In the Name of Relief

The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. and other private U.S. organizations and corporations are raising millions of dollars in food, medicine, clothing, vehicles, and other humanitarian aid for Nicaraguan refugees. And millions of well-meaning U.S. Christians are donating money that is serving, directly or indirectly, to sustain Nicaraguan contras and to perpetuate the contra terrorism that has killed or injured more than 8,000 Nicaraguans since 1982, more than half of them civilians.

Numerous sources, both pro- and anti-contra, concede the "contra relief" aspects of these relief efforts focused on the border between Nicaragua and Honduras. Pro-contra groups will not speak out against the programs because they are succeeding in aiding the contras. Many neutral and anti-contra observers also are reluctant to criticize the programs because they assume that, in addition to the contras, many refugees are being aided; they say they do not want to jeopardize programs that are helping needy people.

But, according to several relief officials whose firsthand accounts of the situation confirm one another, these right-wing groups and their border-area programs are hurting the refugees more than helping them. The border programs are enticing refugees from other areas and relief programs to the border area, creating greater aid dependency and making the refugees more vulnerable to forced recruitment, killings, disappearances, and other abuses by local contra forces.

"It is clear that the border relief programs are not designed to meet the long- or short-term interests of the Miskitos [Indian refugees], but rather are designed for political purposes as a conduit of aid to the contra," said one relief official, who spent three years coordinating various Christian relief efforts in Central America.

Tom Hawk, who recently left the evangelical World Relief organization after serving four years as its relief coordinator in Honduras, described the border-area relief efforts as irresponsible, inexperienced, detrimental to refugees, and overtly political. "A lot of those people are not refugees. They are here because Misura [a contra faction] brought them over from Nicaragua. They've been there [at other camps] for three years. Why create this unnecessary dependence?"

Spokespersons for the groups defended their programs and told Sojourners they are not involved in efforts to aid the contras. The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) refused to answer two typed pages of explicit questions from Sojourners and said many of the statements contained in Sojourners' questions were "false and perhaps border on being libelous."

But numerous U.S. government officials, contra leaders, aid providers, and relief workers have said that refugee relief programs in the border area are aiding the contras, whether by design or default. "Most of the refugee camps supplied by these groups are right on the border, where refugees and contra fighters live together. Intended or not, the effect is to sustain the military operations of the contras," said one congressional source.

That the contras benefit from such programs is confirmed by the contras themselves. Adolfo Calero, commander-in-chief of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), the largest contra group, said in September 1984: "If it were not for the private aid that we receive in different places, we could not continue our struggle."

Calero's brother Mario, another FDN official, further justified the "refugee relief efforts, saying, "The FDN has taken care of 20,000 to 30,000 refugees, including freedom fighters' [contras'] families. Some of the refugees are freedom fighters. I consider myself a refugee." And the FDN's spokesperson in Washington, D.C., Bosco Matamoros, remarked that "private aid has permitted the continuation and the expansion of our forces in Nicaragua."

Creation of Refugee Fund

Neither CBN nor any of the other private groups providing aid to Nicaraguan refugees has had any previous direct relief or development experience. Some of the groups were created for the sole purpose of providing Nicaraguan refugees with humanitarian aid, even though other well-respected groups of long standing had been serving the refugees for three years.

Never had these Nicaraguan refugees been so popular or widely known, and never had so many people and groups wanted to help them—never until they became known as the "refugees fleeing communist Nicaragua." Never had refugees been such a social event—never until the contras needed substantial amounts of military aid from the United States to sustain their military operations. Only then were several private groups established to aid Nicaraguan refugees, many of them going to unusual lengths to raise funds, all of them connected with one another, and several of them directly related to the contras.

A microcosm of these relief efforts, their tactics, and the persons and groups involved was seen last April in Washington, D.C., two weeks before Congress voted on President Reagan's request for $14 million in renewed contra aid. Chauffeur-driven limousines pulled up to the J.W. Marriott Hotel with passengers coming to the exclusive Nicaraguan Refugee Fund dinner. Almost 700 rich and powerful people paid $250 each to eat dinner for the refugees; $500 if they drank cocktails. But it was for a good cause; it was for the refugees. Rev. Pat Robertson, head of CBN, gave the invocation and led the Pledge of Allegiance.

Supporters of the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund interrupted President Ronald Reagan's speech with applause eight times and gave him several ovations. The president's retelling of Nicaraguan history was untrue and his numbers were inflated, but the drama of his speech worked the audience into a near frenzy.

In Reagan's speech, contras were promoted to "freedom fighters" and "patriots"; Sandinistas became "communists"; and revolutionary Nicaragua was declared a "police state." Fourteen million dollars in aid to the contras became the refugees' salvation, and the overthrow of the Sandinistas was revealed as the last hope for the survival of the free world.

Two of the key participants at the dinner were Louis "Woody" and Diane Jenkins, chair and executive director, respectively, of Friends of the Americas. Based in Louisiana and created in April 1984 to aid Nicaraguan refugees in the Honduras Mosquitia, where the Miskito Indians live, Friends of the Americas had become the most influential group working with refugees in the border region.

Woody Jenkins has made it clear that his refugee work grows out of his politics. Speaking to a journalist, he explained his work this way: "To me they [contras] are refugees just the same as anyone else. To me they deserve more support. I'm all for the freedom fighters. I want the Sandinistas kicked out of Nicaragua. That's one of the main motivations for my work. But our role is to help the refugees, not to get involved with combatants."

