middle of town, two bars, a bank, a few small stores and a very small hotel. But he wanted to work up there because he had a dream. He had a firm commitment to develop units up there which were independent from the main city so that you did not have to go four to six hours to get there, a unit which would have its own hydroelectric power, and from that power there would be development of a machine shop, a wood mill, and a rice processing facility, along with a school, a medical clinic, and the like. It was his attempt to empower people in the area, to give them control over their own lives in the most real sense of the word. This was his idea of the revolution. This was how he expressed what he wanted to do to further the cause of Nicaragua. It was what he did, not what he said. And what he wanted to do was to bring hydro power to this-to remote areas in the country so they could become self-sufficient, proud, productive people. At that time, he did speak to the head of the National Energy Institute and he was told that he could work in a less remote area in southern Nicaragua. It was his idea that is where he wanted to go. The Nicaraguans did not put him there as bait, as some might think. LINDER'S EXPERIENCE WITH THE CONTRAS During March of 1987, when Ben was up there doing his work, there were a large number of contra attacks in the El Cua/Bocay area. Shortly before he died, Ben wrote us a long letter describing how the war was affecting him, his work and his closest friends. And you have, among your record, the documents I gave you: a copy, a typewritten copy of that letter. He started by describing a contra raid on March 19, 1987 in which an agricultural settlement called El Cedro was attacked. The community fled, while four men died carrying out defense holding operations. One of them was Don Luis, a very close friend of Ben's, who helped him do hydropower building at that time. This was a real tragedy for Ben. And, although he died along with three others, they held out at the cooperative. The odds I think, were 8 to 1, with 400 attackers upon them. Ben's next experience with contras was an attack on the midnight of March 24, on his-the hydroelectric power unit that he built in the area. There, the plant was defended by 10 soldiers. And a fellow by the name of Oscar Blandon, who was Ben's closest friend, his true buddy, and Oscar Blandon, through amazing heroic actions described in Mira Brown's letter saved the plant from destruction, although his house was dismembered. Neither he nor his family were killed. One contra died in this unsuccessful assault. Then a short time later, 13 local militiamen from El Cua were killed guarding a nearby construction-road construction site. This is what the war is about. It is just simple, horrible, nasty attacks on innocent people. Thirteen people were killed and one of them was a fellow by the name of Miguel Centeno Castro. Miguel was a son of Don Cosme. And Don Cosme is a very important person for several reasons. One is Don Cosme was in Sandino's Army way back. And Don Cosme had taken Ben in and had-and boarded him and took Ben in as his son. I am staying very close to Ben's experiences in order to amplify what I want to bring out. In Ben's opinion, the contras were engaging in a planned effort to destroy all that is good, every symbol of progress, in the lives of people in and around El Cua. Included among their targets was the electrification program and all the personnel involved. The contras were not interested in just stopping industrialization because in the El Cedro attack, they destroyed the medical clinic for the third time. They knew what they were doing. Mr. CROCKETT. May I interrupt, Dr. Linder? Dr. LINDER. Sure. Mr. CROCKETT. As you can see, your 10 minutes have already expired Dr. LINDER. Oh, I am sorry. Mr. CROCKETT. And you have a rather extensive written statement here and, according to my estimate, you have only covered about three pages of it. Dr. LINDER. Well, I will be through in just the fourth. And I want to get now to the fact Mr. CROCKETT. We will allow you another two minutes. Dr. LINDER. OK, fine. That is good enough. Mr. CROCKETT. And I would suggest that the committee would be intensely interested, since you have a background in medicine, if you could describe to us what you have ascertained concerning the circumstances under which your son was killed. Ms. LINDER. Mr. Chairman, excuse me. But I do not have a prepared statement. Would it be all right for my husband to use some of my 10 minutes? Mr. CROCKETT. It was not set up that way, but if there is no objection by the panel, we will allow him an additional 5 minutes instead of the 2 minutes that I mentioned. Ms. LINDER. Thank you. LINDER'S DEATH Dr. LINDER. Well, OK. Now, to get to the real-I guess the heart of the matter. And while working out of Bocay, Ben, at this time amid the incidents relating to his death, went to the Bocay area to check out the flow of the stream, one mile outside of town. He knew it was dangerous there. But he had to get flow rates in the stream during the dry season. The rainy season was just coming upon them and is actually there now. And he had to get flow through the stream during its worst period so that he could build a generator there which was appropriate to the load put upon it. He went with six other workers about a mile outside of town and began preliminary work for day one, day two, day three, day four. On day five, they got there at 8 in the