The Most Dangerous Game

By John Kohan

Washington lends its muscle to a disunited, ragtag army

Rafael Centeno Montoya, 30, was outraged by the way the Sandinistas treated Pope . ohn Paul II during his visit to Managua last March. So Centeno left his family, one horse and five mules and joined the rebels. "Pecos Bill," 29, abandoned his 27,000-acre ranch and 2,500 cattle because, as a former second lieutenant in Dictator Anastasio Somoza's National Guard, he feared reprisals after the Sandinistas took over. Maria Cristina Cuadra, 17, first ran into trouble after she was caught pulling down pictures of Revolutionary Heroes Augusto Cesar Sandino and Carlos Fonseca. Afraid she might be forced to serve in the Sandinista militia, she too decided to join the insurgents.

President Reagan has praised them as "freedom fighters." But this motley band of rebels is best known by the label that their opponents, the Sandinistas, use: contras (counterrevolutionaries). In the 18 months since the contras began their organized military offensive, they have come to play a pivotal role in the Reagan Administration's campaign to put pressure on Nicaragua and check Soviet and Cuban influence in Central America.

The extent of U.S. involvement in the contras' hit-and-run war against the Sandinista government was underscored last week by a report from Managua that Nicaraguan troops had shot down a U.S. registered DC-3 airplane carrying supplies to insurgents. Though U.S. officials will not acknowledge any role in the fighting, it is no secret that the CIA has played a crucial part in financing and supplying the contras. If the White House has its way, U.S. aid will continue in the coming months.

Though the contras are united in the goal of bringing down the Sandinistas, they are divided in their strategy and objectives. At least four coalition groups are competing for political power, international attention and U.S. funds.

With at least five camps in Honduras and an army of about 6,000, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (F.D.N.) is the largest contra faction and the biggest recipient of the funds the CIA has earmarked for the war. F.D.N. leaders say that the overwhelming majority of their followers are peasants who have become disillusioned by the Sandinista revolution and that only 3% are former members of Somoza's National Guard. But the presence of ex-guardsmen in the F.D.N.'s military command has allowed the Sandinistas A hit-and-run to paint the contras as reactionaries who only want to bring back the dictatorship. Last week, in an effort to improve its image, the F.D.N. named Adolfo Calero Portocarrero, former president of the Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce, as its president and commander in chief.

MISURA represents the Miskito, Sumo and Rama Indians of Nicaragua's Atlantic coast. The coalition and a second Indian faction, known as MISURASATA, have opposed efforts by the Sandinistas to turn communal Indian property into state holdings and to relocate entire villages. Says MISURA Leader Steadman Fagoth Mullen "We want to be left alone." The group draws recruits from among the 13,500 Indians living across the border in Honduran refugee camps, but, according to Fagoth, his insurgents are so ill-equipped that they must go into battle with as little as 30 rounds of ammunition.

The smallest of the contra factions, the Nicaraguan Democratic Union, and its military wing, the Nicaraguan Revolutionary Armed Forces, are composed primarily of businessmen, labor leaders and students who originally were allied with the Sandinistas in the fight against Somoza. Like the F.D.N. and MISURA, they have been using bases in Honduras to challenge the Sandinistas' northern border.

Last April a fourth contra group, the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE), opened a second front along Nicaragua's border with Costa Rica. ARDE is a coalition of four organizations led by Eden Pastora, a Sandinista war hero who quit as a member of Nicaragua's government in 1981 and left the country because he thought the Sandinistas had "betrayed the revolution." Pastora's army has grown from 300 last April to about 2,000. Unlike the northern contras, who do not have any sizable base within Nicaragua, ARDE currently controls a 30-mile-long stretch of land on the San Juan River.

Pastora claims that he has not directly received "one penny" from the U.S. But TIME has learned that Israel has been supplying him with arms captured from the Palestine Liberation Organization. The CIA may also be channeling funds and equipment to Pastora through El Salvador, which last month may have served as a base for ARDE air attacks on Nicaragua.

Members of some of the rival groups met in Caracas, Venezuela, last month to discuss the possibility of future military coordination, but the momentum toward unity has not continued. The main stumbling block appears to be Pastora, who insists that the F.D.N. purge its military leadership of all former National Guardsmen. Pastora also wants to be recognized as undisputed leader of the contras. As he told TIME, "The other organizations have to join us, operate by our laws and under our political beliefs."

The Reagan Administration says it is satisfied with what the contras have accomplished, despite their divisions and discord. Officials credit the rebels' pressure and U.S. military maneuvers in the region for the Sandinistas' new interest in seeking a regional peace settlement. They also say that Nicaraguan assistance for the rebels in El Salvador, which the U.S. has found difficult to prove publicly, has diminished in recent months because the Sandinistas are too busy at home to meddle in their neighbors' affairs. But the gambit is risky. Nicaraguan Defense Minister Humberto Ortega warned last week that if the contras step up their attacks, Sandinista forces would pursue them to the border areas of Honduras and Costa Rica. If so, the "covert" war could become even more overt than it already is.

-- By John Kohan.

Reported by Martha Honey/San Jose and Peter Stoler/Tegucigalpa

With reporting by Martha Honey, Peter Stoler This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.