Sandinistas Ask Cardinal to Mediate Contra Talks

President Daniel Ortega on Friday asked his most prominent national critic, Roman Catholic Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, to serve as mediator in cease-fire negotiations between the Sandinista government and U.S-backed rebels.

Obando, who is archbishop of Managua and president of the Nicaraguan Bishops Conference, said he would have to inform the other bishops before accepting the position. A church spokesman said Obando wants “guarantees” about his role as mediator but declined to elaborate.

Leaders of the U.S.-backed Contras had been pushing for Obando to serve as an intermediary in cease-fire talks and lauded the choice. The cardinal has been one of the strongest voices of opposition to the revolutionary government inside the country.

Obando twice served as a mediator in negotiations between the Sandinistas and dictator Anastasio Somoza during the guerrilla war that brought the leftist government to power. In one of the negotiations, Ortega was released from jail, and in another, Sandinista Interior Minister Tomas Borge was freed.

“We consider that Cardinal Obando is the ideal person because he is the representative of the Nicaraguan church and he would be accepted by both sides in the mediation,” Ortega said.

Both Ortega and Contra leaders said they expect Obando to accept the position. But no time or place for the talks has been disclosed.

Ortega made the announcement with Obando by his side after the two had met for 30 minutes at the archbishop’s office. They appeared pleased and shook hands after the session, although both said details still had to be firmed up before Obando would give a definite reply.

“Anyone who accepts mediation has to have a series of guarantees and a series of liberties to be able to carry out this role and that will be detailed soon,” said church spokesman Msgr. Bismarck Carballo.

Sudden Policy Reversal

Ortega announced at a rally Thursday night that the Managua government is prepared for indirect negotiations with the Contras. The sudden policy reversal took even government supporters by surprise. Previously, the Sandinistas had insisted they would have a dialogue only with the United States and not with the Contras, whom they view as a proxy army for the United States.

The official Sandinista newspaper Barricada and the pro-government newspaper El Nuevo Diario played down the turnabout in their Friday editions. Barricada referred to the negotiations in one paragraph toward the bottom of a story with the headline “Stick and Lead for the Contras.”

In his speech Thursday night, Ortega announced that he was eliminating unilateral cease-fire zones set up by the government in an early attempt to comply with the peace plan. He said any Contras found there after Friday would be met with “stick and lead,” meaning clubs and bullets.

Will Pardon 1,000

Ortega also said he was pardoning about 1,000 of the estimated 6,500 political prisoners in Nicaragua. He said he has decreed an amnesty for the other prisoners and an end to the wartime state of emergency but that neither measure would take effect until an international commission verifies that other Central American countries have stopped aiding the Contras.

Addressing pressures from militants within his party, Ortega emphasized that the government does not intend to discuss issues such as power sharing or elections in any negotiations with the Contras.

Contra leaders said they hope to reach a cease-fire agreement with the Nicaraguan government by Christmas and eventually to negotiate their return to work in the internal political opposition.

They said they will insist on keeping their rebel force armed and in the field during a cease-fire to pressure the Sandinistas to follow through with democratic reforms.

“This is not about destroying the stick,” said Contra leader Alfonso Robelo. “This means not using the stick. The stick will remain because we don’t know if the carrot is for real.”

Wants International Observers

He said they would demand that the rebels be guaranteed communications, safe corridors for resupply and evacuation of the wounded during a cease-fire. He said international observers should monitor the cease-fire.

“Once this is in place, we want to be allowed to go back to strengthen work with the internal opposition. We feel we need to join and reinforce the opposition in their dialogue for democratization,” Robelo said.

Robelo is one of the six directors of the Contras umbrella group, the Nicaraguan Resistance, forged by the United States six months ago.

Ortega’s announcement came on the day a Central American peace pact went into effect. In addition to cease-fires, the pact signed Aug. 7 by the region’s five presidents calls for amnesty and democratic reforms. It also calls for a halt to outside aid to insurgents.

The plan is intended to end guerrilla wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador and a smaller insurgency in Guatemala.

Salvador Cease-Fire Rejected

In El Salvador, however, leftist guerrillas rejected a unilateral cease-fire declared by President Jose Napoleon Duarte. Overnight Thursday, they launched their biggest attack of the seven-year guerrilla struggle on the country’s electric power system. They knocked out half of the country’s electricity, including 40% of the energy in the capital.

Gen. Abdul Gutierrez, president of the national electricity commission, said the sabotage created “an emergency situation.” He said the rebels blew up 10 primary power lines, four secondary lines and a number of towers in “the sabotage of the greatest magnitude in the war so far.”

But guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front ended a traffic ban that had paralyzed public transportation for three days.

In a communique aired over their clandestine Radio Venceremos, the guerrillas charged that the armed forces put troops into rebel-controlled areas before Duarte’s unilateral cease-fire order Thursday. The guerrillas said “the combat order is given” to attack those troops.

Negotiations Broken Off

The rebels broke off cease-fire negotiations with the Salvadoran government after the death squad-style slaying last week of human rights activist Herbert Ernesto Anaya. Some diplomats in El Salvador speculated that the Sandinistas’ decision to hold a dialogue with the Contras would bring pressure to bear on the Salvadorans to resume their talks.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for initiating the Central American peace plan, applauded the Sandinistas’ decision to hold indirect talks with the Contras.

His plan originally appeared to leave the Contras out of the peace process because the accord calls for insurgents to put down their arms. Guerrilla movements were not signatories to the pact, and governments were not required to talk to the armed opposition.

But Arias eventually decided that the peace process was stalled and publicly urged that the Sandinistas hold talks with the Contras.

Arias ‘Very Satisfied’

“I am very satisfied. Once more I am very optimistic. We just can’t fail,” he told reporters at his presidential offices in Costa Rica.

The Sandinistas have never issued a public cease-fire proposal. In an interview last September, Vice President Sergio Ramirez told The Times that the government could consider a cease-fire that keeps Contra troops armed and in place. He said, however, that the government would want to oversee the process of supplying them with food and other non-lethal aid that could be channelled through an institution such as the Red Cross.

Members of a national reconciliation commission set up under the peace plan said the announcement of willingness to hold indirect talks on a cease-fire took them by surprise. Obando heads the commission and had said Wednesday that he did not expect such talks.

Mauricio Diaz, an opposition party member of the commission, said that Obando has been positioning himself in recent weeks to play the role of mediator. He noted that after Obando met with some Contras in New York last month, he was careful to say he could not move toward negotiations without the Sandinistas’ approval.

Obando Softens Position

Diaz added that at a press conference last week, when asked about his position on military conscription, Obando softened the church’s critical position and said the draft is the law and necessary in wartime.

In December, 1974, Obando acted as mediator between the then-Sandinista guerrillas and the Somoza dictatorship when the rebels took members of Somoza’s Cabinet and the diplomatic corps hostage at a Christmas party. Ortega was released in that negotiation.

In August, 1978, Obando again intervened when the Sandinistas, led by Eden Pastora, took the congress hostage in the National Palace. Borge was released that time.

But Obando has had a tense relationship with the Sandinistas during their eight years of rule. He has had several confrontations with them, particularly over their expulsion of several priests who allegedly aided the Contras or supported U.S. aid to the Contras. The Sandinistas have since allowed four of the priests to return to Nicaragua.

Contra leader Alfredo Cesar called the choice of Obando “excellent.” Asked why he thought the Sandinistas picked their adversary as mediator, he said, “Because Ortega knows that having the Vatican as an enemy is worse than having the United States and the Soviet Union as enemies.”

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