Contras Vow to Seek New U.S. Arms Aid if Talks Fail

Nicaraguan rebel leaders Tuesday began what they called a final round of peace talks with the Sandinista government, vowing to seek renewed U.S. military aid if they fail to win satisfactory terms for an armistice.

“In three days we will see whether we have guarantees for a permanent peace in Nicaragua or a lack of political will by the Sandinistas to live up to their promises,” the chief Contra negotiator, Alfredo Cesar, told reporters.

The rebel threat to break off six months of talks followed a sudden surge in reported violations of a March 23 truce, the only formal hiatus in six years of war.

As four civilian Contra directors and their military commander arrived here to negotiate, the senior director, Adolfo Calero, said he will travel to Washington today to lobby for a resumption of military aid that Congress cut off in February.

“It is not a foregone conclusion that the talks (in Managua) will break down, but we have to have an alternative,” Calero said in a telephone interview from Miami.

The previous round of talks ended May 28 with both sides reporting progress. Cesar called it a breakthrough when the government agreed to an agenda of democratic “rules of the game” for rebels wanting to take part in Nicaraguan politics.

But opening the talks on Tuesday, Cesar said the truce had weakened the Contras and they would not honor it beyond Thursday, the last scheduled day of talks.

Gen. Humberto Ortega, the defense minister and chief government negotiator, assailed the rebel position as “unsustainable.” He offered to extend both the talks and the truce as long as necessary.

The latest Sandinista proposal is that if the Contras enter defined military zones inside Nicaragua, an estimated 700 Contra prisoners will be freed and rebel leaders will be permitted to join a “national dialogue” that began last year in Managua between the government and 14 opposition parties.

In that forum, the Sandinistas would be willing to reach, by the end of August, agreements “to assure or perfect” the separation and independence of the powers of the state, the equality of citizens before the law and full respect for human rights, equal rights for all political parties, the right to strike, an independent judiciary and free elections.

The rebels would be required to lay down their weapons between Sept. 1 and 28, and only then would the remaining anti-Sandinista prisoners--an estimated 700 Contras and 1,800 former National Guardsmen--be eligible for amnesty.

According to both sides, two major differences stand in the way of an agreement. The Contras are insisting that all political prisoners be freed within five days and are unwilling to disarm their troops until the end of next January.

The Sandinistas say their timetables are flexible, but they insist on holding some prisoners until all the Contras disarm. And they refuse to let that process drag into the next U.S. Administration, because they suspect the Contras would keep their weapons if a Republican victory revived their hope for U.S. military aid.