THE CRISIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE : Ortega Calls Flow of U.S. Funds ‘Illegal’

President Daniel Ortega on Tuesday protested what he called the “totally illegal” movement of funds by the Reagan Administration to contras fighting his leftist government.

Ortega said Washington’s admission that $10 million to $30 million of the profits from U.S. arms sales to Iran was secretly channeled to the rebels through Israel showed that Ronald Reagan “has no business being President of a great power.”

“Either he was fooling the Congress and violating American laws or he did not know what was going on,” the Nicaraguan leader told reporters. “How can you have as President somebody who is ignorant of totally illegal actions and negotiations for this movement of funds to mercenary forces waging an illegal war against Nicaragua?”

Nicaragua’s Sandinista government has long accused the Reagan Administration of violating international law in its aiding of the contras in the five-year-old war. Congress cut off U.S. military aid to the contras in 1984, and resumed it only last month.

Law-Breaking Noted

The disclosures in Washington of the secret, U.S.-arranged relaying of funds to the contras, through Israeli middlemen into Swiss bank accounts, put the Reagan Administration in the position of having violated domestic law as well, Ortega noted.

“The important thing being demonstrated here,” he said, “is that international laws and domestic laws of the United States are being violated. . . . We are protesting these absolutely arbitrary acts of the United States.”

Ortega, in army uniform, spoke to reporters before he met with nine visiting members of the European Parliament at a country club-turned-convention center.

He appeared to relish the chance to comment on the uproar in Washington over arms sales to Iran and the resulting departures of John M. Poindexter as national security adviser and Lt. Col. Oliver L. North of the National Security Council staff.

Ortega said that Reagan “is sacrificing Poindexter and the other gentleman to save face.”

Costa Rica Gets Protest

The Nicaraguan leader indicated that a diplomatic protest was forthcoming.

Foreign Minister Miguel D’Escoto issued a formal protest Monday against Costa Rica, Nicaragua’s southern neighbor, for allowing the United Nicaraguan Opposition, the contras’ umbrella organization, to hold an assembly this week in the Costa Rican capital.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who is to meet next week with President Reagan in Washington, professes neutrality in the Nicaraguan conflict.

D’Escoto said the opposition leaders were meeting to form a provisional government-in-exile. He said Costa Rica’s hospitality “raises its commitment to the illegal policy of interference and force by the American government against Nicaragua.”