But, according to Steadman Fagoth, leader of the Misura contra faction, which operates adjacent to the Friends of the Americas headquarters, the food, medicine, and clothing supplied by Jenkins' group has allowed his army to "concentrate on the war against the Sandinistas." Fagoth said his Misura group—which has direct ties to the FDN and is comprised of Miskito, Sumo, and Rama Indians—received two tons of food from Friends of the Americas in July 1984.

Eight months later, during the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund dinner, the president of the United States was portraying Woody and Diane Jenkins as "America at its best," and he presented Diane Jenkins with the first Ronald Reagan American Ideals Award. Woody Jenkins, a Louisiana state representative and one of the three directors of the fund, showed slides of Miskito refugee children and talked about malnutrition and the lack of protein in their diets.

"When you talk about refugees, you talk about children," he said. "Seventy percent of the refugees are women and children, and most of the rest are elderly." To help these refugees, caring Americans should "support the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund," Jenkins told the audience. To stop the flow of refugees, they should "support President Reagan's policies in Central America." He added, "One of the few groups helping [the refugees through Friends of the Americas] is Pat Robertson and CBN." Turning to address Robertson, seated at the head table, Jenkins said, "Thank you."

A STATEMENT IN THE dinner program described the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund as a non-profit, humanitarian organization "established in 1984 to raise and provide approximately $3 million annually to those Nicaraguan citizens seeking refuge in Honduras and Costa Rica. This assistance will be in the form of food, clothing, medical supplies, tools, education, and other goods and services badly needed by the refugees.

"As its name implies," the statement continued, "the NRF is a fund, not a service delivery agency. The Fund believes that its greatest strength is in bringing the plight of the refugees to the attention of generous Americans. There are a number of organizations with experience in delivering the goods and services that the refugees need. After determining what the refugees consider their greatest priorities, the NRF will engage the appropriate agency and fund it to meet these needs. The Fund will then monitor the performance of the delivery agent."

But two months after the dinner, the Associated Press and the Miami Herald reported that the NRF had not bought any relief supplies for Nicaraguan refugees, the fund was in debt, some contributions were unaccounted for, and a falling out had taken place among fund officials, figureheads, and hired associates. Woody Jenkins resigned after his Friends of the Americas request for $50,000 to build a clinic was rejected with the explanation that "regrettably the fund is still paying the expenses" from the dinner.

Alvaro Rizo, the fund's founder and a former diplomat under former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, and Michael Schoor, NRF attorney, told the Associated Press in late June that of the estimated $200,000 raised by the fund, about $100,000 had been paid to the Marriott Hotel for the dinner. After hotel officials denied the charge was that high, Schoor pegged the Marriott bill at $71,163 and said another $50,000 had been paid to Miner and Fraser Public Affairs Inc., a Washington firm, and $10,000 to a private fund-raiser.

Some of the fund's contributions apparently were stolen during the dinner, according to Schoor. "I would like to know myself where the dinner money went, NRF chair True Davis told the Associated Press. Chicago socialite and philanthropist Donna "Sugar" Rautboard, co-chair of the dinner, said NRF officials had refused her an accounting of monies raised and spent. "I brought some money in. I hope it went to help people," she said.

EVIDENCE POINTS TO a direct link between the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund and the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), the largest contra group and the principal recipient of official U.S. funds. Anonymous sources told the Associated Press the fund was started in September 1984 through an agreement between the FDN's Nicaraguan Development Council and Miner and Fraser Public Affairs Inc. Company president Edie Fraser initially confirmed that her business had an agreement with the council to plan a refugee fund. Fraser later said she could find no record of the agreement and that it must have been an arrangement between the council and Alvaro Rizo.

From Rizo it appears that the NRF trail goes first to the FDN's Nicaraguan Development Council, then to the CIA, and, ultimately, to contra fighters. Edgar Chamorro, a former FDN director, said the CIA started the FDN's first fund-raising effort through the Panama-based Human Development Foundation to divert attention from the CIA's plans to "launder" funds to the contras through foreign governments. Chamorro and other sources indicate that the NRF was, at least in part, the product of joint CIA and FDN attempts to circumvent the congressional ban on direct or indirect support for the contras.

In July 1984 the foundation placed advertisements in major U.S. newspapers seeking donations for "the victims of communist-dominated Nicaragua." According to Chamorro the CIA paid for the ads, which raised only $700 and brought in numerous protest letters. After the foundation effort failed, FDN officials established the Nicaraguan Development Council, a fund-raising arm that proposed the creation of a refugee fund, and the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund was born.

Funding the Contra War

Thus, through CIA ties with the FDN and through the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund, Friends of the Americas, CBN, and other groups, the contras have survived despite the congressional ban—revoked this past spring—on U.S. aid to the rebels. In some cases the connections between private organizations and the contras are fairly direct. CBN's Operation Blessing, for example, donated $3 million to the Houston-based Nicaraguan Patriotic Association, whose vice president, Juan Sacasa, is the Houston representative of the FDN. Other relationships are more circular or indirect.

