$100 Million to Aid Nicaragua’s Contras: Pro and Con
- Share via
To each member of the Senate and the House who voted for the $100-million aid package for the contras , I would like to recount the type of activity the contras engaged in over the last month:
May 20: Attack on two potato-growing cooperatives. Eight people were killed, including three children, and 15 others were wounded. The contras destroyed 14 homes, three trucks and the community’s school and warehouses.
May 24: Ambush of a vehicle transporting workers participating in a polio vaccination campaign. Eight Nicaraguans were killed, along with a Spanish nurse who had been in the area since 1981.
May 31: Mortar attack on another campesino cooperative. Fifteen were killed, including an 8-year-old girl; 22 were wounded.
June 4: Paul Dessers, a Belgian engineer, was killed by a contra who tried to stop Dessers’ vehicle. Dessers had been working for two years as a European Economic Community adviser for a rural development project.
The $100 million means more of this kind of destruction and killing.
MARILYN T. SCHAFER
Los Angeles
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
