Not Just One Peace Plan For Nicaragua, but Two

By Ed Magnuson

At a meeting in the White House Oval Office, Ronald Reagan and George Shultz sealed a surprising accord with House Speaker Jim Wright and other congressional leaders. Three days later, in a grand reception room at the National Palace in Guatemala City, five Central American Presidents, including Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega Saavedra, proclaimed they had reached their own "historic compromise." And so, after six years of undeclared war between the U.S.-backed contras and the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, the battle last week suddenly became one between two rival peace plans for the region.

The only group left out of the flurry was one that could be most dramatically affected. The political and military leaders of the contras happened to be in Washington to start the process of seeking a new round of U.S. aid, when they were blindsided by the peace talks. But the issue of contra aid, which will run out at the end of September unless renewed, was very much on everyone's mind. Indeed, the White House had launched its effort as a blend of diplomacy and political gamesmanship designed to influence Congress if the peace process falters.

Although Secretary of State Shultz proclaimed that the Reagan-Wright plan was "not a ploy," there was reason for skepticism. The Administration has a history of announcing peace initiatives whenever contra funding is up for renewal. Late in 1984 a memo from John Poindexter, then Deputy National Security Adviser, to his boss, Robert McFarlane, set out a deceptive scheme: "Continue active negotiations but agree on no treaty and act to work out some way to support the contras either directly or indirectly. Withhold true objectives from staffs."

Nevertheless, Speaker Wright felt the time was ripe on all sides for a sincere diplomatic push: the Administration knew it could have trouble winning more contra aid; Congress was looking for ways to avoid a bruising clash; the rebels appeared to be making little headway on the battlefield; and the Sandinistas were experiencing severe economic problems and the prospect of waning Soviet support.

Wright, who has a mixed voting record on contra aid, was receptive when visited last month by the Administration's new lobbyist on the issue, Tom Loeffler, a former Texas Republican Congressman. The two Texas pols, longtime friends despite their partisan differences, produced a plan that in effect offered the Sandinistas a stark choice: join in serious negotiations now or face a possible new infusion of U.S. military aid to the contras.

The Pennsylvania Avenue shuttle diplomacy was kept secret from the six directors of the contra leadership visiting Washington. By the time they discovered the plan, at the eleventh hour, they had no opportunity to help shape it. Privately, some grumbled that they had been sold out.

The plan calls for the Sandinistas and the contras to agree on an immediate cease-fire. The U.S. would then suspend all military aid to the rebels ("humanitarian" help would continue), and Nicaragua would end its imports of military supplies from the Soviet Union. Nicaragua would be obliged to lift its state of emergency, restore basic civil rights, and establish an independent electoral commission that would plan for open elections. In addition, all foreign military personnel would be withdrawn from Central America and U.S. maneuvers in Honduras suspended.

Before the plan could even be studied by the Nicaraguans, it ran into furious opposition in Washington from both the left and the right. Senator Edward Kennedy led liberal Democrats in assailing it as a "sham from beginning to end." The Democrats feared Wright had embraced a plan designed to be rejected by Managua, thus forcing Congress to approve the President's expected $150 million request for new military funding. Conservatives complained that the plan was too attractive for Ortega. Asserting that support for the contras is on an upswing, Republican Congressman Jack Kemp charged that the Administration was "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory."

The pressure from Washington was hardly welcomed by the five Central American Presidents meeting in Guatemala, but it did spur them into putting the final touches on their own initiative. They had spent seven months on a broad regional proposal pushed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez. At the outset of last week's meeting, they agreed to ignore Reagan's surprise offering and focus on the Arias plan. Said Guatemalan President Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo: "The U.S. efforts are their efforts. The efforts of the Central Americans are our own."

Playing to both sides, Ortega said, "The Reagan plan makes sense and demonstrates the acceptability of dialogue with Nicaragua." The Sandinistas have previously agreed in principle to a pullout of foreign advisers and reduction of armed forces. But last week Ortega continued to dismiss any possibility that his government would sit down with contra leaders to work out a cease-fire: "We will talk to Reagan, the owner of the circus, not to the clowns." He made a cheery offer: "We are willing to go from here to Washington right after this meeting."

That was not what the U.S. had in mind. "There is no way in which the United States would want to sit down with Nicaragua to decide what is right for Central America," declared Shultz. "That has to be done by all of the Central American countries." Bilateral talks between the two nations had been part of a draft of the Administration plan, but had been dropped from the final version.

While keeping the U.S. plan dangling, Ortega chose to go along with his neighbors. In agreeing to the Arias plan, he committed his government to join with the four others to work out a regional cease-fire within 90 days. The truce would involve not only the contra struggle in Nicaragua but also Communist insurgencies in El Salvador and Guatemala. If these various rebels lay down their guns, they will have to be permitted to join in elections and be accorded basic civil rights. Under this plan the U.S. would stop supporting the contras and the Sandinistas would reject further Soviet military aid and stop assisting Communist forces in El Salvador. But while the U.S. plan called for these bilateral changes to happen simultaneously, the Central American proposal left many details vague.

The fragile Arias agreement could easily come unglued. But having proposed similar steps, the Administration was in no position to complain about what was decided in Guatemala. Indeed, in a statement released last Saturday, the President said he welcomed the rival proposal. If his plan had been intended partly as a ploy to get more contra funding, it had backfired. As long as the Central American peace process continues, however hesitantly, Congress will almost certainly be unwilling to renew the military funding that will soon run out for Reagan's favorite freedom fighters. And the willingness of Honduras to go along with the plan means the contra forces could not operate from bases there. Yet the contras still had a trump they could play. Declared Adolfo Calero: "Any decision on a cease-fire would have to be either accepted or rejected by us."

With reporting by Laura Lopez/Guatemala City and Barrett Seaman/Washington