Central America Still Gunning for Peace

By Jill Smolowe

Central America last week pursued peace with guns blazing and negotiators vacillating. In El Salvador, a brutal political slaying provoked the leftist guerrillas to cancel talks with the government. In Costa Rica, Nicaraguan Indian rebels charged that the Sandinistas had backed out of scheduled talks. And in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas reaffirmed their public line against negotiating an overall settlement with the U.S.-backed contra rebels, even as a regional peace plan is supposed to go into effect this week. Warned Comandante Bayardo Arce: "There will never, at any time or in any place, be any direct or indirect political dialogue with the counterrevolutionary leadership."

Of course, progress in a peace negotiation must often be measured in shifts of tone. Thus what Arce did not say may be more important. He ruled out neither diplomatic talks nor a negotiated cease-fire. Moreover, a day earlier, President Daniel Ortega Saavedra obliquely suggested that he might be willing to meet with the rebels. His refusal thus far, Ortega told TIME, "is not a dogmatic position or a position of principle. It's simply a realistic position. If I were sure that by talking to the contras we could solve the problem of the war, we would have talked with them a long time ago." The message conveyed by his tone: "Convince me." Two days later Ortega insisted, "We do not close ourselves off from seeking agreement on a cease-fire." Ortega also shot down press reports that, come Nov. 5, he would be in Moscow to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Though Ortega plans to visit the Soviet Union early this week, he said he would return to Managua in time to "follow closely the implementation of the accords."

Ortega was not alone in his attempt to wriggle free of rigid positions that could prove too constrictive in the weeks ahead. All five Central American Presidents who signed the peace plan in Guatemala City three months ago are now downplaying the Nov. 5 cease-fire deadline, and have begun referring to the date as the beginning of a peace process rather than a cutoff for achieving the accord's goals. "We never expected that peace and democracy would descend from heaven on Nov. 5," insists a Costa Rican official. In Washington, where congressional opposition promises to doom the White House request for $270 million in fresh contra aid, the Reagan Administration is now talking of delaying its pitch until January.

Slowly, like a photograph developing in a darkroom, the faint outlines of how a Central American peace might look are beginning to emerge. The boldest step toward that goal was taken last week in El Salvador, where the National Assembly approved a broad amnesty law that applies to both leftist guerrillas and members of right-wing death squads. The bill was passed to comply with the Guatemala accord, which calls for the freeing of political prisoners but does not specify who fits that definition. Among those expected to benefit from the amnesty are the right-wing national guardsmen who killed four U.S. churchwomen in 1980, and the leftist guerrillas who gunned down four U.S. Marines in 1985. The amnesty, said Salvadoran Vice President Rodolfo Castillo Claramount, "represents a broad, generous offer within the concept of forgive and forget."

But many leftists are no more willing to forgive the 40,000 slayings attributed to the death squads than members of the military are able to forget their eight-year war against the guerrillas. One more political murder rocked El Salvador last week. Herbert Anaya Sanabria, 33, president of the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission, was about to drive two of his children to school last week when two men approached him. Armed with revolvers, they shot him dead, then fled in a pickup truck. President Jose Napoleon Duarte suggested that leftists may have fired the shots to sabotage peace talks, but most Salvadorans assumed that a right-wing death squad was responsible. Leftist rebels broke off peace talks on the ground that they would "contribute to the creation of false hopes." The rebels did not, however, rule out future negotiations.

The Nicaraguan government continued to debate an amnesty for political prisoners, but its contours remained vague. The Sandinistas have resisted a large-scale release of prisoners almost as vigorously as they have denounced contra talks. Last week they hinted that many of Nicaragua's estimated 4,500 political prisoners might be set free on or around Nov. 5. Ortega warned last month, however, that no one guilty of "atrocities" would be freed. At the time, he said the amnesty could apply to ex-guardsmen who were not guilty of "major crimes." Some 2,500 Sandinista supporters last week staged a rally to protest the release of any ex-guardsmen, raising new questions about who will benefit from the amnesty.

The contras' civilian leaders are seeking their own accommodation with a peace process that until now has largely excluded them. Last week three civilian leaders, including Alfonso Robelo, visited the Nicaraguan embassy in San Jose to request passports for a return home. It was mainly a propaganda ploy, and the request was refused, but that may soon change. "On Nov. 5, or maybe a few days before," predicts a State Department official, "the Sandinistas will announce they will meet with the contras." Indeed, Managua is filled with rumors that some sort of compromise will be announced after Ortega returns from Moscow.

Along with just about everyone else, the contra civilian leadership seems to have concluded that the rebels are finished as a fighting force. Even the Reagan Administration has reportedly begun preparing contingency plans to withdraw the contras from combat should the peace plan prevail. Still, as many as 10,000 rebels fight on. "What's going to happen to those kids out in the jungle?" laments a U.S. State Department official. But others at State are asking, Is the pain of getting out of a war reason enough to stay in?

With reporting by John Borrell/ Mexico City and John Moody/Managua