Nicaragua Rejects Regional Peace Force

PANAMA CITY —  As a new round of regional peace talks opened here Thursday, Nicaragua flatly rejected a proposal to establish an armed peacekeeping force in Central America.

Victor Hugo Tinoco, vice minister of foreign affairs, said that Nicaragua has “substantial differences” with an elaborate proposal drafted by El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica to establish such a peacekeeping force.

At the same time, Tinoco labeled as “positive” and “very good” a modified draft of an earlier peace formula that is being circulated among the delegates here by the sponsor of the talks, the Contadora Group.

The present meeting here represents a re-opening of talks that were initiated after the four Contadora nations--Mexico, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela--met in January, 1983, and resolved to try to mediate conflicts among the Central American nations of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The talks had been stalled since last October.

Bitter Differences Persist

Tinoco’s remarks, after Thursday’s opening session, indicated that the major division and the bitter differences, which so far have kept the Contadora initiative from succeeding, still persist.

In general terms, the division aligns Nicaragua on one side and the United States’ three main allies in the region--El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica--on the other. Guatemala, the fifth Central American country involved in the talks, is playing a separate, more independent hand.

A proposal drafted last month by El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica would allow an armed peacekeeping force to conduct on-site investigations of alleged violations of a future peace treaty, but Tinoco said that many of the details of this plan are unacceptable to Nicaragua.

“We do not believe that the force should be armed or militarized,” Tinoco said.

The Contadora Group’s original peace plan was put forward last September in the form of a draft treaty. The draft was not accepted by El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica.

Refinements Not Disclosed

Refinements to that draft presented by the Contadora Group at the current meeting have not been made public, but Tinoco said that they do not include creation of a militarized peacekeeping force. The refinements, he said, would require that the Corps of International Inspectors, as any peacekeeping force would be formally named, would act only by unanimous agreement of the five countries in the region.

Diplomats from the other nations argue that such a formula would let Nicaragua exercise an effective veto on the corps’ activities and thereby paralyze its work.

Jorge Ramon Hernandez, Honduran vice minister of foreign affairs, said that Thursday’s opening session produced “impediments” to agreement on the key issue of how to monitor compliance with specific security regulations in any peace treaty.

Other key issues that divide the participants include the establishment of a basis for military equilibrium among the five Central American nations and the timing of entry into effect of the major provisions of any future treaty.