Contras Assail Restrictions, Threaten to Boycott Talks

Contra leaders on Tuesday rejected restrictive conditions set by the Sandinista government of Nicaragua for the next round of peace talks and said they would not go to Managua at all for the talks unless they could move about and speak freely.

One of the Contras’ directors, Adolfo Calero, who was named Tuesday to be the rebels’ chief negotiator at the talks, made public a letter from Nicaraguan Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco that spells out government plans to isolate the Contra delegation in a government-owned hotel near the airport and to limit the rebels’ outside contacts to “personal visits.”

“We are to be allowed to receive personal visits as if we are prisoners,” said fellow rebel director Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, who appeared with Calero at a news conference at Contra headquarters here.

Calero added: “We are demanding that we be free while we are in Nicaragua. Our visit was to be virtual imprisonment at the hotel. That is not in keeping with the idea of reconciliation, the idea of democratization.”

Calero said the Contra leadership has sent the Sandinistas a detailed itinerary that his delegation of about 60, including all five of the rebel group’s directors, intends to follow April 12-15 in Managua. The itinerary includes meetings with Nicaraguan church officials, opposition political groups, the country’s permanent commission on human rights and the beleaguered opposition newspaper, La Prensa.

The Contra proposal also rejects the Las Mercedes Hotel near the airport and suggests 50 double rooms at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Managua.

Calero said his group, known formally as the Nicaraguan Resistance, has further demanded that it be allowed to publish its itinerary in paid advertisements in government and opposition periodicals.

He said the agreement signed on March 23 in Sapoa, Nicaragua, between the Sandinistas and Contras, which set up a 60-day cease-fire, guaranteed rebel negotiators the freedom to move about and see whom they wish while they are in the Nicaraguan capital.

In the letter, Tinoco had written: “Any type of political activity, outside of the framework and objectives of the Managua meeting, we would consider counterproductive.”

In Sapoa, Sandinista and Contra officials resumed talks Tuesday to map the last two of seven cease-fire zones into rules on the separation of their forces. The Contras broke off those talks in Sapoa a week ago, saying they needed more time to explain the peace accord to their troops.

Delegation Arrived Late

On Tuesday, the Contra delegation arrived in Sapoa five hours and 20 minutes late, blaming unspecified problems in transportation from San Jose, Costa Rica. Maj. Gen. Joaquin Cuadra, the deputy defense minister and chief Sandinista negotiator, did not make a public issue of the delay.

“We are ready to spend as many hours or days as are necessary to reach an agreement,” he told reporters. “We hope there will be fewer obstacles this time.”

The Sapoa talks lasted 2 1/2 hours Tuesday, and both sides reported progress but no further agreement other than to continue negotiating today.

In a letter Tuesday to Calero, Defense Minister Humberto Ortega said the talks on the cease-fire zones progressed slowly last week because the rebel negotiators lacked authority. The rebel delegation is led by Aristides Sanchez, one of the five Contra civilian directors. It includes six rebel field commanders but not their chief commander, Enrique Bermudez.

President Daniel Ortega, speaking Monday in Managua, accused the Contras of stalling in the follow-up negotiations. He said the rebel strategy was influenced by a new U.S. commitment of non-lethal aid last week, which will permit their army to survive in the field during prolonged political negotiations. The government is seeking a quick agreement on terms for disarming the rebels.

Meanwhile, the Contra agenda calls for six meetings with the government delegation during three days of political talks in Managua.

“It will be the Sandinistas’ acid test,” Calero said. “It will be very difficult for them to keep the agreement and hold on to power.”

On Tuesday, the government rejected the date proposed by the rebels for the political talks, which Humberto Ortega said in his letter should start either April 9 or 15.

The letter also rejected charges that the Sandinistas broke the Sapoa agreement by withholding newsprint from the opposition newspaper La Prensa and by ignoring a list of prisoners that the Contras had asked them to release.

(La Prensa suspended publication indefinitely Tuesday because of the newsprint shortage, the Associated Press reported.)

The Managua talks, aimed at working out a lasting truce and an eventual peace agreement, were originally scheduled to begin today, according to last month’s agreement. But the Contras asked for a delay pending completion of negotiations on cease-fire zones.

Don Schanche reported from Miami and Richard Boudreaux from Sapoa, Nicaragua.