Nicaragua The Sad Saga of a Sandalista

A harsh afternoon sun was setting as the cortege made its way up the steep incline. Some of the men, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra among them, rotated as pallbearers. At the hilltop cemetery overlooking Matagalpa, a city 75 miles northeast of Managua, the crowd of more than 1,000 paid their final respects to Benjamin Linder, 27, an engineer from Oregon who died last week of shrapnel wounds suffered during a contra attack. He was the first American volunteer working on behalf of the Sandinistas to die in Nicaragua’s five-year-old civil war. Linder’s parents and two siblings had flown in from the U.S., honoring Linder’s request to be buried in Nicaragua if he was killed. Shortly before his father David poured Oregon soil on the wooden casket, he said, “Benjamin felt he belonged here.”

Linder was killed while working, without wages, on a rural-electrification project in Nicaragua’s north-central Jinotega province. But those simple facts quickly drowned last week in a flood of self-serving political rhetoric from all sides. At the funeral, Ortega charged that Linder had been “assassinated by mercenaries following orders from the CIA.” Several American groups opposed to U.S. funding of the contras similarly held the Reagan Administration responsible for “murder.” Linder’s father also fingered Washington, declaring,”Who killed Ben? He was killed by someone, they were hired by someone, and they were paid by someone, and so on down the line to < the President of the U.S.” The contras tried to pin blame on Managua by charging the Sandinista regime with having allowed Linder to enter a war zone.

The finger pointing was inflamed by the conflicting reports surrounding Linder’s death. Eyewitness accounts reaching both Managua and the U.S. suggested that Linder and some government workers were measuring the water flow of a stream in a northern village when a band of contras struck. The contras claim that a fire fight ensued, a distinct possibility since the Sandinista leadership encourages Nicaraguans to carry weapons in war zones in self-defense. The rebels regard anyone armed or in uniform as a combatant, though the Sandinistas view many of the same people as civilians. It remained unclear whether Linder, who sometimes carried a pistol for protection, was armed.

Most disturbing were suggestions that the contras had targeted Linder for execution. Although two Nicaraguan workers were also killed in the ambush, there were unconfirmed reports that Linder and his electrification program had been the focus of the attack. An American volunteer who was captured by rebels 18 months ago said after her escape that she had seen Linder’s name on a contra hit list. Last month a Nicaraguan woman emerged from rebel captivity with a similar report. The contras denied the charge. Harry Bergold, the U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, dismissed the plot theory as “counterintuitive,” arguing that the rebels knew they risked losing U.S. funding if they murdered an American.

Linder was well aware of the danger he faced. Eight European volunteer workers have been killed over the past five years. When eight West Germans were kidnaped by the contras a year ago, all volunteers were ordered out of war zones. The order was later modified to cover only Europeans, thus raising suspicions that the Sandinistas reacted to pressure from countries that supplied financial aid. Linder, would not have been likely to heed such restrictions. The youngest child of parents active in left-wing causes, he graduated with an engineering degree from the University of Washington in 1983, then went to Nicaragua. After working briefly as a juggler for the Managua Circus, he volunteered to help the Nicaraguan Energy Institute. Later he began designing small hydroelectric plants for the northern departments. Because of his efforts, the hamlet of El Cua now has electricity.

Linder was among the best of a group commonly known as sandalistas. The sardonic reference is to the beat-up sandals characteristically worn by volunteer workers, but the word embraces all Westerners who go to Nicaragua to demonstrate their support for the eight-year-old revolution. Although no official account is available, the number of Americans is estimated at around 1,500. They include both teenagers and octogenarians and bring to their jobs varying degrees of intelligence, commitment and maturity. Many come for only a few weeks and get a Sandinista-guided tour. Others stay long enough to complete educational, medical and agricultural projects, and to share the impoverished living conditions of the Nicaraguan peasants.

Depending on whose political lens is trained on the sandalistas, they are either altruistic and committed or arrogant and shallow pawns of the Managua government. The contras disparage them as “frogs of the rabid dogs,” a contemptuous reference for any Nicaraguan or foreigner who collaborates with the Sandinistas. Government critics even claim that they have heard Sandinista leaders privately allude to the volunteers as “useful fools.” Certainly they provide sorely needed assistance for the revolution’s beleaguered health, education and land-reform programs. Most volunteers, tend to screen out the flaws of the Sandinista revolution. They would be unlikely to report home, for instance, that last week a heavily armed security force raided the offices of La Prensa, the opposition newspaper that the Sandinistas closed down last June.

Linder’s death seems to be producing a new wave of volunteers. Last week several U.S. organizations were besieged by telephone calls. “The contra tactics are to demoralize Nicaraguans and scare Americans away,” says Samuel Hope of the Washington-based Witness for Peace. “But the killing only inspires more of us to go.” That is doubtless the kind of memorial that would have pleased Benjamin Linder.