Ortega Rejects Contra's Cease-Fire Offer

MANAGUA, Nicaragua--While the Contras said yesterday during a unilateral cease-fire they would stop fighting, President Daniel Ortega rejected their offer, saying it would not stop the United States from aiding the rebels.

The 36-hour cease-fire would have begun 1 p.m. Monday, but it was not immediately possible to determine if the fighting had ended.

Neither the rebels nor the Sandinista authorities issued any reports of armed clashes during the night. Reporters need special military permits to enter war zones and these are not readily obtained.

The Contras announced the ceasefire from Miami, saying it came in response to a call from Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, who is acting as a mediator in the nearly six-year-old conflict. The cease-fire was to mark the Roman Catholic celebration of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.

In a Sunday homily, Obando y Bravo urged both sides to stop the "river of blood" by ending the fighting, at least during the Christmas holiday season.

But Ortega rejected the 36-hour cease-fire and a Christmas truce, saying neither would stop the United States from aiding the rebels because the Contras earlier ignored a Sandinista call to lay down their arms.

"If a cease-fire is desired, the United States must cease the fire because they are the ones who are making war on Nicaragua," Ortega said Saturday. On Monday, he added, "We had a bad experience with a truce."

Ortega said that during a one-month cease-fire the Sandinistas unilaterally declared October 5, the rebels "mounted strong attacks against towns and didn't stop murdering during those 30 days. Under these conditions it is impossible to accept a new truce."

Adolfo Calero, one of the six directors of the Contra umbrella organization known as Nicaraguan Resistance, announced the 36-hour cease-fire in Miaimi, and said the rebels would fight back only if attacked.

Meeting with representatives of both sides of the conflict last week in the Dominican Republic, Obando y Bravo proposed a truce from December 22 to January 6, as a first step toward a wider truce under a Central American peace plan.

But the indirect talks Obando y Bravo held deadlocked when the Contras demanded they center on political reforms in Nicaragua and the Sandinistas insisted they be limited to technical negotiations about a ceasefire.

Nevertheless, Calero said he and the other rebel leaders will continue the peace talks, even though the Sandinistas have refused face-to-face meetings.

The regional peace plan, which the presidents of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Honduras signed in August is aimed at ending the war in Nicaragua, and leftist guerrilla wars in El Salvador and Guatemala.

The accord calls for cease-fires, amnesties, democratic reforms, an end to foreign aid for guerrillas and a ban on allowing rebels to use one country's territory to attack another country.