Last Chance?

The long, complex and important effort by the Contadora Group--Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama--to arrange a peace treaty that might end the violence in Central America may soon collapse. If it does, the Reagan Administration will bear part of the blame.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz may have sounded a death knell for the Latin American peace initiative when he met this week with the Contadora foreign ministers during a meeting of the Organization of American States in Cartagena, Colombia. Shultz told them that the United States had not budged from its refusal to renew bilateral negotiations with the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, broken off last year.

The Sandinistas insist that they will not sign any peace treaty until the Administration agrees to curb its campaign to undermine their government, particularly the barely covert U.S. aid for the rebels--the so-called contras --who are fighting the Managua government . No such agreement can be worked out unless representatives of both the United States and Nicaragua sit down and talk with each other first. Thus U.S. obstinacy could doom efforts by Contadora ministers to persuade the Sandinistas to sign the latest version of a regional peace treaty for Central America.

The irony of this impasse is that a year ago the positions were reversed. The Sandinistas had expressed a willingness to sign an earlier draft treaty then, but the United States and its Central American allies--El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica--balked unless they were given additional guarantees of Nicaraguan compliance. Their objections have apparently been met in the latest Contadora draft, so why hold back now? If nothing else, an agreement to renew the U.S.-Nicaraguan talks would be a good way to call the Sandinistas’ bluff. It could force them into a position where they would have to sign a regional peace treaty--a document to which their Latin American neighbors could then hold them.

For the last few years, U.S. officials from President Reagan down have claimed to support the Contadora process, but their deeds have not matched their words. This could be their last chance to persuade the Latin American allies of U.S. sincerity. More important, it could be the last chance to end the Central American wars through negotiations rather than through even more bloodshed--bloodshed that would leave even the victors exhausted and without vindication.