Frustration in Costa Rica

By William E. Smith

The U.S. tries to hold high-level talks with Salvadoran guerrillas

The most recent buzzword favored by the Reagan Administration in explaining its strategy toward Central America is "symmetry." The term ties together the problems of the region's two most serious trouble spots, El Salvador and Nicaragua. By symmetry, the Administration means that it intends to do unto the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua precisely what it believes the Sandinistas are doing to the U.S.-supported government of El Salvador: aid the guerrillas who seek its overthrow. The strategy is to reach the point at which governments and insurgents in both El Salvador and Nicaragua will join in a ceasefire, followed by negotiations and then free elections.

So far Washington's two-track approach--promoting negotiations in each country while giving military support to the government in El Salvador and the guerrillas in Nicaragua--has met with little success. In the past fortnight, two events took place in Costa Rica, a neutral neighbor, that illustrate both the hope and the frustration of finding a peaceful solution to the region's two civil wars. The first event: four noted Nicaraguan dissidents, who are opponents of the Sandinistas but are not associated with U.S.-backed guerrillas, offered to act as intermediaries between the Nicaraguan government and the insurgents in bringing about a national conciliation. The second, and potentially the more dramatic development: Costa Rican President Luis Alberto Monge worked secretly to arrange a meeting late last week between President Reagan's special envoy Richard Stone and leaders of the Salvadoran guerrillas who have frustrated U.S. policy for more than three years--only to have his guests fail at the last minute to agree on terms that would allow them to sit down with each other.

Monge presides over the most successful democracy in Central America (see box). But because his country, which has no army, borders Nicaragua, Monge is feeling vulnerable to the spread of violence. Part of his hope in planning last week's meeting, which would have been the first direct high-level contact between the Reagan Administration and the Salvadoran guerrillas, was that it could lead to a negotiated settlement in Nicaragua as well as El Salvador.

After elaborate, extraordinarily secret preparations, the meeting was set to take place Saturday in a small house outside San Jose in a white-walled, tile-floored room furnished only with chairs and a conference table. Stone and a handful of aides had arrived in town the night before and repaired to the U.S. Ambassador's residence. From there they negotiated fruitlessly all day Saturday, using Monge as an intermediary, with a group of Salvadoran leftists located in the house where the meeting was to take place. The rebels had been assembled by Guillermo Manuel Ungo, the Mexico City-based president of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (F.D.R.), the umbrella political group allied with insurgents who are fighting the government of President Alvaro Magana.

In the past, Ungo had said that he was willing to enter into "unconditional" discussions with the U.S. The guerrillas' goal, however, has always been power sharing, not just a chance to participate in an election campaign in which the security of their candidates, not to mention their supporters, would be at serious risk. Nonetheless, Ungo's ability to gather a delegation in Costa Rica led to cautious speculation in Washington and San Salvador that the guerrillas might yet agree to take their chances in the political arena. Among those accompanying Ungo to Costa Rica were Ruben Zamora of the F.D.R. and Mario Lopez and Mario Aguinada of the Faribundo Marti National Liberation Front (F.M.L.N.).

In an interview with TIME in Mexico City two days before the meeting was set to take place, Hector Oqueli, a top official of the F.D.R., conveyed the impression that the rebels were hopeful about the symbolism of the encounter. Said he: "For the first time, we will be talking to each other officially. No matter what happens, that is important." Oqueli stressed that the rebels were not interested in participating in elections except as an aspect of "a larger negotiated settlement." As for the question of their security during an election campaign, he declared: "Security for whom? It's not a problem of bodyguards. It's a problem of a democratic society, of security for the whole population." Nor did he accept the U.S. theory of symmetry in solving the region's difficulties. Said he: "We do not agree with the thesis that the solution for Central America has to be a regional one. The situation in Central America is a minefield. You have to deactivate the mines one by one. You cannot deactivate the entire field at once."

Oqueli said the guerrillas were better prepared for negotiations than the rightists and centrists, because the leftists were more united. Using a baseball analogy, he said: "We are ready to play a game, and we are ready with nine players." As for his opponents, he continued, "they lack a pitcher who carries with him even 60% of the players. And then there is the question of the team's manager, the U.S."

Though the meeting did not take place, the fact that the two sides came to Costa Rica at all raised the possibility of subtle but potentially significant shifts in the positions of the U.S., the Salvadoran guerrillas and the equally important absentee party, the Salvadoran government. The Reagan Administration had for a long time refused to talk directly with the guerrillas, saying that they must first lay down their arms and enter the political process by fielding candidates for the elections. Though that line has softened somewhat in recent months, Stone still insisted last week that he would not be "negotiating" with the guerrillas but would merely try to persuade them to negotiate with the Salvadoran government. The distinction was a fine one, but legitimate, the intent being to press forward with existing policy while at the same time demonstrating flexibility. By accepting Monge's invitation, the Administration hoped both to assuage its opponents on Capitol Hill and to place more of the onus for peacemaking on the Salvadoran guerrillas.

