The Sandinista government accused U.S.-backed contra rebels Tuesday of killing 12 people, including 7 civilians, in their deadliest attack since a tentative truce took effect in March.
Ten people were injured in the attack, including two civilians, when a group of contras ambushed a military jeep and a truck 11 miles southwest of Acoyapa in Chontales province Monday morning, according to a statement issued by the Defense Ministry.
Contra Director Alfredo Cesar on Tuesday questioned the claim and charged that the Sandinista regime may be trying ”to influence a congressional decision on a new aid package for the contras.”
”They`ve used those tricks in the past,” said Cesar in a telephone interview from Miami. ”My initial reaction is that I have no doubt the Sandinistas are provoking or attacking our people,” he said. ”Our people have orders not to attack, but only to defend themselves.”
Cesar said the Reagan administration may decide as soon as this Friday how much new contra aid the White House will ask Congress to grant. He said the Sandinisatas ”are doing this to portray the incident as the contras breaking the truce.”
The Defense Ministry said contras used an antitank mine, rocket launchers, grenade launchers and rifle fire in ”a criminal ambush” of the two vehicles some 75 miles southeast of Managua.
”One more time, we have seen a demonstration of the warlike attitude of those sectors of the counterrevolution loyal to the service of Enrique Bermudez,” said the statement, referring to the military leader of the contra army.
The statement concluded that the contra attack was ”contrary to the peace sought by our revolutionary government, which has vigilantly maintained the unilateral cease-fire.”
The Sandinistas took power in a broad-based revolution that toppled Somoza in 1979. Bermudez was a colonel in the National Guard of deposed dictator Anastasio Somoza.
Despite occasional incidents of violence prompted by one side or the other, the guns in Nicaragua`s 7 1/2-year civil war have largely been silenced by a tentative agreement reached March 21-23 in Sapoa, Nicaragua. Both sides have agreed to extend the truce even though negotiations for a permanent cease-fire have broken off indefinitely.
On Monday, the Defense Ministry issued a communique claiming that during the month of June, forces loyal to Bermudez kept impeding the peace process by continuing attacks against civilians, including kidnapings.
