One-Month Truce Offered by Ortega : Contra Leaders Turn Down Proposal to Confine Them to Specific Areas

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega proposed a detailed plan Friday to halt his government’s seven-year war with U.S.-backed Contras by imposing a one-month cease-fire beginning Dec. 5 and confining the rebels to truce zones until they can lay down their arms and be granted amnesty.

The Contras’ six-member political directorate, meeting in Miami, promptly rejected Ortega’s 11-point offer as “a choice between surrender and relocation in other countries” for their 15,000 troops.

“We do not see ourselves moving into gulags,” rebel leader Adolfo Calero said.

Reagan Administration spokesmen declined official comment on the offer but privately termed it “outrageous.”

“It’s a total surrender,” one said, “but it will probably get less outrageous as the talks go on and they scale it down.”

Proposal, Not Ultimatum

Ortega appeared to anticipate the rejection and called for negotiations to proceed quickly. “It is a proposal,” he said of his cease-fire plan. “It is not an ultimatum.”

The Sandinista leader presented the truce offer in a meeting at the Vatican Embassy here with House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), a leading opponent of U.S. military aid to the Contras, and the Nicaraguan intermediary in the cease-fire talks, Roman Catholic Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo.

Obando is serving as a go-between because Ortega refuses to hold direct talks with rebel leaders. The cardinal was expected to return to Central America this weekend and meet with Contra officials sometime next week, probably in Guatemala or Costa Rica.

Wright called Friday’s meeting “at least one more step moving in the direction of peace.” But, he cautioned, “It is not yet at hand.”

Ortega’s proposal, he added, contains “some rough areas that are going to need to be smoothed out.”

White House Isolated

The cease-fire offer capped a week of developments in the Central American peace process that have moved Wright into the diplomatic forefront and left the White House virtually isolated in its unflagging support of the rebels. The Reagan Administration refuses to deal directly with the Nicaraguan regime and urges negotiations between the Sandinistas and the Contras.

Wright was accompanied to the Vatican Embassy on Friday by Paul C. Warnke, former director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Jimmy Carter Administration, who Ortega said would serve on a “support team” of observers in the cease-fire talks. Ortega said he and Wright would propose members of the team, which would report to Cardinal Obando.

‘An Invited Guest’

Wright said he is only “an invited guest” in the talks. But White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater later said that President Reagan is “concerned” about Wright’s unusual diplomatic role--ordinarily the State Department’s job--and suggested that he is enmeshing the United States in negotiations with Nicaragua in defiance of Administration policy.

In Managua, Nicaraguan Vice President Sergio Ramirez said his government had been in frequent contact with Wright in recent weeks, shown him an advance copy of the cease-fire proposal and encouraged him to act as a “witness” to the Sandinistas’ good faith in the truce talks.

“Because of the role that the Congress must inevitably play in the peace process, we thought it would be suitable for him to take part,” Ramirez told reporters in Managua.

He said White House criticism of Wright’s role was proof of its “intransigence against all options” for a peaceful settlement. “I think Wright is acting in very good faith, trying to find a rational way out. . . . It’s useful what he is doing, very important for us.”

Honduras also showed signs of edging away from its usual strong support of the Administration’s Central America policy. In a little-noticed speech at the Organization of American States’ annual General Assembly meeting in Washington, Honduras’ foreign minister suggested Thursday that his nation may abolish Contra camps on its border with Nicaragua if the Sandinistas demilitarize the area and halt cross-border raids on the camps.

Ortega on Friday called the proposals “constructive” and said the Sandinista government would analyze them before making further comment.

A State Department spokesman declined to comment on the address but suggested that it may have been intended to create a more favorable atmosphere for implementing the peace accord signed by Nicaragua, Honduras and other Central American nations in August.

First of a Series

Ortega’s cease-fire offer was made during the first in an expected series of indirect truce talks. Under the plan, guerrillas inside Nicaragua would gather in three large demilitarized areas until Jan. 5, when they would be granted government-declared amnesty and would lay down their weapons.

Rebel soldiers who chose to leave Nicaragua would be guaranteed transport outside the country, and a mediation commission would settle cease-fire disputes.

The disarming would be supervised by the International Commission on Verification and Follow-up, a group that would monitor implementation of the Central American peace accord not only in Nicaragua but in neighboring nations. In return, the rebels would be allowed “to join in the political life of the nation with full enjoyment of their rights.”

No Guarantee

However, Ortega did not guarantee that Nicaragua would comply by that time with the terms of the regional peace accord that it signed Aug. 7 with Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Costa Rica. That accord requires those nations to grant universal amnesties to their rebels--there are also rebels in El Salvador and Guatemala--and restore suspended liberties at the same time that fighting is halted.

Instead, Ortega’s cease-fire proposal called on the Contras to give up their arms first and for the regional peace accord to be implemented only when all outside aid to the rebels has ceased.

Ortega’s offer sidestepped a prime Contra requirement that any cease-fire leave both sides’ armies in place for the duration of a truce. A statement released by the rebels in Miami on Friday contended that the proposal also replaced Cardinal Obando with the mediation commission.

Obando, Contras Meet

Obando, after leaving the session with Ortega and Wright, met with a representative of the Contra political directorate, Ernesto Palazio, who asked him to convene formal cease-fire talks between the two sides in Managua, capital of Nicaragua. Ortega, who has rejected Managua as a negotiation site, ordered steps taken Friday to deny Nicaraguan entry visas to the rebel political leaders.

In a related matter, Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) urged Secretary of State George P. Shultz on Friday to open direct negotiations with Nicaragua over the removal of Soviet and Cuban troops from its soil.

“The longer the Sandinistas remain untested in this matter, the longer Communist presence will deepen its influence” in the area, Byrd stated in a letter released as the two men met.

Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux in Managua, Nicaragua, contributed to this story.