Contadora Group Hopes to End Impasse : 4 Nations to Continue Efforts to Secure Peace Treaty by June 6

Supporters of the Contadora Group’s search for peace in Central America are hoping that a series of official encounters due this month will revive the moribund effort of four determined Latin American nations to find a solution to the region’s conflicts through diplomatic negotiations.

“It’s five minutes to midnight, and we’re trying to push the clock back to a quarter of,” a Mexican Foreign Ministry official said in an interview.

The effort stalled again last month in Panama City when the five Central American nations that are the object of the Contadora initiative were unable even to agree to sign a pledge to try to resolve their differences by June 6, a date that the Contadora Group still hopes can become the date for the signing of a peace treaty.

The foreign ministers of Mexico, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela began the initiative with a meeting more than three years ago on the Panamanian resort island of Contadora, taking the island’s name for their group and for the process they were undertaking.

Yet, after numerous negotiating sessions, communiques, declarations and even the preparation by the Contadora Group of a couple of draft treaties, the Central Americans--Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala--have not yet been able to agree.

U.S. Support for Contras

Recently, the urgency of the process has quickened among the Latin Americans. It is seen as a means to head off efforts by the Reagan Administration to get approval in Congress for a proposed $100 million in aid to the Nicaraguan contras who are fighting to overturn the Sandinista regime in Managua.

A first attempt to break the Contadora stalemate since the Panama City failure will take place Thursday in San Jose, Costa Rica, where leaders of a dozen Latin American countries will attend the inauguration of Costa Rican President-elect Oscar Arias.

Mexican officials say that the heads of state and foreign ministers attending the Costa Rican affair will issue a statement backing the Contadora process, repeating an action that has become almost a habit lately in any gathering of Latin American politicians.

Then, beginning May 16, representatives of the four Contadora Group nations will meet with officials of the five Central American countries in Panama to try to resolve outstanding differences in a proposed peace agreement.

Later in the month, the Central American presidents will meet in Esquipulas, Guatemala, to talk about the idea of a regional Parliament and about the Contadora process.

Despite such renewed activity, it is not clear that attitudes have changed in a way significant enough to foretell success for the Contadora process.

Nicaragua Demand

Nicaragua says it will sign no treaty unless a separate agreement with the United States brings an end to American aid to the anti-Sandinista contras. The United States has said it supports the Contadora process but is not formally a part of it.

The Reagan Administration insists that no effective solution in Central America is possible unless the Sandinistas move toward democracy inside their own frontiers by accepting a dialogue with the contras. A recent visit to the Contadora Group nations and to Central America by special U.S. envoy Philip C. Habib apparently produced no new proposals.

Beyond these roadblocks, touchy regional matters such as the balance of military forces among the Central Americans and arms control for the future, as well as the presence of foreign military advisers in the area, are still unresolved for purposes of a peace treaty.

Yet the Contadora Group has a record of never giving up. When one effort fails, its leaders vow continued support for the process and fix new deadlines.

The list of Contadora way stations, where the countries involved either separately or together have promised to keep the talks afloat, reads like a Latin American map: communiques in San Jose, San Salvador, Tegucigalpa and Panama City; two “declarations” in Guatemala; meetings in Rio de Janeiro and in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Caraballeda, Venezuela. No one has ever said the talks should be called off.

Last year, Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Uruguay banded together to help the Contadora four. They proclaimed themselves the Lima Group.