It’s Too Late

President Reagan is asking again for new funding for the Contras at war with the government of Nicaragua. That is a mistake. It is too late. The President missed the last opportunity for resupply when he helped kill a package of so-called non-lethal assistance on March 3.

Reports last weekend underscored the desperate situation of the Contras, running low on food for the force of about 12,000 men deployed within Nicaragua. The leaders even then were contemplating withdrawal. But they already have a better offer: to accept the cease-fire plan that Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo has laid before them and the Nicaragua government.

Obando y Bravo has now won agreement from both President Daniel Ortega and the Contras to hold a three-day negotiating session commencing Monday. That will be the next critical test of the Aug. 7 peace agreement approved by all five Central American presidents.

Reagan’s second thoughts are understandable. He chose the route of raw partisan politics in helping to kill the aid package that had been put together by Democratic leaders after his own aid package, which had included arms, had been defeated in the House. His staff now acknowledges that it miscalculated the ability of the Contras to battle without further aid. But that is only part of the problem for the President. He finds his policy losing support in Congress, as it has lost support over the years among the Latin Americans themselves, because he has tried at every turn to frustrate the peace efforts of the Latins. The futility of Reagan’s commitment to a military solution, through warfare waged by proxy Contra fighters, is now evident. It is, in the words of President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, time to give peace a chance.

Tha talks next week under Obando y Bravo’s leadership will not be easy. President Ortega, who himself had named the cardinal as chairman of the National Reconciliation Commission and had accepted his role as mediator, tried to exclude him from the talks. And the Contras stalled their way into the present state of desperation by postponing the talks that could already have established a cease-fire.

Reagan is convinced that only military pressure from the Contras can bring concessions from the Sandinistas. Events indicate otherwise. Years of guerrilla warfare were inconclusive, and tended to alienate the Contras from a population weary of the brutal attacks so often focused on civilians and civilian targets. It is the Aug. 7 peace accord, not warfare, that has changed the situation--raising new hopes for peace.

The Latins themselves have contrived this, over the opposition of the Reagan Administration. What they have done, and what they have asked, should now be respected absolutely and unequivocally. Arias has said no more aid for the Contras. That tells Congress what is the right thing to do.