Sincerity, or "Very Tricky"?

By Hunter R. Clark

A puzzling Sandinista move

Suddenly the pugnacious, increasingly hard-pressed Sandinista government of Nicaragua seemed to have seized the diplomatic initiative from Washington. To some it even appeared that the U.S. was on the defensive in its war of guns and acrimony with the Marxist-led regime in Managua. Catching Washington offbalance, the Sandinistas last week announced their willingness to accept, "in its totality and without modification," the draft of a regional nonaggression treaty sponsored by Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Venezuela. Collectively known as the Contadora group, those countries have been trying since July 1983 to bring peace and democracy to Central America.

Washington reacted by accusing the Sandinistas of attempting a devious propaganda ploy. The draft treaty is "full of loopholes," declared a senior U.S. diplomat. Other officials claimed that the Sandinistas were using an incomplete document--which is, for example, unfinished on the subject of the verification of arms inventories--to convince increasingly skeptical friends and neighbors of their democratic and peaceful intentions. The U.S. reaction produced exasperation in Managua. Said a senior official of the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry: "It sometimes seems as if, short of committing collective suicide, there is nothing Nicaragua can do to please the United States."

Washington's unfavorable reaction to Managua's apparent peace offensive was prompted in large part by the Sandinistas' simultaneous announcement that presidential elections scheduled for Nov. 4 will not be postponed. The U.S. supports delaying the elections in order to give more preparation time to opposition candidates. The most prominent among them is Arturo Cruz, a disillusioned former member of the Sandinista junta. "They are very, very tricky," said Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Associate Robert Leiken, who recently wrote a scathing indictment of the Sandinista regime for the New Republic. Scheduling the vote for Nov. 4, he said, 'means that none of this [the "ontadora draft treaty] would apply to their elections."

Despite the Sandinistas' claims of open elections, a government-inspired mob two weeks ago attacked about 50 Cruz supporters at a meeting in the city of Masaya. The opposition members were assaulted by a crowd of perhaps 4,000, many wielding machetes, before police came to the rescue. Some of the attackers later said hat they had been organized by middle-level Sandinistas: block committee leaders and union organizers.

That was by no means an isolated event. Earlier that week pro-Sandinista youths known as turbas divinas (divine mobs) had harassed opposition supporters meeting in the city of Leon. Two days later another mob stoned Cruz's blue Ford while it was parked in front of the Recreo restaurant in the cattle-ranching town of Boaco, where the opposition leader was meeting with about 100 of his backers. Said Cruz as he surveyed his smashed windshield: "How can we go into an electoral process if this is going to happen every day?"

Such incidents have convinced senior officials in Washington that the Sandinistas are not sincere in their acceptance of the draft Contadora accord. The proposed pact calls for, among other things, the adoption of "appropriate measures leading to ... participation of political parties in electoral processes," including freedom of assembly and speech, as well as equal access to the media. It also requires "electoral calendars that assure parties of participation under equal conditions." The Sandinistas concede that their maneuver was aimed at putting the U.S. on the diplomatic defensive. Sandinista Junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra declared last week that "the United States has been saying for some time that it supports a peace agreement for Central America. We are putting their intentions to the test."

Some observers regarded the confusion over whether Nicaragua is being sincere or is involved in trickery as evidence of a power struggle within the Sandinista leadership. An opposition politician asserted that Sandinista moderates had previously agreed to delay the vote in order to appease international opinion. This, he said, was reversed when Nicaraguan Interior Minister Tomas Borge Martinez and Planning Minister Henry Ruiz Hernandez returned from Eastern Europe two weeks ago. The moderates agreed not to delay the vote in return for the acceptance of the proposed Contadora pact. Their capitulation has angered the opposition, known as the Coordinadora, a coalition of political parties, businessmen and labor unions that has chosen Cruz to head its ticket. Cruz has refused to sign up officially for the race because of the date of the election.

Despite the rancor, there is hope for negotiations that could bring about a postponement of Nicaragua's election. "Nothing is impossible," says one Coordinadora official, who points sout that the Sandinistas agreed recently to reverse a previous descision and extend until Sept. 30 the deadline for candidates to register for the election. But the Sandinistas' sudden public relations campaign of sweet reason seemed to some former admirers to lack conviction. At a two-day meeting of representatives from Central America, Contadora and the European Community in Costa Rica at week's end, one European diplomat remarked: "It's growing a bit more difficult for us to be enthusiastic about the Nicaraguan revolution." --By Hunter R. Clark.

Reported by June Erlick/Managua and Barrett Seaman/Washington

With reporting by June Erlick, Barrett Seaman