Contras Ask U.S. to Join Nicaragua Peace Talks : Rebels Urge Washington to Open Negotiations With Sandinistas and 4 Other Countries in Area

The Contras are urging the Reagan Administration to help end the Nicaraguan conflict by opening security talks with the Sandinista regime and other Central American governments, a rebel official said Saturday.

The Administration has offered to hold multilateral talks with the five Central American nations on mutual disarmament only after the Sandinistas sign a final peace accord with the U.S.-backed Contras.

But Alfredo Cesar, one of five directors of the Contra movement, said he had asked Secretary of State George P. Shultz to initiate such talks before Shultz leaves for Moscow in late May with President Reagan for the May 29-June 2 summit with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

‘That Will Be Helpful’

“The Moscow summit may be the last opportunity for President Reagan to talk to the Soviets about the situation in Nicaragua and Central America,” Cesar said. “Being where we are in the peace process, that will be helpful.”

Cesar outlined the rebel proposal during a break in high-level talks with the Sandinista government, the first ever held in Managua. The warring factions signed a cease-fire accord March 23 at Sapoa, Nicaragua, and the follow-up negotiations here are to set the terms for a lasting political settlement of the six-year conflict.

President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, author of the Central American peace accord that led to the Nicaraguan cease-fire, called again last week for regional talks involving the United States. Such talks would aim to reduce conventional armies and foreign military presences in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

At their Washington summit last December, Reagan did not take up an informal offer by Gorbachev to curtail Soviet military aid to Managua if the United States stopped arming the Contras. U.S. military aid to the rebels has since been cut off by Congress and barred by the Nicaraguan cease-fire accord.

However, the Sandinistas have refused to stop receiving Soviet weapons, a stance that is blocking a full peace agreement in the talks here.

Saturday’s opening session focused on that issue and others left unresolved in seven days of follow-up talks on the rules for a formal two-month cease-fire that was to have started April 1, replacing the informal truce already in effect. The session ended with both sides reporting progress but no final agreement. The talks will resume today.

Absent from the talks here were Aristides Sanchez and Diogenes Hernandez, two Contra leaders who publicly expressed regrets over having signed the overall peace agreement, and Enrique Bermudez, the rebel commander in chief, who did not sign the accord but accepted it with reservations.

Sanchez is the only rebel director not among the 45-member delegation. Hernandez and Walter Calderon, the top military negotiators in earlier talks, were dropped from the delegation and replaced by other field commanders.

The shake-up was taken as a further sign of dissent in the rebel ranks over whether to stop the war. Victor Hugo Tinoco, Nicaragua’s deputy foreign minister, said the new negotiators “don’t seem to be representative” and “this concerns us.”

Sought to Exploit Divisions

But the Sandinista army moved last week to exploit these apparent divisions when officers in the northern towns of Pantasma and San Rafael del Norte met with rebel field commanders to work out details of local cease-fires, Sandinista radio stations reported.

Cesar told reporters the rebel leadership ordered a stop to such local contacts three days ago. He said Sanchez did not come to Managua because he was “exhausted” by last week’s session at Sapoa and that field commanders were taking turns in the talks “so everybody can participate.”

Acknowledging dissent over the Sapoa accord, Cesar said: “Sapoa is a political earthquake in every sense of the word. It’s been an earthquake for the United States, for Nicaraguans inside and outside the country and for the (Nicaraguan) Resistance. It has taken a few days to get over the shock.”

Cesar said that the rebel leadership received a letter 10 days ago from retired Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, former National Security Council staff member who championed the Contras’ cause, praising its “courageous decision” to sign the peace accord. Cesar said the leadership is still unanimous in supporting it.

The Sandinistas also face criticism for allowing the rebels to come to Managua, for the first time in the war, and agreeing to negotiate political conditions with them. The Contras hailed their return as a political triumph and said they would demand major checks on Sandinista power in order to guarantee fair elections.

Triggered Street Protests

The rebel leaders’ arrival late Friday from Costa Rica set off street demonstrations by hundreds of Sandinista supporters, who hung an effigy of Calero.

“There is so much pain and suffering in Nicaragua, and these killers are responsible,” said Juan Jose Vargas, 24, one of the street protesters. “If they don’t sign a (final) agreement, they better be ready to fight again.”

Gen. Humberto Ortega, the Nicaraguan defense minister and chief Sandinista negotiator, called the rebels’ presence “a bitter pill” but said “the people will applaud if we achieve a peace agreement.”

Sandinista officials appear to feel internal political pressure to produce a quick agreement and have urged the Contras to remain here as long as it takes to negotiate all terms of the rebels’ disarmament.

But Cesar told reporters it would be “a helluva breakthrough” if the two sides agreed on all military details of the cease-fire, an exchange of prisoners and a future date to resume the talks on rebel demands to “democratize” the country. The rebel delegation plans to leave Monday.

“There is so much mutual distrust that we have to go step by step,” Cesar said.