10-day countdown CIA targets Nicaragua's oil supplies
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-10-20Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 7 →
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DIRECT involvement of the CIA in the systematic campaign of sabotage and murder inside Nicaragua has been admitted for the first time by the Reagan administration, after the destruction of fuel storage tanks at the Nicaraguan port of Corinto.
This Monday raid was followed up by a further raid on Friday on the port of Puerto Sandino. It is reported that the country now has only 10 days' supply of crude oil.
The new strategy adopted by the US and its mercenary band of right-wing 'contra' guerillas who operate from bases in Honduras is to hit sensitive targets which will maximise the damage and disruption of Nicaragua's weak and beleaguered economy.
The switch to this line of attack arises in fact from the humiliating failure of the much-vaunted 7,000 'contra' forces and their CIA leaders to make any significant military headway or win any popular support.
Still determined to force retreats on the radical Sandinista leadership which toppled the US-backed Somoza dictatorship in 1979, Reagan has susMARElIEOH83 tained a vicious economic blockage, and has now turned to outright economic sabotage.
Two weeks ago the 'contras' publicly claimed that they had mined the access to Nicaragua's main oi port, and that tankers from Mexico (the country's only supplier) could be destroyed.
Following this clear signal, Esso promptly announced that its tankers will no longer carry oil from Mexico to Nicaragua.
The oil shortages that have been created in this way will compound other shortages and dislocations in the Nicaraguan economy brought about in the aftermath of Somoza's plunder and by imperialist pressure.
This attempt to cut the wind-