In some cases, purported, more publicly respectable relationships do not exist. When Sojourners first began investigating CBN's involvement with contra-related groups last spring, a magazine employee wrote a personal letter to CBN asking if it was helping the contras. CBN responded: "We appreciate your concern for the Central American problems at this time. The aid we give in humanitarian relief to any country, such as Nicaragua or Honduras, is channeled through other ministries and churches. We have worked with ministries like World Vision and the Sudan Interior Mission in Africa. May we suggest that you write directly to World Vision for more information about aid to Central America. Their address follows...."

But a high-ranking World Vision official explained to Sojourners, "CBN has made one grant to World Vision from 1982 on. That was in 1983 for work in Ethiopia. They have made no grants for Central America. At no time have we had any programs with them."

Whatever the channels by which private American aid is reaching the contras, its existence points to the fact that throughout the entire history of the Nicaraguan counterrevolution—while debate over official contra aid has raged on the floor of Congress—the contra war in Nicaragua has continued unabated.

Ever since a secret $1 million appropriation made by the Carter administration in 1980 to the anti-Sandinista political center in Managua, the United States has been the author of the Nicaraguan counterrevolution, the product of a CIA that has acted outside the bounds of congressional and popular control. From the original, secret $19.5 million appropriation to the contras, to the CIA's mining of Nicaraguan harbors, the agency's publication of a psychological manual that told contras how to "neutralize" Sandinista officials, and a $7.5 million "humanitarian" aid program administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development—dubbed by one AID official as a "contra relief effort"—the Reagan administration has never wavered in its determination to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government, with or without congressional authorization.

But the involvement of such groups as Friends of the Americas, the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Florida-based Air Commando Association, the paramilitary Soldier of Fortune magazine and its spin-off groups, the Unification Church-based Causa International and church-owned Washington Times' Nicaraguan Freedom Fund, and retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub's World Anti-Communist League symbolizes a new and significant development in the U.S. foreign policy in Nicaragua and throughout Central America. Private American citizens, frustrated by what they perceive as the administration's or Congress' failure to act, and fired up by the Reagan administration rhetoric that portrays Nicaragua as "communist" and a "totalitarian dungeon," have proven they are willing to take the situation into their own hands and pocketbooks.

Pat Robertson, commenting on the congressional debate over Reagan's $14 million contra aid request, said on CBN's "700 Club" last April 23: "It is appalling to me that members of the U.S. Congress are so concerned with propping up communist governments in the western hemisphere, which threatens the security of the United States and its neighbors. It is appalling to me that we would debate over $14 million ... one attempt to dislodge a communist dictatorship in Central America causes Congress to go into a tizzy over $14 million in aid. There's something sickly wrong with our government, in my humble opinion.

"I want us to pray about the voting Congress because this is a very important vote, and the craven submission of our leaders and Congress to the demands of communism makes you sick to your stomach ... We want to pray that God will somehow speak to these people. Why don't we pray that the Lord will give aid to those people who are struggling against communist rule?"

John Singlaub, who says his World Anti-Communist League/U.S. Council for World Freedom has received coordinating help from the Pentagon, is a one-person clearinghouse for private U.S. aid to the contras. Singlaub's group, working with Friends of the Americas, the Air Commandos, the Council for National Policy— all groups that CBN works with—and others, told journalists he has distributed more than $6 million in aid to Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras and to refugees in El Salvador.

Singlaub also told the Miami Herald that he helps the contras by raising about $500,000 a month from American organizations and individuals and then transferring the money to foreign corporations and governments that deposit it in a secret overseas bank account. The contras then withdraw cash from the account and use it to purchase military equipment, he said. According to Singlaub, this procedure circumvents the 187-year-old U.S. Neutrality Act, which prohibits arming from U.S. soil military actions against a nation with which the United States is not at war.

"WHAT YOU ARE doing to assist the victims of communism in Central America," Reagan told Friends of the Americas and other groups last spring, "to provide them with food, medical aid, clothing, and other humanitarian support is in the finest tradition of American volunteerism."

Grady Mangham, senior associate executive director of World Relief, said of Friends of the Americas and other groups working in the Nicaragua-Honduras border area: "They are probably motivated by sincere concerns they have—whether political or otherwise is for them to say. But I think they are sincere people, most of them. Some of them are motivated by a strong patriotism."

Yet what makes private aid to the contras—whether direct or by way of refugees—so controversial to relief workers, human rights groups, and others is not the "patriotism" involved, but that the contras are terrorists. Contra forces, which number between 10,000 and 15,000 men, have received more than $80 million in official U.S. aid since 1980.

An April 1985 study by the Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives concluded that, while most of the contras are Nicaraguan peasants, 46 of the FDN's 48 commander positions are held by former National Guardsmen who served under the brutal Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, deposed by the Sandinistas in July 1979. Since 1982 the contras have killed or wounded more than 8,000 Nicaraguans, and, in 1984 alone, contra attacks caused $255 million in damage to Nicaraguan crops, schools, factories, hospitals, and homes.

Religious groups, human rights groups, independent researchers, journalists, and relief workers have documented brutal killings, rapes, kidnappings, and torture of Nicaraguan civilians by the contras. According to a July 1985 report by the human rights group Americas Watch, contra aid results in human rights violations.

"The most violent abuses of human rights in Nicaragua today are being committed by the contras. The Reagan administration's policy of support for the contras is, therefore, a policy clearly inimical to human rights," said the report, titled Human Rights in Nicaragua: Reagan, Rhetoric and Reality.

