Timetable Set for Contras' Demobilization

By RICHARD BOUDREAUX

Aug. 8, 1989 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

TELA, Honduras — The presidents of five Central American countries agreed Monday on a plan to close Nicaraguan rebel bases in Honduras by Dec. 5 and called for a “constructive dialogue” to settle the guerrilla war in El Salvador.

The accord, signed at the end of a three-day summit, was the most decisive step in two years of regional efforts to end the U.S.-backed Contra rebellion against Nicaragua’s Sandinista revolution. It marked a sharp setback for the Bush Administration’s effort to keep the rebel army intact into 1990.

The accord calls on the secretaries general of the United Nations and Organization of American States to form an international peace commission to supervise the disarmament of Contras in Honduran camps and their resettlement, along with their refugee families, in Nicaragua or third countries.

Salvadoran Prospects

The agreement also revived peace prospects in El Salvador, where a new rightist government has taken up the struggle against a Marxist insurgency after years of brief, sporadic and half-hearted negotiations.

The two conflicts have dominated Central America for most of the 1980s, causing at least 100,000 deaths and turning many more survivors into refugees.

“Two years ago we asked the world to give diplomacy a chance, and today we are showing the world that we are not afraid of diplomacy, that war is not the path to power,” declared President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, architect of an August, 1987, regional accord that kicked off the peace process.

The other presidents--Alfredo Cristiani of El Salvador, Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo of Guatemala, Jose Azcona Hoyo of Honduras and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua--joined Arias in hailing the agreement as historic.

The accord urged Contra leaders to accept the Dec. 5 deadline and the U.S. government to halt all aid to the rebels “except humanitarian aid that serves the purposes of this agreement.”

A U.S. official in Washington said that the accord, although a setback, appears to provide a loophole for the Contras’ continuing presence in Honduras because it calls only for their “voluntary” departure and does not envision forcible measures against recalcitrants.

Impact in Congress

But congressional foes of the Contras would use the language of the accord to push for a cutoff of the current package of $49.7 million in non-lethal aid to any rebels who refuse to disarm, according to Bob Dockery, an aide to Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“I hope President Bush gives total backing to this accord and that these funds are used to demobilize the Contras,” President Ortega said.

Anticipating the accord, rebel leaders said last week that many of their forces would probably return to Nicaragua as fighters rather than disarm.

Ortega, in a separate bilateral accord, gained Honduras’ agreement to ask the United Nations to set up a separate peacekeeping force along its border with Nicaragua to prevent rebel troops from using the Honduran sanctuaries again.

In El Salvador, the five presidents urged the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador to join “a constructive dialogue to achieve a just and lasting peace” and called on the government to offer “full guarantees to incorporate (the guerrillas) into peaceful civilian life.”

Call for Talks

Cristiani, who took office June 1 with a call for peace talks that the guerrillas ignored, said the accord was an endorsement of his aim to get the rebels to lay down their arms.

He said he hopes that negotiations, last held in March, will resume “as soon as possible.”

The summit outcome was a defeat for the White House in two ways. President Bush had personally lobbied Nicaragua’s four neighbors to delay any disarming of the Contras until after Nicaragua’s elections next Feb. 25, arguing that the vote would be the ultimate test of the democratic conditions the rebels claim they are fighting for.

The Administration was counting on Azcona, whose government has been a reluctant host to the Contras, to block their early disarmament.

It also expected Cristiani to complicate such an accord by insisting that the 6,000 rebels of the Farabundo Marti Front be disarmed in tandem with the estimated 11,000 Contras.

However, Azcona went along with the summit accord in exchange for Ortega’s promise to suspend proceedings in Nicaragua’s World Court suit against Honduras and to drop the suit after the peace commission reports that the disarmament process has been completed. The suit seeks legal sanctions for Honduras’ support for “aggression” against Nicaragua.

Salvadoran ‘Satisfied’

Cristiani backed away from his demand for linkage in settling the two very different guerrilla conflicts and said that he is “satisfied” with the accord. It simply stated that once the Salvadoran conflict is settled, the guerrillas “can be demobilized using the same procedures” set up for the Contras.

Those procedures are to work this way: The international commission will start its work no later than Sept. 6, spend 45 days surveying the camps and advising the Contras of their options, and have an additional 45 days to receive the rebels’ arms.

During the 90-day “demobilization” period, the commission will supervise “direct contacts” between Sandinista and Contra leaders “to promote (the rebels’) return.” It would deliver humanitarian aid from outside sources to the rebels, accompany those leaving Honduras and monitor the treatment of those choosing to return to Nicaragua.

With the stated aim of repatriating most of the fighters to Nicaragua, where a majority were peasant farmers, the commission will work with the Sandinistas to provide them economic aid and farmland.

“We have to be creative and imaginative enough to offer incentives that will regain their trust,” said a member of the Sandinista delegation.

Fransesc Vendrell, a Latin American adviser to the U.N. secretary general, said the United Nations could move quickly to set up the commission but would require Security Council approval to allow it to receive Contra weapons or to set up the peacekeeping force.

The United States has power to veto Security Council resolutions.

The United Nations would not have a mandate to disarm the Contras by force, and Azcona ruled out such a role for the Honduran army. Instead, Central American officials said they would rely on their plan’s “moral authority.”

“Nobody has a stick and nobody wants a stick,” said one official. “I hope that won’t be necessary.”

Promoters of the accord said it reflected a growing belief that the Contras will get no more U.S. military aid--it was last cut off in February, 1988--and will never recover as a significant military threat.

“The Contras have ceased to be a military problem,” said John Biehl, a senior aide to President Arias. “They have become a refugee problem.”

Rebel bands began fighting in Nicaragua a year after the Sandinistas seized power in a 1979 guerrilla uprising. They have received U.S. aid and direction since late 1981.

The movement has been steadily weakened by peace accords signed at three previous regional summits over the last two years. Most rebel troops withdrew to Honduras last year after their U.S. military aid was cut off, and a cease-fire pact signed with the Sandinistas in March, 1988, broke down over the issue of democratic reforms.

Ortega helped achieve the summit accord by reaching an agreement last week with 22 Nicaraguan opposition parties on democratic reforms that both sides hailed as a step toward free elections.

He also met last week with Salvadoran guerrilla leaders in Managua, where they have logistical and political support, to urge them to negotiate with Cristiani.

The five presidents agreed to meet again in Nicaragua in December to review progress on both accords.