Pros, Cons and Contras

By George Russell

Hints of a deal with Nicaragua, and even Congress?

As the Reagan Administration shuffled its lineup of Central American policymakers, the most controversial aspect of that policy seemed to be producing signs of an opportunity for diplomatic movement. Harassed by U.S.-backed guerrillas operating along its borders, the Marxist-led Sandinista government of Nicaragua gave subtle hints that it might be willing to make a deal. The suggestion was made by Sandinista Leaders Daniel Ortega Saavedra and Sergio Ramirez Mercado in interviews with TIME (see box), and was embedded in the usual condemnations of U.S. policy. Ortega and Ramirez not only restated Nicaragua's longstanding willingness to link the two issues in negotiations, but also reiterated their desire for such a dialogue with fresh urgency. They also offered perhaps the clearest official admission to date that the contras have become a major worry for Nicaragua. Said Ramirez: "What we would like to talk about with the U.S. is a mutual commitment"--an end to U.S. backing of the contras in exchange for the Sandinistas' stopping any support that the U.S. can prove they are providing for Salvadoran guerrillas based in Nicaragua. It remains questionable just what the Sandinistas would accept as proof and how they could be kept to the terms of a possible deal.

Paradoxically, the sign that the Sandinistas might be budging came as the Administration was facing an increasingly stubborn Congress over the persistent question of whether the U.S. should be financing the contras at all. Many Congressmen think not. Their concern was heightened last week by the assassination of Lieut. Commander Albert Schaufelberger in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador. But there is growing anxiety among other members of Congress that they may be blamed if Central America goes Communist. Before last week's assassination of Commander Schaufelberger, the House Intelligence Committee voted to cut off U.S. covert aid to the estimated 7,000 contras in Nicaragua. However, moderate Democrats in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, realizing that a straight cutoff would never get by the Senate or the President, are trying to work out a compromise.

In the Senate, the majority of members are willing to give the Administration the benefit of the doubt, at least for a while. The Senate Intelligence Committee has agreed to continue funds for the U.S. clandestine action against the Sandinistas until Sept. 30, and only afterward will require further approval of such money. The Administration hopes that both houses will go for a compromise along those lines. Among the specific proposals discussed is a possible bicameral veto of covert action, or the formation of a special congressional committee with veto power over such activity. Either way, it would mean offering Congress unprecedented authority over the clandestine dealings of the CIA.

The congressional ruckus was symptomatic of a rising climate in Washington of suspicion and concern about the Reagan Administration's tactics in dealing with Nicaragua. The Administration has long charged the Sandinista regime with funneling arms to and fomenting revolution in neighboring El Salvador at the behest of Cuba and the Soviet Union. The White House has continuously vowed to halt that activity by any means possible. Among those means has been backing the contras, on the grounds that their function has been to interdict the flow of arms from Nicaragua.

Now, however, the initial operation seems to have gone well beyond this aim. U.S. officials have been talking about the benefits of "symmetry," the latest buzzword in Washington. By symmetry Administration policymakers mean doing to the Sandinistas what the Sandinistas are doing to the government of El Salvador, namely backing a group of insurgents aimed at its overthrow. Some U.S. officials are convinced of the need to harass the Nicaraguans in order to impress upon them the notion that they cannot export revolution with impunity. Symmetry could come to imply that the Sandinistas may have to negotiate a political accommodation with the contras along the lines of the negotiated power sharing that some leftists in El Salvador are seeking. Some U.S. officials would like to see the eventual collapse of the Managuan government, which has become increasingly totalitarian in its domestic policies, and increasingly unpopular. Certainly that is what the Sandinistas believe is the main Administration motive. Said Ramirez: "If he could do it, Reagan would finish us off with a neutron bomb. But he can't, so he's using the contras instead." For its part, the White House last week continued to emphasize that its policies are within the scope of congressional restrictions, in that the contras are clearly not strong enough to defeat the heavily armed Nicaraguan defense forces--a fact that even some Administration opponents concede.

The uncertainty about the Administration's intentions has not been alleviated by President Reagan's recent references to the contras as "freedom fighters" and by reports of significant increases in the size of the contra forces. Earlier this year, the U.S.-backed guerrillas numbered only about 2,000 to 3,000, less than half their current strength.

In addition, the contras have been stepping up the frequency and ferocity of their raids in recent weeks. There is fear of more attacks as the counterrevolutionaries try to establish permanent bases on Nicaraguan soil. "That is a terrible prospect," says the Sandinistas' Ramirez. "Already this year we have had 500 military and civilian casualties in the fighting with the contras. In the U.S. the proportional loss would be about 50,000 people."

Such pressure could be a major factor encouraging the Sandinistas to strike a bargain with the U.S. to call off the contras. The problem is that Nicaragua has long been willing to discuss such a deal--but unwilling to do anything about its side of the putative bargain. For more than two years, the Sandinistas have offered to squelch any support from their territory for the Salvadoran guerrillas if the U.S. would only provide hard information about the location of the aid--an offer repeated in Ortega's interview with TIME. For nearly a year, the U.S. has pointed to the existence of a Salvadoran guerrilla command center in the suburban outskirts of the Nicaraguan capital of Managua. The Sandinistas have just as pointedly ignored the U.S. information. Nonetheless, officials in Washington have expressed interest in the latest Nicaraguan offer of cooperation. They would hardly believe in Nicaraguan sincerity, however, if the Managua command station did not shut down.

