The Contras: What Next?

The contras have only to trace the wanderings of their civilian leaders to calculate the odds of the U.S. Congress's ever approving more military aid. Alfonso Robelo is tending business interests, including a small coffee finca, in Costa Rica. Pedro Joaquin Chamorro is working as a news commentator in Miami. There is talk that Adolfo Calero may establish a lobbying group in Washington.

From grunts to generals, the contras face the prospect of disintegrating as a fighting force. True, up to 2,000 remain inside Nicaragua, trying to press their campaign. But the vast majority of the contras, about 12,000 fighters, are idle in base camps in Yamales, Honduras, waiting to see whether the next U.S. Administration will attempt to renew the military aid that dried up almost nine months ago.

Reporters have not been allowed into the camps, so it is impossible to verify commanders' claims that morale is high, discipline is largely intact and the desire to fight on is strong. A small number have sold their weapons to raise cash, but for now most contras seem content to wait in the camps, living off the rice and beans that continue to arrive courtesy of the U.S.

Most are expected to abandon the fight if U.S. funding is not renewed. Civilian leader Alfredo Cesar hopes to return to Nicaragua by early next year, some say to run as the opposition candidate in the 1990 presidential elections. But Cesar is not well known within Nicaragua, and the Sandinistas, warns one diplomat, may dismiss his effort as "a blinding irrelevance."

Though Honduran officials insist that all the contras must leave their country, they expect that the U.S., reluctant to host the rebels, will ask Honduras to accept some as refugees in return for American aid. Other rebels, especially the field commanders, will probably be allowed to settle in the U.S. The more hardened foot soldiers may dig in for the long haul. Some observers in Tegucigalpa estimate that at least 2,000 rebels with scores to settle and long experience in guerrilla warfare intend to fight on, U.S. aid or no.