UNITED NATIONS -- U.N. investigators said Thursday Nicaraguan soldiers crossed the Honduran border in pursuit of U.S.-backed Contra rebels in March, confirming U.S. allegations.
The findings constituted a blow to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega who had sought the U.N. investigation to counter charges by the United States of an incursion by Sandinista troops into Honduran territory.
In response to the incursion, Honduran President Jose Azcona asked President Reagan for military assistance. Reagan dispatched 3,200 U.S. soldiers to the Central American nation March 17 in a show of support for Honduras. The last of the troops were withdrawn Thursday.
'It was acknowledged that, in the course of the operation, the Nicaraguan forces may have carried out incursions 2 to 3 kilometers (about 1 miles) inside Honduran territory,' the team said in a report to Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, which was made available to United Press International.
'At the peak of the operation as many as 4,200 Nicaraguan forces had been deployed in the (border) area, but by the time the mission visited the area they were reportedly down to about 1,000,' the report said.
The report did not say how many Nicaraguan troops crossed the border, but offered photographic evidence that there was fighting between Sandinistas and Contras in Honduras.
Ortega denied Nicaraguan forces crossed into Honduras, but Foreign Ministry officials said it was possible some troops had strayed over the border.
The Nicaraguan offensive against the Contras lasted from March 3 to March 20 and was designed to destroy Contra base camps and supply dumps along the Honduran-Nicaraguan border area, from the confluence of Bocay and Coco rivers east to Mukuwas and south to Bonanza, a mining town, the U.N. report said. Mukuwas and Bonanza are in Nicaragua.
The four-man team, headed by Gilberto Schlittler, a Brazilian U.N. official in charge of U.N. Security Council affairs, was sent to Nicaragua March 22 at Ortega's request and returned to New York March 27. Honduras refused permission to the team to visit its territory.
The report said the team met with Ortega and was briefed by Nicaraguan military officials.
It said the Nicaraguan operation, named Danto 88, was a success because Contra rebels 'withdrew from Nicaragua,' apparently into Honduras. It said casualty figures given to the team were 36 dead and 140 wounded on the Sandinista side and 92 dead and between 250 and 300 wounded on the Contra side.
Last week, the Sandinista government and the Contras signed a 60-day cease-fire that takes effect Friday.
