Costa Rican Wins Nobel for His Peace Plan

President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, the youthful leader of a tiny country with no army, was awarded the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday for writing a peace plan for his war-torn Central American neighbors and persuading their leaders to sign it.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s selection was a surprise because it was based on achievements after the Feb. 1 deadline for nominations. Egil Aarvik, the committee chairman, said in Oslo that the award was meant to encourage and speed up compliance with the five-nation peace accord signed Aug. 7.

“As the main architect of the peace plan, President Arias made an outstanding contribution to the possible return of stability and peace to a region long torn by strife and civil war,” the committee’s citation said.

“This is the happiest day of my life!” the 46-year-old president told a Costa Rican radio station after aides woke him with the news at the beach resort of Bahia Ballena where he had spent Columbus Day.

Later, meeting reporters at the presidential palace in San Jose, Arias looked somber.

“This is a prize not for one who has achieved peace but for one who is still seeking peace,” he said. “We should interpret it as a push to redouble our efforts.”

Arias’ peace plan, offered last February, was the first to be signed in Central America after four years of diplomatic efforts to end the region’s guerrilla wars.

Praise for the Nobel committee’s choice came from two men Arias considers obstacles to the accord: President Reagan, who backs the Nicaraguan contras, and Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president.

Reagan’s Praise

Reagan, who has called the Arias plan “fatally flawed,” said Tuesday that the Costa Rican leader “fully deserves the peace prize for having started the Central American region on the road to peace.”

The State Department affirmed its “continued support” for Arias’ efforts.

Joining a chorus of congratulations from Central American leaders, Ortega sent a message to Arias pledging “to continue working to achieve full compliance with the agreement.”

Prize committee chairman Aarvik, asked by journalists if Washington might interpret the award as political involvement in Central American affairs, said, “No, I don’t think so.” But he said the award was partly aimed at speeding up the peace process and also reflected committee support of Costa Rica as a nation without a standing army.

By Nov. 7, the accord requires the governments of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala to arrange cease-fires with guerrilla forces, offer amnesty to insurgents who lay down their arms and guarantee “total political pluralism.” It also requires Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica not to let the contras attack Nicaragua from their territory and similarly bars Nicaragua from helping the Marxist-led Salvadoran guerrillas.

An international commission of U.N. and Latin American representatives is to verify compliance with the plan by Jan. 7.

Since presidents of the five Central American nations signed the accord in Guatemala City, the Guatemalan and Salvadoran governments have begun cease-fire talks with leftist guerrillas, although Guatemalan Foreign Minister Alfonso Cabrera Hidalgo said Monday night that further talks with leaders of his country’s rebels “are pointless.”

The Sandinista government has allowed the Roman Catholic radio station and the only opposition newspaper to reopen after closing them down more than a year ago. It has also opened a “national dialogue” with unarmed opposition groups.

Concerns of Arias

Costa Rican diplomats said Tuesday that Arias is worried that the talks in El Salvador and Guatemala are moving too slowly and that two major obstacles confront a Nicaraguan settlement. One, they said, is Ortega’s refusal to negotiate cease-fire terms with the contra leadership. The other is Reagan’s insistence on seeking $270 million in new aid to the contras.

Guido Fernandez, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the United States, said that Arias sent his brother, Rodrigo, to Managua last week but that Rodrigo Arias Sanchez failed to persuade Ortega. Ortega, who insists on talking only with contra field commanders, has said in the past that the top contra leadership takes its orders from Washington and that he will therefore negotiate only with Washington.

Reagan has objected to the Arias plan mainly because it calls for cutting outside aid to the contras while permitting continued Soviet Bloc military assistance to the Sandinista army.

Fernandez said in a telephone interview from Washington that Costa Rica is trying to convince the Administration to negotiate its security concerns directly with Managua.

‘He Is Stubborn’

“Arias has not been successful with either Washington or Managua,” the ambassador said. “But this is not something that discourages him. He is very stubborn.”

House Speaker Jim Wright, a Texas Democrat who joined Reagan in offering a separate U.S. peace proposal for Central America, said that the Nobel Prize “makes a strong moral call” on the United States to accept the Arias plan. He predicted again that Congress would defeat the Reagan Administration’s request for $270 million in new aid to the contras.

However, House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel said the Nobel award “may have been premature.”

“Our goal in Central America is peace and freedom for the people of Nicaragua,” the Illinois Republican said. “We have not reached that goal nor do we know yet that the Arias plan is the means to achieve it.”

The son of a wealthy coffee-growing family in a country the size of West Virginia, Arias is a lawyer and economist, with degrees from the University of Essex and the London School of Economics.

In 1978, after government service as central bank president and minister of planning, he was elected to the Costa Rican Congress.

As the National Liberation Party’s presidential candidate in 1986, he focused his left-of-center campaign on the danger of regional war and pledged to work to prevent it. He was elected in a narrow upset.

Costa Rica abolished its army after a civil conflict in 1948 and has since enjoyed peaceful democratic rule. But Arias warned that the conflict in neighboring Nicaragua was undermining his nation’s economy by frightening away foreign investors and attracting war refugees. Nearly 8% of Costa Rica’s 2.6 million people are Nicaraguans.

After taking office in May, 1986, Arias refused to continue letting the contras use Costa Rica as a staging ground for raids into Nicaragua and rebuffed a stream of high-level U.S. emissaries who came to plead the contra cause.

His determination was evident at the August summit in Guatemala City, where he persuaded the four other presidents to order room service meals to the hotel conference room instead of leaving for a dinner break before the pact was concluded.

Dream of Peace

“This prize is not for me but for Costa Ricans and what we represent,” Arias said Tuesday. “It is our dream to return the peace Costa Rica enjoys to all of Central America.”

“We must not forget that right now, the eyes of the world are looking toward Central America, where 25 million human beings have suffered,” he added. “There has been a war in El Salvador for many years. There has been a war in Nicaragua for many years. This must end immediately.”

Costa Ricans honked car horns and school children gathered at the presidential palace to celebrate the peace prize. A mariachi band serenaded the laureate-elect and a Roman Catholic priest offered a blessing as he arrived to meet reporters.

Arias said he would donate his $340,000 prize to a foundation to aid “the poor and humble people of my country.”

Arias was chosen over 92 other candidates, including President Corazon Aquino of the Philippines and President Raul Alfonsin of Argentina.