Most Nicaraguan Troops Out; 3-Day Truce Called

U.S. State Department spokesman Charles E. Redman said today that all or almost all the Nicaraguan forces have returned to their homeland, and Honduran President Jose Azcona Hoyo said the 3,200 U.S. soldiers on an emergency mission in Honduras probably won’t be needed much longer.

In Nicaragua, the Sandinista government and the U.S.-backed Contra rebels suspended military operations and began three days of unprecedented, direct peace talks.

The peace negotiations, the first direct talks held inside Nicaragua, began at 10:30 a.m. in a customs building in the frontier town of Sapoa, 85 miles south of Managua. The Contra delegation arrived by bus from Costa Rica roughly 15 minutes after Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, brother of President Daniel Ortega and leader of the Nicaraguan delegation, announced the Sandinistas’ cease-fire.

Redman told reporters in Washington all or nearly all the Nicaraguans had left Honduras and there has been a substantial Sandinista deployment on the Nicaraguan side of the border.

‘General Withdrawal’

“I don’t have any way to confirm that it’s a 100% withdrawal but I think the evidence is that it has been a general withdrawal back across the river,” he said.

Asked whether the American ground forces sent to Honduras last week can be withdrawn, Redman said it was difficult to know what the Sandinistas will do next.

“One can hope that they’ve learned a lesson this time,” he said.

Some of the American soldiers--dispatched by President Reagan last week after he and Honduran officials said 2,000 Sandinistas had crossed the border--practiced military maneuvers Sunday at a Honduran airstrip only 20 miles from the Nicaraguan border.

“Things are getting back to normal,” Azcona said Sunday. “If there are no more incidents, the Americans will leave.” He did not say when the U.S. troops, which began arriving Thursday, will leave nor did he further describe the Sandinista withdrawal.

‘Historic Encounter’

Rep. G. V. (Sonny) Montgomery (D-Miss.), a member of a congressional delegation that ended a fact-finding mission to Honduras on Sunday, said he expects the U.S. military personnel to pull out in about a week.

In Sapoa today, Humberto Ortega announced that the Sandinista government is suspending all military operations during the talks with Contra leaders.

He urged the Contras to halt their military activities. He called the three-day peace talks beginning today in Sapoa, a “historic encounter.”

Contra leader Alfredo Cesar called the Sandinista proposal “constructive” and later a spokesman for his delegation announced that the Contras would also suspend their military operations for three days.

‘Surrender or Die’

About 100,000 Nicaraguans assembled Sunday night in downtown Managua to send off the government delegation to Sapoa. U.S. peace activist Brian Willson, who lost his legs Sept. 1 when a munitions train in California ran over him in a peace demonstration, accompanied the Sandinista delegation.

The crowd chanted: “Contras, either surrender or we will crush them;” “Humberto is confident--give it to the Contras hard,” and “The Contras have two options--surrender or die.”

Cesar said after arriving in Sapoa that the Contras’ position is “to explore to the bottom the probability of finding a solution to the conflict” in Nicaragua in compliance with a regional peace plan signed in August by all five Central American presidents.