Contras Offer to Extend Truce, Decline New Talks

The Nicaraguan rebels offered Tuesday to extend the country’s cease-fire indefinitely but said they still are not ready for renewed talks toward a permanent peace.

In a letter to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, the Contra leaders said they will continue to observe the cease-fire, which was scheduled to expire Thursday.

“This is a demonstration of our desire to bring democracy to Nicaragua without continuing the war,” Contra spokesman Bosco Matamoros said. He added that the rebels will not return to negotiations with the Sandinistas until they receive more support from both the United States and the other nations of Central America.

“We cannot negotiate from a position of weakness,” he said.

Proposal Declined

The Sandinista government had proposed a meeting with the Contras to discuss the continuation of the cease-fire, but the rebels said that they did not see any need to talk.

The last round of peace talks between the two sides broke down May 9.

Some Contra officials have said privately that they would prefer to resume their seven-year-old war against the Managua government rather than continue the inconclusive peace talks. But, said one, “we have to accept the reality that we are better off with a cease-fire.”

The rebels have been at an increasing military disadvantage since Congress rejected a Reagan Administration request to send them military aid in February. Instead, Congress approved shipments of food and medicine--but so far, the Administration has found no way to deliver the aid inside Nicaragua, and Contra units must cross the border into Honduras to receive the supplies.

Administration officials say that almost 9,000 of the 12,000 Contra troops are now in Honduras, where they cannot fight. U.S. and rebel officials said that 1,500 of the exiled Contras have begun infiltrating back into Nicaragua but that only a few hundred have been successful.

“From a military standpoint, it is an insignificant move,” a U.S. official said.

The Administration has been working on a new request for aid, but its prospects appear dim. After meeting with President Reagan on Tuesday, House Republican leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) said the chance of Congress approving military aid for the rebels is “very negative.”

Secretary of State George P. Shultz is leaving today on a three-day trip to Central America with the twin purposes of persuading Nicaragua’s neighbors to put more diplomatic pressure on the Sandinistas and convincing Congress that the Administration is seriously seeking a negotiated end to the war.

Some officials had suggested initially that Shultz might announce a major new U.S. initiative on his trip, but a senior State Department official said Tuesday that the journey will be “mostly a holding action.”

Shultz will visit Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica. State Department officials said he has ruled out a visit to Nicaragua or a meeting with any Sandinista officials.