Contras Suspend Pact to Give Up Arms : Nicaragua: Rebels say Chamorro is not fulfilling her obligation to guarantee their security.

A Nicaraguan Contra leader said Friday that the rebels are indefinitely suspending an accord to give up their arms, saying President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro’s government is not living up to its side of the pact.

“We announce that we are indefinitely suspending the disarmament and demobilization of Nicaraguan Resistance troops,” said a statement signed by rebel military commander Israel Galeano.

Under the two-week-old agreement, the rebel forces were to be fully disarmed by June 10. Since the agreement was reached, about 1,000 of about 14,000 rebels have surrendered their weapons.

There was no immediate official response to the Contra statement, released in Managua. The statement said the rebels would not resume disarming until they are convinced that Chamorro can guarantee the economic and physical security of the insurgents who hand over their arms. They also made the resumption of disarmament conditional upon the government’s overcoming “the current climate of social uncertainty and instability,” which the rebels said was brought on by the leftist Sandinista opposition.

The effect of Friday’s statement was not clear. Rebels interviewed last week said the disarmament process is voluntary, but some said they would not “volunteer” to go home unless ordered to do so by their commanders.

But in some of the seven rural cease-fire zones where the Contras have now gathered, high-ranking rebel officers have disarmed, encouraging many foot soldiers to do so. U.N. officials overseeing the process said it thus could have taken on a momentum of its own.

The Contra statement, coming two days after Chamorro made major concessions to Sandinista-led labor unions to settle a weeklong public employees strike, appeared to be an attempt to press her to define the rural zones as something like colonies for the disarmed rebels.

The government agreed to establish such colonies, and to make them demilitarized zones, in exchange for the rebel leaders’ agreement two weeks ago to start disarming their troops. The agreement called for a definition of those zones by May 31, but rebel leaders apparently want the government to move more quickly.

Galeano has said that most rebels, once disarmed, want to live in their own colonies, so they can feel better protected from the Sandinista-led army and police. Such an arrangement would give the rebel commander political power after his army is dissolved.

However, a visit last week to two of the cease-fire zones found little outward enthusiasm for the idea. Most of the rebels interviewed said they want to return to their native villages, although many were reluctant to do so until the fate of other former rebels is clearer.