U.S. Seeks to End Contras’ Base in Miami, Rebels Say

In an increasingly nasty squabble between allies, the leaders of Nicaragua’s rebels are complaining that the Bush Administration wants them to disband their political operation in Miami and go back to Nicaragua--or lose their CIA subsidies.

Administration officials, frustrated at what they see as the Contra leaders’ guerrilla warfare against U.S. policy, have responded by accusing some rebel leaders of preferring the easy life in exile to the rigors of the political struggle in Central America.

“Did 7,000 Contras die so a small handful of their leaders could live in Miami, travel first class and stay in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel?” one Administration official asked heatedly. “I don’t think they did. . . . But that’s all we see some of these guys doing.”

“They’d like to stay on the dole,” said another U.S. official. “We’re telling them: No more dole unless you go back to Nicaragua or go live in the (military) camps.”

Aristides Sanchez, a member of the Contras’ seven-member political leadership, countered: “You’re trying to pressure us. We will not go back to Nicaragua until we decide it ourselves. . . . I don’t think it’s acceptable for our allies to push us.”

“If I go back, it will be according to my own decision, not someone else’s policy,” agreed Adolfo Calero, another rebel chief.

The Administration has been urging the Contras’ political leaders to return to Nicaragua to take part in the campaign leading to a presidential election next February. That campaign is the centerpiece of the Bush Administration’s shift from supporting the Contras’ moribund military effort to focusing on Nicaragua’s internal political struggle.

But Sanchez and several other Contra leaders say they are convinced that Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime has no intention of holding a fair vote, that there is little use in participating in the campaign--and that some U.S. officials are simply trying to abandon the rebel cause.

“My perception is that (members of the Administration) want to end their relationship with the resistance,” Sanchez charged. “But we are not a package that you can throw away, just like that. . . . If you won’t support us, you have no right to lead us into disaster.”

Basic Dilemma

The argument reflects a basic dilemma in the new U.S. policy on Nicaragua: Now that the focus has shifted from guerrilla war to electoral politics, what is to become of the Contra organization, which the United States largely created?

The Administration has focused its pressure on the Contras’ exile political leaders, who have operated from Miami with CIA funds since 1982. In a series of sometimes-stormy meetings in Miami and Washington, State Department and CIA officials have been delivering the message--in the words of one aide--that “the time for exile politics is over.”

To make the message stick, one U.S. aide said, officials have warned the Contras that their CIA funding may be cut off entirely if they don’t cooperate. The agency has already reduced its subsidies to the Contras’ political operation from $500,000 a month last year to less than $200,000 a month now, rebel officials said.

The Contras’ military organization also receives $4.5 million a month in non-military aid to maintain its estimated 12,000 troops and their families in camps in Honduras and Costa Rica. That funding, which was approved by Congress in March, has not been affected by the Administration’s policy.

Both the military and political organizations are creations of former President Ronald Reagan’s policy of seeking to overthrow the Sandinistas through an armed insurrection. During the Reagan Administration, the CIA turned a ragtag band of exiled Nicaraguan soldiers and peasants into a guerrilla army and recruited exiled politicians to be their leaders.

But the military effort failed, Congress refused to pay for further combat, and the Bush Administration inherited a CIA-built army with no place to fight. Meanwhile, a peace plan negotiated by the five nations of Central America committed Nicaragua’s Sandinista government to hold free elections next year.

The Administration maintains the Contra army in its camps as an implement of “potential pressure” against the Sandinistas in case the elections are rigged. But senior officials have concluded that the Contra political leadership in exile no longer serves a clear purpose because the main political battleground is now inside Nicaragua.

“The battle for Nicaragua is not in Miami, it’s in Managua,” one official said. “We’ve told them that you can’t continue living the good life and pretend you’re fighting the Sandinistas. You’ve either got to go back to Nicaragua or, if you’re going to stay, explain what your role is going to be.

May Be Dangerous

“It’s partly a human problem,” he added. “These guys have their families in Miami. They’re settled. Going back won’t be comfortable, and it may even be dangerous. . . . But we’re not in the business of handing people a check and saying, ‘Have a good time.’ They have to be doing something serious.”

The Contras’ 30-person office in Miami had responded to the reduction in its payments “by cutting programs instead of personnel,” he complained.

“The one thing we have done very well is give them a bureaucracy,” he said.

Contra leaders Sanchez and Calero, in telephone interviews from Miami, said they believed it was too early to return to Nicaragua.

“I believe this policy is a mistake, because it doesn’t provide for pressure on the Sandinista government,” Sanchez said. “ . . . I think this is the work of some mid-level officials. I don’t believe that President Bush would agree with this.”

Calero said he intended to return to Nicaragua during the campaign, but not until the opposition has chosen a single candidate. “There’s no sense in rushing,” he said.

By contrast, one of the seven Contra chieftains, Alfredo Cesar, has announced that he plans to return to Managua on Sunday to join the internal opposition. Several others are said to be actively considering a return.