Rebels Without a Cause : Delay in Cashiering the Contras Could Sabotage Peace

Nicaragua’s President-elect Violeta Chamorro and outgoing President Daniel Ortega don’t agree on many things, so when they take the same position on an issue, they send a powerful message. Wednesday both called on the U.S.-backed Contra rebels to lay down their arms. If the Contras--and their sponsors in Washington--don’t heed the call, it will complicate, perhaps sabotage, an already difficult transfer of power in Managua.

Ortega said the rebels must first demobilize if he is to persuade the Sandinista army to stand by while Chamorro’s opposition coalition takes control of the government. Ortega’s critics, and certainly the Contras, worry that he is trying to pull a fast one, because there have been rumors the Sandinistas want to keep control of the Nicaraguan military. But to demonstrate his sincerity Ortega ordered a unilateral cease-fire in the eight-year war his government has waged with the Contras. That seemed to persuade Chamorro, who joined Ortega’s call for a cease-fire, telling the Contras that “there is no reason for more war.”

Even in the U.S. government, which created, armed and financed the anti-Sandinista rebels, officials said the right things. Secretary of State James A. Baker III told Congress on Tuesday that “the war in Nicaragua is over” and conditions for the Contras to return home from their base camps in Honduras are “rapidly being created.” But words--even optimistic words--in Washington may not be enough.

In Honduras, where about 10,000 Contras live with their families, rebel leaders are saying that they won’t give up until Chamorro takes power on April 25. And what about the estimated 2,000 Contras still prowling Nicaragua’s hinterlands? They are heavily armed and capable of banditry, terrorism and serious damage. It may take direct U.S. action to shut them down.

That’s why the Bush Administration, tight budget or not, must pay whatever it costs to help disarm and repatriate the Contras based in Honduras. It must offer the new United Nations peacekeeping force in Central America logistic support to locate and disarm the Contras inside Nicaragua. The rebels were created and sustained by Washington, which now has an obligation to keep them from sabotaging a chance for peace in Nicaragua.