Golden Opportunity for Don Oscar

By Jill Smolowe

No telephone. No television. No intrusions from the outside world. Or so Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez thought when he, his wife Margarita and their two young children settled into a remote beach house on the Pacific coast for a long weekend. Did he ever get it wrong. Through a complicated patchwork of radio signals, Arias was contacted from the capital city of San Jose by his younger brother Rodrigo, who serves as his chief of staff. "They've given you the Nobel Peace Prize," shouted Rodrigo.

"No, no, I don't believe it," the President said. "They're probably just saying I'm being considered for it."

"Oscar, I'm telling you, they did!"

The unexpected decision by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award Arias the world's most prestigious peace prize was more than a personal triumph for the 46-year-old President. It was also a powerful vote of confidence for the regional peace plan authored by Arias that was signed two months ago in Guatemala City by five Central American Presidents. The prize both enhances the credibility of the fragile peace process and augments Arias' moral authority as an arbiter of peace to wrest new concessions from the various parties to the plan. At the same time, it further impedes the Reagan Administration's attempts to secure $270 million in new aid for the contra rebels fighting the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Concedes an Administration official: "This complicates everything we're trying to do in Central America."

Until last week's announcement, Arias was not even rumored to be a serious contender for the prize. In Oslo the odds-on favorites among the 93 nominees included President Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, President Raul Alfonsin of Argentina, and the World Health Organization. The five-member committee maintained a stoic silence until the formal declaration, which cited Arias for his "outstanding contribution to the possible return of stability and peace to a region long torn by strife and civil war." Afterward, Committee Chairman Egil Aarvik, 75, made clear the committee's intent. "We hope that the award will help to speed up the process of peace in Central America," he said.

The Reagan Administration, which last month decried the Guatemala plan as fatally flawed, responded coolly to the news. Asked to comment on the Nobel Committee's choice, President Reagan said simply, "I congratulate him." Hours later the White House released a statement that could be read as a warning of the Administration's intention to push forward with its campaign to keep the contras armed and in the field. "This award," it said, "should inspire all of us to renew our efforts to ensure that enduring peace and democracy eventually come to the region." The Administration has consistently maintained that only continued pressure by the contras will compel the Sandinistas to undertake genuine reform.

The peace process set in motion by the Guatemala accord has already yielded some results in Nicaragua. In a succession of gestures that the Reagan Administration has called "cosmetic," President Daniel Ortega Saavedra invited three exiled priests to return home, granted pardons to 16 imprisoned foreigners, reopened the opposition daily La Prensa, lifted the ban on Radio Catolica and proclaimed unilateral cease-fires in four remote war zones. The Sandinistas contend that these moves demonstrate their commitment to the plan and to the region-wide cease-fire scheduled to begin Nov. 5. The White House counters that no peace can endure so long as the Sandinistas fail to evict Cuban and Soviet advisers from Nicaraguan soil and refuse to negotiate a cease-fire directly with the contra leadership. Neither action is required under the terms of the accord.

Still, a clamor is building for a negotiated cease-fire in Nicaragua. Bolstered by the peace prize, Arias renewed his calls last week for indirect talks between the Sandinistas and the contra leaders to be mediated by Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, Nicaragua's Roman Catholic Primate. "There's a new mood in Central America now," Arias told TIME. "I hope President Ortega will revise his position and accept dialogue." Two other signatories to the peace plan, El Salvador's President Jose Napoleon Duarte and Honduras' President Jose Azcona Hoyo, echoed Arias' appeal.

Meanwhile, the six-member political directorate of the contras offered to travel to Managua to hold direct talks with the Sandinistas. "So far the Sandinistas have been able to comply with the easy part of the plan," said Alfredo Cesar. "We are starting today the hardball game." Ortega swiftly warned that the rebel leaders would be jailed if they tried to return to Nicaragua without first applying for amnesty. But aides close to Arias expect that the Sandinistas will soon grant a concession on this point. They claim that Ortega has quietly asked Arias for help in persuading some of the more moderate contra leaders to return to Nicaragua.

In Washington news of the peace prize seemed only to harden well-established positions. In the Democratic-controlled Senate, a resolution was overwhelmingly passed that congratulated Arias and pledged the Senate's "firm support and full cooperation" in seeing the plan implemented. In the House, effusive congratulations were offered by Speaker Jim Wright, who rallied to Arias' efforts after a regional peace plan that he co-sponsored with Reagan proved stillborn. "Oscar Arias is a man of vision," he said. As for the Administration's bid for new contra aid, House Majority Whip Tony Coelho of California stated flatly, "This kills it. It's dead."

Those who continue to back contra funding criticized the awarding of the ) peace prize as premature. Congressman Jack Kemp of New York, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, suggested that the Norwegians "ought to save the peace prize until they see what happens in the future." House Minority Leader Bob Michel complained, "I don't know that the Norwegians got all that much to say about what goes on in Central America." Said Arias: "There will always be people with small spirits."

Arias' fellow signers of the peace plan responded with delight. Arias is only the fourth Latin American in the prize's 86-year history to join the pantheon of peace laureates (the others: Argentina's Carlos Saavedra Lamas in 1936 and Adolfo Perez Esquivel in 1980 and Mexico's Alfonso Garcia Robles in 1982). Ortega telephoned his congratulations, telling Arias, "Your initiative and efforts have brought us closer to peace." Duarte, on a three-day visit to Washington, lauded Arias' achievement several times during a State Department luncheon. "He wanted peace, not for himself," said Duarte. "He was thinking of all the people who had died through the years."

Duarte seemed unclear what message he wanted to deliver to the U.S. At an arrival ceremony on the White House lawn, Duarte profusely thanked Reagan for the U.S. aid his country has received over the years. Then he walked over to the military honor guard and kissed the American flag. The next day, however, Duarte called on the Reagan Administration to give the peace process a fair chance by withholding military aid to the contras at least until January. The White House has said it intends to petition Congress for new aid no later than Thanksgiving.

The Nobel Prize carries with it a check for $341,000, which Arias intends to use to create a foundation for his country's poor. But its true value for Arias will be measured in the days before and after the Nov. 5 cease-fire. "The prize is a catalyst," he says. "It's a stimulus so that we don't lapse in our effort." No one, least of all Arias, believes eternal peace will reign three weeks from now; the Costa Rican President points out that the cease-fire "initiates a process, it doesn't end it." Yet most Central Americans agree that more progress has been made toward peace in the past two months than in the past six years and that Arias deserves the chance to play out his plan. Ronald Reagan may not want to encourage Arias, but obviously a few Norwegians do.

With reporting by John Moody/San Jose and Nancy Traver/Washington