Contras Agree to Direct Talks : Still Demand Wider Parley to Reach Truce

Softening their earlier position, Contra leaders said Tuesday they will hold face-to-face peace talks with Sandinista officials despite the Nicaraguan government’s refusal to include the internal opposition.

The Contras said, however, that they will not engage in a cease-fire before the Sandinistas negotiate political issues in three-way talks that include the internal opposition. They called for such a meeting to be held simultaneously with the cease-fire talks.

“A cease-fire is not a goal. It is a means to achieve democracy,” said Contra leader Alfonso Robelo.

Alfredo Cesar, another representative on the Contras’ six-member directorate, added, “We will not stop shooting if the tripartite talks have not succeeded.”

Will Meet Cardinal

At a press conference in their headquarters here, the U.S.-backed guerrillas said they will meet Thursday with the mediator, Roman Catholic Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo of Nicaragua, in San Jose, Costa Rica, to arrange the talks.

Obando met Monday with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and the two agreed that the talks could be held Jan. 27-28. That would follow President Reagan’s Jan. 25 State of the Union speech, in which he is expected to push his request for renewed military aid to the Contras.

Congress is expected to vote on the aid in early February in what is being described by both Republicans and Democrats as a make-or-break decision on the policy of support for the rebels.

Ortega agreed to hold the first direct talks with the Contras under pressure from four other Central American presidents when they met last weekend to evaluate each country’s compliance with the regional peace plan they signed Aug. 7.

On Sunday, the Contras rejected Ortega’s offer for direct talks unless they include civic opposition parties. Ortega refused.

On Monday, Ortega abolished the People’s Anti-Somocista Tribunals for trying accused Contras. He also formally lifted a state-of-emergency law limiting civil liberties, as he had promised at the presidents’ meeting.

Ortega also said he will release 1,800 former guardsmen under deposed dictator Anastasio Somoza and 1,500 Contra convicts if there is a cease-fire or if a country outside Central America will accept them.

Contras Demand Reforms

Contra leaders said these steps are “secondary.” In order to end the six-year war, they are demanding a list of constitutional and political reforms that would separate the Sandinista Party from the army and government institutions, weaken presidential power, prohibit presidential reelection and guarantee private property.

Ortega has said repeatedly that his government will discuss only technical and logistical issues in cease-fire talks, not political issues.

“What we agreed to in San Jose is clear in that we are only to talk about the negotiation of a cease-fire with armed groups so they can put down their arms, so they can accept the amnesty and then take part in the political dialogue,” Ortega said Monday.

The Contras’ decision to go ahead with the talks anyway signals an apparent shift in strategy to win the Contra aid vote in Congress. They say the direct talks are a tactical maneuver by Ortega to kill the aid, and that they want to prove that the Sandinistas are not serious about democratic reforms.

“What is easier, for us to prove the Sandinistas don’t mean to comply with their promises, or for them to overcome the doubts?” Cesar asked rhetorically.

Want Foreign Observers

At the press conference, the Contras named two Latin American advisers--Costa Rican and Dominican diplomats--to join their cease-fire commission for the talks. Like the Sandinistas, they want to have foreign observers as witnesses that they are negotiating in good faith.

The Contras named a former foreign minister of Costa Rica, Gonzalo J. Facio, and a former foreign minister of the Dominican Republic, Adm. Ramon Emilio Jimenez, to join the talks.

Ortega said West German Social Democrat Hans-Jurgen Wischnewski and American lawyer Paul S. Reichler will continue as members of the Sandinistas’ negotiating team and that two Nicaraguan negotiators will be named later.

The Sandinistas named the two foreigners last month to satisfy Cardinal Obando’s request for direct talks in the Dominican Republic, but the talks fell apart when the Contras refused to meet the foreigners without Sandinista representation.

The cease-fire talks are expected to be held in Costa Rica. Contra leaders said they would confer with Obando on the date.

In Nicaragua, meanwhile, authorities detained five opposition leaders, including Jaime Chamorro Cardenal of La Prensa newspaper, for questioning Tuesday morning at Managua airport. They were freed later Tuesday.

Staff writer Richard Boudreaux contributed to this story from Managua, Nicaragua.