Contra Military Leader Supports Demobilization as Summit Starts

A summit of Central American presidents began Monday with a boost from an unexpected source: a hard-line Contra leader who announced that he supports demobilizing his troops.

Honduran President Rafael L. Callejas arrived at the meeting carrying a letter from Contra military leader Israel Galeano, known as Comandante Franklin, who said he supported an agreement for the disarming of the anti-Sandinista rebels.

“The government of Honduras welcomes the decision taken by the (Contra) high command and Comandante Franklin supporting the position to establish the demobilization by April 20,” Callejas told reporters.

The presidents of Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador arrived at this resort--the former beach house of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza--for a two-day summit where the disarming of the U.S.-backed rebels tops the agenda.

Contra leaders last month signed a demobilization accord with envoys from Nicaragua’s President-elect Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. But Franklin, the head of the rebel army high command, did not sign the agreement, and there was speculation that he did not plan to abide by the pact.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said Honduras has not complied with previous Central American accords calling for the dismantling of the Contra camps in Honduran territory and said he would push the other presidents to call for the immediate disarming of the rebels.

The summit is the last for Ortega and for Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, whose 1987 peace plan won him the Nobel Peace Prize and is the framework for the summit process.

Also high on the presidents’ agenda were the prospects for peace talks in El Salvador, where a 10-year guerrilla war has left up to 75,000 people dead.