Give Arias’ Peace Plan Its 6 1/2 More Weeks of Gestation

We are now halfway through the 90 days given the Central American peace plan to succeed or fail, and the outlook is shaky.

Part of the problem is equivocation by the Reagan Administration. On Aug. 8 President Reagan “welcomed” the initiative, authored by Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias Sanchez and signed by the five Central American governments the day before. But conservatives read the plan as abandonment of the contras , and by Sept. 4 Secretary of State George P. Shultz was promoting a $270-million aid package to keep the contras operative well into the next Administration.

This illuminates the key point on which the Arias plan rests: sincerity of intent.

It appears that the Sandinistas and the Reagan Administration are counting on one another not to comply with the terms of the plan. The Sandinistas don’t believe that the United States will end military assistance to the contras by Nov. 7. The Administration doesn’t believe that the Sandinistas will moderate their behavior and move toward democracy after Nov. 7.

The Sandinistas have two objectives: to end the contra war, which has been economically ruinous, and to maintain political power.

Between now and Nov. 7 it’s logical to expect them to do enough to persuade Congress to block further funding of the contra war, but not enough to end their hold on political power in Nicaragua.

Since most members of Congress are already decided on the question of contra aid, a relatively small number of swing votes in the House and Senate will hang on this question: Have the Nicaraguans demonstrated enough commitment to regional peace to justify ending military support to the contras, or is their compliance with the Arias plan only a temporary tactic?

Two people have enormous credibility to make this judgment and influence congressional and world opinion. They are not Ronald Reagan and Daniel Ortega.

The first is Nicaragua’s Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the anti-Sandinista prelate who serves as one of four members of the National Reconciliation Commission, established under the Arias plan. The cardinal was an outspoken opponent of dictator Anastasio Somoza and is regarded as the one member of the commission who cannot be controlled by the Sandinistas. His opinion about the progress and sincerity of democratic reforms in his country will carry great weight.

The second person is the author of the peace plan, Oscar Arias Sanchez, a genuine democrat who leads the only truly democratic society in Central America.

Arias desperately wants the plan to work, because without a more democratic and stable Nicaragua, Central America will remain in turmoil and pose a threat to Costa Rica and other neutral countries. And he believes that his plan can work, not by turning Nicaragua into a Jeffersonian democracy overnight on Nov. 7 but rather by creating a small, yet dynamic, opening for democracy. He believes that even modest changes envisioned under his plan--a freer press, an amnesty and a release of political prisoners, freedom of assembly and demonstration--could yield dramatic results.

As Arias envisions it, several thousand Nicaraguan exiles will return to enter the political fray, making a reality of democratic opposition. There are 11 political parties active in Nicaragua now that, although they are legal, operate under severe restraints.

The newspaper La Prensa, which is hostile to the Sandinistas, will reopen, as will a church radio station.

Independent labor unions, seething over low pay and high unemployment, will resume high-profile activity.

Add to that municipal elections scheduled for the first half of next year, and the Sandinistas may have ended up signing their own political death warrant on Aug. 7.

This scenario contrasts sharply with that drawn by critics in the Administration and Congress who say that the plan won’t work because the Sandinistas won’t comply fully, and that the military option is the only viable one.

The point is that the Sandinistas don’t have to willingly or even fully comply for the plan to advance democracy and U.S. interests. What they cannot do is sabotage the Arias plan, for it would destroy their already badly eroded credibility elsewhere in the world. They need to enhance their stature, not diminish it, to be eligible for continuing support from European and Latin American democracies.

Stuck between killing the Arias plan and taking the blame, or complying with it and unleashing their opposition, the Sandinistas will probably choose a middle course of modest democratization. Even so, pressure will build for Nicaragua’s political situation to change peacefully, not militarily.

The Arias plan is an opening for democracy in Nicaragua--nothing more, nothing less. To demand a fully functioning democracy there by Nov. 7 is worse than unreasonable; it is to sabotage the peace plan for all of Central America.