News In Brief
| Managua, Nicaragua
Nicaragua accepts offer by France to remove mines
Nicaragua has accepted an offer from the French government to help clear mines placed off its coast by rightist rebels, a government official said Friday. An External Relations Ministry spokesman in Paris confirmed the French offer, and in Washington the Reagan administration warned that this would help Nicaragua export revolution to its neighbors.
US-backed rightist rebels staging attacks on Nicaragua from Honduras and Costa Rica declared a blockade of Nicaraguan ports at the end of February. Since then five foreign ships have struck mines, which Nicaragua said were supplied and laid by the Central Intelligence Agency. Five Nicaraguan trawlers have been sunk by the explosives, three of them while clearing mines.
