Central America Giving Peace Another Chance

By John Greenwald

For Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, it was a moment of truth. He had won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize with a plan to end the violent political struggles that have long plagued Central America. But his five-month-old blueprint, far from halting the region's civil wars, had not even kept the combatants at the bargaining table. "The will for peace does not exist right now," conceded Arias before meeting last week with the four other Central American Presidents who had originally endorsed his plan in Guatemala City. "In 150 days, we have not been able to advance by much in the agreements to which we subscribed."

So it was all the more stunning when Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra climaxed the heated session with what appeared to be a remarkable set of concessions. Ortega agreed to meet within days with leaders of the U.S.-backed contras and to open direct negotiations for a cease-fire in Nicaragua's civil war, now in its seventh year. Once the shooting stopped, Ortega said, his Marxist-oriented Sandinista government would release its political prisoners. He also promised to lift the six-year state of emergency that had allowed the Managua regime to impose its dictatorial rule. Those last-minute pledges saved the meeting -- and perhaps the whole peace process -- from total collapse. "War is easy," declared Arias at a postsummit press conference. "Peace requires goodwill from many people."

Yet the Sandinistas' methods and motives left ample room for skepticism. Even as the Presidents were talking peace in Costa Rica, Nicaraguan security agents in Managua arrested four prominent opposition leaders as suspects in an alleged CIA conspiracy. Opposition sources saw the move as a sign that hard- line Interior Minister Tomas Borge Martinez was unhappy with the concessions being made at the peace talks. And Ortega's aim was not purely altruistic. His main goal, apparently, was to ensure that the U.S. Congress turns down a Reagan Administration request next month for some $150 million in new contra aid. By agreeing to take the very steps sought by Washington and Nicaragua's neighbors, Ortega sought to show that there was no further need for more contra funds. After the meeting, Ortega declared that Congress no longer had any reason to vote aid to the rebels, "not one dollar more, not one cent more."

On the eve of the summit, the region's peace prospects had seemed anything but bright. Since the Arias plan was signed last August, its calls for regional cease-fires, democratic reforms and an end to foreign support for rebels have been virtually ignored. In Nicaragua, the contras last month launched the heaviest assault of the war. The Sandinistas, for their part, virtually ensured that the bloodshed would continue by refusing to talk directly to the contras and by flaunting plans for a military buildup. In El Salvador, meanwhile, leftist guerrillas pursued their struggle against the government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte, while right-wing death squads claimed new victims with impunity.

It was against that discouraging backdrop that the leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua met with Arias near the Costa Rican capital of San Jose last week to assess the progress of the peace plan. Originally expected to begin and end Friday, the meeting dragged into the next day as the leaders bargained and bickered over a round table. Arias' frustration surfaced Saturday after a morning swim before the session resumed. Said the dejected summit host: "I did everything I could. We all knew that if we failed to come to an agreement, the war would continue." Before the day was over, however, the tide had turned and Arias' reputation as a peacemaker had regained its luster.

Arias had not waited for the summit to chastise those whom he accused of hindering the peace plan. In a letter to three top contra leaders who fled Nicaragua several years ago and now reside in Costa Rica, the soft-spoken President demanded that they abandon their rebel activities or leave his country. The three, Alfonso Robelo, Alfredo Cesar and Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, sit on the six-member board that directs the contras' political affairs and produces a steady stream of anti-Sandinista propaganda. The next day Arias counterbalanced his anti-contra blast with a blunt four-page letter accusing Nicaragua's Ortega of failing to comply with the peace agreement. While the Sandinistas allowed a single opposition newspaper, La Prensa, to reopen last October, they have shown little readiness to allow broader political freedoms. Admonished Arias: "There is no room for legal structures that deny democratic process."

The Reagan Administration kept a close eye on the Costa Rica summit. In a whirlwind tour of Central America two weeks ago, Lieut. General Colin Powell, Reagan's National Security Adviser, irritated Nicaragua's neighbors by suggesting that they might suffer U.S. aid cutbacks if they abandoned the contras. Powell also urged them to condemn the Sandinistas' intransigence as a major obstacle to peace. The Administration's critics saw the mission as part of an overall plan to topple the Sandinistas by using the contras to wage a proxy war. The outcome of last week's summit, however, seemed to dim hopes that Congress would approve more military aid for the contras anytime soon. Conceded an Administration official: "The Sandinistas are off the hook for now. It's extremely difficult to justify lethal aid if the Sandinistas appear to be accommodating." The trick for Managua will be to keep up that appearance abroad without eroding its hold on power at home.

With reporting by John Moody/San Jose and Jose Perez/Managua