Contras Agree to Disarm, Disband : Nicaragua: Accords bring a formal end to 8 years of guerrilla war. Rebels will move into demilitarized ‘safety zones.’ The way is cleared for Chamorro inauguration.

Nicaraguan rebel leaders signed a definitive cease-fire with the Sandinista army Thursday and agreed to disarm and disband their forces inside Nicaragua by June 10.

The accords, hailed by both sides as historic, brought an immediate formal end to eight years of guerrilla war that killed nearly 30,000 Nicaraguans, embroiled two U.S. administrations in the rebel cause, crippled the country’s economy and contributed to the defeat of the decade-old Sandinista revolution in the Feb. 25 elections.

As a result, the pro-American government of President-elect Violeta Barrios de Chamorro will take office next Wednesday with U.N. peacekeeping troops overseeing the separation of at least 8,000 Contras from a 70,000-strong army still led by Sandinista officers.

“These agreements are fundamental for the future of Nicaragua,” said Antonio Lacayo, Chamorro’s son-in-law and chief adviser. “They facilitate the job of the new government to rebuild the country and promote reconciliation among Nicaraguans. . . . We believe this is really the end of the war.”

Under one accord, with Sandinista Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, the rebels agreed to gather in seven demilitarized rural “safety zones” by the day of Chamorro’s inauguration. In a separate pact, with Lacayo, they pledged to start turning in their weapons immediately after she is sworn in.

Since her election, Chamorro has repeatedly urged the anti-Sandinista rebels to disarm. They signed an accord with her advisers March 22 to disband their border camps in Honduras by April 20.

But by the time that was done Wednesday, thousands of rebels had streamed from the camps into Nicaragua with their assault rifles, refusing to recognize any deadline for handing them over. U.N. forces collected just 365 rifles Wednesday in Yamales, the main camp complex, from a rear guard of disabled Contra fighters.

The massive infiltration of armed rebels into Nicaragua has strained the informal cease-fire declared days after the election. The Contras have blocked major highways in northern Nicaragua, and the Sandinistas have retaliated with fire from ground artillery and helicopter gunships.

On Monday, President Daniel Ortega declared that the country was on the brink of major fighting and hinted that Chamorro’s inauguration might be postponed if the rebels remained armed. Sandinista labor leaders threatened to greet her administration with a general strike.

When Chamorro’s aides and the seven rebel negotiators arrived Wednesday for a second day of talks at the Organization of American States headquarters, they were jeered and harassed by hundreds of Sandinistas, including crippled war veterans in wheelchairs.

“We don’t want assassins!” the crowd chanted.

From a second-floor picture window of the spacious office building, rebel adviser Aristides Sanchez flashed a poster at the protesters. It said: “We Don’t Want Humberto Ortega.”

Eventually, the demonstrators went home, and the talks went on all night.

Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo announced the agreements at sunrise Thursday. A mediator in scores of failed peace talks over the past 2 1/2 years, the Roman Catholic leader praised both warring armies for “patriotic decisions” that produced decisive concessions.

President Ortega dropped his demand that the Contras disarm before he leaves office, a step that would have bolstered his claim to a military victory and his place in history as the president who ended the war. Rank-and-file Sandinistas were worried about attacks by armed Contras emboldened by a political changeover that the rebels regard as their victory.

Gen. Ortega, the president’s brother, negotiated the agreement for the army after Daniel Ortega visited Chamorro on Wednesday and told her that he had softened his position.

President Ortega said Thursday that he and Chamorro had been in agreement to set a disarmament deadline of April 30. But he said the deadline instead was scheduled for June 10 on the advice of U.N. officials, who told the negotiators that their peacekeeping mission could not collect all the weapons before then.

For their part, the rebels apparently abandoned their demand, as a condition for disarming, that Chamorro dismiss Gen. Ortega and other senior Sandinista officers from the army. They also stopped insisting on a parallel disarming of Sandinista military forces.

During a break in the talks Wednesday, chief rebel negotiator Oscar Sovalbarro explained his demands this way: “If we kill a ferocious wolf (the Sandinista government) and we leave its offspring (Sandinista officers) alive, they will retain something from their father.” He also said: “Dona Violeta is the mother of both armies. She has to find a way to disarm the two brothers.”

But after signing the agreement, Sovalbarro said he had done so “without conditions.”

“We know that the guarantees that the (rebel) combatants want are going to be given by the new government,” he said. Asked if that included changes in the army, he replied, “That will be up to the new government.”

Aides to Chamorro have said that she will name a civilian defense minister to replace Gen. Ortega but has not yet decided whether to allow him and other high-ranking officers to remain at the head of the army. The peace accords do not mention the future of the army.

However, the agreement with the Sandinistas commits the government to “respect the liberty, the security and the physical and moral integrity of the (rebels) and their families.”

The accords are to be supervised by 500 to 600 Venezuelan troops, part of a U.N. peacekeeping force set up under Central America peace accords, and by Cardinal Obando. The Venezuelans, now leaving similar U.N. duties in Namibia, are due to arrive here this weekend. It was an advance party of the Venezuelans who oversaw the weapons turnover in Honduras on Wednesday.

Under the rebels’ agreement with the Sandinistas, the army must withdraw all artillery, regular troops, militias, paramilitary and security forces from the seven safety zones by Saturday and disarm all police officers inside. Sandinista military flights over the zones are restricted to certain corridors.

As the Contras move into the zones, which total about 1,150 square miles in area, they will be protected by U.N. troops deployed in surrounding 12-mile buffers and supplied with basic necessities by the OAS, which will now deliver the rebels’ U.S. aid funds . The government is to guarantee essential public services to those areas and must permit rebels to move from one zone to another as long as they are escorted by U.N. forces.

The rebels refused to discuss disarmament with the Sandinistas, and their agreement does not mention the word. The June 10 disarmament deadline is part of the separate agreement with Chamorro’s aide and will be enforced by U.N. troops.

The deadline does not apply to 1,750 Miskito Indian rebels in two Atlantic coastal safety zones. They will be allowed to keep their weapons during negotiations over indigenous rights.

Israel Galeano, chief of staff of the largest rebel group, did not take part in the talks or sign the accord. But Sovalbarro, who is Galeano’s chief of psychological operations, insisted that he had full authority to negotiate, along with commanders of two smaller rebel groups who also signed.

“I don’t think any of us who have been fighting will not accept these agreements,” he said. “We have been fighting for peace all these years, and I think that peace has been achieved.”

Speaking of hard-liners on both sides, Gen. Ortega added: “Without doubt, those who oppose (these accords) will be isolated. They are a small minority that is very reactionary.”