The political figure who had the most to lose from last week's gamble was Salvadoran President Magana. Yet Magana was not present in Costa Rica. Just as the U.S. doubts whether Ungo can deliver his fighting comrades to the negotiating process, there is a question as to whether Magana can maintain the support of the Salvadoran military and the right wing. Rightist elements in the military have repeatedly emphasized that they are fearful of being sold out by centrist politicians in the name of a "dialogue" with the rebels.

For this reason, Stone's stopover in San Salvador was a crucial prelude to the talks he hoped to have in Costa Rica. Apparently he convinced Magana and other Salvadoran leaders that the U.S. would not be sacrificing their cause and that the planned meeting in San Jose could be valuable. Neither Magana nor any other prominent officeholder objected publicly to the meeting, and even Roberto d'Aubuisson, leader of the far-right Republican Nationalist Alliance (ARENA) declared, "If [Stone] thinks it convenient to talk to the guerrillas and give us his recommendations, let him do it."

Stone went to San Jose to persuade the rebels to enter into direct negotiations with Magana. U.S. officials had said previously that if the guerrillas would agree to a political settlement in which their share of power would depend on their performance in elections, the U.S. might do something useful for them: use its influence with the Salvadoran government to postpone the elections from November or December until a later date, thereby giving the guerrillas a better chance to make the transition from fighters to candidates.

A week earlier, even as the Costa Rican government was making preparations for last Saturday's failed meeting, the four Nicaraguan dissidents had announced in San Jose an "initiative" to try to end the civil war in their own country. The offer was significant because all four are prominent Nicaraguans who had been active in the insurrection against Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, were once colleagues of the Sandinistas and today live in exile. The men are Arturo Cruz, the former junta member and Nicaraguan Ambassador to Washington who quit in November 1981; Alfredo Cesar, who like Cruz was once head of the central bank, and two other former government officials, Leonel Poveda and Angel Navarro. Though they are not affiliated with the anti-Sandinista guerrilla movements and in fact are calling for a "nonviolent" settlement to the fighting, the four have close ties with some factions of the Nicaraguan opposition, including the guerrillas, and might be able to hold out for terms that could end the fighting: a halt in the Sandinistas' current efforts to establish totalitarian control over the country, and elections leading to a genuinely pluralistic government.

In an interview with TIME in San Jose last week, Cesar spoke at length about the origin and purpose of the initiative. Said he: "What we are calling for is a 'civic struggle' to rescue and recover the two original objectives of our revolution, nationalism and democracy. By civic struggle I mean protests, strikes, slowdowns, not armed resistance. But it is important that we resist the sovietization of the revolution: tight control over the press, over political and labor organizations, over private initiative, even over personal and family activities. We fear that unless something is done, there will be a major armed confrontation around the Nicaraguan problem, a confrontation that could spread throughout the region. We may be approaching our last chance to avoid a war between Nicaragua and Honduras, a war that could involve as many as six other countries in the region. We are hoping that the leaders in Nicaragua will talk with us to head off that nightmare."

One such nightmare scenario, according to some supporters of the initiative, begins with speculation that as attacks continue from anti-Sandinista guerrillas based in Honduras, Nicaragua might eventually be provoked into invading Honduras or at least forced to carry out prolonged hot-pursuit missions into Honduran territory. This in turn could trigger a quantum leap in U.S. military involvement, including the supply to Honduras of large numbers of fighters and fighter-bombers, and a blockade between Cuba and the Central American isthmus.

The dissidents hope that the Nicaraguan government, which understands the limitations of Cuban aid, will recognize how dangerous the situation is and respond favorably to their initiative. So far, their ideas have been endorsed by the governments of Costa Rica, Venezuela and Spain, and by a Nicaraguan resistance leader who described the four men as "patriots" who had made the Nicaraguan government an offer that he thought could well be acceptable to both sides. By week's end the Sandinistas had not replied.

The last-minute breakdown in Stone's rendezvous with the Salvadoran leftists was a setback for the symmetry strategy. If the encounter had come off, it would have demonstrated a new U.S. flexibility toward the region, thereby strengthening the Administration's hand in seeking wider support for its Central American policy. But by literally going the last mile to make peace, Stone may have bought some more time for that policy, even if he found frustration at his destination and will have to try again, in San Jose or somewhere else along the diplomatic high road.

--By William E. Smith. Reported by Strobe Talbott/Washington and James Willwerth/San Jose

With reporting by Strobe Talbott/Washington, James Willwerth/San Jose This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.