Encouraging Moves

President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua has accepted indirect negotiations with the Contras fighting his Sandinista government. That concession could prove to be another significant step toward full implementation of the Aug. 7 Central American peace plan signed by Ortega and the four other regional presidents.

Potentially significant also is Ortega’s decision to ask Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, archbishop of Managua and chairman of the National Reconciliation Commission, to mediate the negotiations with the Contras. If the cardinal can maintain the trust of both sides, his will be a welcome presence.

Ortega has taken other promising steps. He has now conditionally agreed to suspend the state of emergency and to implement the peace treaty requirement of general amnesty, but again, his response is ambiguous. He insists that the treaty-mandated International Verification and Follow-Up Commission first certify that aid to the Contras has been terminated. That task will be made no easier by the vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday to provide additional so-callednon-lethal aid to the Contras in what appears to be a clear breach of the terms of the peace agreement.

The Sandinista leadership appears strained by requirements of the peace treaty and is deeply divided on the appropriate response. There are divisions even among the Sandinista supporters. The pressure for negotiations grows, however, as the Contras gain some political as well as military footholds in the mountainous north and are able to project more damaging attacks on the infrastructure. Furthermore, the treaty already has forced political changes in Nicaragua. La Prensa, the opposition newspaper in Managuga that was allowed to resume publication Oct. 1, continues to publish free of censorship. Radio Catolica, allowed to resume broadcasting on Oct. 2, continues on the air although it has been denied the right to broadcast news, a limitation that appears in conflict with treaty requirements and raises serious doubts about the Sandinista commitment to a free press. The right of assembly for opposition groups has been respected.

There is the glimmer of hope that the structures of democracy, required by the treaty, could become habit-forming in all five nations. If Ortega is serious about his commitment to the treaty and these new negotiations to facilitate a cease-fire, that glimmer will brighten. And with it the prospects for peace.