Contras and Sandinistas Arrive Back at the Peace Table : Nicaragua: The U.S.-backed rebels had barely sat down at U.N. headquarters before the Managua government presented its latest plan to end the war.

A grim-faced, five-member delegation of the reconstituted Contra leadership sat down here Thursday for new peace talks with Nicaragua’s government, with the Sandinistas pushing hard for an agreement on a partial demobilization of the resistance movement.

The two days of talks at U.N. headquarters here are intended to find a way to stop the new fighting between the Sandinistas and the U.S.-backed rebels. But before the negotiations got under way Thursday afternoon, it was the Sandinista leaders who were doing most of the talking. The government formally presented a detailed 15-point peace plan, which included everything from a Sandinista pledge to stop accepting arms shipments to a schedule of daily rations for repatriated Contras for beans, rice, milk, cooking oil, canned beef and sugar.

The government proposal is “not an ultimatum,” but rather a “generous offer” to end the fighting and repatriate the resistance fighters, said Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Miguel D’Escoto. But he stressed that the government’s proposal requires that the Contra delegates agree to demobilize at least half of their remaining forces.

“We will not continue to declare a unilateral cease-fire,” he added, “as long as that means we cease and they fire.”

A diplomatic source in Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, said that Sandinista officials disclosed the basic elements of their proposal in a written message to the U.S. Embassy in Managua on Tuesday, a day before President Daniel Ortega announced it publicly. The message included an implied warning to the Bush Administration that Nicaragua is ready to attack Contra positions in Honduras if the proposal is rejected.

The message, handed to an Embassy official by Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, also acknowledged that Nicaragua received a shipload of weapons last Friday. The unusual admission was coupled with the offer to suspend arms imports if the Contras accept a timetable for demobilizing.

“In such circumstances,” the message added, “the Nicaraguan government will not carry out any kind of military operations against bases that the counterrevolutionary forces have along the (Honduran) border with Nicaragua.”

The Sandinistas have crossed into Honduras several times during the eight-year war to attack the Contras, whose command post at Yamales is within a few miles of the border. The last such incursion--in March, 1988--succeeded in driving hundreds of rebels out of northern Nicaragua but failed to capture the command post. The heavy fighting was followed by peace talks that established a cease-fire, which endured until last week.

The Contra delegation, which arrived in New York on Thursday without having seen the latest Sandinista proposal, had little to say before the meeting. In a brief comment to reporters, delegation leader Col. Enrique Bermudez said only that the proposal as outlined Wednesday by Ortega appeared to be “a propaganda ploy” that “amounts to a surrender.” Other Contra officials and the Bush Administration also scoffed at Ortega’s offer to halt arms shipments until April 25, since they believe the Sandinistas already have a more than ample stockpile of weapons.

Ortega said Wednesday that the agreement signed in August by the five Central American presidents in Tela, Honduras, requires that the Contras begin demobilizing by Dec. 5. Instead, Ortega said, the Contras have continued to infiltrate into Nicaragua from Honduras and to attack peasants.

The Contras for their part have refused to demobilize until they see that the free elections set for Feb. 25 are held as planned.

Earlier Thursday in Miami, the Contras announced formation of a new “civilian-military commission” to replace the old directorate, several of whose members have resigned and returned to Nicaragua, the Associated Press reported.

Contra military spokesman Alejandro Acevedo said the U.N. negotiating team led by Contra military commander Bermudez had recognized the new commission, which includes only one of the former directors, Aristides Sanchez. Ousted civilian Contra leaders compared the action to a coup, the AP said.

U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar opened the talks here by urging each side “to show the necessary flexibility,” but he also appeared to nudge the Contras toward a commitment to demobilize. He pointed out that the Tela accords set an actual deadline for a Contra demobilization. “The deadline established in the Tela accords is getting closer,” the secretary general said.

“The government of Nicaragua understandably has insisted on compliance with that deadline,” he said. A failure to comply by the Contras, he added, “threatens human lives, the elections in Nicaragua and the peace process as a whole.”

Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux, in Managua, contributed to this story.