Analysis : Fate of Peace Plan Seems to Hinge on Contra Aid Vote

The fate of the Central American peace accord, once hailed as a regional act of independence, now appears to hinge on an act of Congress: to renew or halt U.S. aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.

The initiative passed to Washington this week after Nicaragua and four other Central American countries ended a summit meeting deadlocked over how to judge the results of the agreement they signed five months ago.

While admitting that the peace plan was largely “unfulfilled,” the five presidents declined to pronounce it dead or fault anyone by name for its failings. Nor could the region’s four U.S. allies bring themselves, as a bloc, to ask Washington to refuel Nicaragua’s Contra insurgency or to cut it off.

If any consensus emerged from the weekend summit here, it was a helpless recognition by the peace plan’s promoters that a large dose of new Contra aid, if approved by Congress in a vote set two weeks from now, will probably shut off the limited political moves by Nicaragua’s Sandinista rulers to comply with the accord.

“If the peace plan dies, it will be killed by a vote of Congress, not by a decision of the Central American presidents,” said a worried senior Costa Rican official.

New Contra aid, he and other officials said, could unleash new assistance from Managua to leftist guerrillas in El Salvador, jeopardizing the reforms undertaken by that country’s U.S.-backed government in the name of reconciliation. There is also concern that Contra bases in Honduras could come under attack from the Sandinista army.

It was the fragile hope of a home-grown solution to these interlocking conflicts that focused world attention on the peace plan drafted by President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica. His vision of a Central America free of war, superpower interference and political instability won him the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize.

The accord, signed last Aug. 7, called for cease-fire negotiations in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. It committed those countries, along with Costa Rica and Honduras, to make democratic reforms, grant amnesties for political offenses and end state-of-siege laws within 150 days.

By pledging to deny aid to guerrilla groups and urging outside powers to stop such assistance, the agreement challenged both Washington and Moscow to let the region settle its own conflicts.

Focus on Nicaragua

But the Reagan Administration, since recovering from its initial surprise over the peace plan, has used military and diplomatic pressure to focus the burden of compliance on Managua.

The Administration has, in effect, written the Contras into the plan by continuing to channel military aid to them through Honduras while persuading Congress to renew non-lethal assistance in small doses. And it has insisted that the Sandinistas hold face-to-face talks with Contra leaders, something the accord does not specifically require.

Arias, acting as a buffer against U.S. pressures, has telephoned Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega dozens of times since August and finally persuaded him last weekend to accept direct peace talks with the Contras and to suspend a state of emergency.

Although the accord called for simultaneous compliance by each country, Arias could not force Honduras to expel the Contras because of opposition by the Honduran army, Costa Rican officials said. For the same reason, he did not push openly for new peace talks in El Salvador and Guatemala after resistance by their armies helped cause the talks to break down. All three armies are closely allied with the United States and wield heavy influence over elected civilian governments.

“The peace plan has come to be defined in terms of what concessions Arias can persuade Ortega to make for the sake of getting the Contras cut off,” said a Costa Rican diplomat. He likened the pressures to a “good cop, bad cop” strategy, with President Reagan playing the bad cop.

“But if the aid is not cut now, the concessions will stop and the plan will be finished,” he said.

Military Pressure Called Key

In announcing they will seek new aid for the rebels, Administration officials have argued that military pressure forced Ortega to the negotiating table and that it should not be withdrawn until he makes significant political concessions beyond those spelled out by the peace accord.

In the view of Costa Rican officials, however, Ortega has been pushed about as far as hard-liners in the ruling Sandinista directorate will allow with a growing insurgency on their hands. Indeed, Ortega made it clear after the summit that emergency rule will be reimposed “if Congress votes one dollar of aid” to the Contras.

Even before lifting the state of emergency, Managua had eased restrictions on dissident groups and allowed the opposition newspaper La Prensa and the Catholic radio station to reopen.

While these changes, over time, are likely to alter the way the Marxist-inclined Sandinistas run Nicaragua, they do not appear to threaten the ruling party’s hold on power and, in any case, are easily reversible.

Arias urged Ortega at the summit to go further than he did. Holding up El Salvador as an example of wartime civic freedom, the Costa Rican leader insisted that Nicaragua allow two dozen banned radio newscasts back on the air and let the political opposition operate a private television station.

The Nobel laureate now finds himself in the delicate position of trying to push the Nicaraguans quietly to take these steps while saying nothing that would encourage Contra aid, which violates his pacifist principles.

Behind those beliefs, his aides say, is a pragmatic view that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev would refrain from meddling in the region if the United States abandons military force against Nicaragua. Moscow has already refused to expand its considerable economic assistance to Managua; the extent of its support, and that of Cuba, for guerrillas in El Salvador and Guatemala is unclear.

Superpowers Criticized

Publicly, Arias has criticized both superpowers for failing to give as much priority to settling the Central American conflict as they have in pursuing nuclear disarmament.

At the summit, Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte blocked a resolution specifically urging withdrawal of U.S. aid to the Contras unless Soviet Bloc assistance to Salvadoran guerrillas was also condemned. The whole idea was dropped when Ortega objected to criticizing Moscow.

The Central Americans’ refusal to take a strong stand against outside interference left the Sandinistas alone in their showdown with Washington, with Arias in the middle.

Some Costa Rican officials believe the hard-liners in Managua prefer it that way. Eager for economic aid from Western Europe, the Sandinistas are said to be more concerned with appearing flexible than with actually ending the war. Having made dramatic last-minute concessions to escape censure by their neighbors, they are now in a position, if the Contra aid vote passes, to convince the world that it was Reagan who wrecked the peace plan and forced them to crack down.