I knew that in facing such massive Sandinista firepower, so many of these children will be killed. I

consider the military Contras an authentic national liberation force." That is a liberal, but not in Congress. Just a few remarks about the strategic situation within Nicaragua. I think we have to admit that the resistance on the Atlantic Coast is not ver y strong any longer. There is sabotage on a daily basis, but I do not believe that the Contras can rely on the Indian warriors on the East Coast, numbering roughly 1,500, as reliable allies. There are many reasons for this. Operations in central Nicaragua, I said, primarily in Centalis had to be curtailed because logistic lines are not secure or safe. Sandinista strength is, of course, overpowering, but I see Contras not being capable of keeping territory under control. I went into one particular base insid e Nicaragua roughly 30 kilometers away from the nearest road. This particular camp could be safe. It was in the forest of Nuevo Segovia. However at that particular time, an aerial attack by the Sandinistas took place, 02, so-called "push-pull" attack aircr a ft that could easily have been defeated by regular 50 millimeter machine guns which were not available. If I claim simple equipment such as surface-to-air missiles could be given, it would be the first step in the securing of territory within Nicaragua. I consider the step crucial for improvement of their situation, because then, at least, the continents would no longer be dependent upon neighboring states as they are now. They are, of course, in a fix because Honduras' good will is a key to future operati ons.

Let us remember that no anti-communist insurgency has succeeded anywhere in the world so far. We must remember this all the time. Savimbi in Angola has come close, primarily on account of very strong support given by those criminals in South Africa. V ictory in Angola today is clearly prevented by American reluctance to aid Savimbi. In Nicaragua, given the totalitarian nature of the regime, one primary objective cannot be achieved, namely support through the general population, what you would call toda y an uprising. How do you rise up if you cannot even get organized as a group of three people?

So the Contras' task is formidable, yet I come from East Germany. I took part in 1953 in an uprising as a young Communist--at least I was in the uniform of a Com munist. We had no chance because we could not get organized properly. In 1956, 1 was in Hungary when the Hungarians rose. In Hungary, three army divisions mutinied against the Soviets.

So wearing a Communist uniform is no guarantee for loyalty towards the system. Such a change is possible in Nicaragua, and I do not think I am being overly optimistic. How do you exploit the

dissatisfaction clearly existing in the Sandinista army? By inflicting upon the armed forces a few humiliating defeats.

One of the Hinds has already been shot down. There are twelve, plus a number of HIPs that can also be reached. The HIPs carry primarily counterinsurgency forces--very good troops, by the way; we should not denigrate their value.

These troops--I met two of them who had been taken prisoner by the Contras--did not impress me as Communist in that sense, as fanatics. They are fighting right now the government side, which is normally the winning side. That particular trend can be defeated, I believe, again, by the de livery of weapons which are heavier, more advanced, than what the Contras have today.

We could also, perhaps, learn a lesson from what is happening in Afghanistan. Last summer, in July, two crews of MI-24 Hind helicopters defected while on a mission toward s the Pakistani border. Now, when remembering that these helicopter crews are very carefully picked and trained and supervised, one has to wonder how they managed to make that decision. Well, they did. Both helicopters were not, by the way, returned to Af ghanistan.

The Contras have a price on the Hinds. The first pilot who comes out of--I understand Soldier of Fortune has promised--will receive, what, half a million, one million dollars? And I know from one refugee, rather, a deserter from the Sandinista f orces, that they have posters out at the airfield, that anybody caught attempting to persuade anybody or getting prepared himself will be shot without a trial, so the Sandinista leadership command does not seem to be too confident of their people's loyalt y to the people. Thank you.

MR. BOUCHEY: Thank you. Sorry to have to cut you short, but I would like to allow us at leas