Now the Only Hope?

Diplomats from around the world gathered last weekend in Montevideo to celebrate an important event in Latin America--the return of democracy to Uruguay. In between the toasts some of the diplomats worked to revive the slow, complex process of negotiating peace in Central America.

No sooner was Julio Sanguinetti sworn in Friday as Uruguay’s first civilian president in 12 years than attention shifted to a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, who led official delegations to Uruguay’s presidential inauguration. It was inevitable that a Shultz-Ortega meeting would steal the show. The badly strained relationship between Nicaragua and the United States grew even more tense last month as President Reagan and other U.S. officials dramatically escalated the rhetoric that they have been using to condemn the revolutionary government headed by Ortega--part of their public-relations effort to persuade Congress to renew covert aid to anti-Sandinista rebels.

The Shultz-Ortega meeting was inconclusive. Ortega reiterated his offer to temporarily halt the acquisition of new weapon systems from the Soviet Bloc and to send home some of the Cuban military advisers whose presence in Nicaragua rankles Washington. Shultz played down Ortega’s offer, and tongue-lashed the Sandinista government one more time.

But while they were upstaged by the U.S.-Nicaragua meeting, other things happened in Montevideo that could have a positive effect on peacemaking efforts in Central America. Most important was the agreement by Costa Rica to rejoin the stalled Contadora peace talks. The Contadora process is a two-year-long effort by diplomats from Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama to write a comprehensive peace treaty for the five nations of Central America. Preparations to sign a draft treaty stalled in February over a diplomatic flap involving Nicaragua’s violation of the sanctity of Costa Rica’s embassy in Managua.

The symbolic dispute was settled when Ortega announced that a Nicaraguan dissident arrested by Sandinista police on Costa Rican embassy grounds would be released into the custody of Contadora diplomats. After that breakthrough, Latin diplomats began laying the goundwork for another round of Contadora meetings, setting a tentative date in May.

Of course, the barely disguised hostility of the United States, which wields considerable influence over Honduras and El Salvador, is also important in delaying the Contadora process. But with the Costa Rica-Nicaragua dispute settled, and the Reagan Administration dropping all pretenses that it is willing to co-exist with the Sandinistas, the Contadora diplomats can now renew their effort with a clearer understanding that they can expect no help from Washington.

The Contadora process must now move forward, with or without the United States. For if the Contadora countries succeed in arranging a regional treaty, they will create a momentum toward peace in Central America--a region exhausted by five years of almost continuous fighting. If that momentum becomes strong enough, even the Reagan Administration will be forced to go along with it, if only for the sake of appearances. For some time Contadora was the best hope for a peaceful settlement of the Central American crisis. It may now be the only hope.