U.S. Resumes Funding for Rebel Leader Pastora

The Reagan Administration, reopening a relationship broken for more than two years, has quietly resumed funding Nicaraguan rebel Eden Pastora--but without much enthusiasm, officials said Tuesday.

Pastora, a former Sandinista guerrilla hero who rebelled against the leftist Managua regime in 1981, is scheduled to receive about $400,000 in U.S. funds to pay old debts and put his Costa Rica-based army back on its feet, one official said.

In addition, the charismatic but prickly jungle fighter also has been promised a share of military aid if Congress approves President Reagan’s current request for $100 million in support for the rebels, known as contras .

In exchange, Pastora has promised to accept the leadership of the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO), the U.S.-sponsored contra umbrella organization, the officials said.

“He’s back in it,” a State Department official said. “We hope this strengthens UNO as an organization.”

But other Administration officials said they are skeptical whether Pastora, who resisted U.S. direction when he received secret CIA funding from 1982 to 1984, will be any easier to deal with this time.

“He’s still impossible,” said one aide who met with the rebel leader last week.

Pastora, reached through aides in Los Angeles, where he was on a fund-raising trip, declined to comment on the U.S. officials’ reports. But sources close to him confirmed that the funding has been arranged.

Known as Commander Zero in the war against Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, Pastora won fame as the leader of a daring 1978 raid in which a Sandinista guerrilla unit captured Nicaragua’s National Assembly building.

He helped the Sandinistas win their revolutionary war in 1979 but became disenchanted with their Marxist rule, raised a small army to fight against them and won CIA funding in 1982.

The Administration cut off the money early in 1984 because Pastora refused to accept any controls on his operations, U.S. officials said. Pastora charged that the real reason was his refusal to join forces with the larger, CIA-directed Nicaraguan Democratic Force, whose officers were largely former Somoza aides.

Force Sharply Reduced

Pastora fought on, but the lack of supplies, a 1984 assassination attempt against him and a Sandinista offensive last year reduced his army from a one-time high of perhaps 4,000 to as few as 200 men.

Along the way, several of his lieutenants were accused of working for a drug-trafficking ring in Costa Rica as a means of survival.

Pastora also lost most of his political allies, who found him as difficult to work with as the CIA did. But he acquired a new friend, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), an arch-conservative who decided that the fiery former Sandinista was worthy of U.S. support.

State Department officials say their decision to fund Pastora again is prompted by a desire to unify the Nicaraguan contras, hope that this unity would help win support in Congress--and pressure from Helms.

From Non-Weapons Aid

The money for Pastora will come from the $27 million in non-weapons aid that Congress approved for the contras last year, officials said.

They said Pastora may soon formally announce his decision to join UNO, dropping his objections to the leadership of former Somoza officers like Col. Enrique Bermudez, military commander of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force.

The two men, old enemies, met for the first time last week--by chance--as both lobbied in the halls of Congress for U.S. funding for their cause.

“They charmed each other,” said a lobbyist who witnessed the encounter. “It was a remarkable moment.”