the country raised $27 million dollars in humanitarian aid to match the money given to the contras by the U.S. Congress. This year when the Congress increased the aid to $100 million an equal amount was pledged for humanitarian projects throughout Nicaragua. Thirty-five million dollars of this aid has already been raised and sent. Programs such as the Quest for Peace embody the best of the American people. Where our government has gone astray we will strive to make amends with our own time and

resources.

My faith is one which compels me to look beyond the borders of Detroit and of my own country. My faith and conscience demand that I look at what is happening in Nicaragua and what my country is doing there. The conscience of many others in the United States has caused them to do the same. Over 60,000 North Americans have travelled to Nicaragua in the past eight years. I am one of them. Just this past December I was in Nicaragua for 10 days. I too travelled throughout the war zones where thousands of Nicaraguans suffer daily from the consequences of U.S. policies.

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During my visit I did not meet Ben, but I was heartened by the other U.S. volunteers that I spent time with. I was encouraged to see their work with private and Nicaraguan government agencies bringing resources to the population of Nicaragua particularly those most affected by the war in the countryside. Social services have dramatically expanded since 1979, despite attacks by the contras. National vaccination campaigns have sharply reduced polio, measles and malaria. In the last six years 1,400 new elementary schools have been built. North American volunteers have been involved in many of these efforts.

The people of the United States do not have difficulty carrying out friendly relationships with the people of Nicaragua. Why is it that the government of our country cannot do the same? Why does our government insist that Nicaragua is a threat and wage war against a tiny, poor country of three million with 50% of its population under the age of 16? The Nicaraguan government has agreed to sign international treaties to forego all foreign military presence on its soil, and yet the United States continues to seek only military solutions. Why can't our government let the Nicaraguans live in peace? Or be like Ben and help bring resources into their lives?

Ben's life and death are exemplary in so many ways. His life exemplified what we should all be doing. And his death exemplifies the tragedy and misdirection of the U.S. policy of funding the contras. Such a policy can only result in the deaths of countless Nicaraguans and potentially the death of more U.S. citizens.

I urge members of the subcommittee and all members of Congress to help bring this insane policy to an end. Stop funding the killers of Ben, and Pablo and Sergio who were killed at his side. I urge you also to rigorously investigate all circum

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stances around Ben's death. It has been alleged that the contras specifically targeted a U.S. citizen. The people of the United States have the right to know if our government is now supporting terrorists that not only kill Nicaraguan civilians, but also purposely kill U.S. citizens involved in development work. There are many questions that need to be answered and actions that need to be taken to bring the killers of Ben Linder to justice.

I give great thanks for the life of Ben Linder and I mourn his death. I pray God that this tragedy which has captured the world's attention will finally convince our Congress and our President that U.S. policies must change.

Thank you.

Mr. CROCKETT. Thank you very much, Archbishop.

Mr. Waller.

STATEMENT OF J. MICHAEL WALLER, DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS, COUNCIL FOR INTER-AMERICAN SECURITY

Mr. WALLER. Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to appear before this subcommittee today to shed some light on activities of American citizens working in Nicaragua. I represent the Council for InterAmerican Security and here I shall summarize my written statements with the time I have.

The death of Benjamin Linder is a saddening incident which we feared, and which pro-Sandinista groups hoped would happen sooner or later. As in any war, anyone who arms himself and places himself in a war zone becomes a legitimate military target and Benjamin Linder was no exception.

I offer my condolences to his grieving family and I would like to add I can understand, sympathize very much with the pain they may be feeling because I lost a former roommate of mine seven weeks ago who was killed by the Sandinistas. In fact, on March 19th, in the battle at El Cedro, of which Ben Linder wrote.

This man, this close friend of mine, was a Canadian journalist with the Toronto Sun, named Peter Bertie. Yet, the international news media hardly blinked at Pete's violent death. And, unlike Benjamin Linder, he was not carrying a Kalashnikov rifle.

It is interesting to watch the selective outrage that has stemmed from this tragedy. Again, as it has been pointed out earlier, there was no outrage of this subcommittee or any other body of the House of Representatives when Americans James Powell and Dana Parker were shot down by the Sandinistas while trying to fly wounded people out in September 1984. Or when William J. Cooper and Wallace "Buzz" Sawyer were killed in October 1986. These four men died while helping the Nicaraguan resistance in unofficial service to their own country. And, instead of badgering the Sandinistas about these killings or offering comfort to their loved ones, much of Congress and the press hounded and continue to hound these brave Americans' co-workers and friends.

The public has been under the impression that most Americans working and living in Nicaragua are peaceful people committed to human rights and freedom. There is no doubt that many U.S. citizens in Nicaragua are there out of genuine religious conviction and concern for humanity.

However, in the course of our research over the past two years, we have found that many Westerners are there to help construct a Marxist-Leninist society and/or to receive revolutionary training.

The Associated Press reported last September that when the contras had killed three West Europeans in July, the documents that those three Europeans were carrying included automatic weapons permits issued by the Sandinista regime.

