Nicaragua Leader Visits Chicago, Says He Wants Peace With U.S.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said Saturday he wants to negotiate a peace treaty with the United States, begin talks with the Vatican and invite President Reagan to his country.

Ortega, appearing in Chicago at the invitation of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, proposed an eight-point peace plan during a speech at the headquarters of Operation PUSH, the civil rights group founded by Jackson.

“Nicaragua is under attack by a foreign power called the United States,” Ortega said through an interpreter at a news conference after his speech.

The United States supports Nicaraguan guerrillas, known as contras, who are fighting Ortega’s leftist government.

Discussions With Jackson

Ortega’s proposals, which he said will be delivered to the U.S. government soon, were reached in part after recent discussions with Jackson, according to the civil rights leader and unsuccessful 1984 Democratic presidential candidate.

Ortega has been in the United States for a week making appearances in New York City and Denver to advance the cause of his Sandinista regime and to call for an end to U.S. support of the contras.

In his speech, translated by his wife, Rosario Murillo, Ortega also argued that his government had not discriminated against the Roman Catholic Church or tried to stifle criticism by closing down the daily newspaper La Prensa.

Ortega said the newspaper was aligning itself with the nation’s enemies in a time of war, and had been temporarily shut down because of that.

Ortega said religion is thriving in his country, although there have been “legal problems with some Catholic bishops.” Those bishops went outside the “institutional framework” of the nation’s laws and were punished, he said.

Roman Catholic Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega was expelled from the country.

“If a person in Nicaragua is an ally of whoever is making war in Nicaragua, it is an act of treason,” Ortega said.

The eight facets of Ortega’s peace proposals are:

--Nicaragua is willing to begin discussions immediately with the Vatican on issues of “church and state.”

--The government is willing to begin discussions with the Bishops Conference of Nicaragua, with the possibility of creating some sort of ecumenical arbitration system.

--Resume peace talks within the “Contadora framework,” with an aim of signing a Central American peace treaty by Sept. 15. (The Contadora Group--Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama--was formed in an effort to negotiate a settlement to conflicts in Central America. It is named for the Panamanian island where the four nations’ foreign ministers first met in 1983).

--The government will reconsider the closing of La Prensa if the owners “break ties with those who direct and finance aggression in Nicaragua.”

--Nicaragua wants the United States to abide by the International Court of Justice decision calling on the United States to quit “arming and training” the contras.

Wants Talks

--Begin negotiations for a treaty of peace and friendship between the United States and Nicaragua.

--Establish a demilitarized zone in Central America, with joint military patrols along Nicaragua’s borders with Costa Rica and Honduras under the auspices of the United Nations.

--Reagan is invited to visit Nicaragua.