Speaking His Peace

By Jill Smolowe

The House of Representatives hummed with excitement as Congressmen and Senators, many with their spouses and children in tow, awaited the man of the hour. When Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez arrived, the crowd swept to its feet as shouts of "Bravo! Bravo!" echoed through the chamber. That exuberant welcome was a measure of the respect that Arias has won on Capitol Hill for the peace plan conceived by him and signed two months ago by five Central American Presidents in Guatemala City. Arias' 30-minute address to the informal joint gathering of Congress was teeming with platitudes and somewhat short of substance, but hardly anyone could fault his message. Said the Costa Rican: "Let us restore faith in dialogue and give peace a chance."

Arias' congressional debut came amid growing suspicions that the Reagan Administration would rather not take a chance on the kind of peace envisioned in the Guatemala plan. Despite widespread support for the accord in Central America and the Congress, the White House was handing out a different message: that the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua could not be trusted to observe the accord and that continued pressure by the U.S.-backed contra rebels is needed to prod the Sandinistas toward genuine reform. In a speech before the United Nations General Assembly last week, President Reagan warned that until Nicaragua achieves a "real, free, pluralistic, constitutional democracy . . . we will press for true democracy by supporting those fighting for it."

Arias was just as stubborn in his efforts to drum up support for his plan, campaigning in Boston and New York as well as Washington during an eight-day visit. The most important stop and clearly the most difficult was the Oval Office. In a 20-minute chat, Arias and Reagan struggled to avoid stumbling over their obvious disagreements. The two Presidents were able to join in endorsing a proposal for $3.5 million in nonlethal U.S. aid for the contras. The appropriation, approved the following day by the House, is intended to tide them over until the Nov. 7 start of a regional cease-fire called for by the Guatemala plan. Reagan and his Costa Rican guest also agreed that a unilateral truce promised last week by the Sandinistas would not produce an enduring peace.

Seeking to avoid friction, Arias left all mention of the contras out of his congressional address. But at a press conference following the speech, he objected to the Reagan Administration's attempts to win $270 million in fresh funds for the rebels. "Military support to the contras," he charged, "has been the main excuse for the Sandinistas to do all they have done in the past: to abolish individual freedoms, to abolish pluralism, to make Nicaragua a more dictatorial society."

Nicaragua, meanwhile, was behaving with utmost civility. The week opened with President Daniel Ortega Saavedra's announcement that the opposition daily La Prensa (circ. 75,000), closed down by the government 15 months ago, would be allowed to resume publication. Ortega -- yielding to pressure from the newspaper's publisher, Violeta Chamorro -- pledged that the press would be free to operate without censorship, a condition that has not prevailed since March 1982. Two days later Ortega lifted the ban on Radio Catolica, which was closed after it failed to carry the Nicaraguan leader's 1986 New Year's address. Ortega followed with his announcement of a unilateral cease-fire in various war zones.

What were the Sandinistas up to? Public relations, of course. It was obvious that Ortega had timed his blizzard of goodwill gestures to coincide with Arias' mission to the U.S. The timing was so good, in fact, that some diplomats wondered if the two men had got together and choreographed their moves. While Ortega let it be known that he and Arias had conferred by phone a week earlier, the Costa Rican leader firmly stated last week, "We didn't coordinate anything."

The Central Americans' one-two punch for peace failed, however, to impress the Reagan Administration. Although Washington had repeatedly called for the reopening of La Prensa and Radio Catolica as essential for the restoration of democracy in Nicaragua, Reagan warned that the Sandinista moves may prove to be "window dressing" and "a sham." Indeed, the Administration seemed to be pouring on skepticism in hopes of slowing the Sandinistas' p.r. blitz. Said State Department Spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley: "We are not encouraged by what appears to be cosmetic gestures of compliance."

Cosmetic though it may be, the Nicaraguans' rush toward compliance with the peace plan has put the Administration in a difficult spot. While the White House has long argued that the Sandinistas would never embrace democratic reform, Nicaraguan officials have in fact moved faster and further than any other Central American leaders to implement the terms of the accord. Of course, Nicaragua has further to go on most fronts than its neighbors, but the Sandinistas were missing few opportunities to take credit for their efforts. "Nicaragua isn't asking who will take the first step," Vice President Sergio Ramirez Mercado said in Managua last week. "The thing to do is to take the first step. We're not going to trick anybody."

The gesture that most raises questions about Sandinista intentions is the pledge of a unilateral cease-fire. As described by Ortega, members of a recently appointed National Reconciliation Commission would meet with local contra field commanders to negotiate partial cease-fires that could be withdrawn as hastily as they are initiated. Such a process would enable the Sandinistas to honor their repeated vow never to negotiate directly with the contra leadership. It would let Sandinista military officers identify regions where the contras are weak, rescind the cease-fire in those spots, and go on the attack. For such reasons, both the Administration and the contras dismissed the proposal out of hand. Enrique Bermudez, the top contra military commander, described it as an "invitation to surrender."

Arias was more measured in his assessment, though not more enthusiastic. "It is a positive gesture," he said. "But the only way to obtain a durable peace is a negotiated cease-fire." Toward that end, Arias has proposed that Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, one of the Sandinistas' most respected critics and chairman of the Reconciliation Commission, serve as a mediator between the two sides. The contras have embraced the idea and called for talks to begin Oct. 4, but the Sandinistas have not responded. That date, incidentally, may also be important in El Salvador. Both the government and the leftist guerrillas last week agreed to meet then for their first talks in three years.

The closing of La Prensa last year was seen as a Sandinista rebuke to the U.S. after Congress approved $100 million in contra aid; similarly, the paper's sudden rebirth seemed to be directed at the White House. But Publisher Chamorro made it clear that she would reopen the paper on her terms, not the Sandinistas'. She said she recently received an unexpected visit from Ortega. His message: La Prensa could resume publication. Her response: "I'll never go to that censorship office again." Ortega agreed. A subsequent visit by Agrarian Reform Minister Jaime Wheelock Roman, however, indicated that the Sandinistas were trying to back away from that pledge. She held tough, warning, "My paper will be published without censorship or not at all." Wheelock relented.

Chamorro has long since taken her measure of the Sandinistas. For eight months after the 1979 overthrow of Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, she sat on the ruling junta with Ortega before resigning in anger over the new government's leftward march. Still, Chamorro has not lost her sense of humor. When Ortega visited her house, he asked why pictures of her husband with leaders of the revolution had disappeared. "I told him that, frankly, looking at you ((Sandinistas)) gave me a headache," she said. If all goes according to plan, the first edition of the reborn La Prensa will appear Oct. 1. The paper has enough Soviet-supplied newsprint left to publish 27 daily editions. "After that," says Chamorro, "who knows?" That same question could be asked about the Oct. 4 target date for talks between the combatants in both - Nicaragua and El Salvador -- and, for that matter, about the future of peace in Central America.

With reporting by John Moody/Managua and Barrett Seaman/Washington