Administration to Seek Funds to Keep Contras Going

The Bush Administration is preparing to ask Congress for at least $45 million in non-military aid for the Nicaraguan rebels so that the Contra force can be held together until elections in Nicaragua next February, State Department officials said Monday.

And aides to Secretary of State James A. Baker III say they believe that Congress will approve the funding by a large majority--which would be a significant change from earlier years, when Contra aid was one of the nation’s most bitterly contentious issues.

“We haven’t done a hard count, but we think we have between 70 and 80 votes in the Senate now (out of a total of 100),” said one senior official. Other Baker aides said they believe they would win a majority for the money in the House, where past opposition to aid for the Contras has been stiffer than in the Senate.

Similar to Funding Now

Officials said that the exact amount of the aid request has not yet been determined. “Baker has been talking about $45 million to $50 million over the next 10 or 11 months,” said one.

That would be a level of aid roughly equal to the Contras’ current funding of about $4.5 million per month. Last year, Congress approved $27 million in aid for the rebels to use during the six-month period ending March 31.

Aides to Democratic senators confirmed that the aid request appears likely to pass. The key factor, they said, is a pledge from Baker that the aid will be used as part of a serious attempt to reach a diplomatic solution to the Nicaraguan war.

Baker has told members of Congress that he supports a peace plan devised last month by the presidents of Central America’s five countries but that he believes continued aid to the Contras is needed to maintain pressure on Nicaragua while the plan is carried out.

Under the peace plan, Nicaragua’s leftist regime agreed to restore civil liberties and hold elections next February. In exchange, the other Central American countries agreed to work on a plan for disarming and relocating the Contras, who have been fighting to overthrow the Managua government since 1982.

Would Bar Outside Aid

The peace plan also calls on the United States and other foreign governments to stop their aid to rebel groups, a clause that the Administration has largely ignored.

Contra leaders met in Washington on Monday with senior officials from Honduras, where most of the rebel troops are camped, to discuss disbanding the force.

But instead of setting a deadline for demobilizing the Contras, the two sides used the meeting to put pressure on the Nicaraguan government, calling on the Sandinista regime to meet with the rebel leaders.

“We believe the Contras are part of the problem in Central America, and therefore they must be part of the solution,” said Jorge Hernandez Alcerro, Honduras’ ambassador to the United States. “The important thing is that there are consultations, that there is a diplomatic process.”

The Sandinistas have resisted meeting with the Contras, although they participated in an abortive series of negotiations with the rebels last year.

A senior Honduran official said that his government is deliberately playing down its earlier demand that the Contras be relocated soon and is instead tacitly supporting the Administration’s aid request.

“We think what the Administration is doing is constructive,” the official said. “The problem now is to create conditions in Nicaragua under which the Contras feel safe in going back. That may take three months, six months, nine months, maybe longer.”

A senior Baker aide, Undersecretary of State Robert M. Kimmitt, flew to Honduras on Monday to explain the Administration’s policy to President Jose Azcona Hoyo. The Hondurans’ support is crucial to the Administration’s success because the Contras can survive as a potential fighting force only if they are allowed to maintain their camps in Honduras, along Nicaragua’s northern border.

In Congress, Senate Democratic leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) also praised Baker’s approach. “I commend Secretary Baker for the manner in which he is approaching this,” Mitchell said through a spokesman.

The secretary of state asked Democratic leaders to provide him with their recommendations on Central America this week and pledged to seek a bipartisan consensus on the issue.