Central America All for One

During the past four years, the Nicaraguan rebels known as the contras have spent nearly as much time feuding among themselves as they have fighting the Sandinista government in Managua. The results have been disastrous on both fronts. The Sandinistas are winning the war in the field, and the fractious contras are losing their campaign to convince Congress that they are an effective fighting force that deserves more funding. Last week top contra leaders emerged from 13 days of closed-door meetings in Miami with a new unity accord that allows for a more democratic distribution of power in the rebel's ruling triumvirate.

Under the agreement, the three civilian leaders of the United Nicaraguan Opposition--Arturo Cruz, Alfonso Robelo and Adolfo Calero--will make major policy and personnel decisions by majority vote instead of by consensus. The current military leadership, including the controversial commander Enrique Bermudez, once a colonel in the National Guard of Dictator Anastasio ("Tachito") Somoza Debayle, will remain in place. But the accord calls for the appointment of new administrative officials to oversee finances, military and political strategy, and human rights compliance. The leaders also created a commission to probe charges of corruption. In theory, the measures should weaken the monopoly currently held by former Somoza supporters in the rebel movement. Said Contra Leader Cruz: "In this moment U.N.O. is in its most solid, firm position ever."

The agreement marked a victory for Cruz and Robelo. Their views had been regularly thwarted by Calero, who controls the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest of the rebel military factions. The result, says Robert Leiken, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an advocate of contra reform, is "quite significant." In the past, he observes, "U.N.O. has been paralyzed by internal fights." Only recently, Cruz threatened to quit the alliance unless his hand was strengthened.

Fearful of losing Cruz, who has a large following in Congress, the Reagan Administration sent Special Envoy Philip Habib to press the contras into resolving their differences and instituting U.S.-backed "democratization" measures. Later, when Calero balked at reforms that would erode his power, Washington bluntly let him know that "he had to go along or lose our backing," according to a U.S. official close to the negotiations.

Meanwhile, there were reports that the CIA took an even more direct approach to bringing about the new unity by bribing six top military commanders to desert Eden Pastora, the contentious rebel leader who had steadfastly refused to join forces with U.N.O. Pastora, bankrupt and abandoned, has sought asylum in Costa Rica. U.N.O. leaders announced last week that Pastora's old forces will join Southern Front Commander Fernando Chamorro. Under the new accord, Chamorro, who aligned with Cruz and Robelo, will hold equal rank with Bermudez. Both will answer to a newly appointed liaison between the civilian leadership and the military.

The Administration hopes that the new contra accord will persuade Congress to approve the $100 million in military and humanitarian aid that is scheduled to come up for a vote this month. The Miami agreement, said State Department Spokesman Charles Redman, "is an extremely positive step in broadening the ) leadership of the resistance, strengthening civilian control and improving coordination of military activities." However, it is still too early to tell whether the compromise will survive. The road to contra unity is littered with earlier manifestoes for change and pledges of alliance.