The Time Is Ripe, Finally, for Reality on the Contras

On Dec. 21 the pro- contra Miami newspaper Diario de las Americas endorsed renewed aid to the guerrillas. But it noted that “the anti-Sandinista program depends almost entirely on the . . . performance of the rebels . . . over the next few months. However, . . . they face a titanic task: to overcome in a brief time four years of military ineffectiveness and political failures both within and outside Nicaragua.”

Reality has at last entered the contra debate. This, combined with the bizarre revelations about the conduct of the Reagan war against Nicaragua, argues that the time is ripe for the adoption of rational alternatives in Central America. The essential condition for such a move is an immediate and unequivocal end to U.S. funding for the contras.

Further assistance from the new Democratic Congress is far from a sure thing. However, the Administration has by no means conceded the game. After all, the President prevailed last summer, persuading just enough members to see it his way despite evidence of contra corruption, incompetence and terrorism and the denunciations of the World Court.

Now the line is, the sending of arms to Iran was a mistake, but don’t let revulsion for that cause abandonment of the “freedom fighters.” Nevertheless, the search is on for something other than a continuation of a failed policy that has become an international scandal, has revealed the National Security Council to be a little shop of horrors, and surely promises in time the direct use of U.S. armed forces.

Even the most well-meaning in Congress and elsewhere, however, still define the problem as one of persuading the Nicaraguan government to make concessions to the United States in return for our changing a policy that is demonstrably illegal and ineffectual. They cannot accept the simple alternative, ordered by the World Court and required by the draft treaty developed by the peace-seeking Contadora Group: that Washington simply cease and desist. They seem unable to envision the possibility of accommodations that would long since have been worked out under Latin American sponsorship once U.S. maintenance of the contras stopped.

Nicaragua, which has seen all its conciliatory gestures either ignored or sneered at (most recently, the no-strings-attached pardon of gun-runner Eugene Hasenfus), will not, as a matter of principle, negotiate with or make concessions to the United States or any of its anti-Sandinista front groups in order to persuade Congress to abide by international law. Nor will Nicaragua tolerate judgment of its political forms by a country that coddled the Somozas for 45 years. And there is no merit in the argument that Nicaragua’s insistence on international law and treaty rights constitutes an intractability that justifies Congress’ funding of a war against the Sandinistas.

There is no lack of evidence that the world community is growing impatient with U.S. deceit in Central America. Even Washington’s allies in the region are becoming restive. They are desperate to see the advent of a U.S. policy that offers more than a choice between protracted low-intensity conflict and, ever more likely, the Armageddon of regional war.

In November, U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar and his Organization of American States counterpart, Joao Baena Soares, made an unprecedented joint offer of peacekeeping forces for Central America’s troubled borders. This was in line with one of the Contadora Group’s proposals. Nicaragua accepted; its neighbors declined.

In December, the eight foreign ministers of the Contadora Group and its support nations met in Rio de Janeiro. Expressing concern over the flare-up along the border between Nicaragua and Honduras, they denounced “exacerbation of interventionist policies and actions by countries from outside the Central American area, which are clearly in violation of international law”--a pointed reference to the United States.

In January, the foreign ministers and the secretaries general undertook a mission to win Central American acceptance of last June’s draft treaty. Nicaragua welcomed their visit; Washington’s satellites--Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador--ignored or criticized it. The Reagan Administration worked frantically to undercut and discredit the initiative, while the major U.S. media, along with most of official Washington, appeared not to notice or to understand its significance.

Congress has to recognize that Contadora--mugged and left for dead last June by the assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, Elliott Abrams, and his gang--has been revived. It is the only alternative policy necessary--one that deals adequately with all the real or fancied concerns about the Cuban or Soviet presence, “export of revolution,” regional arms levels and human and political rights. By simply refusing additional contra funds and making it clear to the Reagan-dominated and -manipulated dependent governments of Central America that the contra game is all over, the 100th Congress can clear the way for Contadora and peace.