US dirty tricks against Nicaragua
Philip Agee became a CIA agent at the age of 23. Between 1957 and 1969, he worked as a secret agent in Ecuador, Uruguay, Washington, and Mexico.
He has published three books drawing on his experience as a CIA agent: Inside the Company-CIA Diary, Dirty Work-The CIA in Western Europe, and CIA Against El Salvador. This last, published in 1981, exposed the lies and falsifications which form the basis for the White Book on the Communist Interference in El Salvador of the U.S. State
The propaganda in Nicaragua for the period mid-1980 to now has principally been through the newspaper La Prensa which is playing a role in Nicaragua that the newspapers El Mercurio and the Daily Gleaner played in Chile and Jamaica respectively during the 1970s. It is part of the publie record that El Mercurio received millions of dollars from the CIA for its programs to undermine the Allende government.
I don't have any doubt that the Daily Gleaner in Kingston was also receiv-
When I was in Nicaragua, two Cuban teachers in northern rural areas were murdered in the hut of a peasant where they were living. Another Cuban teacher was murdered in December.
As a result of these raids, since Noover one hundred Nicaraguan army and militia people have been killed. So, it is easy to see that they had to fortify the border and try to stop these commando raids of mercenaries, mostly Somoza guardsmen, before they got across the border. The Nicaraguans have of-
Department. ing guidance and support in their cam- fered to establish joint patrols with the
Pressure from the U.S. administration resulted in his being denied permission to stay in Britain, France, the Netherlands, and initially also in West Ger-
He has, however, been living in Hamburg since 1978.
The interview from which we publish extracts below was made for International Viewpoint on April 9, 1982.
The Reagan administration gave 19 million dollars for a destabilization program against Nicaragua. How do you think that this money will be
Answer: The press reports on the 19 million dollar CIA program said that the money would be used for the training of Latin American mercenaries, who would be used to attack objectives in Nicaragua, including the Cuban presence
This means that they would probably attack economic objectives in Nicaragua, and possibly Cuban security and military advisors wherever they happen to be located in Nicaragua.
But from what I saw in Nicaragua in four weeks in October and November 1981, all the appearances suggest that the CIA has already been involved for quite some time in efforts to destabilize the
In August 1979, I wrote an article paign against the Michael Manley socialgovernment of the 1970s. The parallels are very clear between the current roles of La Prensa and those other two newspapers.
area of propaganda has been targeted on the Atlantic coast and the Miskito Indians. Somoza, the Sandinistas made some very mistakes which they themselves They tried to incorporate the Miskitos too fast into the revolutionary process, and thereby alienated many of them and their leaders. That remote area was never integrated into the mainstream of Nicaraguan politics or the economy.
Steadman Fagoth, who had been a Somozista agent before the Sandinista victory, set up a radio station in Honduras, broadcasting in the Miskito language. The contents of these broadcasts were designed to create fear of the revolution among the Miskitos. This was done by a crude anti-communist campaign to try to make the Miskitos appear as if they were going to lose their lands and their cultural identity through integration with the
As a result, up to 5,000 Miskito Indians, of a total of 130,000, went across the border between Nicaragua and Honduras. They settled in camps on the Honduran side.
When I was in Nicaragua, I learned
Hondurans all along the border to prevent these incursions and to prevent as well the flow of arms into El Salvador, if such exists, from Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua.
Fagoth has no visible means of support for his station or for the camps in Honduras. But he was injured in a crash of a Honduran military transport in December 1981. On board was the Honducommander from Puerto Lempira, which is just above the Coco
This was proof of a close working relationship between the Honduran military and the counterrevolutionary movement among the Miskito In-
Fagoth also travels frequently to Miami, and I do not have any doubt that he is meeting with the CIA both in Tegucigalpa and in Miami. Neither do I doubt that the CIA is funding his camps, his activities, and his radio station, if they follow the patterns of the last 30 years.
Going back to the question itself: this 19 million dollar program is, at least according to the press, for a new program for training commandos. think that the CIA has been doing this for some time in Nicaragua. If the truth were known, there would be tens of millions of other dollars in programs which are designed to do the very same thing these commandos are doing. In other words, which I called "The CIA's Plan For Ni- that the camps that were set up by Facaragua." In this article, I tried to point out all the areas that I could think of in which the CIA would begin to intervene, to Nicaragua were then transferred to to make it as difficult as possible for the
Sandinistas to consolidate power and to transform the country according to their goth were used for military training, and that those Miskitos who wanted to return concentration camps where they were held practically as prisoners. caped and returned to Nicaragua to tell the story, which, of course, appeared in these commandos may be a new group, there have been others already. The CIA is trying to make propaganda on the move of the Miskitos, and so is the U.S. government. Jeanne Kirkpatrick in the United Nations has made the most outrageous statements accusing the Sandinistas of violating the human
When I arrived in Managua in Octo- the press in Nicaragua.
ber 1981, and began to discuss the situation there, I was shocked by how much of what I had anticipated had actually be- these are commando raids from bases in gun to happen, and had been happening for some time. These activities involved propaganda, political action, terrorism, and attempts to isolate Nicaragua diplo-
As a result of the cross-border raids which have been going on for monthsHonduras into Nicaragua-the Sandinistas decided to fortify the border and to move around 10,000 of the Miskitos inland to several other areas, also on the Atlantic coast, and not very distant.
rights of the Miskito Indians by moving them away from their traditional area along the River Coco, without recognizing that there were very good reasons.
So, there is a way of creating problems and then criticizing the solution of the problems in order to create propa-
The situation with the Miskito Indians is one of those.