U.S. to Resist Deadline on Disarming Contras : Terms December Date Not Binding, Says Managua First Must Make Reforms

The Bush Administration, maintaining that a December deadline for disarming Nicaragua’s Contras is not binding, said Tuesday that it will resist any efforts to demobilize the rebel forces until the leftist government in Managua institutes democratic reforms.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the United States is “generally supportive” of a Central American agreement that calls for dismantling the rebel army within four months but does not believe that the plan’s Dec. 5 deadline should be considered rigid.

Instead, Fitzwater and other Administration officials sought to shift the onus onto Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime, saying that the Managua government must negotiate with the Contras and create more democratic conditions before the rebels disarm.

“We believe the burden for making this process work belongs with the Sandinistas, just as it has all along,” Fitzwater said. “Any actions affecting the resistance must be accepted by them voluntarily. . . . Their return to Nicaragua must be based on the establishment of safe and democratic conditions.”

Fitzwater said the United States would prefer to delay any demobilization until after Nicaragua’s presidential election, scheduled for Feb. 25.

But other officials conceded that even if the Contras’ demobilization can be delayed, their eight-year war to topple the Sandinistas is almost surely coming to an end.

“It’s all over but the shouting,” one said. “By sometime next year, the Contras won’t have a sanctuary, and they won’t have aid.”

Also, officials said, the United States has lost much of its ability to influence the Central American governments as they carry out the demobilization plan.

Passive Resistance

As a result, the Administration appears to have opted for a form of passive resistance to the proposal, betting that the Central Americans will be unable, in practical terms, to force the more than 11,000 Contras now camped in Honduras to give up their weapons.

“We have made it very clear, to both the resistance and the Central American presidents, that we are not going to go in and disarm the resistance,” one official said.

“The reality of the new timetable (for demobilization) is that it is going to have to depend on actions taken by the Nicaraguan government . . . and on the voluntary actions of the resistance to comply with the plan’s provisions,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher pointed out.

The United Nations, which will formally enforce the plan, “has made it clear that it will not use force to disarm the resistance,” Boucher said. “So the question is, how do you make the process work?”

The State Department spokesman said “there is much more to be done” before dismantling the rebel force. “We think the burden is on the Sandinistas to make it happen by taking the steps--many steps--that are necessary to bring about safe and democratic conditions.”

But the Administration doubts that the government of Nicaragua will take those steps, Fitzwater said, acknowledging skepticism about the Sandinistas’ determination to “indeed carry out free and fair elections in February” and to “have in place a democracy under which the Contra forces will want to repatriate themselves.”

Asked if the Administration believes that the focus on the demobilization of the Contras takes pressure off the Sandinistas to enact democratic reforms, he replied: “It has a tendency to do that.”

Fitzwater said the United States believes it is a “misleading interpretation” to view the plan’s Dec. 5 target as “a fixed deadline.”

Instead, he said, the most important elements in the plan--in the Administration’s view--are its call for negotiations between the Sandinistas and the Contras and its provision that the rebels’ demobilization must be voluntary.

In Congress, liberal Democrats and others who have long opposed U.S. aid to the Contras hailed the new agreement, calling it a dignified way to end the Contra war.

‘Support Process’

“It is our role, as friends of democracy and as neighbors with a profound interest in the stability of the region, to support this process,” Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said. He called on the Administration to support the December deadline for demobilization as “the decision of the five countries in the region.”

But conservatives said the agreement is a serious setback.

“The President has ceded control of the situation on the ground to the Sandinistas and political control to the liberals in Congress,” said California Rep. Duncan L. Hunter (R-Coronado). “The situation, in my view, is tragic.”

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this story.