World

"OPENING THE WAY FOR INTERVENTION" As part of a campaign to sway the U.S. debate on Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, 40, met last week with TIME editors in New York City. In a wide-ranging discussion, he assessed his country's relations with other Central American countries, the Soviet Union and the U.S. Excerpts:

On relations with the Soviet Union. Politically, we have relations of mutual $ respect and independence. The Soviet Union knows we have a government of political pluralism, a mixed economy and a stand of nonalignment. There has never been any insinuation that we should change our policies or make changes more along the lines of the Cuban or socialist model.

Militarily, we are but one more country that is supplied by the Soviet Union. It is not that we have any particular fondness for Soviet weapons. There is no Soviet military base in Nicaragua. There are no Soviet troops. We don't have military maneuvers with the Soviets, and we are willing to put all of those facts in a treaty with the U.S. Economically, the Soviet contribution is substantive. But socialist cooperation and European cooperation pretty much balance.

On the possibility of regional war. There are contra camps in Costa Rica and Honduras. The contra leadership wants to increase its operations in Costa Rica because it is aware of the political sensitivities of the southern border. The potential for provoking an incident is much greater in Costa Rica than in Honduras because Costa Rica has more credibility. It has no army. The pretext could be that Nicaragua invaded Costa Rica or Honduras, opening the way for a U.S. intervention.

In March we had a big anti-contra campaign in the south. We pushed them into Costa Rica. But in the north, we were confronted with reinforcements coming from camps in Honduras to help contras inside Nicaragua. We crossed ten miles into Honduras and wiped out a base there. Then we went in 35 miles and hit their biggest base. These actions covered 15 days. When pressure from the U.S. was applied on the Honduran government, there was suddenly a Nicaraguan "invasion" of Honduras. President Jose Azcona told me he had information that we were going to use helicopters, and if that were to happen, he would have to use the Honduran air force. I told him not to worry. He never said a word about the other fighting. It was not until there was tremendous pressure from Washington that the Honduran government began to go public.

On relations within Central America. We held a 14-hour meeting of the five Presidents in May, with no one else present in the room. Azcona said that he told U.S. envoys that they should get the contras out of Honduras because they only caused him problems, and that they were getting nowhere in their military campaign. He also asked Nicaragua to understand that he could not simply chase out the contras, because Honduras is reliant on the U.S.

Now those currents that challenged U.S. policy in Central America, however meekly, have been severely weakened because there was a direct relationship between the Central American capacity to resist U.S. pressure and congressional resistance. I felt confident that none of them want a war. But they feel bought.

On plans to oppose a U.S. invasion. We couldn't defend ourselves from an air attack. The real fight would be when U.S. troops try to occupy the country. We would fight in the cities. We are not going to run back into the mountains.

On Nicaragua's future. It's not going to be a Cuban model. We had elections five years after our triumph. We have not promoted state collectives. It will not be akin to Honduras or Argentina, where the governments are subject to military blackmail. The revolution is most like the Mexican Revolution when it started.