Central America A Few Minutes Before Noon

By John Moody

The scene might have been lifted from the final reel of a western starring John Wayne or, for that matter, Ronald Reagan: thousands of adoring townsfolk cheer as the hero, rigged out in cowboy duds, rides off on a white horse. And just in case some member of the U.S. Congress missed the significance of the white hat cocked on his head, President Daniel Ortega Saavedra spelled out his good intentions last week during celebrations to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sandinista takeover in Nicaragua. In an effort to diminish U.S. anger over the expulsion of its Ambassador to Managua two weeks ago, Ortega announced that he would extend his country's fragile cease-fire with the contras, now in its fifth month, until Aug. 30. He also called for better relations with Washington and invited the leaders of the Nicaraguan Resistance, an umbrella group of Sandinista opponents, to return to the negotiating table.

Ortega's sudden switch to good-guy tactics did not sway the Resistance, which directs some 10,000 contras who are trying to overthrow the Marxist-led regime. Meeting in the Dominican Republic, the organization's 54-member Assembly, which considers itself Nicaragua's government-in-exile, elected a new seven-man directorate. Among its members: former Colonel Enrique Bermudez, 56, the contras' commander in chief since 1981. The inclusion of Bermudez, who served in the National Guard of the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, represents a major victory for hard-liners within the Resistance who believe that the Sandinistas can be dislodged only by military force. Said Silvio Arguello, vice president of the Assembly: "We're showing the whole world that we are politically prepared to reconquer Nicaragua."

Not everyone welcomed Bermudez into the rebels' top political ranks. One Assembly delegate, in voting against Bermudez, scrawled "No military dictatorships" across his ballot. Seven regional commanders of the contras' southern front, which operates near the border with Costa Rica, announced they were pulling out of the Resistance. In a bitterly worded communique, they said, "The struggle against the Managua dictatorship is ill served by placing in the highest military command of the insurgency an ex-colonel of the hated Somocista National Guard."

Along with Bermudez, the Assembly returned three incumbent directors: Alfredo Cesar, Adolfo Calero and Aristedes Sanchez. They join Newcomers Wilfredo Montalban, Roberto Ferrey and Wycliffe Diego, a representative of the Miskito Indians who live on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast. Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Jr., a Bermudez foe whose family publishes Nicaragua's opposition newspaper La Prensa, lost his re-election bid. Calero and Bermudez have clashed in recent months over the handling of the war. But they appeared, for the moment, to have patched things up.

Said Calero: "We represent different trends of thought. But I can assure you that there is only one objective, and that is the substitution of the government of Nicaragua."

Bermudez's presence among the Resistance policymakers virtually erases any chance of achieving a quick end to the seven-year-old civil war. Although he is expected to relinquish day-to-day command of contra troops, Bermudez will find it difficult to stop thinking like a fighting man. In an interview two weeks ago, he accused the Sandinistas of using the cease-fire to improve their military situation. "They are winning back the ground they lost in 1987," he said. "We have to start all over again. We have to burn their outposts and attack their positions."

In Washington the State Department predicted that the election of Bermudez would help unify the Nicaraguan opposition. Yet White House aides acknowledged that a fresh request for lethal aid stands little chance of passing the House of Representatives. "The institutional memory in Washington lasts about two < weeks," said an Administration official. "If Ortega doesn't do anything else stupid, that should be enough to keep a new aid bill from passing." If all U.S. assistance is cut off, Bermudez has warned, the contras might resort to a campaign of terrorism inside Nicaragua.

Apparently Daniel Ortega's crackdown on the opposition two weeks ago stemmed from a similar conclusion that new military aid to the rebels was unlikely. In the space of three days, the Sandinistas broke up an opposition demonstration, suspended publication of La Prensa, closed Radio Catolica and expelled the U.S. Ambassador. Some Sandinista officials privately admit that the measures severely damaged Nicaragua's image. But they continue to insist that the U.S. embassy in Managua was blatantly orchestrating a campaign of internal destabilization directed by Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, whom Ortega last week called a "crazy criminal." Interior Minister Tomas Borge asserted that American diplomats had spread the word among opposition groups that future U.S. aid was contingent on their ability to foment bloody protest rallies.

The Sandinistas hope for better relations with Reagan's successor, but on their own terms. As the recent clampdown demonstrates, there is a pronounced limit to how much internal dissent Ortega will tolerate. With the addition of Bermudez to the contra leadership, both sides in Nicaragua's civil war may decide, like fast-drawing cowboys, that it is high noon, and time once again to shoot it out.

With reporting by Wilson Ring/Tegucigalpa and Neil Wiese/Managua