If Peace Is Not Yet at Hand, a Time to Talk of It May Be

Peace in Central America appears to be bursting out all over, by some accounts at least.

In Washington, the Reagan Administration and House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) have agreed on a bipartisan diplomatic initiative. Nicaragua has accepted the Reagan-Wright proposal as a basis for discussion and says that it is prepared to negotiate with the United States in Managua, Washington, or elsewhere. In Guatemala, the presidents of all five Central American nations, including Nicaragua, have endorsed the peace proposal put forward by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez.

Unfortunately, there is much less to all this than meets the eye.

The Reagan-Wright initiative is, in effect, an ultimatum presenting a U.S. negotiating position as the only acceptable outcome--and telling Nicaragua that unless it accepts the whole plan by Sept. 30, the deal is off.

The deadline, obviously unreasonable if serious negotiations are contemplated, has much more to do with Washington’s legislative calendar than with Central American realities. The Administration proposes to give up very little--the arms already shipped to the contras are surely sufficient to cover their needs for 60 days--but wants the Sandinistas to capitulate at once on a number of points.

The proposal calls for Nicaragua to stop receiving military aid from its only allies without any assurances that its neighbors will cease their arms buildup. It emphasizes the goal of instant democracy in Nicaragua, as if that were an urgent and fundamental U.S. interest--though Washington tolerated dictatorship in Nicaragua under the Somoza family for 40 years. Perhaps most important, the Reagan-Wright proposals do not include any credible process for negotiation, nor has there been much change in the cast of characters who have been running the contra war.

President Daniel Ortega’s quick offer to discuss the initiative must also be critically examined. It costs Nicaragua nothing to “negotiate without preconditions” with Washington and to support international movements to end the contra war without having to make any meaningful concessions in return. It is not clear whether Nicaragua will accept and abide by diplomatic agreements that constrain its support for insurgent movements elsewhere in Central America, or that guarantee the opposition a real share of power.

Nor should one exaggerate the significance of the Central American endorsement of the Arias plan, welcome though it is. What makes the Arias plan acceptable to all Central American nations may well be, at least in part, its vagueness on key points and the absence of specific provisions for verification and enforcement.

Peace, thus, is not at hand in Central America. Even if there are high officials within the governments of the United States and Nicaragua who genuinely seek a diplomatic solution, and that is by no means certain, there are surely hard-liners in both capitals who are determined to remain intransigent. Ideological extremism, not pragmatism or moderation, has been prevalent both in revolutionary Managua and in counterrevolutionary Washington.

Yet perhaps the time for serious negotiation in Central America has finally arrived. For all its imperfections, the Reagan-Wright initiative represents a major step forward by the Administration, for it explicitly recognizes that “the United States has no right to influence or determine the identity of the political leaders of Nicaragua nor the social and economic systems of the country.”

It affirms that the Administration is prepared to make peace with the Sandinistas under specified conditions, without insisting that the Sandinistas give up power or change the character of their movement. Debate can and should continue about the specific nature, priority and timing of the conditions required for peace, but the Administration has conceded that peace with Sandinista Nicaragua is possible and should be sought.

Nicaragua, too, may be ready to negotiate. Internal economic problems, military advances by the contras, cautionary advice from Cuba, indications that Soviet aid will be limited, uncertainties about how U.S. politics will evolve--all may induce the Sandinistas to compromise on important points.

The regional acceptance of the Arias proposal suggests that Nicaragua’s neighbors, too, are ready to commit themselves to the specific steps that peace would imply.

But time is scarce. In Washington, the chances for peace may be snuffed out by partisan squabbling, guerrilla warfare within the Administration and mutual distrust between Congress and the Executive. In Central America, the momentum toward peace may be short-lived if negotiations do not move forward soon.

What is urgently needed, therefore, are specific proposals, from Central America and from Washington, that build on the Reagan-Wright initiative and move beyond it. With political will, patience and diplomatic skill, peace might still be fashioned in Central America. That goal is worth an all-out effort.