Contras Reject Ortega’s Peace Talks Proposal

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on Friday offered to renew peace talks with U.S.-supported rebels starting Aug. 26, but his offer was rejected.

“We invite the Contras . . . to come to Managua” Aug. 26-29, Ortega told a heavily guarded news conference in Quito, where he is on an official visit.

“We see no sense in having the meeting in another country,” he said. “The only place outside of Managua that we would accept would be Washington.”

However, rebel leader Adolfo Calero responded, “There is no appropriate climate for the talks.”

“We have said clearly that we are not going to Managua to talk with the Sandinistas, because there we are treated like prisoners,” Calero said in a statement released Friday by the Contra headquarters in Miami.

Rebel leaders have complained that the movements of their negotiators were severely restricted during the last round of talks in Managua.

In making his offer, Ortega rejected an appeal by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, who suggested Thursday in Quito that the Nicaraguan leader should go to Costa Rica to hold more peace talks.

Deadlocked on Site, Date

Representatives from the leftist Sandinista government and the Contras agreed on a cease-fire March 23 under a Central American peace plan that Ortega and four other presidents in the region signed in July, 1987. Arias was the principal architect of the plan.

The cease-fire has often been violated but was extended by both sides, most recently by Nicaragua until Aug. 30. However, the two sides have deadlocked on a permanent truce and have failed to agree on a site or date for talks since the last round ended in June.

In an earlier statement made available to the Associated Press in Managua, Calero charged that it is the Sandinistas who “have moved away from negotiations, now that they perceive that we don’t have (military) aid from the United States.”

At his news conference, Ortega also criticized the U.S. Senate for approving $27-million worth of new non-lethal aid to the Contras on Wednesday. He called it an act of “aggression” and demanded that such aid be stopped.