Latins in Accord on Regional Peace : Outline Terms for Ending Wars in Three Nations

Presidents of the five Central American nations agreed Friday on principles for a settlement of the region’s guerrilla wars and set a 90-day deadline for hammering out the difficult mechanics of cease-fires.

The accord the five leaders reached is broader than President Reagan’s peace proposal for Nicaragua because it also calls for an end to conflicts in El Salvador and Guatemala. In addition, it imposes less stringent terms on the Sandinista government in Managua.

At the end of their two-day summit, the presidents of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica signed an accord that also calls for an end to support from outside the region for rebel groups and for democratic elections observed by international committees.

Broad Agreement

That Nicaragua reached such a broad agreement with the United States’ four allies in the region appears to undermine the Reagan initiative put forward, with congressional backing, earlier this week. The accord also will give congressional foes of the Nicaraguan resistance a powerful argument for refusing to renew aid to the contras after it runs out Sept. 30, the cease-fire deadline set in the White House plan announced Wednesday.

President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua hailed the accord as a “transcendental and historic step toward peace.” Nicaraguan resistance leaders also welcomed the agreement, but expressed skepticism that the Sandinistas would live up to it. The rebels, here to monitor the summit, said they would continue their war while insisting on a direct role for themselves in any cease-fire talks.

In a clear reference to the United States, President Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo of Guatemala closed the two-day meeting with an appeal for “understanding and respect” by other nations for what he termed “an unprecedented political agreement for this region.”

“This is an act of faith and trust demanded by our peoples,” Cerezo said. “The agreement was not easy. Each of us had to make many concessions. There will be groups that resent what we did here. But we had to put our collective interests first.”

Standing on the dais of Guatemala’s ornate National Palace, under light from stained glass windows, a huge chandelier and television cameras, Cerezo signed the agreement with Presidents Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador, Jose Azcona Hoyo of Honduras and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.

The accord, entitled “A Procedure for Establishing a Firm and Lasting Peace in Central America,” set four conditions to be met simultaneously with the imposition of cease-fires:

-- Governments in conflict would offer amnesty for those convicted of political crimes and for guerrillas who lay down their arms. Insurgent forces would be obliged to free their prisoners.

-- Unarmed opposition groups and insurgents who accept the amnesty would be invited to start talks with their respective governments on democratic reforms. All such groups would enjoy freedom of assembly and access to the news media. Emergency laws, such as the one now restricting press freedom in Nicaragua, would be lifted.

-- Governments inside and outside the region would stop all military, financial and propaganda aid to Central American rebel movements.

-- All governments also would stop allowing insurgents to use their territory to attack any country in Central America.

Court Action Suspended

The last provision was aimed at the contras, who are based in Honduras, and to the leftist Salvadoran guerrillas who take shelter in Nicaragua. In exchange for Azcona’s signature, Nicaragua suspended action on its World Court suit against Honduras for supporting illegal armed aggression against the Managua government.

Central American leaders came close to a similar peace treaty in 1984 when Nicaragua agreed to sign an initiative sponsored by the so-called Contadora Group. But El Salvador and Honduras backed out under U.S. pressure.

Some officials here cautioned that the latest accord depends as much on the principles agreed to here as the complex process of implementing them simultaneously.

The presidents failed to agree here on the details of that process. After adjourning, they sat together at a Roman Catholic Mass to pray for peace but canceled a scheduled joint press conference, apparently to minimize any open discord.

Instead, they instructed their foreign ministers to meet within 15 days to continue the talks, but the target for cease-fires is 90 days from Friday. Whatever formula agreed upon is to be supervised by the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Contadora Group of four Latin American nations and the Contadora support group of four South American nations. The whole process will be reviewed by the five Central American presidents in another summit five months from now.

‘A Difficult Process’

“Of course, this is going to be a difficult process, and I don’t believe it can be achieved within the deadline,” said Julio Rey Prendes, a spokesman for Salvadoran President Duarte. “But we have the conceptual agreement. I think the most difficult part was reaching this conceptual agreement.”

El Salvador and Honduras had opposed the summit’s working document, offered by Costa Rican President Arias, because it called for immediate cease-fires, followed 60 days later by steps toward democracy.

Both U.S. allies, joined by the Reagan Administration, had argued that the draft plan would leave the Sandinistas no incentive to make internal reforms if the contras were first required to lay down their weapons.

The final document called for both steps at once but did not spell out how the cease-fires would be arranged or policed.

“The conditions the Sandinistas are now obliged to meet--and I think they will do so--will change the style of their system,” Rey Prendes said. “They will become something different from a closed society.”

Arias said the Sandinistas committed themselves to domestic political reforms because the war has practically ruined their economy. “It’s a disaster, and Ortega knows it, and that’s why he made concessions,” the Costa Rican leader said.

Ortega, who has insisted that domestic policies are not negotiable, downplayed Nicaragua’s concessions.

“The Sandinista revolution means a mixed economy and political pluralism,” he said. “We are not giving up anything. We are working for peace.”

The six-member contra leadership issued a written statement here, calling the summit agreement “a starting point toward regional peace” but reserving the right to resort to warfare if the Sandinistas violate it.

The contra leaders also insisted: “Our participation in this (cease-fire) process is indispensable, since we are an integral part of the struggle to liberate Nicaragua from totalitarianism.”

Neither the Reagan plan nor the peace agreement reached Friday explicitly offered the contras a role in negotiations. There were other similarities between the two plans--including the simultaneous approach to cease-fire and internal reform--but some important differences.

For example, the summit agreement does not require the Sandinistas to give up Soviet military aid, a condition Reagan proposed for cutting off U.S. military assistance to the contras. Nor would the agreement require El Salvador to renounce U.S. military assistance in its own guerrilla war.

However, the accord does call for later talks on regional arms reductions.

The agreement here does not require the Sandinistas, or any government, to hold elections before they are scheduled in the normal political process. Nicaragua’s next national election is scheduled in 1990.

But the presidents agreed to hold elections in each country for representatives to a Central American Parliament early next year.

Those elections, as well as future presidential, legislative and local elections in each country, would have been monitored by international supervisors under the Arias plan. But Nicaragua objected, and the others compromised, in the final accord, on international observers rather than supervisors.

The 11-point peace accord also calls for closer economic cooperation and the repatriation of war refugees.