Salvadoran Aide Criticizes U.S. Plan to Ask More Aid for Contras

Foreign Minister Ricardo Acevedo Peralta of El Salvador said Friday that a Reagan Administration plan to ask for $270 million in aid for the Nicaraguan contras is “a contradiction” of Central American peace efforts and that the contras should not receive more money before Nov. 7, the date a regional peace accord is scheduled to go into effect.

If the United States were to disburse more aid now “it would kill the peace process,” Acevedo said in an interview. The Salvadoran foreign minister was in Honduras to present a medal of honor to his Honduran counterpart, Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez Contreras.

Acevedo said the $270-million aid request announced by Secretary of State George P. Shultz on Thursday was the Administration’s attempt to pressure Nicaragua to fulfill the terms of the peace plan. But he added, “The U.S. government has to make space to allow the plan to work.

“There has to be an accommodation between the U.S. policy of protecting the Nicaraguan Resistance (the contras) and trying to democratize Nicaragua with the peace plan. There is a contradiction between what we are saying and what the United States is saying,” Acevedo said.

The plan, signed by the presidents of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala on Aug. 7, calls for democratic reforms such as freedom of the press, political pluralism and the lifting of state-of-emergency laws. The plan also calls for cease-fires in the region’s various insurgencies, amnesty programs and an end to outside aid in the region’s wars. In addition, Central American countries must stop letting their territory be used by other countries’ insurgents.

The peace plan is aimed primarily at wars in Nicaragua, where the United States supports the contras against the leftist Sandinista government, and El Salvador, where the U.S.-backed government is fighting a leftist insurgency.

Acevedo said that he plans to present the other foreign ministers with a list of 72 instances in which Nicaragua has aided the Salvadoran guerrillas. The foreign ministers are scheduled to meet in Managua next Thursday and Friday.

Among the items on the list, Acevedo said, are the use of Nicaraguan territory for the transmission of Radio Venceremos, the Salvadoran rebels’ radio station, and the fact that several rebel political leaders live in Nicaragua.

“A few days ago, the guerrillas met in Costa Rica with President (Oscar) Arias (Sanchez) and when they left, they gave him their telephone numbers in Managua. He gave them to me,” Acevedo said.

Similar issues present problems for other countries. The contras’ Radio Liberacion operates from El Salvador, and contra leaders live in Costa Rica and Honduras. Contras also operate out of Costa Rica and Honduras and have moved supplies through El Salvador.

Mediation Offer

In the meeting with Salvadoran rebels this week, Arias offered to mediate between the guerrillas and the Salvadoran government, but Acevedo said no talks are scheduled. Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte offered to hold talks with the guerrillas Sept. 15 if they accept the peace plan and renounce violence as a means to taking power, but they have not done so.

Meanwhile, the vice presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua met here to begin negotiations for a Central American Parliament, which the presidents agreed to establish under the peace accord.

According to Reuters news agency, Vice President Roberto Carpio Nicolle of Guatemala denied reports that some nations were skeptical that the proposed Parliament could help solve deep-seated issues.

“The five of us have a single position. All we’ve got to do is draw up the document,” he told a radio interviewer before the meeting.

During the day, Vice President Sergio Ramirez of Nicaragua met privately with President Jose Azcona Hoyo of Honduras.