Central America Whose Peace Plan Is It Anyway?

By Jill Smolowe

When Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright first proposed last month that Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez be invited to address Congress, the White House responded with enthusiasm. Officials reasoned that a visit from Arias, architect of the peace plan signed last month in Guatemala City by five Central American Presidents, would demonstrate the Reagan Administration's interest in talking peace rather than making war.

Within days, however, second thoughts set in. Officials feared the visit would enhance the prestige of a plan that Reagan has come to view as fatally flawed, and might call attention to the fact that Reagan has lost the diplomatic initiative to Arias. The White House pushed to have the invitation rescinded. But Wright held his ground, and this week Arias will deliver a pitch for his peace proposal in the halls of Congress.

The Central American leader can expect a warm reception. Arias commands respect as a regional peacemaker; moreover many Congressmen share his conviction that the U.S.-backed contra war is a misconceived strategy for prodding Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista regime toward democratic reform. Most Democrats hope that Arias' visit will further undermine the Reagan Administration's dual policy of pursuing peace while trying to secure $270 million in new funding for the contras. Last week congressional leaders tentatively agreed to a stopgap provision of some $3.5 million in nonlethal aid to hold the rebels through a cease-fire scheduled for Nov. 7. But Wright and other Congressmen have indicated that they hope those funds will eventually be used to resettle the rebels.

Reagan has made little effort to hide his disdain for the Guatemala peace accord, most recently charging that it "falls short of the safeguards" contained in an earlier proposal put forward by Reagan and Wright. The White House has interpreted Arias' visit as a snub. "How would the Costa Ricans like it if our President were to accept an invitation from their legislature, pretty much bypassing their executive branch?" observed an Administration official. Costa Rican officials based in Washington deny that Arias is intentionally insulting Reagan. In fact, shortly after Wright extended his invitation, the Costa Ricans suggested a meeting between Reagan and Arias. Last week White House officials finally scurried to arrange a get-together, and at week's end announced that Arias would meet with Reagan after all.

Meanwhile the peace cavalcade proceeded in fits and starts. Contra leaders gathered in Guatemala City to examine their own future. In an unexpected gesture of goodwill, they released 80 Sandinista prisoners of war at an airfield in Costa Rica, 30 miles from the Nicaraguan border. Several days earlier, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra pardoned 16 Central Americans, none of them Nicaraguans, who had been imprisoned for rebel activity.

The Sandinistas said last week they might declare a unilateral cease-fire in the contra war and continued to drop hints that the opposition daily La Prensa might be allowed to publish soon. Managua and Washington, however, exchanged sharp words after U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett encountered anti-U.S. protesters while on a visit to the Nicaraguan capital. In El Salvador a meeting between President Jose Napoleon Duarte and the country's leftist guerrillas failed to occur, aborted by Duarte's demand that the rebels first lay down their arms. Yet all hope was not lost. Leaders of the guerrilla coalition met with Arias for the second time in two weeks. "We've made progress toward a dialogue," said Guillermo Ungo, one of the rebels' political leaders, after the session. "I hope we can meet with President Duarte by the end of the month."

Still, there was cause to worry that the cease-fire scheduled for Nov. 7 would not hold. Since the signing of the Guatemala accord, the five Presidents have had little direct contact. The first meeting of the group's foreign ministers ended in chaos, and the second, held last week in Managua, resulted in little progress. Already there is talk of a "one-up, one-down" outcome, meaning that the provisions of the plan may prove effective in Nicaragua but not in El Salvador, or vice versa.

As the plan's architect, Arias has much at stake. The son of a wealthy coffee-plantation owner who studied in both the U.S. and England, Arias, 46, based his presidential campaign last year on the theme "Peace with Arias." On the day of his inauguration, he told U.S. Ambassador Lewis Tambs that the contras could no longer use a U.S.-built airstrip in northern Costa Rica, near the Nicaraguan border. When the order was ignored, Arias became more determined. A year later he unveiled a peace proposal that became the foundation for the accord adopted in Guatemala City. "Reagan believes that our plan has loopholes, and I accept that it might," Arias says. "No human work is perfect. But now the ball is in the court of the Central Americans."

That is not quite true. To some who support the Guatemala accord, Reagan's request for $270 million in contra aid before the Nov. 7 cease-fire seems not so much a way to pressure the Sandinistas as a ploy to sabotage Arias' proposal. Arias remains hopeful. "I am obliged to be an optimist," he says. "I really hope that the Americans will give us the opportunity until Nov. 7 to show that we have the will to find peace in Central America." Arias will need all his considerable optimism, charm and determination to persuade the White House that a fresh infusion of funds to the contras is a step in the wrong direction.

With reporting by Ricardo Chavira/Washington and John Moody/San Jose