Nicaraguan Peace Talks Broken Off : Contras Reject Sandinista Offer on Amnesty, Reforms

The Nicaraguan Contras on Thursday broke off 11 weeks of negotiations aimed at converting a truce into a lasting peace with the Sandinista government.

The talks ended bitterly with Sandinista officials accusing the chief Contra negotiator, Alfredo Cesar, of reneging on a secret deal to accept their final proposal.

In the end, the U.S.-backed rebels rejected a government offer to free anti-Sandinista prisoners in stages and reach accords with all opposition groups on guarantees for a freer postwar Nicaragua before the rebels would start laying down their weapons.

Amnesty Demanded

Instead, Cesar joined in demanding an amnesty for all political prisoners as a first step and a more precise definition of the promised democratic reforms. But he rejected a government appeal to set a date for new talks.

The stalemate left the status of the truce, the first in six years of fighting, in doubt. Rebel leaders refused to agree in writing to extend it but said their forces would not be the first to attack.

Gen. Humberto Ortega, the Nicaraguan defense minister, said his army would honor a unilateral halt of offensive operations until June 30. But both sides said that military tensions are escalating rapidly in the countryside and that fighting could resume quickly.

The truce has been in force since March 21, two days before the warring parties agreed on a framework for negotiating a final armistice. The Sapoa accord, named for the southern Nicaraguan border post where it was signed, was the closest Nicaraguans have come to settling the conflict, which has left more than 26,000 dead.

Rebels Want New Talks

Cesar read a terse communique calling this fourth round of high-level follow-up talks the last. It expressed “deep consternation” over lack of an agreement but said the rebels remain “committed to finding a solution through political negotiations.”

Under questioning by reporters, Cesar denied any secret deals with the government and said there was “no narrowing of differences” between rival peace proposals in three days of talks this week.

As rebel negotiators rushed to catch a flight to Costa Rica, they declined to say when or how they expect negotiations to resume. “Maybe when the Sandinistas change their attitude, we can meet again,” Cesar said.

Joao Baena Soares of Brazil, secretary general of the Organization of American States, a witness to the talks, said that he is “not pessimistic” and that they “could begin again in the near future.”

“I don’t see that the negotiation process is broken,” he said.

The Contras agreed to retain Baena Soares and Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the Nicaraguan Roman Catholic leader, as official overseers of the Sapoa accord. But rebel leaders said their commitments under that agreement, including a ban on outside military aid, are no longer valid.

However, their statement said that “the war suffered by our people should not be renewed.” Enrique Bermudez, the rebel military commander, said he supports that position but added, “For security reasons, our forces will be prepared to fight if we are attacked first.”

Gen. Ortega, his voice rising in anger, replied: “They are maintaining an ambiguous position so they can claim our army is attacking them, so they can implement their war policy.

“It wasn’t peace that died today,” said the general, who is President Daniel Ortega’s brother. “Peace is going to be closer, because if it cannot be obtained at the negotiating table, it will come faster on the battlefield.

“By wanting to kill peace, they are committing suicide,” Ortega declared. “Their days are numbered.”

Bermudez Blamed

He said Cesar had promised to sign a peace accord but “succumbed to the hawkish faction of Enrique Bermudez.”

At the start of the talks Thursday, Ortega made public a timetable detailing the government’s latest offer. It spelled out for the first time a calendar for freeing anti-Sandinista prisoners.

Within 10 days of an armistice, the government would release 200 of the 1,800 former members of former President Anastasio Somoza’s National Guard whom it has held since the Sandinistas defeated them in an insurrection nine years ago.

The Sandinista proposal would require rebel troops to gather in seven designated cease-fire zones by July 5. Once this step was verified by an international commission, another 400 former guardsmen and about 800 captured Contras--half those the government says it is holding--would go free.

Join ‘National Dialogue’

At that time, rebel leaders could join a “national dialogue” in Managua between the Sandinistas and opposition political parties. By Sept. 11, the government has agreed to reach accords in that forum “to assure and perfect” the practice of 10 democratic ideals, including free elections, press freedom, full respect for human rights, equal rights for all political parties and the right to strike.

The Contras would then be required to lay down their weapons, in one cease-fire zone at a time, by Sept. 28. Halfway through this process, all remaining political prisoners would be freed, except those former guardsmen judged by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to have committed atrocities against civilians in the Sandinista insurrection.

“The Contras have demanded democratic measures that guarantee them political space in this country before they disarm,” Paul S. Reichler, an American legal adviser to the Sandinista delegation, said as the two sides went into their Thursday session: “The Contras have got what they ask for. There’s no reason any sane human being could find now for resuming this war.”

Later Thursday, however, the Contras issued a more detailed list of proposed political reforms, along with a timetable for putting them into effect.

They demanded a total amnesty for prisoners, television licenses for opposition groups and a 90-day suspension of the military draft as immediate steps.

By the end of July, they said, the government must abolish Sandinista neighborhood councils, allow private opinion polling, permit habeas corpus (to secure rights against illegal detention) and fire the all-Sandinista Supreme Court, replacing it with judges from all political factions, including the rebel movement.

Sandinista officials have said they are willing to discuss these changes in the multiparty dialogue but cannot usurp that forum’s power to make specific agreements now.

Secret Talks Cited

Reichler told reporters Thursday that Cesar, in secret meetings with him and Gen. Ortega over the past four months, had negotiated what emerged as the government formula. Last month, Cesar promised that he and at least two of the four other Contra directors would sign an agreement on that basis.

He said he made the initial contact with Cesar last February at the Hamburger Heaven Restaurant in the Georgetown section of Washington and continued the meetings in Miami and Managua.

Cesar acknowledged meeting privately with Reichler and Ortega but denied making any firm commitments.

Cesar, the most dovish member of the Contra leadership, was one of three rebel leaders who signed the Sapoa accord. The agreement was later criticized by Bermudez, who did not sign it but later joined the follow-up negotiations.

Support for the truce in the rebel movement has come under pressure because the Sandinistas have used it to strengthen themselves militarily.

The process leading to the peace talks began last August, when the presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua signed an agreement on the steps each would take to establish “a firm and lasting peace in Central America,” including “genuine democratic political processes” and “freedom in all its forms.”

In November, the Sandinistas agreed that the accord required them to negotiate with the Contras, and talks began the next month. The government also ended its monopoly on the news media and a state of emergency that had restricted political rights for six years. The opposition newspaper La Prensa and a dozen anti-Sandinista radio news programs were allowed to reopen.

Lost U.S. Military Aid

Drawn to the negotiating table, the Contras in February lost the U.S. military aid that had sustained their growing yearlong offensive. This setback led to the Sapoa cease-fire accord, open feuding among rebel leaders and a retreat by at least half of their 10,000 or so troops to camps in Honduras.

The rebels were forced to march out of Nicaragua after their leaders failed, in talks following up the Sapoa accord, to negotiate terms for supplying them with non-lethal U.S. aid inside the country.

In recent weeks, however, rebels have been infiltrating into Nicaragua with food, new uniforms and cash delivered by the United States to their Honduran camps. Both sides have denounced a surge of truce violations.