Cutting Off Nicaragua's Contras

By Alessandra Stanley

Pushing for negotiations, Congress denies $21 million in aid

To many Americans, Roberto d'Aubuisson, fiery leader of El Salvador's fiercest right-wing faction, represents the dangerous pitfalls of U.S. support for that troubled country. Somewhat similarly, Eden Pastora Gomez, the maverick "Commander Zero" of the Nicaraguan revolution who later took up arms against his victorious comrades, has come to illustrate the troubles of Washington's covert effort to put pressure on the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Both of these flamboyant figures happened to be in Washington last week just after the Senate voted overwhelmingly to cut aid to anti-Sandinista contra rebels from an appropriations bill. Their presence was a dramatic indicator of how events beyond the Administration's control could begin to conspire to redirect U.S. policy in Central America.

President Reagan had requested $21 million in additional support for the contras in a $1.1 billion emergency spending bill that also included $62 million in military aid for the Salvadoran government and $100 million to create summer jobs for teenagers. The Democratic majority in the House had for months refused to approve the spending package unless the disputed funds were dropped. With the White House's reluctant approval, the Republican-controlled Senate finally gave in, voting 88 to 1 to save the spending bill by shelving aid to the contras.

The contras have used up the $24 million that Congress approved last year. Secretary of State George Shultz said that "moral support" would be given to the contras' attempts to find money from other countries and private sources, but those funds are unlikely to match American largesse. The Administration says it will resubmit an aid request later this year. A 35-page background paper was circulated around Capitol Hill last week, giving a few new pieces of intelligence about Nicaragua's support of the leftist rebels in El Salvador. More important, advocates of the contra effort point out that withdrawal of aid robs the Administration of a significant bargaining chip and leaves in the lurch those fighters who had come to rely on the U.S. But even Reagan's staunchest supporters now concede that the covert program could be coming to an end. "I have been here long enough to know what all these code words mean," said Republican John East of North Carolina. "It's over."

The contras have not yet managed to take and hold a single Nicaraguan town. Their disarray was illustrated by the arrival in Washington of Pastora, who has been leading a group of contras fighting in southern Nicaragua from bases in Costa Rica. The CIA in May threatened to cut off aid to Pastora's group, hoping to force it to unite with the northern contras, a group Pastora has shunned because it includes former members of the hated National Guard. While Pastora was recuperating from injuries received in a bombing five weeks ago, his fellow rebels voted to join forces with the contras in the north, isolating their unruly leader. Pastora told Congressmen last week that he will now concentrate on pressuring Nicaraguan leaders to open up the country's political process.

Pastora's visit coincided by chance with that of D'Aubuisson, who narrowly and bitterly lost last May's presidential election in El Salvador to Moderate Jose Napoleon Duarte. D'Aubuisson's alleged links to right-wing death squads had three times before been a factor in the State Department's denying him a visa. In addition, some of D'Aubuisson's right-wing supporters were implicated soon after the Salvadoran election in an assassination plot against Thomas Pickering, the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador. In permitting D'Aubuisson's "private" visit, the Administration apparently decided that it was useful to try to draw the powerful and unpredictable opposition leader into working within the system.

Soberly dressed and rigidly well behaved through three days of meetings and interviews, D'Aubuisson clung to his denials of involvement with any plan to assassinate Pickering. "I don't know who organized it," he said. He also flatly denied that he was involved with Salvador's right-wing death squads. "I am sure there is no evidence because I have done nothing," he said. For the first time he publicly promised to support Duarte's presidency.

Nonetheless, the Administration understandably kept him at arm's length, granting him only perfunctory meetings with Assistant Secretary of State Langhorne A. Motley and General Vernon Walters, the special envoy who was dispatched in May to read D'Aubuisson the riot act after the plot against Pickering was uncovered. Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina buoyantly championed the slight Salvadoran on Capitol Hill, but fewer than 20 Senators agreed to meet him. Explained Minority Leader Robert Byrd: "I don't think many Senators would want to legitimize D'Aubuisson's search for respectability."

El Salvador's volatile military situation was highlighted last week when 1,000 leftist guerrillas overran 250 government soldiers guarding a major hydroelectric plant 25 miles northeast of San Salvador. As engineers barricaded themselves inside, 700 government paratroopers arrived just in time to beat back the rebels and prevent them from blowing up the central control room. Each side lost more than 50 soldiers, and the damage is expected to take a month to repair.

Together, the disparate events of last week made diplomatic efforts in Central America seem all the more pressing. Responding in part to domestic political concerns and the urgings of the Mexican government, the U.S. began negotiations with Nicaraguan leaders on issues that had been broached on Shultz's surprise visit to Managua in June. U.S. Special Envoy Harry Shlaudeman met with Nicaraguan Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco in Mexico. The stilted talks ended with little more than a promise to reconvene in the future. It was not much, but for an Administration beset by unsteady support at home and growing pressures in the region, it was an avenue that could not be closed. -- By Alessandra Stanley. Reported by Barrett Seaman/Washington

With reporting by Barrett Seaman