Exchanging Cautious Glances

By Ed Magnuson

The U.S. ponders Nicaragua's conciliatory gestures

"They are vastly different from the I statements they were making some six months ago," said Secretary of State George Shultz. He was talking about the conciliatory tone of recent pronouncements by the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. But perhaps more important, the same thing could be said about Shultz's own comments last week. When asked at a press conference about the new Sandinista approach, the Secretary said, "I welcome that. Of course, what we want is for a reality to be put behind the rhetoric. So naturally we want to probe and find out what is there. If Nicaragua is genuinely moving in the right direction, that is fine."

Although the U.S. remains skeptical of Nicaragua's intentions, at least on the surface there are signs of movement in the long-frozen relations between the two countries. Shultz's new softer tone was prompted by a series of announcements and a few specific actions by the Sandinista regime that sound, and may ultimately prove to be, substantive. The Managua government said that it plans to hold democratic elections in 1985, and that the long electoral process will begin next month. It announced a limited amnesty for Nicaraguans who fled the country after taking part in fighting or other "illegal activities" against the government since July 1979. If they return, it promised, they will be able to take part in the election and in land-reform programs.

More specifically, the government granted amnesty to 307 Miskito Indians who had been jailed for counterrevolutionary activities and invited some 70,000 Indians who had been driven by the government from their long-held tribal lands to return. "We recognize that we've committed arbitrary acts against Nicaraguans of Miskito origin," said Minister of the Interior Tdmas Borge Martinez in a rare apology. Sandinista officials have for months privately confessed their gross mishandling of the Miskito issue. Borge also met with editors of the daily La Prensa and promised that its criticism of the Sandinista government would not be censored, as it has been in the past. The government even gave the economically shaky newspaper funds to buy scarce and expensive newsprint, the shortage of which brought La Prensa to the brink of shutdown last week. The Sandinistas have also sent home some 2,100 Cuban technicians, teachers and other workers whose presence in Nicaragua was a primary cause of concern to the Reagan Administration. An undisclosed number of Cuban military advisers remain.

Officials in Washington had tended to dismiss most of these moves as propaganda ploys. They noted that the Sandinista decrees specifically rule out any participation by counterrevolutionary guerrilla leaders in the electoral process as well as by anyone who had invited "foreign intervention" in Nicaragua. That, of course, meant that the varied factions of armed contra insurgents, most of whom have been fighting the government with ill-concealed CIA support, would be left out in the cold. Washington also says it considers the promise of elections in 1985 all too vague.

By last week, however, it was apparent that the Sandinista overtures were, at the very least, scoring public relations points in the U.S. and Western Europe while Washington was looking entirely too intransigent. Thus Shultz and other State Department officials took a softer line. Said one last week: "We must find out if they're for real, and that means some talking."

So far, most of the talking for the U.S. is being done by Richard Stone, the Administration's special Central American envoy. After meetings with five of the rebel groups, he reportedly has secured an agreement from all of them to talk to the Sandinista government. This can happen only if the Sandinista junta, and especially its leader, Daniel Ortega Saavedra, changes its position and agrees to meet with the contra rebels. There was a possibility that Vice President George Bush would informally discuss the situation with Ortega over the weekend in Buenos Aires. Both were there for the inauguration of Argentina's new President, Raul Alfonsin. Before returning home, Bush was to visit El Salvador, where the leftist insurgency has been scoring military successes.

The U.S. insists that the main forum for any substantive talks must be the negotiations being pursued by the Contadora group (Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama), which is seeking a broad peace agreement in Central America. "We support that process," Shultz emphasized again last week. The Contadora representatives are scheduled to gather next week in Panama City.

At the moment, Nicaragua's reported concessions to the Contadora group do not satisfy Washington. The Sandinistas have proposed a reduction in the number of foreign military advisers and a ban on any outside nation using military bases in the area. Managua also has proposed a bilateral treaty with the U.S. as part of any settlement. But such a pact would, in Washington's view, compel the U.S. to accept the Sandinista claim that the contras are CIA puppets. While the Administration has not denied that it is supporting the contras, it considers them highly independent groups that it cannot always control. Indeed, an important concern of Washington officials is that a deal with the Sandinista regime would pull the rug out from under the contras, who have been an important instrument for the U.S. in applying pressure on Managua. In addition, if the Sandinistas were to violate any agreement later on, it would be almost impossible for the U.S. either to guarantee the safety of the contras or to gear them up again.

No one can predict just where the current diplomatic moves on Central America will lead. But there is a growing sense in Washington that the stirrings may represent the last and best chance to ease the crisis. Explains Robert Leiken, an expert on Latin America at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: "We may be moving toward a group of significant decisions that could mean either negotiations or war." --By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Juan Mattes/Managua and Barrett Seaman/Washington

With reporting by Juan Mattes/Managua, Barrett Seaman/Washington This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.