Debts, Wars Cited : Latins Hopeful as U.S.-Soviet Ties Improve

For two hours last week, Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega and Vice President Dan Quayle sat in the same auditorium amid one of the largest gatherings of Latin American leaders in the past generation.

Quayle, six chairs away from Castro, avoided both comandantes. It was too much to expect a meeting or even a handshake. Not after the Reagan Administration had spent so much energy trying to isolate or defeat the Marxist revolutionaries who run Cuba and Nicaragua and who are fighting for power in El Salvador.

But after three days of private meetings here with Quayle, with the two comandantes and among themselves, the region’s other leaders said they are more optimistic that the warming of U.S.-Soviet relations begun by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev may finally pay off in Central America.

Sense of Opportunity

As a result, there is a sense of growing opportunity here to defuse guerrilla wars on the isthmus and shift the Bush Administration’s attention to the broader crisis of foreign debt that is choking economies and threatening democracies throughout the hemisphere.

Quayle signaled a new approach by endorsing “the diplomatic route” to peace and assuring the region that the urgency of the debt crisis had registered “loud and clear.” Although he ruled out negotiations with Nicaragua for now, some leaders who spoke to Quayle said they believe such talks are inevitable.

“Vice President Quayle has given important indications of subtle changes to come,” said President Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela, whose inauguration Thursday brought together 12 Latin American heads of state. “Within the atmosphere of international detente, we can hope for a dialogue between Cuba and the United States and between Nicaragua and the United States. I think that is where we are headed.”

While the Reagan Administration encouraged the shift from military to civilian rule throughout the hemisphere, its relations with the new democratic governments were strained by what they viewed as a U.S. obsession with military solutions in Central America.

The United States assembled a guerrilla army, the Contras, to fight the Sandinista government that had come to power in Nicaragua. It also began sending U.S. military advisers and billions of dollars in weapons to help the Salvadoran army fight leftist guerrillas supported by Cuba and Nicaragua.

The whirl of diplomatic activity here, before and after Perez’s inauguration, was part of a growing effort by the Latins themselves stop both conflicts.

President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica took the first step in 1987 by getting Ortega and three other Central American presidents to join him in a regional pact that aimed to end guerrilla wars through democratic reforms in all five countries.

The accord helped persuade the U.S. Congress to cut off military aid to the Contras and led to a truce between warring Nicaraguan armies. But it failed to achieve a final armistice there or serious negotiations in El Salvador--largely, Arias complained, because of Castro’s opposition.

Outside Boost

Just as the peace effort appeared to be faltering, it got a boost from outside the isthmus. Late last year, the presidents-elect of Ecuador and Mexico invited Castro to their inaugurations so he could hold informal peace talks with Central American leaders.

Perez, an ally of the Sandinistas during his previous presidential term in the late 1970s, also invited Castro to his swearing-in and agreed to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Two weeks ago, Salvadoran guerrillas offered to take part in national elections for the first time in their nine-year civil war, on the condition that the voting, scheduled for March, be postponed six months.

A Central American official said that Castro, in a private meeting here, acknowledged that he knew of the guerrilla proposal in advance and “left the impression that he had inspired it.”

At a news conference Saturday, Castro denied that he wields control over the Salvadoran guerrilla movement. But he called the rebel offer “a very good one.” Noting that the U.S. State Department had agreed to consider it, Castro said “this could be a sign of greater will to find political and not military solutions.”

Castro Trips

Several Latin American officials said Castro seems to want peace in Central America to improve his nation-to-nation contacts in the hemisphere and move toward normal relations with the United States. Perez said the Cuban leader “is maturing.” Castro’s trips to Ecuador and here were his first to South America in 17 years.

The same leaders telling Castro to stop the Salvadoran war have urged Ortega to hold early elections and abolish press censorship in order to persuade the Contras to lay down their arms. They include Arias, Perez and Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez.

But, in an important shift, Latin leaders say they have dropped their insistence that Ortega resume direct talks with Contra leaders, which collapsed last June. Instead, they favor negotiations among the Central American countries--starting with a regional summit scheduled Feb. 13-14 in El Salvador.

Quayle said here last week that the Bush Administration is willing to test such diplomatic pressures on the Sandinistas for now, without seeking new military aid for the Contras.

After reading the vice president’s remarks, Ortega welcomed the Administration’s attitude--and Quayle himself.

“I thought he showed an ability to understand the political reality of Latin America,” Ortega said. “He seemed open to new information. He acted in an intelligent and respectful fashion, and we should appreciate that.”

Arias of Costa Rica said: “Today we can say that we have heard from Vice President Quayle that our diplomacy will have an opportunity. I think he means it. That is all the more reason why we cannot fail in our efforts.”