Central America "The Boys"

By Jill Smolowe

For eight years, the Honduran town of Yamales served as the nerve center for the Nicaraguan contras in their war against the Sandinista government in Managua. So it was appropriate that Yamales was the site last week for a ceremony attended by hundreds of rebels that marked the dismantling of the contra base camps. Abel Ignasio Cespedes, known to his insurgent troops as Comandante Ciro, turned over a battered West German G-3 automatic rifle to a representative of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who will be inaugurated as Nicaragua's President this week. The weapon was then handed to Major General Agustin Quesada Gomez, commander of a United Nations peacekeeping force, who passed it on to be cut apart with a blowtorch. In all, 365 weapons were surrendered and destroyed. "Today," said Quesada Gomez, "the problem of the resistance in Honduras ends."

The larger question is whether the contra problem will now end in Nicaragua. On paper the prospects seem promising. Last week a determined Chamorro successfully prodded Sandinista and contra representatives into signing agreements that established an immediate cease-fire and committed the contras to a total demobilization by June 10. But those agreements may prove as misleading as the ceremony in Yamales, where only wounded or ailing contras turned over their weaponry. Perhaps 12,000 of their hale colleagues slipped back into Nicaragua after Chamorro's upset electoral victory on Feb. 25. Top contra commanders, most of whom were not on hand last week to sign the cease- fire agreement, maintain that they will not order their troops to lay down weapons until the 70,000 members of Nicaragua's Sandinista People's Army do the same.

Early last week there were disturbing signs that the cease-fire might never come to pass. In one of his final acts as Nicaragua's President, Daniel Ortega Saavedra demanded that the contras disarm before Chamorro's inauguration this week and suggested that failure to cooperate might jeopardize the peaceful transfer of power. Asked if the inauguration would take place as scheduled, he answered, "We are studying that. We are very close to peace and very close to war." The contra contingent that arrived in Managua the next day for cease- fire negotiations fanned the tension by vowing to avoid disarmament until the Sandinista army was disbanded.

The impasse posed an immediate challenge to the mediating skills of President-elect Chamorro. Like a firm mother who knows how to bring squabbling children into line, she called representatives of the two sides to her home, starting with the contras, who had supported her presidential campaign. Two hours later Chamorro announced, "The boys are ready to sign an agreement."

Next she invited Ortega. At the end of their 90-minute discussion, the Sandinista leader stood beside Chamorro on her doorstep and announced, "I want to make it clear that on April 25 there will be a transfer of power." As a bonus concession, Ortega also announced that visa requirements for Americans seeking to enter Nicaragua had been lifted. Then the past and future Presidents hugged.

That afternoon cease-fire negotiations between Sandinistas and contras began. The bargainers worked through the night, and at 4:30 a.m. they signed their agreement. The turning point in the negotiation was a face-saving arrangement put forward by Chamorro's representatives whereby the contras signed a demobilization agreement with the incoming government -- not with the Sandinistas.

Chamorro demonstrated diplomatic agility with the Sandinistas as well. In negotiating the transfer of power, the outgoing government's paramount concern was maintaining the integrity of the Sandinista army, considered to be the guarantor of Nicaragua's revolutionary progress. Chamorro worked out an agreement whereby the army will not be disbanded, but her government can reduce its size and determine how it can be used. She faced down demands that Defense Minister Humberto Ortega Saavedra, Daniel's brother, keep his post as army commander.

As she takes the oath of office, the new President will doubtless be hailed enthusiastically by most Nicaraguans -- at least for a while. Sick of war, citizens want their government to turn to the bread-and-butter issues that are the bane of all Nicaraguan existence. The magnitude of the task of rebuilding the shattered country makes Chamorro's advisers optimistic that the cease-fire will hold. Says Gilberto Cuadra, president of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise: "Neither the army nor the contras have a future in this country." But cease-fires have been called before in Nicaragua -- and have failed. Chamorro must still make this one stick.

With reporting by Jan Howard/Managua and Wilson Ring/Yamales