The report also said the Reagan administration has been "deceptive and harmful" in its portrayal of the human rights situation in Nicaragua. While there is a "core of fact" of such abuses in Nicaragua, Reagan has wrongly charged Nicaragua with persecuting church groups and waging genocide against Miskito Indians, thereby building "an edifice of innuendo and exaggeration." Yet the Reagan administration and private groups justify their activities with these "exaggerated" charges against the Sandinista government.

Tom Hawk, formerly of World Relief, said the border-area relief programs "are definitely there to help the people who are fighting. They can't avoid it. Everything they do is justified as long as they're fighting 'communists.' They are a bunch of thugs down there. Steadman Fagoth [of Misura] is a thug. He has killed innocent people. The contras are constantly terrorizing the refugee camps, forcibly recruiting people. That's the kind of people that Friends of the Americas, CBN, and CERTs [Christian Emergency Relief Teams] are supporting."

Hawk, who describes himself as a former "conservative evangelical who was sympathetic to CBN," said his contacts with CBN officials and film crews and other right-wing groups working in the area have changed his perspective. Of CBN he said: "I'm very disillusioned with them after what I've seen them do in the name of God. They don't want to become informed about the refugee situation. They are irresponsible. I didn't see any professionalism from CBN. I have been really disappointed in them."

Victims of Relief

The "refugee situation," as Hawk terms it, is a complex one, further complicated by the presence of the new relief programs in the border region. Soon after the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship, Sandinista forces arrived in Nicaragua's eastern, Atlantic coast region, populated almost entirely by Miskito, Sumo, and Rama Indians. Because of their geographic isolation from the bulk of the Nicaraguan population and because of their cultural uniqueness in Nicaragua—they speak Indian dialects rather than Spanish and belong to the Moravian and other Protestant churches rather than the Roman Catholic church—the Miskitos and other Indians historically had been quite independent of the ruling Nicaraguan government.

So when the Sandinistas, with little or no understanding of the Miskito situation and an overabundance of revolutionary zeal, tried to incorporate the Miskitos into their "new" Nicaragua, many of the Indians resisted. The conflict between the Sandinistas and the Miskitos intensified when contra forces began raiding Miskito villages and kidnapping civilians.

The Sandinistas responded by forcibly relocating thousands of Miskitos away from the Rio Coco border area, often destroying their native villages in the process. Americas Watch and other independent human rights groups have documented several human rights violations against the Miskitos by Sandinista forces, the most severe being the massacre of 14 to 17 Miskitos at Leimus in December 1981, the massacre of seven Miskitos at Walpa Siksa in 1982, and the disappearance of some 70 civilian Miskito detainees between July and September 1982.

"As a matter of policy, these practices appear to have ceased after early 1983," according to a March 1985 Americas Watch report on abuses by Sandinista and contra forces. "In the Leimus and Walpa Siksa cases, the [Nicaraguan] government reportedly has acted to investigate and punish those responsible, though it has not provided a public accounting of its actions and it has not accounted for the disappearances."

In a further attempt to rectify its past mistakes with the Miskitos, the Sandinista government began in July to move thousands of Indians back to their ancestral villages along the Rio Coco. The Sandinistas also have pledged to grant autonomy to the 100,000 Miskito, Sumo, and Rama Indians who inhabit Nicaragua's eastern coastal region. However, Misura contra leaders rejected the government's autonomy offer and pledged to continue fighting against the Sandinistas.

According to Americas Watch, there are some 19,000 Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras and 6,000 in Costa Rica. "There is no question that the insurgent forces, Misura in particular, have the deliberate policy of encouraging this exodus, since for the most part those who arrive in the neighboring countries do so with the escort of contra troops."

In addition to kidnapping some civilians and "encouraging" others to join their forces, the contras persuade many others to go with them across the borders by telling the remaining civilians that Sandinista soldiers will arrest them for collaborating with contra forces, Americas Watch reports, adding that 15,000 of the refugees are Miskito Indians.

ACCORDING TO RELIEF officials in the area, 10,000 refugees arrived in Honduras in January 1982 following the Sandinistas' evacuation of the Rio Coco area. Since that time World Relief, an evangelical Christian agency, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), both well-known and respected relief organizations of long standing, have been working in southeastern Honduras to aid Indian refugees from Nicaragua. They have served as many as 17,500 Miskito, Sumo, and Rama Indians in settlements along three rivers in the Honduran Mosquitia, all at least 50 kilometers (about 31 miles) from the political conflict at the Nicaragua-Honduras border.

With an annual budget of about $4 million, World Relief officials provide the refugees with food, shelter, other basic needs, and development assistance. In late 1982 and early 1983, the World Relief/ UNHCR program began moving refugees to agricultural settlements, helping them to grow rice as a cash crop, and to grow beans, corn, and yucca for home consumption. Due to increasing agricultural production and a network of marketing outlets established by World Relief, many of the Indians have achieved near self-sufficiency in food production, and in 1984 World Relief and UNHCR began cutting back direct assistance to the refugees.

