Contra Aid Cutoff Shifts Focus to Reform : Vote Revives Nicaragua’s Civic Foes, Hope for Peaceful Change

The refusal of Congress to renew U.S. aid to the Contras has energized Nicaragua’s civic opposition and shifted the focus of the conflict from guerrilla warfare to issues of constitutional reform.

With the expected easing of the war against Managua, a new period of political opening will test the Sandinistas’ readiness to change their one-party style of rule and their critics’ power to mobilize rising discontent with the revolutionary government.

The process is likely to unfold slowly and will ultimately be judged by the fairness of presidential elections set for November, 1990. It will test the influence of political leaders in the United States and Central America who argued successfully that diplomatic pressure on the Sandinistas is preferable to continued bloodshed.

‘Political Option’

“Congress has voted for the political option in Nicaragua, and that gives us more responsibility to take on the Sandinistas,” Agustin Jarquin, a leader of the Social Christian Party, said in an interview Friday.

“We do not seek to overthrow them,” he said. “The majority of the people are anti-Sandinistas. We only want democratic reforms that allow us to compete on equal terms.”

On Thursday, the leaders of 14 parties, a curious coalition ranging from Communists to Conservatives, marched with a list of constitutional proposals to the National Assembly.

The proposals include ending direct control of the army, the judiciary, the electoral process and food rationing by the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front; limiting the president’s power, barring him from consecutive terms, and abolishing a security law that forbids “acts aimed at submitting the nation to foreign domination.”

The dissident coalition and its demands are products of the Central American peace accord signed last August by President Daniel Ortega and leaders of the region’s four other nations.

The agreement called for ending guerrilla wars and resolving conflicts through “national dialogue” between governments and unarmed opposition groups. It obliged governments to guarantee total press freedom and political pluralism.

Unprecedented Freedoms

Moving to comply with the accord and to turn Congress against new Contra aid, the Marxist-led Sandinistas have allowed freedoms unprecedented here since they fought their way to power in a 1979 insurrection against right-wing dictator Anastasio Somoza.

Dissident Nicaraguans can now operate their own newspapers and radio programs. The state of emergency that curbed civil rights for six years was lifted two weeks ago, and revolutionary “people’s tribunals” were abolished.

However, opposition leaders say the real test of the government’s democratic intentions is its willingness to rid the Nicaraguan Constitution of what they call “anti-democratic content” that perpetuates one-party rule.

So far, the Sandinistas have resisted. They have agreed to discuss electoral and judicial reform but have ignored most of the opposition’s other demands.

Interior Minister Tomas Borge declared Wednesday night that the Sandinista revolution “will survive until the consummation of the centuries.” And Ortega said, “We are not going to change the constitution just because the idea occurs to a few politicians.”

The president accused some opposition leaders of seeking to reimpose a Somoza-style dictatorship.

‘Different Concept’

“They have a very different concept of democracy,” he said. “They cannot accept a democracy in which workers and peasants have rights they never enjoyed before.”

Ramiro Gurdian, a politically active businessman, said Ortega’s remarks, coming after Wednesday’s vote in Congress, mean that the decline of the Contras could hurt the civic opposition.

“Having defeated the most powerful man on Earth in his own capital, the Sandinistas ought to feel very strong,” Gurdian said. “For them, the internal opposition is nothing.”

The opposition newspaper La Prensa said the vote was a major victory for the Democratic Party at the beginning of the U.S. election campaign.

“But the Democrats will pay an enormous price if before November the Republican Party can blame them for an entrenchment of totalitarianism in Nicaragua,” the newspaper said in an editorial.

Echoing that view, opposition leaders say they will urge U.S. congressmen and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, architect of the peace accord, to watch the Sandinistas closely and call for sanctions if they retrench.

Warning from Ortega

Ortega has warned Nicaraguans not to expect “a process of peace and democracy” until the Reagan Administration comes to terms with the Sandinista revolution.

In fact, the war is continuing. On Thursday, a land mine apparently planted by rebel forces exploded under a passenger bus near the town of Quilali, killing an unarmed Sandinista soldier and 16 civilians.

However, military analysts and Contra leaders say that if cease-fire talks fail, the rebel insurgency stands to lose up to half its guerrilla fighters as U.S.-supplied munitions stockpiles dwindle in the coming months.

“The level of military pressure is definitely going to diminish, and we are going to lose the initiative,” Contra leader Alfonso Robelo said in a telephone interview from his home in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Rebel Leader Resigns

Robelo announced his resignation from the rebels’ six-member political-military directorate Friday. He did so after President Arias, complying with his own peace plan, ordered rebel leaders to renounce armed struggle or leave Costa Rica.

“I am going to concentrate solely on the political struggle,” Robelo said. “The political side is more important now.”

He said he will stay in Costa Rica to lobby Central American and U.S. congressional leaders, urging them to keep international pressure on the Sandinistas.

Two rebel leaders have returned to Nicaragua in the last two weeks to test the political climate. Fernando Chamorro, a former Contra commander, accepted a government amnesty and rejoined the Conservative Party.

Brooklyn Rivera, a Miskito Indian whose forces are at war with the Sandinistas on the remote Atlantic coast, began peace talks with government officials.