Contras Told to Quit Camps in Honduras : Central America: President Callejas sees no point in rebels continuing to fight the Sandinistas.

President Rafael Leonardo Callejas said Tuesday that the thousands of U.S.-supported Contras based near the Nicaraguan border must leave Honduras as soon as possible.

“I don’t want to force circumstances in Nicaragua, which is now going through a period of political transition following a victory by the opposition at the polls, but these rebels should not continue to stay in our territory,” he told a news conference.

Callejas indicated there is no point in the Contras continuing as a fighting force against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, which was defeated at the polls Sunday by the National Opposition Union led by Violeta Barrios de Chamorro.

“Now, with the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas, there are better democratic guarantees in Nicaragua for the quick repatriation of those who have taken up arms,” Callejas said.

Callejas made his comments before Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega indicated that the Contras must be disbanded before a transition of power to the Chamorro government can be completed.

Honduran officials estimate there are about 7,000 Contras out of a total force of 10,000and as many as 42,000 dependents living in makeshift base camps in southern Honduras, near the Nicaraguan border.

Most of them had pulled back from Nicaragua after the United States cut off military aid in 1988, and limited assistance to non-lethal items. Most of them have been staying in the area around Yamales, 120 miles southeast of Tegucigalpa.

But rebel commander Israel Galeano said he and his people were in no great hurry to return to Nicaragua, preferring to wait until Chamorro is sworn in as president in April for a six-year term.

“We will return to Nicaragua when the Sandinistas abandon power. I believe this will be very soon, once Mrs. Chamorro consolidates herself in the presidency of my country,” Galeano said in an interview.

“We are a cancer that no one wants. That is why we should act with caution before those events taking place in Nicaragua,” said Galeano.

Many ordinary Nicaraguan refugees who have not been involved with the Contras are planning to return home as soon as possible, before Chamorro takes office, a spokesman said.

“We all want to return,” said Ramon Rivera, a refugee leader in Los Guacimos, a refugee camp about 80 miles northeast of Tegucigalpa. “Many of us refugees are packing our bags to return to Nicaragua before Chamorro takes over . . . “

“We are very glad Mrs. Chamorro won. We never expected it,” said Rivera, 56, a peasant farmer who sought refuge with his wife and three children in Honduras in 1982.

He is coordinator of the camp, one of more than a dozen holding an estimated 40,000 Nicaraguan refugees nationwide. The refugees include 20,000 Miskito, Suma and Rama Indians from Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, as well as Contras and their dependents.