At the same time, some 50 kilometers away, Nicaraguan contras were experiencing their own shortfall in aid from the United States. Congress cut off funds to the contras in May 1984, and it was at that time, or shortly after, that several private U.S. organizations began to express interest in Nicaraguan refugees. The Christian Broadcasting Network, which runs the fourth-largest cable television network in the United States and grosses more than $50 million a year, has been at the forefront in terms of the amount of money sent to refugees in Central America, according to numerous accounts published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Miami Herald, The Nation, Time, Newsweek, and other publications.

Much of CBN's aid is in the form of food and medicine, according to published reports. CBN's Operation Blessing does not directly distribute its millions of dollars' worth of Nicaraguan refugee relief, but works with organizations such as Friends of the Americas, the Nicaraguan Patriotic Association, the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund, the Florida-based Air Commando Association, Americares Foundation, the Knights of Malta, the U.S. military, and other groups (see "Who's Who" in this issue).

Unlike World Relief and UNHCR, which honor a 50-kilometers-from-the-border rule in an effort to separate refugee relief from politics, these organizations set up their operations squarely in the Nicaragua-Honduras border area, some with headquarters less than 100 yards from living quarters of well-known contra leaders. Some of these groups have their organizational roots in the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), and some of them employ, or otherwise work directly with, the contras, according to published reports and firsthand accounts provided to Sojourners.

TEN THOUSAND OF the Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras came in January 1982, and 7,000 have come since then, according to relief officials. The first wave of refugees was spurred by Sandinista policies. The movement of the second group is attributable to contra practices and "general fear of the people," relief workers said. These officials told Sojourners that the last entrance of Nicaraguan refugees into Honduras was when 700 refugees arrived in April 1984.

Yet the opening paragraph of the spring 1985 issue of Friends of the Americas' Friends Report newsletter reads: "As many as 1,000 refugees a day are fleeing the communist regime of Nicaragua to find sanctuary in the remote jungle areas of Costa Rica and Honduras ... Nicaraguans continue to leave their homeland to escape mass executions, religious persecution, forced conscription of boys as young as 13, and destruction of entire villages by the Sandinistas."

With such extreme and inaccurate statements, Friends of the Americas has raised more than $1.5 million in cash and other contributions for Nicaraguan refugees. Firsthand accounts provided to Sojourners by relief officials, confirmed and corroborated by one another and by the Americas Watch report, reveal several important aspects of the Friends of the Americas and other "relief" efforts:

- Some 4,000 refugees have come to the area not from Nicaragua but from World Relief/UNHCR camps where direct assistance was gradually being decreased to encourage greater self-sufficiency; the border-area programs foster aid dependency.

- The number of refugees in the area is approximately 5,000, much lower than the refugee population the groups are claiming to serve.

- Refugees in the area are subject to constant harassment and abuse by contra forces.

- More than 1,000 refugees want to repatriate to Nicaragua, but the contras, the relief programs, and the Honduran government have blocked repatriation for all but a few.

- The amounts of aid the groups say they are raising and sending to the refugees, plus the $7.5 million in AID money, is far greater than that actually reaching the refugees and double that being spent by the World Relief/UNHCR for almost three times as many refugees.

- Some of this aid ends up in contra hands.

ONE RELIEF OFFICIAL reported: "There is also evidence that Misura is pressuring or forcing people to leave the World Relief/UNHCR settlements and go to the border area. In the settlement of Koko, we saw a number of burned houses (perhaps as many as 20), and were told that the people's supplies of rice had been thrown in the river." Later a UNHCR official working in the area said that Misura had burned people's houses and thrown their rice into the river to get them to move to the border. Koko is the political center of the contras among the refugee settlements.

"There are several reasons why Misura would want people out of the settlements and into the border area," the official continued. "First, it facilitates Misura control over the people without World Relief or UNHCR 'interference.' UNHCR has now placed two protection officers in the Mosquitia to prevent abuses of forced recruitment or harassment of those wanting to repatriate. Second, by creating an 'emergency' in the border zone with the presence of large numbers of refugees, private and public agencies [AID] can justify more aid to the area. Clearly, however, the emergency is a false one as the refugees in the border zone prior to the aid were experiencing no problems, and those drawn to the aid or forced to move would be better off back in the World Relief/UNHCR program.

"There is also some evidence as to how much of the aid that is supposed to go to the refugees is actually getting to them. Friends of the Americas has a warehouse in Rus Rus, and CERTs has built one in Auka. The Friends' warehouse was totally empty when we visited it, and only the clinic and a school were functioning. Evidently in December [1984] the California-based organization Inter-Aid flew supplies in for Friends of the Americas on three occasions as part of the AID program.

"Some refugees with whom we talked did complain that they had been deceived into going to the border for large amounts of aid and had really received very little. If, in fact, these private organizations are collecting large amounts of money for the refugees, the refugees have seen very little of it so far," the relief official concluded.

Another relief official estimated that Friends of the Americas is spending about $6,000 a month for actual refugee relief. "They're not spending much at all," he said. "It just isn't matching up. My staff doesn't see the other money. I don't know where it's going."

Steadman Fagoth, leader of Misura, told North American journalists and researchers he had received more than two tons of food and medicine for his army from Friends of the Americas in July 1984. And these contras—who are receiving aid from Friends of Americas—are killing, kidnapping, and otherwise abusing the very refugees Friends of the Americas purports to help. Several such cases, in addition to the burning of houses and destruction of food supplies discussed above, have been documented by relief officials and human rights organizations. Among them:

- The killing of nine refugees near the border by Misura in January 1984.

