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Wary, Resentful Contras Resist Pressure to Go Home

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The chief commander of the Nicaraguan Contra army, an M-16 slung across his back and fresh ammunition around his belly, stood on a brush-covered hillside and spoke to about 1,500 troops lined up in a valley below him: After more than eight years of war, it was time to disband and go home to Nicaragua.

As Comandante Franklin spoke, a voice piped up from the ranks:

“A question, comandante!” a soldier shouted. “What if the Sandinistas play a dirty trick and turn on us?”

In that case, answered Franklin, using a megaphone to send his voice across the rebel camps and mud-walled shacks dotting this remote Honduran valley, the Contras return to Nicaragua as an army, “our guns in hand!”

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Applause exploded from the troops.

The question of what will become of the Contras--once the centerpiece of U.S. policy in Nicaragua--has been the focus of international attention and speculation ever since opposition publisher Violeta Barrios de Chamorro upset President Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista National Liberation Front in elections a week ago.

With pressure mounting from all sides that they disband--including calls from both Chamorro and President Bush--some of the Contras’ top military leaders are resisting.

Deeply fearful of reprisals from still-armed Sandinistas and resentful that they have not been given more credit for their role in Chamorro’s victory, many Contras say they are intent on keeping their weapons as long as the Sandinistas do.

Fueling their fears is not only a distrust of the outgoing regime but a conviction that Chamorro stands little chance of reining in the Sandinistas.

At the same time, however, in contrast to the tough words coming from Comandante Franklin and several of the thousands of troops he commands, a more conciliatory position is starting to emerge from some of the Contras’ key political strategists.

In what some analysts see as a breakthrough, these leaders are scheduled to meet Tuesday in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa with Chamorro’s representatives and two envoys from Nicaragua’s Roman Catholic Church in the first formal encounter aimed at working out the steps toward demobilizing the Contras.

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Ortega and his followers have said that they, too, fear acts of revenge from the Contras and have demanded that the rebels disarm before the Sandinistas turn power over to Chamorro.

Unless it is defused, the stand-off could prove to be one of the most daunting obstacles facing Chamorro’s future government.

Key among the Contras’ demands is that they be given guarantees that their men and women will be safe when they attempt to return to civilian life inside Nicaragua. Also, the Contras are demanding the “demilitarization” of Nicaragua.

For Comandante Franklin and the cadre of guerrilla officers who surround him, demilitarization is nothing short of the disbanding of the Sandinista army and police forces--after they turn in their helicopters, tanks, AK-47s and grenade launchers. While other Contra leaders seem more willing to negotiate some of these points with Chamorro’s 14-party coalition, Franklin’s message seems aimed especially at rallying the troops.

Comandante Franklin--a nom de guerre for Israel Galearno--met Saturday with some of the estimated 10,000 rebel fighters gathered in camps that stretch along the Yamales Valley on Honduras’ border with Nicaragua. Some of the commandos had hiked since dawn from more remote bases to hear Franklin’s long-awaited comments.

Franklin, sporting a trademark black baseball cap that says, “Magnum 44: God’s favorite caliber,” told his troops to support the Chamorro government and obey her request that they lay down their weapons.

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But, he continued, if the Sandinistas do not disarm, the Contras must be prepared to continue fighting in Nicaragua.

“It will be another civil war, provoked by the Sandinistas,” Franklin said in a separate interview. “We did not fight for eight years to return to more of the same. We did not fight merely to put a new person in office but to cause profound change in Nicaragua.”

The hard-line stance is seen in some quarters as public posturing intended to strengthen the Contras’ hand as they bargain for their future. Franklin said that he will wait to see what emerges from talks with Chamorro’s advisers before giving final marching orders to his troops.

Some observers suggest that the Contras have become an increasingly isolated force, one that has lost many of its traditional allies and sponsors and will be forced to accept concessions. Not only have the calls to disband come from Chamorro and Bush, a newly elected Honduran government, which for years tolerated a large rebel presence in sanctuaries along the Honduran-Nicaraguan border, has also asked the fighters to leave.

“The bottom line is (that) the Contras are history,” one U.S. official said. “We want to see them go back to Nicaragua. The question is how? With what guarantees?”

But the Contras themselves say they remain an effective fighting force. During a two-day visit late last week, a reporter saw scores of Contras carrying apparently new AK-47 rifles, and morale seemed to be high. Franklin and other Contra leaders said that support networks inside Nicaragua, where an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 fighters have infiltrated, remain intact and well-organized.

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U.S. officials, meanwhile, have been lobbying the Contras in an effort to persuade them to return to civilian lives inside Nicaragua as soon as their safety can be guaranteed.

Veteran diplomat Harry W. Shlaudeman, who has served as American ambassador to South America’s major countries and who is now a consultant to the State Department, traveled by helicopter to the Contra camps Friday to deliver that message. Similarly, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Chris Arcos joined closed-door meetings with the Contra leadership on three occasions in Tegucigalpa last week.

The leverage that American officials exercise with the Contras is limited. After pouring millions of dollars into the training and arming of the rebel forces, Washington suspended military aid to the Contras two years ago. And humanitarian aid--chiefly, food--officially ran out last week, although there is enough food in the pipeline to sustain the Contras in their Honduran bases for another two months.

In the Contra camps that sprawl for miles along winding, rutted dirt roads, many soldiers appear to feel betrayed at having, in their view, been abandoned by the United States and ignored by Chamorro and her National Opposition Union, which was careful not to embrace the rebel fighters throughout the election campaign.

Franklin, describing Shlaudeman’s visit to two American reporters, spoke bitterly: “He told us, ‘You fought, thank you very much, you’re good boys. . . ; now, cooperate with the new government.’ As if 10,000 commandos who died fighting for liberty, as if 2,000 commandos who were wounded fighting for liberty, as if they simply fought and died for pleasure.”

Later, addressing his troops, Franklin added: “We are treated like a puppet that can be used in the moment it suits their interests, then discarded. . . .”

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Similarly, Chamorro, while admired as a “good Nicaraguan mother,” does not instill much confidence among some of the Contra leaders.

“She lacks experience,” said the No. 2 man in the Contras’ psychological operations unit, known by his nom de guerre, Comandante Jackson. “Ortega is more astute.”

Among the rank and file, made up largely of campesinos who left their small farms to join the fight, many soldiers echo their leaders’ ambivalence about returning home. But at the same time several reveal traces of a growing weariness with war.

And in some cases, it is more than possible Sandinista reprisals that they fear.

“Yeah, I’d like to take this uniform off and be a civilian back in Managua,” said a soldier called Managua after his hometown. “But I don’t know what I’ll find. I don’t know if I’ll find my family. Managua might not have changed that much, but it will seem different.”

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