Central America Whose Peace Plan Is It Anyway?

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When Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright first proposed last month that Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez be invited to address Congress, the White House responded with enthusiasm. Officials reasoned that a visit from Arias, architect of the peace plan signed last month in Guatemala City by five Central American Presidents, would demonstrate the Reagan Administration's interest in talking peace rather than making war.

Within days, however, second thoughts set in. Officials feared the visit would enhance the prestige of a plan that Reagan has come to view as fatally flawed, and might call attention to the fact that Reagan has lost the diplomatic initiative to Arias. The White House pushed to have the invitation rescinded. But Wright held his ground, and this week Arias will deliver a pitch for his peace proposal in the halls of Congress.

The Central American leader can expect a warm reception. Arias commands respect as a regional peacemaker; moreover many Congressmen share his conviction that the U.S.-backed contra war is a misconceived strategy for prodding Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista regime toward democratic reform. Most Democrats hope that Arias' visit will further undermine the Reagan Administration's dual policy of pursuing peace while trying to secure $270 million in new funding for the contras. Last week congressional leaders tentatively agreed to a stopgap provision of some $3.5 million in nonlethal aid to hold the rebels through a cease-fire scheduled for Nov. 7. But Wright and other Congressmen have indicated that they hope those funds will eventually be used to resettle the rebels.

Reagan has made little effort to hide his disdain for the Guatemala peace accord, most recently charging that it "falls short of the safeguards" contained in an earlier proposal put forward by Reagan and Wright. The White House has interpreted Arias' visit as a snub. "How would the Costa Ricans like it if our President were to accept an invitation from their legislature, pretty much bypassing their executive branch?" observed an Administration official. Costa Rican officials based in Washington deny that Arias is intentionally insulting Reagan. In fact, shortly after Wright extended his invitation, the Costa Ricans suggested a meeting between Reagan and Arias. Last week White House officials finally scurried to arrange a get-together, and at week's end announced that Arias would meet with Reagan after all.

Meanwhile the peace cavalcade proceeded in fits and starts. Contra leaders gathered in Guatemala City to examine their own future. In an unexpected gesture of goodwill, they released 80 Sandinista prisoners of war at an airfield in Costa Rica, 30 miles from the Nicaraguan border. Several days earlier, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra pardoned 16 Central Americans, none of them Nicaraguans, who had been imprisoned for rebel activity.