A Central American Connection?

U.S. authorities are investigating whether suspected terrorists used Nicaragua as a transit point to enter Canada and the United States, a former Nicaraguan diplomat to Canada and press reports from the Central American country say.

During the 1990s, between 400 to 500 nationals of Arab countries were given Nicaraguan citizenship under suspicious circumstances, say media reports from Nicaragua.

According to the newspaper El Nuevo Diaro, one of those who received citizenship was Mohammad Atta. He is also suspected of being a hijacker on the American Airlines jet that crashed into the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York September 11.

A second plane also hit the WTC that day, while a third hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The target of the fourth plane is thought to have been the White House or Camp David.

According to Nicaraguan government records, Atta received his citizenship on February 14, 1996.

U.S. officials are now investigating a second man, who received Nicaraguan citizenship and who moved to Ottawa about one and a half months ago with his family. This man could not be reached for comment prior to publication. Due to the nature of the allegations and speculation surrounding him, rabble.ca won’t identify him until he has had a chance to respond.

Reports from Nicaragua say the second man was an Iranian national who received his Nicaraguan citizenship on November 8, 1995. The man has been quoted by the Nicaraguan press as saying that it is preposterous to think he was involved in any way with the September 11 terrorist attack in the U.S. However, he has not spoken directly to rabble.ca, nor is there any indication he has spoken to any other Canadian journalist.

It is important to note that at least some of the alleged terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks used forged and falsified documents. As a result, it is unclear whether the names on those documents are their own or the identities of others. This could also be true for other suspected terrorists and their associates.

A representative of the Palestinian Authority in Nicaragua, George Salameh, indicated that he knows the members of the Arab community in that Central American country, and none of them are terrorists.

Moreover, a story in El Nuevo Diaro quoted a friend of the man living in Ottawa as saying that Nicaraguan officials wanted to create, “the same type of persecution that has been taking place in the United States against people of Middle Eastern origin.”

However, with the investigation in Central America, some people are wondering if that region of the world is being used by terrorists.

A former Nicaraguan diplomat to Canada said he wouldn’t be surprised if terrorists were using Nicaragua as a point of entry into North America.

“(During the 1990s) there was an incredible traffic of illegal visas for Asian and Middle Eastern natives,” said Pastor Valle-Garay, the former consular general of the Nicaraguan embassy in Canada between 1980-89.

“People wanted to use Nicaragua as an entry point into the United States, or use Canada as an indirect point of entry,” into the U.S.

Valle-Gara, who now teaches at York University in Toronto, said widespread government corruption in Nicaragua during the 1990s made the country a hotbed of illegal sales in passports and visas.

The result, said Valle-Garay, was that both economic migrants and drug traffickers used the country to obtain illegal documents.

But did terrorists use Nicaragua in order to enter North America?

“There was so much corruption it very well could have been possible,” said Valle-Garay.

Neither the Nicaraguan embassy in Ottawa nor U.S. government officials could be reached for comment prior to the publication deadline.

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