Nicaragua OKs Law to Free 3,000 Political Prisoners

The Sandinista-dominated National Assembly passed a law Saturday enabling the government to eventually free more than 3,000 political prisoners under the truce agreement signed by the government last week with leaders of the U.S.-backed Contras.

Those to be released include 1,837 members of the old Nicaraguan National Guard, which the Sandinistas fought in a bitter guerrilla war that finally brought them to power in 1979. The other prisoners had been arrested and charged with counterrevolutionary activities since the Sandinistas took power.

The first 100 of the accused counterrevolutionaries will be released today in a public ceremony, as required by the new preliminary cease-fire pact.

Bitter Pill for Some

In the assembly’s debate on the law, legislators said that freeing the prisoners will be hard for many Nicaraguans to accept.

“We know--and we feel--what is felt by the mothers of workers, peasants, craftsmen, students and teachers who have fallen as victims of American aggression,” said Federico Lopez, a Sandinista member of the assembly. “Nevertheless, it is one more sacrifice for the people of Nicaragua.”

He said that the amnesty is necessary “to achieve firm and lasting peace in Central America, because it constitutes a first step for dismantling the strategy of aggression of the U.S. government.”

Many of the accused counterrevolutionaries arrested under Nicaragua’s tough state security laws were charged with aiding the Contras or fighting for them.

The small Marxist-Leninist Party was alone in opposing the amnesty in the assembly. One of its two representatives, Isidro Tellez, told the assembly that many Sandinistas disagreed with it.

“We ask ‘Peace for what?’ ” he said. “So that the Somocistas (followers of former dictator Anastasio Somoza) can come back? So that the criminals can come out and return to normal life?”

Eight Articles

The amnesty bill contains eight articles, and each of them passed the assembly with no more than two votes against it. There were as many as four abstentions in the votes by assemblymen from conservative opposition parties.

Many opposition parties are not represented in the assembly because they refused to contest 1984 elections in which the 96-member body was chosen. Sixty-one of the members, a clear majority, belong to the Sandinista National Liberation Front, the ruling party.

The main article of the new amnesty law duplicates terms of the cease-fire agreement signed Wednesday in Sapoa, Nicaragua. It calls for the release of 100 of the prisoners today and for freedom for half of those arrested for counterrevolutionary activities next month, after rebel troops begin to move into cease-fire zones.

Under terms of the preliminary pact, Contra troops are to move into the zones by April 15.

The new amnesty law also guarantees that Nicaraguans who have left the country for political or other reasons may return with all of the rights established by law for citizens. That article also is worded to comply with the new provisional cease-fire agreement.

The prisoners not scheduled for release today and next month, including the former National Guardsmen, are to be freed when the Sandinistas and the Contras agree to a definitive cease-fire. Negotiations for the definitive pact, under terms of the preliminary cease-fire accord, are scheduled to begin April 6.

Cease-Fire Zones

Sandinista and rebel negotiators are to meet again Monday in Sapoa to map cease-fire zones and set rules for separating their armies during the 60-day provisional truce period.

According to the agreement, the former National Guardsmen are to be released only after a ruling by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights of the Organization of American States.

Nicaraguan officials said Saturday that the commission will review each imprisoned guardsman’s trial records to identify those convicted of “atrocities” against civilians. They will not be eligible for amnesty.

President Daniel Ortega told reporters Saturday afternoon that he does not know how many guardsmen are in that category. A Red Cross official, who monitors human rights cases here, estimated that 30 to 50 guardsmen were convicted of killing civilians while combatting the insurrection that led to the Sandinistas’ rise to power in 1979.

Victor Hugo Tinoco, a Sandinista negotiator at Sapoa, told reporters Friday that the prisoner release scheduled for today had been complicated by the Contras.

Tinoco said the government, to show its good faith, had asked rebel leaders to submit a list of prisoners whom it wanted to be the first to be set free. The Contras promised such a list, he said, but failed to deliver it.

Sandinista officials then reviewed their prisoner lists and chose a mix of 100 Contra combatants and opposition political activists to be freed in today’s ceremony. He invited Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, who was an observer at the peace talks in Sapoa, to bless the event at Zona Franca Prison, near Managua’s international airport.