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Associated Press

Associated Press
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June 19, 1979, Section A, Page 1Buy Reprints
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MANAGUA, Nicaragua, June 18 — The mood inside the Nicaraguan rebels’ headquarters in eastern Managua contrasts sharply with the tensions elsewhere in this city.

Despite the occasional sound of rockets and mortars landing nearby, the guerrilla leaders are relaxed and optimistic. “Somoza's days are up,” one said of the Nicaraguan President. “This will be decided in a matter of days, not weeks.”

Outside the single‐room home that has become the guerrillas’ command center, heavily‐armed young rebels stood guard, while the entire area was protected by long rows of barricades and trenches, manned by experienced guerrilla fighters wearing khaki clothing and berets and carrying automatic weapons.

“You're safe here,” said Julio Lopez, a leader of the United People's Movement, which serves as a political arm of the Sandinist National Liberation Front, which is seeking the overthrow of President Anastasio Somoza Debayle. “This is liberated territory. The Sandinists control the whole area, militarily and politically.”

Food Is Distributed

In the muddy streets nearby, women and children lined up to receive food being distributed by the guerrillas, while many families who had declined to flee the area sat chatting on verandas, ducking only when a National Guard aircraft went into a dive prior to launching rockets into the district.

“We've only lost four fighters so far,” explained 28‐year‐old Joaquin Cuadra Lacayo, one of the Sandinist commanders for the Managua zone, the son of a prominent Nicaraguan lawyer. “But unfortunately many innocent civilians have died. Just yesterday five children were killed near here when a rocket hit their home.” The meeting with the guerrilla leaders came unexpectedly. Four reporters visiting the periphery of the combat zone were approached by a young civilian who instructed them to follow him through a seemingly endless maze of streets and past countless checkpoints until they were delivered at the rebel headquarters, less than three miles from President Somoza's own fortified bunker.

Fighting Is Sporadic

In contrast to other regions in Nicaragua, the fighting in eastern Managua today seemed only sporadic. In the northern city of León, where the rebels overran a National Guard barracks yesterday, the fighting continued as guerrillas tried to flush out a small detachment of soldiers still holding a nearby fortress.

In the south, where a column of 700 guerrillas was trying to take the city of. Rivas prior to the proclamation of a provisional government, the National Guard also stepped up its air and land attacks today.

“Here in Managua, the guard has shown itself incapable of fighting the Sandinists and the popular militias,” Mr. Lopez said. “Its only resources now are technical; that is, aviation, artillery and tanks. But the morale of the infantry has been broken.”

Accompanying Mr. Lopez and Mr. Cuadra in the headquarters were Carlos Nefiez Tellez, a member of the nine‐man Sandinist National Directory, and Moises Hassan Morales, a university professor who yesterday was named as one of the five members of a provisional government that the guerrillas hope to establish soon in Rivas.

‘Hell Only Go by Force’

Mr. Ntniez, an experienced 27‐year‐old guerrilla, said there was no alternative to continuing the struggle until victory was achieved.

“Somoza hasn't wavered in bombing the civilian population,” he said. “We don't think Somoza will go of his own volition. He has said it many times and we believe him: he'll only go by force. We therefore have to win through a revolution.”

He also rejected any outside intervention to resolve the crisis, noting that, now that President Somoza is again under guerrilla pressure, the United States is again seeking a role for the Organization of American States.

“If any outside force intervenes, the fight will go on,” Mr. Ntifiez said. “We have a commitment and we will go on until we have fulfilled it. Whatever negotiations take place must do so in the context of the struggle.”

Mr. Hassan, who has a doctorate in physics from the University of North Carolina and speaks fluent English, emphasized that the provisional government expects to inherit “a country reduced to ashes, a devastated and indebted nation.”

For this reason, he said, the five‐member junta will include two opposition figures — Alfonso Robelo Callejas, wealthy industrialist, and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, widow of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, a newspaper editor murdered last year‐who are not linked to the Sandinists “because we need the active participation of all sectors of the population.”

The other two members are Sergio Ramirez Mercado. a liberal academic,

and Daniel Ortega Saavedra, a Sandinist leader.

U.S. Asks Meeting on Situation

Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 18 — The United States called today for a meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization of American States here in Washington this week to “consider the critical situation in Central America, especially the grave political and human developments in Nicaragua.”

The meeting was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

At the same time, the State Department criticized the five‐nation Andean Common Market for declaring Nicaragua to be “in a state of war” and the Sandinist guerrillas to be “legitimate combatants” trying to establish a representative democracy in Nigaragua.

Jill Schuker, a State Department spokesman, said the declaration, by Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, seemed to overlook “techniques developed in this century for international peacemaking through international organizations such as the O.A.S.”

Last week, Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance and other State Department officials had praised the Andean group'\s

Associated Press/John Hoagland

A guerrilla in León, Nicaragua, fires on National Guard plane overhead

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