U.S. May Call for U.N. Troops in Nicaragua : Latin America: Quayle raises possibility of peacekeeping buffer as Sandinistas and Contras surrender their arms.

The Bush Administration, seeking to demobilize simultaneously the Sandinista and Contra forces in Nicaragua, is considering a plan to insert U.N. peacekeeping troops between the hostile military units, a senior Administration official said Friday.

The proposal was portrayed as a possible solution to the lack of progress in the effort to get the Sandinistas, upset in the Feb. 25 election, to turn over military power to the victorious opposition coalition led by President-elect Violeta Barrios de Chamorro.

The idea of using U.N. forces in Nicaragua was raised Friday when Vice President Dan Quayle met in Venezuela with Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez and Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez. Quayle then flew to Barbados for an overnight stop on the start of a seven-day Latin American tour.

The discussion of a possible role for the United Nations represented the one sign of progress as Quayle sought to inject some life into what has become a standoff between the Sandinistas and the Contras over the transfer of military power. At the heart of the dispute is which side should be the first to lay down their weapons after eight years of guerrilla war.

The situation has been aggravated by rhetoric from both sides. The defeated Sandinista incumbent, Daniel Ortega, said Thursday night that, while he is willing to hand over power to Chamorro on April 25 as scheduled, even if the rebels are not disbanded by then, Nicaraguans would be prepared to take up arms on a massive scale to finish them off.

“I cannot guarantee that the people will be calm,” he said.

The Sandinistas have also been handing out thousands of automatic rifles and other arms to their civilian supporters since the election.

While there was no indication that the Administration’s interest in using the U.N. troops would resolve the deadlock, it provided another indication of an apparently active behind-the-scenes effort to end the stalemate nearly two weeks after the election.

The Administration official, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force Two, said U.N. Secretary Gen. Javier Perez de Cuellar is talking with Perez about adding Venezuelan troops to the U.N. peacekeeping mission.

The U.N. Force in Central America is currently made up of Canadian, West German and Spanish units, and has played only a modest role, at best, in the conflicts in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who accompanied Quayle to the Venezuelan meeting--the two are on their way to the inauguration of Patricio Aylwin as president of Chile on Sunday--said that Perez and Gonzalez pressed Quayle “very hard for a very early disbandment” of the U.S.-supported Contras ahead of any Sandinista demobilization--a position with which Kennedy said he agreed.

President Bush, however, favors a simultaneous demobilization of the two forces.

Arriving in Macuto, Venezuela, a seaside town where the Venezuelan president maintains a vacation home, Quayle found himself in the midst of what a senior aide called a “rolling summit” intended to resolve the Nicaraguan deadlock.

Chamorro met with Perez on Thursday and spoke by telephone with Quayle on Friday. Today, Perez and Gonzalez are scheduled to fly to Chile together with Ortega, Honduran President Rafael L. Callejas and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez to attend the inauguration there. Quayle is flying there separately from Barbados.

The senior official traveling with Quayle said an Administration package of assistance for Nicaragua is taking shape and that it will be designed “to help people return to a normal civilian life and help provide normal economic activity.”

Chamorro’s representatives visited Washington earlier in the week to seek an assistance package of $200 million to $300 million to help restore an economy devastated by U.S. sanctions and, the Administration contends, by the poor management of the leftist Sandinista regime.

The program, which Quayle said would be announced next week, will include, among other things, seed and fertilizer assistance for farmers as they approach the planting season, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Venezuela and Barbados were the first stops on a 13,175-mile, weeklong trip that will also include Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil.

The South American mission was announced Jan. 5, at a time when the Bush Administration was trying to repair the political damage it faced throughout much of the Southern Hemisphere in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Panama.

Perez was among those who spoke out most strongly against the invasion. He made it clear initially that a Quayle visit--then planned for early February--would not be welcome. Thus, the vice president’s senior aides were expressing considerable satisfaction that in less than two months. Perez’s ire had cooled enough to make the visit possible.

“The fence is pretty well mended,” said David Beckwith, the vice president’s press secretary. “We’re just painting it up.”

A U.S. official said of Perez, “. . . He got on our case very seriously about the Panama invasion, but he has signaled a readiness to normalize relations” with the government of Panamanian President Guillermo Endara. Endara was installed in office, under U.S. military protection, just as the U.S. invasion got under way Dec. 20.

Venezuela has recognized the Endara government, a senior Quayle aide said, and has been joined in doing so this week by Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. The U.S. government expects Uruguay and Brazil to do so soon, the aide added.