The Choice in Central America

Susan Kaufman Purcell

From Foreign Affairs, Fall 1987

Article preview: first 500 of 7,345 words total.

Summary:  The USA maintains that its aim is for a peaceful settlement in Nicaragua in a regional context that advances the prospects for democracy, protects the interests of the Contras and preserves US strategic interests. These goals involve a potentially long and difficult process. The accord concluded by the Central American Presidents in Aug 1987 by no means ensures peace. The practical question facing the USA is how to preserve its commitment to the Contras while still influencing the negotiating process.

Susan Kaufman Purcell is Senior Fellow and Director of the Latin American Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. She was a member of the Department of State's Policy Planning Staff, 1980-81, and a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, 1969-79.

The controversy over Nicaragua took a dramatic turn in early August. It had seemed as the Iran-contra hearings ended that the issue of aid to the Nicaraguan resistance would be the dominant debate after Labor Day, as the White House and Congress confronted the September 30 deadline when aid for the rebels would lapse. The Administration, exploiting the temporary increase in popular support for the rebels after the testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, had planned to submit a request for $150 million over 18 months. A major showdown loomed.

Then, suddenly, the focus shifted to the diplomatic dimension with the surprise announcement by the White House on August 5 of a new American peace plan, drawn up by Speaker of the House James Wright (D-Tex.). Two days later, however, the five Central American presidents, meeting in Guatemala, in effect rejected the Wright proposal and signed a treaty of their own-a modified version of the initiative launched last February by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. The Reagan Administration gave the initiative its tentative support, but it was clear that many serious questions would have to be addressed and resolved by the Central American signatories as well as by Washington.

From the outset the United States has maintained that its aim is a peaceful settlement, in a regional context, that advances the prospects for democracy and protects the interests of the Nicaraguan rebels as well as the strategic interests of the United States. The leverage to achieve these aims has been U.S. support for the Nicaraguan resistance movement and the determination of the Administration to resist a settlement that left the Sandinistas with undiminished political power.

Washington faces a potentially long and difficult process to achieve these goals. Peace in Central America is by no means assured; it will depend on the resolution of a number of significant ambiguities in the revised Arias plan. It will also depend on the political temper in the United States, and, in the end, on whether there are any alternatives to the new course that was inaugurated August 7 in Guatemala City.

II

The initiative of the five Central American countries is the culmination of over four years of efforts by Latin American governments to find a diplomatic solution to the Central American conflict. During much of this period, a negotiated settlement was synonymous with the Contadora process led by Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama. A stalemate had developed after the last Contadora draft treaty, presented in June 1986, was rejected by the Central American countries. This draft had remedied some of the flaws of earlier Contadora proposals,1 but there were still many serious problems unresolved.

The 1986 Contadora draft contained detailed procedures for implementation and verification. But its main provisions did not take effect simultaneously; some entered into effect upon signature, others upon ratification (for which no time limit was set), and still others became effective upon implementation of the treaty or after negotiations for which no deadline was specified.

The Contadora treaty, ...

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