by Rod Hughes

On May 30, 1984, during the civil war that pitted the Contras, a CIA-funded group attempting to overthrow Nicaraguan Marxist Sandinista government, against government troops, a bomb planted in a press conference called by Contra leader Eden Pastora exploded, killing four persons and injuring a score more. Many journalists probed the tragedy for years and Swedish journalist Peter Torbiornsson, a survivor, now thinks he has uncovered the three top Sandinista officials who planned the killing.

The conference held at La Penca, a Contra outpost just across the San Juan River in Nicaragua had been called by Pastora to announce that he would not unite with other Contra forces as the United States was pressuring him to do. The bomb killed seven persons, including Linda Frazier of the English-language weekly The Tico Times, Jorge Quiros and Evelio Sequiera of Costa Rican Channel 6 news, as well as wounding Pastora and a score more.

The bomber was carrying false identification as Danish photographer Pier Ankor Hansen. The widespread opinion at the time and for years afterward was that the callous assassination attempt was planned by the U.S. Civil Intelligence Agency. But the false Hansen was identified years later as an Argentinian leftist guerrilla named Roberto Vital Gaguine who was killed in an assault on a police station at Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jan. 23, 1989. His fingerprints matched documents from a time when he entered Panama and his photo by Argentinian authorities.

But many refused to accept the evidence, including Costa Rican journalist Roberto Cruz, who lost a leg and an eye at La Penca, who remained convinced of the CIA’s guilt until the end of his life and made proving it his personal crusade. The CIA’s motive would have been to eliminate an troublesome Contra leader. Most felt it unlikely the CIA would entrust such a mission to a fanatic Marxist guerrilla like Vital. Some, who had entertained that thesis, shifted suspicion back to the Sandinista government or to a rogue faction within it, acting without the direct knowledge of President Daniel Ortega. They had every motive for wanting Pastora, leader of the southern front against the government, out of the way.

Torbiornsson, who had been burned by the bomb’s flash, had a special reason to doggedly pursue the matter. He had driven the supposed Danish photographer to the river at the request of someone else, not suspecting who he was even after ascertaining that Hansen (Vital) spoke no Danish and was suspiciously guarding an aluminum suitcase which turned out to contain the bomb and the remote-control device to detonate it.

In a formal accusation filed with Costa Rican authorities March 11, Torbiornsson named former Interior Minister Tomas Borges and two Sandinista intelligence officials, Lenin Cerna and Renan Montero, as the brains behind the La Penca plot. Costa Rican prosecutor Alejandra Arce assured the morning paper La Nacion that the Swede’s denunciation would be investigated.

Some readers might wonder why this incident, a relic of a Cold War that died with the Soviet Union, continues to fascinate. This writer was a reporter with The Tico Times at the time of La Penca and remembers the attrocity as not only a traumatic moment for Costa Rican journalism but as riveting the world’s attention for a moment. As a reporter, I remember being interviewed by the BBC, conducted on the telephone as I waited at Hospital Mexico for the wounded to arrive the next morning. I conducted a brief history lesson, explaining to the British broadcast journalist that La Penca was in a Nicaraguan war zone and that terrorist acts were unheard of in the Costa Rica I knew.

To this day, The Tico Times masthead still carries a tribute to Linda Frazier, dedicated wife of an AP reporter and a mother, who lost her life persuing the news, wherever it led her. It was another time, one that should not be forgotten but, still, an era one hopes never to see repeated.