Contras Aim to Scare Off Americans, Group Says

Benjamin E. Linder was the victim of a contra “assassination” financed by U.S. tax money and approved by U.S. officials, in part to scare away Americans, a coalition of pro-Sandinista volunteer groups declared Friday in Santa Monica.

“All of us here regard the assassination of Linder as part of an intentional effort by the Reagan Administration to intimidate North Americans” who go to Nicaragua, said Carol Wells, head of the Nicaragua Task Force. This is one of five groups that have sent hundreds of technical and professional personnel, “harvest brigade” members and other volunteers to Nicaragua, along with thousands of Americans wanting to visit the country simply for a quick first-hand look. This week, the five groups joined in an ad hoc coalition in response to Linder’s killing.

His death Tuesday “was no accident,” Wells said. “The contras know who the North Americans are and where they’re working. They would not kill a North American without clearing it first” through U.S. officials, she said. But the groups pledged that Linder’s death would serve two purposes: They are creating the “Ben Linder Volunteer Campaign” to try to double the number of volunteers who pay their own way to work in Nicaragua with the blessing of the Sandinista government; and they will use his death to warn how the conflict can escalate.

“U.S. tax dollars have been paying for Nicaraguans to kill Nicaraguans,” Wells said. “Now U.S. tax dollars are being used to kill U.S. citizens, and it’s bringing the war home.”

Commitment Vowed

“We feel that the assassination of Ben Linder won’t deter in any way our work, and that instead of sending 100 people down this next year, we’re going to send 200 people down,” said Stephen Kerpen, head of Architects and Planners in Support of Nicaragua, another of the volunteer groups.

Michael Urmann is executive director of TecNICA, which has sent about 350 professional volunteers to Nicaragua, mostly on their vacations. On Friday, another 15 left for Nicaragua, he said, to perform such work as fixing steam boiler leaks, running a machine shop and setting up a sewage system.

Urmann said volunteers had been visited by FBI agents over the last year. “They were all called dupes of the Soviet Union and the Cuban government,” he said, but added, “We will not stop our work because of a stepped-up campaign of FBI harassment nor because of the murder of our friend and colleague.”

It has been reported that Linder was armed at the time of the attack in which he died. Representatives of two groups--TecNICA and Witness For Peace--said that as matter of principle, their volunteers are not armed.

Kerpen said that volunteers are constantly guarded by armed militiamen. “We’re under their instructions in case anything happens. . . . I feel very protected down there.”

But Wells said other volunteers who work in the so-called “war zone” rural areas might understandably choose to arm themselves.