2 Killed, N.Y. Cleric Wounded as Contras Ambush Ferryboat

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — U.S.-backed rebels ambushed a crowded ferryboat in southeastern Nicaragua on Tuesday, killing two passengers and wounding 27 others, including a prominent New York clergyman, according to Sandinista government and witness accounts.

It was the highest reported casualty toll in a single incident since Sandinista and Contra forces agreed on March 21 to a truce in their six-year-old war.

The target of the afternoon attack was a three-tiered ferry called the Mision de Paz (Peace Mission), which plies the Escondido River between the Caribbean port of Bluefields and the town of Rama. The boat had slowed for a narrow passage on its upstream course when guerrillas opened fire with mortars and automatic weapons from a jungle on the river’s south bank about 11 miles from Rama, according to several accounts.

Gail Walker, one of at least 10 Americans aboard, said the 200 passengers “hit the decks and didn’t look up” while Sandinista soldiers on the boat’s roof exchanged gunfire with the rebels for about 10 minutes.

Among those wounded was her father, the Rev. Lucius Walker, 59, of Brooklyn’s First Salvation Baptist Church. She said a bullet grazed his buttocks while he lay face-down on the middle deck.

The Nicaraguan Defense Ministry did not identify the other victims, but Walker said her father was the only one in their 10-member American delegation who was wounded.

“We literally came within an inch of our lives,” she said Tuesday night after arriving in Managua with her father, who was being treated at a hospital. “I was scared to death. I didn’t think we would survive. What’s tragic is that this is what the Nicaraguan people go through every day as a result of U.S. government policies.”

Walker is founding director of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organizations, an inter-denominational agency that organizes black communities in New York and several other cities.

The foundation, which opposes U.S. funding of the Contras, sent the delegation to Nicaragua on what Gail Walker called “a study tour to gain first-hand knowledge of the country and show solidarity with its people.”

There was no indication that the attackers knew an American group was aboard the ferry, which has been ambushed by Contra patrols several times during the war.

Enrique Bermudez, the rebel military commander, said in a telephone interview from Miami that he knew nothing about the attack.

“I don’t rule out that it was a guerrilla force,” he said. “But it could be a Sandinista trick. They are looking for something dramatic to save their disastrous image in Washington now. I don’t rule out either possibility.”

Truce violations have increased month by month since talks on a lasting peace settlement broke off June 9. The Sandinistas last month imposed a harsh crackdown on civic opponents, reviving the Administration’s efforts to restore U.S. military aid to the Contras that Congress cut off in February.