Nicaragua Agrees to Contras Talks : Ortega OKs Indirect Negotiations; Salvador Declares Unilateral Truce

In an unexpected move, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega agreed Thursday to indirect negotiations with U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels to end six years of war.

The decision, announced to meet the first deadline of a Central American peace accord, was the Sandinistas’ biggest concession of the war. It was a tacit recognition of the Contra insurgency. Managua had refused to deal with the Contras, insisting they were under the control of the United States, their creators.

In El Salvador, President Jose Napoleon Duarte complied with the five-nation peace pact Thursday by calling a unilateral halt to offensive military operations against leftist guerrillas.

Ortega said Managua will make a cease-fire offer through an intermediary to exiled leaders of the Contras. He did not outline the proposal or name a possible mediator, and he refused to discuss “the institutional framework or the laws of the country.”

Alfredo Cesar, one of six directors of the Nicaraguan Resistance, called the announcement “a victory for us.” He said he will seek a truce that would allow armed rebel troops to remain in the field until the Sandinistas accept “irreversible” democratic reforms.

Pardons for 1,000

Addressing a rally by tens of thousands of Sandinista party activists, Ortega also announced pardons for 1,000 of the country’s 6,500 or more political prisoners.

Thursday was originally the deadline for full compliance with the peace accord signed on Aug. 7 by the presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. It is aimed at ending guerrilla wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador and a minor insurgency in Guatemala.

The five nations’ foreign ministers last week extended the date of final judgment of the accord to Jan. 4 but said each nation must show progress by Thursday toward meeting its requirements.

The accord calls for cease-fires, a cutoff of outside aid to insurgent forces, amnesty for political opponents and rebels who lay down their arms, and full press and political freedoms.

Although it does not specifically require the Sandinistas to negotiate with the Contras, the author of the agreement, President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, had demanded publicly that they do so.

The Reagan Administration, while calling for such talks, had expected to use Managua’s intransigence to coax $270 million in new Contra aid out of Congress early next year.

Announcement at Rally

Ortega’s announcement of an about-face brought a hush over his huge audience in Managua’s Revolution Plaza. Party members had been instructed to rally in support of the government’s oft-stated refusal to negotiate with the Contras. One sign in the plaza read: “If the Contras don’t surrender, we will talk only with bullets.”

The Sandinista leader said negotiations were necessary “to take away the pretext of our enemies and to unmask those who say they want peace but in truth don’t.”

“This cannot be confused with a political dialogue,” he said. “We have never negotiated power with the counterrevolution. We are not doing it now and we never will.”

He also repeated his call for talks with the United States on security issues such as the size of Nicaragua’s army and the presence of Soviet Bloc military advisers.

Returns From Moscow

Ortega made his announcement hours after returning from Moscow, where he met with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and attended celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Foreign diplomats and rebel leaders speculated that the Soviets, who supply most of Managua’s military and economic aid, may have asked Ortega to accept cease-fire talks.

“The Soviet Union is really pushing the peace plan,” said an Asian diplomat here. “It doesn’t want to aggravate a conflict so close to the United States, especially at the time of Gorbachev’s upcoming visit.”

The announcement also focused speculation on who will mediate the talks.

Arias and rebel leaders had proposed Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the outspokenly anti-Sandinista leader of Nicaragua’s Roman Catholic Church. The cardinal heads the National Reconciliation Commission named by the government to monitor the peace accord.

No Preference Indicated

Obando said that Vice President Sergio Ramirez informed him of the government’s decision in advance but gave no indication of its preference for a mediator.

Contra leaders said Ortega’s failure to propose a mediator indicated his opposition to the cardinal.

“We don’t see how he can come up with anyone with stronger moral backing or better experience than the cardinal,” Cesar, of the Nicaraguan Resistance, said. “We are not insisting on him, but we reserve the right to accept or reject whoever the government proposes.”

The Sandinista leader also said he has decreed an end to the nationwide state of emergency and an amnesty for prisoners.

But he said neither measure would take effect until an International Verification and Follow-up Commission set up under the accord certifies full compliance with its prohibition on aid to the rebels.

