U.S. Will Warn Contras: No Military Attacks During Diplomatic Efforts

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, defending the Bush Administration’s plan to seek new aid for Nicaragua’s Contras, told Congress on Tuesday that the rebels will be warned not to engage in offensive military operations while diplomacy is going on.

“We are not interested in supporting people who are engaged in cross-border raids, laying of anti-personnel mines and that sort of thing,” Baker told a House Appropriations subcommittee.

He said that the United States would support “some sort of border verification” to ensure that the Contras, most of whom are camped in Honduras just across Nicaragua’s northern frontier, do not mount attacks across the border.

Skeptical Questions

Responding to questions from skeptical Democrats, Baker insisted that his intention to seek new non-military aid for the Contras does not violate last month’s Central American peace accord, which calls for a plan to disband the rebels.

“What I’m suggesting, frankly, could be--and, I think is--quite consistent with that direction,” he said. “We’ve had discussions with the leaders of some of those Central American democracies and I think they agree with me on that. . . . We ought to move as much as we can to a diplomatic track but that doesn’t mean that we ought to have immediate repatriation of the resistance.”

In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the Associated Press quoted a spokesman for President Jose Azcona Hoyo as siding with Baker’s interpretation that aid for the rebels does not violate the Central American presidents’ peace plan.

“The accord . . . reached in El Salvador does not rule out humanitarian help before the dismantling (of the rebel force),” said Marco Tulio Romero.

The Central American peace plan, signed by the region’s five presidents at a summit meeting last month, calls for a plan that would disband the Contras to be produced by May 15--but sets no deadline for demobilization of the rebels.

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.

Wants $45 Million

Baker has told members of Congress privately that he wants at least $45 million in aid to maintain the rebels as a potential threat to the leftist Sandinista regime, at least until new elections take place in Nicaragua in February, 1990.

He has privately circulated a proposal that sets specific goals for increasing internal democracy in Nicaragua and offers U.S. rewards to the Sandinistas if they comply, as well as increased sanctions if they do not.

Baker refused to discuss the amount of his aid request in public Tuesday, but White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters: “I have seen several numbers--40, 45, 50 (million dollars) --and I would say they are all in the ballpark of consideration.”

Fitzwater and other officials said that no final decision has been made. State Department officials said that the aid request could turn out to be larger than $50 million.

The Contras’ current $27 million in funding expires March 31, but officials said that enough aid is backlogged to keep the rebels in food, shelter and clothing through April.

“Obviously whatever happens (to the Contras), it would take place over a period of time,” Fitzwater said. “There will be aid needed to carry out that process.”

Key Democrats in both the House and Senate have predicted that Baker’s plan will win wide support. Baker aides said that the secretary of state has been exploring the idea of a public meeting at which his plan could be formally unveiled and blessed by the leaders of both parties, to demonstrate its bipartisan backing--and thus strengthen his hand in negotiations with the Central Americans. “But we aren’t there yet,” one aide said.

‘Strictly Defensive Posture’

A Contra spokesman confirmed that Administration officials have pressed the rebels to cooperate with the U.S. shift to diplomacy but said that the Contra forces are engaging in little or no offensive combat anyway.

“We are in a strictly defensive posture,” spokesman Bosco Matamoros said. “We don’t have the capability of conducting cross-border raids.

“So many demands are being put on us, we only hope that some demands will be put on the other side, on the Sandinistas, to democratize the country,” he added.

Nicaragua’s Sandinista government has charged that the Contras are still conducting some offensive operations. A U.S. official confirmed that there has been sporadic combat between the Sandinistas and Contra units that roam across rural Nicaragua but that he does not believe the Contras are mounting any significant cross-border actions.

Signal to Sandinistas

Baker’s endorsement of a border verification process also is significant, officials said, as a signal to the Sandinistas that the Administration is serious about halting the Contra war. Nicaragua and Honduras have supported the idea.

Officials from the five countries--Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Costa Rica--met at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday to work out details for a U.N. peacekeeping force in the area. The United Nations has proposed deploying a force of 160 observers, both on land and at sea, from Canada, Spain and West Germany.