- The August 1984 disappearance of 22 women who wanted to repatriate to Nicaragua and were being held by Misura in Rus Rus. World Relief and UNHCR officials have informed the Honduran military of these cases, but the women have not been found and are presumed dead.

- Steadman Fagoth and other Misura contras have repeatedly threatened Hawk, other World Relief personnel, and a Roman Catholic deacon in Koko.

- In December 1984 300 Misura members tried to prevent 70 refugees from repatriating to Nicaragua. The refugees had sought protection in the World Relief house in Wampusirpi. At 2 a.m. the Misura members, carrying machetes, surrounded the house and threatened to attack it and seize the refugees unless the two UNHCR officials there turned the refugees over to them. Several hours later the Honduran military arrived and escorted the refugees from the house to an airstrip, where they were flown out of the region. A UNHCR camera crew filmed the entire incident.

- Manuel Espinal, a Miskito school teacher on the Nicaraguan side of the Rio Coco, was kidnapped by Misura, along with 52 of his students, and forced to walk for 16 days to Honduras. Over the next few weeks, Espinal and several students were beaten, forced to undergo military training, recaptured after they escaped, held captive, and threatened with death before eventually being rescued by Hawk and other World Relief and UNHCR officials.

- According to several relief workers and a North American missionary working in Honduras, Friends of the Americas and CERTs personnel distribute watches, cameras, shoes, and tape decks to Misura members. The contras then give the goods to Miskito refugees as an incentive to enter the Misura forces.

Confronted with the Evidence

Yet, even when Friends of the Americas, the Christian Broadcasting Network, and other groups are confronted with such evidence, their stories remain the same.

"We're not running guns to the contras or to any combatants. We're not involved in that," Dedria Evans, media director for Friends of the Americas, told Sojourners. "Because of where we are, we're always being accused of helping the contras.

"I think people [critics] just want us to quit and leave, but we're not going to do that," Evans continued. "We love these people [refugees]. They're our Christian brothers, and we're going to help them. Our philosophy is that we want to help our brothers in Latin America whether they're suffering from war, natural disasters, a hurricane—whatever. That's our philosophy.

"Seventy percent of the refugee population are children. When a child is seven months old and weighs two-and-a-half pounds, I don't care what they are. Children are our main concern." Evans added that Friends of the Americas was operating clinics and schools for the refugees and sending medical teams to remote villages. Asked why Friends of the Americas located in the border region while World Relief and UNHCR were operating a very successful relief program further into Honduras, Evans said: "We're there because no one else is. Do you want these poor, starving people to walk a couple more days? They've already walked two weeks. We go to the people where they are. They decide where they want to live. It's like an outreach program.

"We've got to help them. When you look at a sick baby, you don't ask them what their political affiliation is. You just help them." According to Evans, Friends of the Americas has reached about half of the 40 refugee villages in the border region with food and medical care. She said she didn't know how many refugees were being served. The organization has a staff of "between 12 and 20," and about half the members live full-time in Honduras.

The fall 1984 issue of the Friends Report newsletter said the kinds of aid needed by Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras included cash, a large airplane, four-wheel-drive vehicles and pickup trucks, generators, boats and outboard motors, shortwave radios, walkie-talkies, battery-operated radios, and a satellite dish.

Asked about the need for such items, Evans replied: "The Mosquitia is so remote. We have no way of communicating with our staff ... There is no electricity, so we need a generator for the clinic ... Lots of villages are along the river; sometimes the only way to get there is by boat. These are things we would like to have to do our job."

Misura leader Steadman Fagoth, speaking last February at a New Orleans press conference organized by the Caribbean Commission, said his army especially needed outboard motors. The motors would be attached to boats and used to ferry wounded Misura members through Nicaraguan rivers and swamps, Fagoth said. Contra forces also have used motor boats to attack Nicaraguan fishing fleets and ports.

Sojourners asked Evans also about the reported Misura attacks on groups of refugees. "I haven't heard anything like that," she said. "We're fighting parasites and malaria, not attacks. I've never heard any such thing. We didn't locate there; the people did. We just went where the people were. We knew people were going to make all these allegations."

Tom Hawk, another relief official, and a North American missionary all said Friends of the Americas was in close contact with Fagoth and that two of its employees, David King and a man named Alex, are well-known Misura members. Evans confirmed that King and Alex work for Friends of the Americas, but laughed when told they were reported to be contras. "I doubt that very seriously ... God—where did you get all this?" Evans' responses to other confirmed reports, such as one indicating Friends of the Americas bought a pickup truck with money from AID, were the same. "You gotta be kidding me," she said repeatedly.

Sojourners asked several times to speak with Woody or Diane Jenkins, emphasizing the seriousness of the charges being made by relief officials and others against their organization. But Evans refused to let a Sojourners reporter speak with them, or even to apprise them of the allegations and the forthcoming Sojourners article, saying: "I don't want to put Woody or Diane in the position of being on the defensive. Because of where we are, we're always being accused of helping the contras. We're so sick of that. It doesn't matter anymore."

Christian Broadcasting Network officials have been even less willing than Friends of the Americas to talk about their involvement in Central America, to respond to allegations that their monies are being used to aid the contras, or to explain their involvement with various organizations.