Late last week the State Department attempted to back up its claims of Nicaraguan aid to the Salvadoran rebels by releasing its second White Paper in two years on the subject (the first was issued in February 1981). Once again Washington asserted that Cuba, with Soviet help, was trying to "consolidate control of the Sandinista directorate in Nicaragua and to overthrow the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala."

The White Paper contained many charges that Washington has made in the past, including Sandinista aggression against Nicaragua's native Miskito Indian population. On the subject of exporting revolution, the White Paper charges that some 200 tons of weapons were shipped to Salvadoran guerrillas between late 1979 and early 1981. According to the White Paper, the flow continues, and the report specifically names the Nicaragua command center as the site from which Salvadoran guerrilla attacks and arms deliveries are coordinated. Sums up the report: "This level of outside support adds up to far more than merely marginal assistance for essentially indigenous guerrilla activity. It is large-scale intervention in the political affairs of the nations directly concerned."

Additional evidence of that intervention came last week in the form of a onetime high-level Salvadoran guerrilla. In an interview with TIME, Alejandro Montenegro, 28, a former member of the Salvadoran rebel faction known as the People's Revolutionary Army, declared that starting in 1980, Salvadoran guerrillas "were sent to Managua for training." Communications between the rebels and their leaders are also funneled through the Nicaraguan capital, via hand-held Japanese two-way radios. Regarding arms shipments, Montenegro said, "I would get a radio signal to go to [San Salvador]. Teams had gathered together the arms shipments as they came in, and they had the responsibility for transporting them to us." The source of the clandestine arms shipments was Cuba, via Nicaragua.

Montenegro's testimony pointed to the critical importance of El Salvador's neighbor Honduras in the Central American struggle. Last week the State Department announced that some 100 U.S. military trainers--twice as many as serve in El Salvador--would be sent to Honduras in the next few months to train about 2,400 Salvadoran soldiers. The reason for the move: training the troops in Honduras is one-third to one-quarter as expensive as bringing them to the U.S. for instruction.*

That announcement may in the end mean a heightening of the undeclared war in Central America, exactly what Congress is worrying about. Last week a group of U.S. journalists received a personal glimpse of the clandestine conflict. At the invitation of Sandinista Leader Ortega, TIME Foreign Editor Henry Muller, Chief of Correspondents Richard Duncan and

Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott made an inspection tour of the embattled Nicaraguan town of Jalapa (pop. 10,000) on the Honduran border. Suddenly their convoy was ambushed by a force of U.S.-backed contras. Two Sandinistas were killed and six wounded in the attack. The 18 journalists on the trip, including the three from TIME, escaped unharmed. The TIME team's eyewitness report:

After a briefing in Jalapa, our seven-car caravan, carrying 40 people, was headed for an airstrip outside of town, where a Soviet-built, single-engine biplane was to fly us back to Managua. We were warned of trouble ahead as we passed a roadblock, but our hosts decided to proceed. It was a mistake. Barely four miles out of town, the air was suddenly filled with the sound of machine gunfire. The convoy had come under ambush from a force of 80 to 100 contras hidden between trees on one side of the road and in back of barns on the other. Our driver skidded to a halt and dived out the door, pistol in hand. The three of us and Karen De Young of the Washington Post assumed a position on the floor of the Jeep like quadruplets in utero, with our luggage stacked over our heads against the windows. For five minutes, the Jeep shook from the mortar rounds landing near by. Bullets ricocheted off the gravel road.

During a brief lull in the shooting, our driver threw the Jeep into reverse and backed in drunken swerves 100 yards away from the heaviest fighting. We scrambled out into a shallow roadside ditch filled with weeds and dried cow manure and spent the next hour in intimate contact with the ground. The fighting finally died down and the contras retreated, leaving eleven dead. Four of the seven Jeeps in the convoy had suffered casualties, the three in front of us and the one immediately behind.

The contra plan had apparently been to catch our caravan in an ambush and drive us down the road, where another group was lying in wait to finish us off. Fortunately, the trap was sprung before the convoy was completely inside. As the blood-and dust-covered bodies were carried into the hospital for last rites, administered by the town priest, a Nicaraguan television crew trained its camera on the four Americans watching the scene. Our interpreter, a young woman, broke down in tears and said, "I hate what your Government is doing."

As ugly as the contra campaign may be, it only parallels the violence that the Reagan Administration accuses the Sandinistas of supporting in nearby El Salvador. Whether Congress will continue to accept the White House rationale for fighting guerrilla fire with fire in the wake of last week's State Department shakeup, however, is quite another question. --By George Russell. Reported by Strobe Talbott/Managua and Evan Thomas/Washington

*Even so, 525 Salvadorans arrived at Fort Benning, Ga., last week to begin training as officer candidates.

With reporting by Strobe Talbott/Managua, Evan Thomas/Washington This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.