As Long As Rebels Stay Afloat, Hope for Peace Is Sunk

There are three immediate and important lessons that can be drawn from last weekend’s meeting of the five Central American presidents. But whatever its formal significance, their summit agreement will have little bearing on the lives of the region’s people if the United States does not do what it has repeatedly been called on to do by the leaders of Central America and virtually every other government in Latin America: Stop financing the Nicaraguan Contras.

The first message of the summit meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica, was a reiteration of Central American independence. The Reagan Administration had applied intense pressure up until the very last minute--especially on the two heads of state most dependent on the United States and most amenable to Washington’s brow-beating--Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador and Jose Azcona Hoyo of Honduras. Yet all five presidents rejected the Administration’s entreaties--or ultimatum, depending on one’s point of view--that they denounce the Sandinistas for not complying with the main provisions of the Esquipulas II agreement signed last August in Guatemala.

In fact, apart from criticism of the United States for its continuing support of the Contras, the brunt of criticism during the summit meeting reportedly fell on Azcona for Honduras’ non-compliance with its part of the agreement: to stop supply flights from its territory to the Contras in Nicaragua, and to expel the remaining Contras from its soil.

The text that was ultimately signed by all of the presidents (notably including Azcona) says that “compliance with the Esquipulas II agreement includes commitments whose observance by the governments must be specifically verified, particularly regarding the end of all aid to irregular groups.” This directly concerns Honduran aid to the Contras and implies on-site inspection of their bases and resupply locations in Honduras, which that country’s armed forces has been unwilling to accept.

Even more important, and despite reservations expressed by Duarte and Azcona, was the acceptance by all five presidents of the international verification commission’s report on adherence to the Esquipulas II agreement. Point 21 of the report directly says that an end to U.S. aid to the Contras is an “indispensable requirement” for the success of the peace efforts and the plan in its entirety. Initially it was said that the report had been rejected by everyone except Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega. But on Sunday President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica said that his country “has no objection to the report of the commission”; Guatemala’s Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo made a similar statement.

Not only did the Reagan Administration not get its way in pressing for a condemnation of Nicaragua; it also was taken to task again for impeding the peace effort--this time by the only two presidents at the summit meeting sufficiently impartial to be noteworthy, and sufficiently independent to be impartial: Arias and Cerezo.

The Sandinistas, for their part, took a moderate risk and a daring chance at the summit. The risk is minor because, in the last analysis, most of the concessions that they made in San Jose had already been accepted as inevitable by the leadership in Managua. They have known since August that they would have to participate in face-to-face talks with the Contras on a cease-fire; they also knew that their present amnesty decree was too narrow and would have to be extended to prisoners jailed before the beginning of the Contra war in 1981. And their lifting of the state of emergency was also previously contemplated, mainly since many of its important implications--the reopening of La Prensa and Radio Catolica, and the permitting of opposition demonstrations and gatherings--had already taken effect. One of the tactical drawbacks that the Reagan Administration has created for itself is its routine dismissal of every concession made by Nicaragua, which allows the Sandinistas to make each concession twice.

The chance that the government of Nicaragua has taken is, essentially, to trust the Congress of the United States, and more particularly the House and Senate Democratic leaderships. The entire agreement that emerged Saturday night in San Jose is based on one principle: that if Ortega complies with his stated commitments, and if that compliance is certified by the Central American presidents--above all, by Arias and Cerezo--then Congress will end President Reagan’s support of the Contras once and for all.

While it seems likely that Congress will not give the Administration what it wants, there is still a strong possibility that it will confirm its proverbial fickleness and lack of backbone by giving the Contras just enough aid to survive, but too much aid for the peace process to withstand.