Late last June Roman Catholic Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of Richmond, Virginia, said he saw Pat Robertson on the Sunday, June 23 telecast of the "700 Club" reviewing contra fighters and referring to them as "God's army." In a prepared statement, Sullivan said, "Killing, rape, mutilation, and terrorism are surely not willed or blessed by God ... I cannot imagine Jesus reviewing troops ... I strongly urge Rev. Pat Robertson, in fidelity to the teaching and example of Jesus, to embrace the gospel of nonviolence as the only effective way toward reconciliation in Nicaragua."

Robertson responded to Sullivan by letter, telling the bishop he had misquoted him and could be guilty of libel and slander. "Never, not once, did I say this [the contras] was the army of God. Never did I say they were carrying out a mission for Christianity." Robertson also expressed great personal offense at Sullivan's charge and said that during his 25 years of broadcasting he had "worked for harmony and reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics."

On June 27, during Robertson's luncheon appearance before 120 members of the United Republican Fund, several Chicago-area Christians asked Robertson about CBN's activities in Central America. In a question-and-answer period following Robertson's speech, Dale Suderman, owner of Chicago's Logos Bookstore, asked Robertson, "Why are you donating $7 million in aid to contras and other quasi-military outfits operating in Central America?"

Robertson refused to answer the question directly. He denied having any knowledge of CBN connections with Soldier of Fortune-related groups or with Juan Sacasa of the Nicaraguan Patriotic Association, who has said CBN gave $3 million to his group, the Houston affiliate of the FDN. Robertson would say only that, "The fact is that communists make people suffer. If that makes it [Operation Blessing] political, then, I'm sorry, we're still going to help them."

Before CBN's Central America activities received widespread publicity, some CBN officials did speak with April Witt, a reporter for the Virginian-Pilot newspaper, in July 1984. "CBN is a very red-white-and-blue organization," Bob Warren, the national director of Operation Blessing told Witt in reference to the $7 million CBN had shipped to Central America, some on U.S. Navy ships. "But we're not doing this to augment the State Department or for political reasons. We're doing it out of Christian concern and compassion," Warren said.

"Our initial motivation is to obey Christ's order or desire to feed the poor," Warren explained. "It just so happens, where communists are, there is more terrorism and killing. So there is more need." Jack Wood, head of CBN's Houston office, added, "We do know our president would like us to do this for some of the countries in the South."

CBN'S MOST RECENT Central America fund-raising effort was publicized through mock telegrams telling CBN "partners" that "victims of communist persecution in Central America are in desperate condition. Twenty million dollars of urgently needed medicine and food supplements is available for these helpless people if CBN can provide $2 million to pay for shipping costs."

CBN Public Affairs Director Earl Weirich confirmed that CBN was working with Americares Foundation and Knights of Malta in that fund-raising effort. Americares, a private organization led by prominent and conservative U.S. politicians and business leaders, has sent at least $3 million to Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras, in addition to working in El Salvador and Guatemala. Much of the aid is distributed by the Knights of Malta, a Roman Catholic fraternal organization, with the assistance of the Honduran, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan military forces.

"Our aid to Central American countries goes to help people who are sick or homeless or whatever," Weirich told Sojourners in a telephone interview that was cut short when he insisted that Sojourners submit its specific questions to the network in writing. "The only thing we can tell you," Weirich continued, "is that we're trying to help needy people. We don't ask them what their politics are. This is a Christian endeavor. We have no interest in providing arms to anyone or in promoting hostility."

Tom Hawk related to Sojourners an experience he had with a CBN film crew in the Honduran Mosquitia. According to Hawk the crew was in the area to film a story about the contras and came to a World Relief camp in need of gasoline for its jeep.

"They lied to us," Hawk said. "I told them I would give them the fuel, but not if their vehicle belonged to the contras. They said it didn't. But when they came back a few days later, they admitted that they had lied. The jeep belonged to Misura. CBN went down to do a story on freedom fighters. They weren't interested in refugees."

Weirich responded to those and other allegations by saying, "No one is asking why we're helping people in Africa or a widow in Dubuque [Iowa]. Why is it different with aid that might find its way to contras? Aiding the communists would be a better thing, would it? We're working in order to bring help to people in need, and we expect to be faulted for that at times."

Unanswered Questions

Many questions remain unanswered. Why did CBN become concerned about, and its Operation Blessing begin aiding, Central American refugees only after Congress had repealed its funding of the contras? Sojourners asked CBN this question, but CBN officials did not respond.

Why is CBN working in Central America with groups whose primary motivations, backgrounds, and emphases are political and military rather than humanitarian? Why is CBN working with these groups rather than Christian relief groups in Honduras and throughout Central America? Why did CBN say it is working in Honduras with World Vision when, in fact, it is not? Sojourners asked CBN these questions, and CBN refused to respond.

Why is CBN working with groups whose efforts are aiding the contras and thereby making possible the further killing, torture, and general abuse of Nicaraguan civilians? Does Operation Blessing exercise any control over the distribution and use of the money and goods it supplies to these groups? Is CBN aware of how its donations are being used? If not, why not? Sojourners presented these questions to CBN, in writing, and CBN refused to respond.

