Sandinistas, Contras Fail to Agree on Site for New Talks

Nicaraguan government and Contra negotiators met Monday for the first time in more than three months but failed to agree on a site for new peace talks.

The Sandinista government offered to resume the talks in Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, where negotiations collapsed June 9. But the U.S.-backed rebels insisted on a neutral site--in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica or Guatemala--to give their negotiators an equal footing.

Rebel leaders said the Sandinistas restricted their movements, tapped their telephone conversations and harassed their political supporters in Managua during earlier talks. The government offered Monday to discuss what guarantees the Contras need to return, but the Contras said a continuing crackdown on dissent in Nicaragua make such promises meaningless.

“The conditions in Nicaragua today are not favorable,” Roberto Ferrey, one of seven directors of the rebel movement, said Monday evening after four hours of discussions here. “We are at an impasse.”

Another Meeting Possible

Victor Hugo Tinoco, the deputy foreign minister heading the Sandinista delegation, said both sides agreed to “reflect and consult their respective leaders” over how to settle the dispute and might hold another preliminary meeting “in the near future.”

The deadlock developed as both sides in the 6 1/2-year-old war maneuvered to sway the U.S. Congress on a possible final vote on military aid to the rebels before President Reagan leaves office. Congress cut off that aid last February, prompting the rebels to agree the following month to an informal truce and the subsequent Managua peace talks.

After meeting in Washington with Secretary of State George P. Shultz last week, the rebels asked congressional leaders to replenish at least the ammunition that they have spent over the past few months as the truce has steadily deteriorated.

Seeking to head off such aid, the Sandinistas offered Monday to sign a more formal truce that would allow inspectors of the Organization of American States and Nicaragua’s Roman Catholic Church to control cease-fire violations.

The proposed truce, Tinoco said, “would give more security to the Nicaraguan people and aid the climate of peace” while talks on a peace treaty proceed.

But the rebels said they see no need for a formal truce now. They noted that each side has pledged unilaterally, month by month since June, to refrain from offensive military operations.

“To formalize this now would give the impression the peace process is advancing, and that is not the case,” Ferrey said. “A formal truce has to be linked to the process of democratic reforms that we are demanding in Nicaragua.”

Ferrey said the Contras would be “fully justified in pursuing a military option if the Sandinistas close off the negotiating process.” But he would not say that process is finished.

Paul S. Reichler, an American legal adviser to the Sandinistas, said the Managua government might end the impasse by agreeing to talks outside Nicaragua, but with lower-level negotiators than the Contras are demanding to meet with.

The meeting here was the first between negotiators in the Nicaraguan war since rebel leaders broke off a stormy three-day session in Managua in June and refused to set a date for new talks.

In that meeting, the government asked the Contras to lay down their arms in stages while it gradually freed anti-Sandinista prisoners and reached agreements with unarmed opposition groups on guarantees for free elections. The Contras rejected that proposal, demanding total amnesty and sweeping constitutional changes as first steps toward their disarmament.

Since then, the Contras have been divided on returning to the bargaining table. Enrique Bermudez, the leading rebel military figure, argued that the Contras first needed a renewal of U.S. military aid to negotiate in a stronger position. But Alfredo Cesar, a liberal rebel director with ties to Democrats in Washington, threatened to quit unless new talks were held.

In a compromise last week, the rebels told congressional leaders they were seeking both new peace talks and new arms aid.

They urged the Sandinistas publicly to “create a favorable climate” for peace talks by freeing 37 dissidents arrested July 10 at a violent anti-government protest in Nandaime, south of Managua, and by lifting press censorship.

But on Sunday, in a speech in Nandaime, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega refused to free the demonstrators, saying that only the trial judge could do that. The prisoners are charged with an assortment of felonies.

“The Contras have the idea that if we don’t free these people, then Congress is going to give them more money for weapons,” Ortega said. “Well, Congress can give them more money, but it cannot interfere with the application of the laws of our country.”