morning. At 8:30 they were attacked by 10 to 20 contras. Three people were killed in this attack. There were two Nicaraguans, one was immobilized by grenades through his leg wounds. And he was stabbed deeply into the chest with a gashing maneuver presumably penetrating the heart, certainly killing him. The other Nicaraguan was killed by a gunshot wound through the ear. Ben was immobilized by small low projectile metal objects. I do not know what kind, to the back and side of his legs. He was then shot in the right temple. That was the area of entry. The area of exit was to the side and to the back of his head. In addition, he had punctate marks on his forehead and a clean through wound through his left forearm and another wound distal to that in which a bullet lay. The bullet wound to his head had powder burn marks about it indicating a blast from a gun at very close range within, say, two feet from his head. So, in my reconstruction, Ben was killed by a gunshot wound to his head fired point blank after he was immobilized. They blew his brains out. I am telling you this as a testimony from Dr. Valladares who examined Ben and from the records, the medical examiner's records. And I interviewed Dr. Valladares. And I would like to say at this point that I asked Dr. Valladares had anybody from the government spoken to him prior to me. This was five days after Ben got killed. And the answer was, no. I asked the person who gave me the medical examiner's report whether or not-the U.S. Government asked for the report and the person said, "No. This was the first copy of the medical examiner's report." And this was five days after he died. I came to bury the guy, and I ended up as an investigator, as a pathologist. There was nobody from the State Department, to my knowledge, on the scene. The attack took place so quickly that no one had a chance to fire back. There was no cross-fire. He was there repeatedly for four days. They knew what he was doing. They knew who was doing it. They knew Ben was an American. And they went and killed him. He was wearing civilian clothes at the time. One witness said that he did not carry a gun. The other witness said he did carry a gun, but put it to the side while he was making records in his book because he is an engineer. He is not a soldier. He never wanted to be a soldier. Now, this was an ambush. Not a chance encounter. It was murder. I consider the United States Government and its effectors, the contras, guilty of this crime. It was not an accident, but the result of the United States foreign policy. And Ben witnessed this, himself, in his own personal experiences before he was killed. And I would like to end by just quoting at the end of his last letter to us. And this is the kind of guy he is: This is probably the final offensive of the contras. Losing soldiers daily as they desert, the contra are desperate. Like any desperate animal backed into a corner, they are fighting with all they have. The people of Cua-Bocay know 1987 will be a very hard year. But they also know that they are winning the war. Next week, for the first time, high school classes will be taught in El Cua. As a postscript, I would like to add that Ben was buried on Thursday. On that day, a hunk of the cement causeway was in the El Cua area-broke down. And, so, the thing he first built started crumbling. On the following day, 500 citizens from the town of El Cua, a town of 2,000 people-about every able-bodied person-came out to repair it. That was on Friday. By the following Tuesday, after, the cement was poured and on the following day, five days PREPARED STatement of DAVID LINDER, M.D. Biographical sketch of Benjamin Ernest Linder and certain particulars concerning his death, by David Linder M.D. Benjamin Linder was born on July 7, 1959, the last of three children. He attended elementary school in San Francisco until he was eleven years old, when his family moved to Portland, Oregon. He graduated from Adams High School in 1976 and went on to attend the University of Washington in Seattle, receiving a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering in 1983. Ben went to Costa Rica' during the summer of 1982 to learn Spanish. Upon graduation, he went to Nicaragua where he obtained a salaried position with the National Energy Institute, the Nicaraguan public utility department, for whom he worked until October, 1986. At first he worked on geothermal power and then, in 1984, began working on a pilot project to develop a very small, 100-kilowatt hydroelectric plant located four kilometers from the remote town of El Cuá in northern Nicaragua (Region VI). The plant came on line on May 1, 1986, becoming the first plant of its kind to be completed since the revolution. El Cua lies forty-five miles to the north of Jinotega, a good three-hour drive along a rugged dirt road. In an article published last year, Ben wrote that: "Going into El Cuá is a lot like going into a small town Residents of the town had no electricity. In October, 1986, Ben left INE to devote all his time to developing light industry in the area stretching from El Cua to San Jose de Bocay, which is a little to the north. Ben worked hard on planning this project. It was his dream to teach people to build and operate their own power plants that they would use to construct and operate a machine shop, a lumber mill, and a riceprocessing facility. A 200-kilowatt mini-hydroelectric plant was to come first. Ben was the engineer on the project. |