The government says it is holding about 4,000 Contra suspects and about 2,500 members of former President Anastasio Somoza’s defeated National Guard, which was disbanded by the Sandinistas as they came to power in July, 1979.

Ortega said the amnesty would be limited to those arrested after Jan. 1, 1981, so that imprisoned guardsmen will have to complete their terms--in most cases are 30 years.

He said the amnesty will take effect once the international inspectors certify that the Contras are no longer camped in or supplied through Honduras, when the Resistance’s civilian leaders have moved out of Honduras and Costa Rica, and when El Salvador has shut down the rebels’ clandestine radio transmitter.

Honduras made no apparent move to oust the Contras from their sanctuaries.

Speaking to reporters before Ortega’s announcement, Arias said cease-fire talks in Nicaragua were the key to breaking a region-wide impasse in the peace process.

“We would then be able to force Honduras to get rid of the Contras, to avoid more Contra supply flights, because that too must be negotiated,” Arias said.

The Sandinistas’ reversal on the cease-fire talks was a major victory for Arias, who has pushed Managua hard since winning the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 13.

The Costa Rican leader issued an appeal for the end of all aid to Central American insurgencies once the region’s governments fulfill their commitments under the peace accord.

“I am satisfied because I understand the Reagan Administration will wait until January before knocking on Congress’ doors for more aid to the Contras,” he said.

The Administration had announced plans to seek the $270-million Contra aid package in November but decided to postpone the request until January at the urging of Arias and other Central American leaders.

However, the House voted Thursday to give the Contras $3.2 million in non-lethal aid to feed and clothe them for the next two months.

In his speech, Ortega said U.S. military aid voted for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 was still flowing to the rebels through airdrops over Nicaraguan territory.

He said the rebels were using four small cease-fire zones created by the government to receive the supplies.

Ortega had declared a unilateral truce in those areas, comprising 557 square miles, a month ago. His government called on rebels seeking amnesty to converge there to give up their weapons. Seeking to bypass the rebel leadership, it invited Contra field commanders to discuss cease-fire conditions with the Sandinista army.

The Nicaraguan leader said Thursday night that the tactic had failed. He said only 600 of the rebel army’s more than 10,000 troops had accepted amnesty during the past month. Diplomatic sources said many of the 600 were Sandinista army deserters who had not joined the Contras.

Ortega drew his loudest cheers from the crowd when he announced that the unilateral truce would expire Saturday. “After then we’re going after the Contras in those zones with lead,” he said.

In outlining El Salvador’s unilateral cease-fire, Duarte said the army would continue defensive operations and would retaliate if attacked.

Col. Mauricio Vargas, army chief of operations, said the defensive units could patrol three miles from the positions they hold.

Long-range artillery can be used only on defensive operations and with the approval of brigade commanders, Duarte said, and only the chiefs of staff could order the use of gunships in defensive operations.

He said an amnesty law approved by the Legislative Assembly went into effect Wednesday. The law will free about 500 leftist political prisoners and pardon anyone involved in the thousands of rightist military and paramilitary death squad killings in the early 1980s.

The prisoners are expected to be released in the next few days.

Rebel troops must request amnesty within 15 days, but it is not clear whether the amnesty would automatically apply to politicians returning from exile. Ruben Zamora and Guillermo Ungo, leaders of the Revolutionary Democratic Front, the political arm of the Farabundo Marti Front, have said they will return to the country soon without breaking their alliance with the rebel troops. Duarte says they must renounce violence if they are to return.

In a nationally televised speech, Duarte said he had taken “all of the necessary actions” to comply with the peace plan. Besides implementing the cease-fire and amnesty law, Duarte noted, he has held peace talks with the guerrillas and allowed the return of more than 4,500 refugees from Honduras. In addition, he said, there is no prior censorship and no state of siege in effect.

The Salvadoran guerrillas broke off cease-fire talks after civil rights leader Herbert Ernesto Anaya was assassinated Oct. 26, but rebel leaders met in Mexico City with Salvadoran Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas to try to renew them.

In Guatemala, the government last month held a round of unproductive peace talks with the rebels. The Guatemalan government insists it doesn’t need a cease-fire because it maintains there is no war.

Marjorie Miller reported from San Salvador and Richard Boudreaux from Managua.