Nicaragua cease-fire: Is the war really over?

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The response to U.S. troops in Honduras was swift: March 26 in San Francisco MANAGUA-After the 60-day cease-fire agreement between the Sandinista government and the contras was signed in the border town of Sapoá last March 23, the CIA-funded daily La Prensa and the rightwing internal opposition bloc of 14 political parties were quick to hail the accord The pro-contra internal front pointed out that the Sandinistas were forced to make concessions which gave the contras their main objectivekeeping their troops armed in the field while at the same time allowing contra representatives to enter political talks with the Sandinistas and the internal political opposition.

Prior to the Sapoá agreement, the Sandinistas had vowed they would not talk to the contras or allow them to return to Nicaragua until they had put down all their weapons and agreed to end their dirty war against the Nicaraguan people.

The new accord, however, allows the contras-arms in hand—to press the Sandinistas for political concessions in the framework of a "national dialogue" scheduled to begin April 6.

"If the Nicaraguan Resistance [i.e., contras] does not feel the Sandinistas have met the demands for democratization stipulated in the Esquipulas II Accords," contra leader Adolfo Calero told La Prensa, "the Sapoá agreement will be nullified and we will be ready to fight again. If they do comply, then we have won our goal of democratizing Nicaragua."

The contras' chief military negotiator with the Sandinistas, Comandante Fernando, put it similarly: "We are not going to lay down our arms until Nicaragua has a democracy. The Nicaraguan people don't (continued on page 13)

APRIL 1988 ENT Panama!

See page 12.

Vol. 6, No. 4 50 CEl

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