Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 17, 1990 TAG: 9004170510
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: DORALISA PILARTE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: MANAGUA, NICARAGUA LENGTH: Medium
But the Contras' reluctance to demobilize, which they insist stems from a distrust of the Sandinistas but others call a grab for power, might become their undoing.
The United National Opposition, or UNO, is poised to assume power on April 25 but could find itself starting its tenure with a fresh outbreak of a war that seemed to be petering out after nine years.
The fabric of stability carefully woven together by electoral victor and vanquished seems on the brink of unraveling, just when it seemed the processes of democratization and pacification were nearly complete.
"The situation is grave, delicate and difficult because the blood is still running, and there are threats of new political explosions and a new escalation on the military field," outgoing President Daniel Ortega said Monday as he met with evangelical leaders.
"We are facing a real risk that we may get to April 25 and the peaceful transition of power that we all have sought will not take place," said the man who lost February's general elections.
UNO leaders have placed great emphasis on this being the firsttime in national history that power is transferred to an opposition government peacefully.
However, as soon as UNO won the elections, most of the Contras slipped across the border into Nicaragua, leaving behind in Honduras only the wounded, the crippled and a few old guns.
The move made more symbolic than effective a UNO-Contra accord of March 23 under which Contra forces in Honduras are to demobilize this week.
Neither that accord nor another UNO-Contra pact reached April 9 made any mention of what had been a top demand of the U.S.-backed Contras: that the Sandinista People's Army disarm and that the officer corps be dismissed.
That is what Contra chief of staff Israel Galeano, known as Commander Franklin, is now againdemanding as a condition for his men to give up their weapons and return to civilian life under the government of UNO President-elect Violeta Barrios de Chamorro.
"Mrs. Chamorro defeated the Sandinistas in the elections, but I think she will not be able to impose her authority on the Sandinistas . . . and if she doesn't, there won't be democracy in Nicaragua," Galeano said in an April 11 interview with The Associated Press in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Galeano is now back in Nicaragua, and he has vowed to keep fighting until his demand is met.
For the Sandinistas, whose military commanders can remain in place under a March 27 accord with UNO, the return of an estimated 9,000 Contras only means the prospect of more war.
"The fundamental problem here is that the Contras can't demand to share in the power," said a well-placed Sandinista military source speaking on condition of anonymity. "They have to abide by the agreements. They must demobilize."
This week, the pro-Sandinista press in Managua ran front-page headlines predicting war and a muscle-flexing offensive by the Contras to show they're still a force to be reckoned with.
One diplomat, dismissing the Honduran demobilization set to begin Wednesday as "a farce," seemed to agree.
"This is the key week after so many months of talks, and the situation this week is very, very dangerous," the diplomat said. "Everything could go down the drain."
UNO must search hard and fast for a compromise that will allow the Sandinistas to feel safe from the Contras, while acknowledging what the rebels feel they have contributed to UNO's electoral victory.
Failing that, the UNO government might find itself in the grips of a strange irony: asking its Sandinista foes for help in stamping out its Contra allies.
by CNB