Does CBN have a sincere concern for Nicaraguan refugees? Why has such a concern not been expressed to relief workers? Why do CBN broadcasts portray the contras, who are documented terrorists, as "freedom fighters" and persons worthy of support from North American Christians? Did a CBN film crew working on a story about the contras use a contra-owned vehicle while filming in Honduras? If so, why? Again, Sojourners asked CBN these questions and was rebuffed.

While all these questions remain unanswered, some things are clear. For more than a year now, CBN, Friends of the Americas, and other groups have been providing humanitarian aid to Nicaraguan "refugees." The Nicaraguan contras, with no official U.S. funding, have managed to survive and carry on their war of terrorism against the people and property of Nicaragua.

And now that Congress has resumed its funding of the contras, with an appropriation of $27 million, the killing will continue and likely increase. Will CBN continue to speak out in favor of the contras? Will CBN continue to work with organizations whose programs support the contras?

The Christian Broadcasting Network does not say.

—Vicki Kemper

Who's Who

Private U.S. organizations and individuals have contributed more than $25 million in humanitarian and military aid to the Nicaraguan contras in the past year. Others have been providing humanitarian aid to Nicaraguan refugees along the Nicaragua-Honduras border, aid that often finds its way to the contras. The organizations, all known for their right-wing politics, range from religious to paramilitary, from those which operate at the grassroots level to those whose work is known throughout the world. Yet all the organizations are linked to one another through interlocking directorates and overlapping memberships. And almost all of them are linked, directly or indirectly, with at least one branch of the contras.

Key organizations and individuals include:

- Operation Blessing, the aid and relief arm of the Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. (CBN). Operation Blessing raises money for relief projects and then provides the funds and relief goods to other organizations for distribution. It distributed $25.2 million in the first six months of 1985. It has sent millions of dollars to Nicaraguan and other Central American refugees through paramilitary and other groups with connections to the contras. Operation Blessing also has sent aid to famine victims in Africa.

- Friends of the Americas, based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which was founded by Louis "Woody" Jenkins, a conservative Democrat serving in the state House of Representatives. Diane Jenkins, Woody's wife, a former assistant attorney general in Louisiana, serves as executive director of the organization, which operates refugee relief programs on the Nicaragua-Honduras border. Evidence also indicates Friends of the Americas has close ties with the Misura contra faction. Misura is allied with the Nicaraguan Democratic Front (FDN), the largest contra group, and is made up of Nicaraguan Indians, primarily Miskitos.

- Nicaraguan Refugee Fund, reportedly created by a fund-raising arm of the FDN, also is supported by, in addition to President Ronald Reagan, business magnates J. Peter Grace and Joseph Coors.

- World Anti-Communist League, headed by retired Army Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub, has raised and funneled millions of dollars for military aid to the contras.

- The Air Commando Association, based in Florida, which has about 1,600 members, almost all of them retired U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps pilots, medical, or special operations personnel. It conducts "humanitarian efforts in support of the president's policies in Latin America," according to a written statement, sending medical and other aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

- Nicaraguan Patriotic Association, based in Houston, raises money and other aid for contras and their families. Its vice president, Juan Sacasa, is the Houston representative of the FDN.

- The Caribbean Commission, which has hosted New Orleans press conferences for contra leaders in its fund-raising efforts for the contras. It is led by New Orleans physician Alton Oschner Jr., who also is associated with Friends of the Americas and the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund.

- International Relief Friendship Foundation and Causa International, both arms of the Unification Church, and the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund of the Washington Times, the Unification Church-owned newspaper.

- Civilian-Military Assistance, the Alabama-based group that sends military equipment and volunteer American soldiers to the contras.

- Americares Foundation and the Knights of Malta, whose contributors include CBN and whose leaders include business executives Robert C. Macauley, J. Peter Grace, and former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, also of the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund.

- The Christian Emergency Relief Team, with headquarters in Auburn, Washington, which sends teams of medical personnel to the Honduran Mosquitia, the area along the Rio Coco where the Miskito Indians live. Its doctors work with refugees and also are reported to interact closely with the Misura contras.

- Nicaraguan/Salvadoran Defense Fund and Refugee Relief International, programs of Soldier of Fortune magazine. The defense fund raises money for uniforms and equipment for Salvadoran government soldiers and Nicaraguan contras.

AS AN EXAMPLE of the interconnectedness of the groups, Rev. Pat Robertson, president of the Christian Broadcasting Network, is a member of the board of governors of the conservative Council for National Policy, which hosted Adolfo Calero, commander-in-chief of the FDN, at a 1984 gathering. Robertson also was a member of the dinner committee of the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund and is a public supporter of Friends of the Americas.

CBN, through its Operation Blessing program, has donated $3 million to the Nicaraguan Patriotic Association. CBN's work with Friends of the Americas links it indirectly to Steadman Fagoth, leader of the Misura contras.

CBN also works in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala with retired Gen. H.C. "Hienie" Aderholt's Air Commando Association. Aderholt also is a contributing editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine and a director of the magazine's Refugee Relief International.

Also on the board of Refugee Relief International is retired Maj. Gen. Singlaub, head of the World Anti-Communist League. Aderholt served as Singlaub's deputy in Vietnam in the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force. Singlaub also is a governor of the Council for National Policy, as is Friends of the Americas founder Louis "Woody" Jenkins. And the circle starts again.

Vicki Kemper was news editor of Sojourners magazine when this article appeared.