Impasse Seen As Contras Reject Disarmament Pact

Talks aimed at a final settlement of the Nicaraguan war appeared close to an impasse Sunday after Contra leaders rejected a Sandinista proposal to disarm their guerrilla forces by July 1.

The government proposal would postpone any discussion of political changes in Nicaragua until Contra leaders sign what amounts to a surrender. Only by signing can they receive non-lethal aid for their troops or freedom for their prisoners.

Initiative Praised

Gen. Humberto Ortega, the defense minister and chief Sandinista negotiator, described the initiative as an effort to speed “a definitive victory for the Nicaraguan people, the vanguard of the defense of the revolution.”

The head of the rebel delegation, Adolfo Calero, called the proposal “totally one-sided and of course unacceptable.” During a recess to study the offer, he said: “It makes no mention of democracy as acondition for peace. It sidesteps the negotiating procedure as a way of achieving peace with freedom.”

Rebel leaders later resumed the talks but insisted on discussing only a temporary cease-fire. Remarks by both sides at the end of the day seemed to dim any chance of an agreement before three scheduled days of negotiations finish this afternoon.

The talks, which have brought rebel leaders to Managua for the first time in the six-year conflict, aim to turn the current month-old informal truce into a supervised cease-fire and set terms under which the rebels would lay down their weapons and return to civilian life.

Both these steps of the negotiating process were launched by a preliminary peace accord signed March 23 at the Nicaraguan border post of Sapoa. It called for a cease-fire through May to allow time for a final agreement.

As Contra leaders understood the accord, technical details of separating the warring armies were to be negotiated first. The accord said that once rebel troops entered certain cease-fire zones, the Sandinista government was to permit the flow of U.S. humanitarian aid to the rebels and allow rebel leaders to take their political demands to a “national dialogue” between the government and 14 opposition parties.

These first steps, rebel leaders believed, would give them time, and a cushion of aid, to judge the government’s willingness to ease what they call a one-party dictatorship. Rebel field commanders have been telling their troops via radio that they are to remain armed and ready to fight again unless there is an agreement to implement “full democracy” in Nicaragua.

But after seven days of talks failed to iron out technical details of a cease-fire, the government proposed Sunday to negotiate a single follow-up agreement. It would:

-- Remove Sandinista forces from seven rural cease-fire zones by April 25 and put Contra forces into them by May 15.

-- Free half of the remaining 1,500 Contra prisoners, permit the rebels to send eight delegates to the national dialogue meetings and allow them to receive U.S. aid after May 20, when an international commission is to confirm the rebels’ presence in the zones.

-- Oblige rebel troops to turn in their weapons--one zone at a time--throughout the month of June. When four zones are emptied of armed rebels, the remaining Contra prisoners will be freed.

-- Free another 1,800 prisoners--former members of the National Guard arrested in the 1979 Sandinista takeover--as soon as an agreement is signed, except those an international commission finds guilty of “atrocities” against civilians.

Alfredo Cesar, a rebel director, said his troops are badly in need of food and other U.S. aid. He accused the Sandinistas of holding that aid “hostage.”

“They’re putting a sandwich on the table and telling us, ‘You don’t get the meat, which is the humanitarian aid, unless you sign an unconditional surrender,’ ” Cesar said.

By law, the $48.9-million aid package passed by Congress last month is to be released only after technical details of a cease-fire are completed and the rebels enter the cease-fire zones. Congress cut off the rebels’ military aid in February, a factor that led to the Sapoa accord.

“When the U.S. Congress recognizes what the Sandinistas are doing,” Cesar said, “this could kick (in) the mechanism very quickly to allow President Reagan to ask for new military aid. This is dangerous. It could create conditions for the war to resume.”

Stalling Tactics Seen

Victor Hugo Tinoco, Nicaragua’s deputy foreign minister, said the government felt obliged to harden its position because it believed rebel leaders were deliberately trying to stall the negotiations.

He said the rebels have hardened their position since Congress approved the aid package and had managed to receive some U.S. aid in several clandestine air drops over central Nicaragua.

Such aid violates the Sapoa agreement.

“We have serious suspicions (that) they (the Contras) have no interest in a definitive cease-fire,” Tinoco told reporters. “We believe they want only a truce, a rest, so they can resume the war.

“We are trying to . . . accelerate the negotiating process and get to the heart of the matter, which is a commitment on their part to end their uprising,” Tinoco said.

He said the proposal “is not an ultimatum, it is a negotiating proposal.” But he said it is “beyond any possibility” that the government will agree to a temporary cease-fire unless there is a timetable for disarmament of the rebels.

The Sandinista official said the government is willing to discuss the rebels’ political demands in the national dialogue meetings. The Contras are demanding that the Sandinistas relinquish absolute control of the army, the judiciary, the electoral council, television broadcasting and other levers of power.

“In the dialogue, they will have a right to say that there is no democracy and therefore they won’t lay down their arms,” he said. “The peace accord may fall apart there. But what really interests us now is (that) they make a political commitment to end the war.

“We’re not asking them to execute this plan (for disarmament) but only to agree to it,” he added.