One of those killed, West German Berndt Koberstein, himself, is an interesting but not a typical case of Westerners working in Nicaragua. As his job description implies, administering the Wiwili forced relocation camp, he was not simply a humanitarian worker, but a professional revolutionary. He was hailed by the East

German Communist Party Newspaper as "a great fighter for Communism."

I am introducing as an appendix to my testimony a Council for Inter-American Security report giving the background of those Europeans and copies of their Sandinista weapons permits for inclusion in the published version of this hearing.

Americans and others helping the Sandinistas work in Nicaragua for a period of a few days to several years. The Sandinistas. classify two types of foreigners helping them: those who work on brigades in Nicaragua for short period of time are called brigadistas, while the long-term foreign resident helpers are classified as internacionalistas, or internationalists.

Neither the Sandinistas nor most foreign residents there make any distinction between American and West European internationalists and Soviet-bloc internationalists. This lack of distinction between Western volunteers and Soviet-bloc personnel is important in that all see themselves as working together for the same cause. As we find below, some of these Americans are so committed to the Sandinistas that they have taken up arms on their behalf and are on record as stating that they will engage in combat against the United States should the situation arise. Others intend to conduct paramilitary operations or acts of terrorism on United States territory.

Perhaps the best source from which to begin is a book called Yankee Sandinistas, which interviews two U.S. internationalists who stated their intention to take up arms against American soldiers, should the occasion arrive. Their exact comments are printed in my written testimony.

One of them, Paul Rice, a Yale graduate, is quoted as saying, "No one wants to go off in the mountains and kill people and lose their lives, but the point is if the Marines come that is what is going to happen. They are going to die. Me and plenty of others like me are going to defend this place. It does not matter who invades, Marines or not, we are going to kill people."

Rice was portrayed by the Public Broadcasting Service as a humanitarian activist and the Village Voice of last week identified Rice as one of Benjamin Linder's, closest North American friends." Kent Norsworthy is another example, a native of San Jose, California, who says he is not there to help the Nicaraguan people, but to, "Build myself up as a revolutionary."

He says, "I am not here paternalistically to help Nicaraguans. In some distant future, I hope I can apply my knowledge and skills in my own country."

He declared that if the United States ever intervenes, quote, "I certainly would pick up a gun and defend myself and this revolution. To me, an invading GI is just a contra.”

As Norsworthy's statement suggests, some Americans in Nicaragua are undergoing para-military training for use in the United States. There is other evidence showing that the Sandinistas are giving American radicals terrorist training. The Americans, joined by radical emigres from the Dominican Republic are members of the Puerto Rican terrorist organization, known as the "Macheteros," who have staged several attacks in Puerto Rico, killing American servicemen and blowing up American aircraft.

A January 1987 press report in the Washington Times detailed this, which I am including as an appendix to be added in the printed version of these hearings.

A particularly interesting "humanitarian" program which was staffed by Americans is the much-publicized literacy campaign, which began in earnest in 1980. Now, granted, there is a great deal of work that needs to be done in all of Central America in helping the people learn to read. But this literacy campaign, 70 percent of which was financed by American tax dollars and private contributions, is a cynical indoctrination operation to indoctrinate Nicaraguan youth into a militaristic, Marxist-Leninist ideology.

The English language versions of the Sandinistas' literacy campaign for the black people on the Atlantic coast were written by American citizens. Many of these people are well intentioned, people with good hearts, who, in their excitement over their work, turn a blind eye toward the Sandinistas' systematic repression and then end up collaborating with it.

Examples are Americans working with or through the local Sandinista Defense Committees, or CDS, which monitor the actions of local citizens and exercise control over them by controlling their food rations. The CDS system is currently falling apart, but current House Speaker Jim Wright was so outraged about this system, that in an October 1983 speech on the House floor, he described the CDS as, quote, "reminiscent of Nazi Germany."

The brigadistas are perhaps the most controversial of all American groups working down in Nicaragua. They are taken out of Fidel Castro's venceremos brigades concept. The Sandinista brigades organize American volunteers through such groups as the Nicaragua Network and the New York-based Nicaragua Exchange. The types of brigades and their benefits vary: Construction, technical and health brigades have contributed to the standard of living of some Nicaraguans, mostly those who are supporters of the regime.

Materials they bring in at their own expense, as well as their skills allow the regime to concentrate its own scarce resources on the tools of repression and control which it needs to keep in power.

Not all of these brigadistas are necessarily competent in their field. I point out the instance of Mark Rudd, who was a leader of the terrorist Weather Underground, who is now coordinating brigades out of New Mexico. He is down in Nicaragua.

Another one is Jeff Jones, a member of the Weather Underground who was convicted of turning his Hoboken, New Jersey apartment into a bomb factory. He has worked down there as well and has written a book, appropriately called, Brigadista.

Volunteers for the harvest brigades pay their way to spend from one to four weeks in Nicaragua picking coffee or cotton in the fields or working on construction projects. Instead of helping the Nicaraguan people by harvesting crops in the fields, these brigades actually hurt the people in three ways. First, it is universally recognized that the American brigadistas are not efficient at picking crops; hence, their output is low. From a purely economic sense, the international coffee and cotton brigades are more trouble than they are worth. The Village Voice pointed out that the value of these brigades is mostly symbolic. Another problem with these bri