No pact with Ortega.

NO PACT WITH ORTEGA

ON CAPITOL HILL, the fear is growing among members of both parties that if Daniel Ortega signs the Contadora peace treaty, it will derail President Reagan's $100-million Contra aid package, which has failed once already in the House but which Congress has been expected to pass eventually. Eight House Republicans led by Dan Burton (Ind.) sent a letter to the President asking him to clear up the "mixed signals' coming out of the White House. On the one hand, the Administration advocates Contra aid unconditionally; on the other hand, the aid is made contingent on whether Ortega commits himself to a treaty that is "verifiable, comprehensive, and binding on all parties simultaneously.' Which is it?

Although a few experts give even odds that the Sandinistas will sign, consensus opinion on the Hill is swinging hard in the other direction. "Neither side is ready to sit down with each other,' says Representative Sonny Montgomery (D., Miss.), who led a delegation to Managua ten weeks ago. Representative Ken Gray (D., Ill.), who accompanied Montgomery on the trip, likewise offers little hope for reconciliation. "The Sandinista military buildup shows what they're made of,' he asserts. "How can we trust anyone who talks peace and carries a gun?' Gray, by the way, opposes military aid.

Yet the suspicion refuses to die that Ortega will indeed sign. The Sandinista leader knows that if he signs, he still has an out. To be legal and binding, a treaty brokered by the Contadora group must be ratified by the congresses of the signatory countries, a process that could take years. So, as a decoy, Ortega and friends will pretend peace-lovingness while pressing onward with their newly shielded belligerence.

On the supposition that a comprehensive Contadora treaty were agreed to by both the U.S. and the Sandinistas, Washington discussion then turns to enforcement. "Unless then enforcement has teeth in it,' says a senior State Department official, "any agreement would be meaningless.' The bite that the Reagan Administration has in mind is a force of 1,300 permanent monitors, working with a starting budget of $9.2 million, plus $40 million yearly to maintain the system and personnel in all five Central American countries. As a comparative outlay, that's cheap, say U.S. officials, especially when contrasted with the $1.5 billion the U.S. now spends in the region each year.

Actually, all of the above is an academic exercise for armchair conflict strategists. There will be no treaty, certainly not one signed by the United States. Daniel Ortega can't be trusted; Ronald Reagan knows it and so, increasingly, do members of Congress. The best recent information on conditions in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas was gathered by those four members of Congress led by Montgomery, whose visit to Managua began March 21, the day after the House rejected the President's aid package. This all-Democratic delegation also included Sandy Levin (Mich.), brother of Michigan Senator Carl Levin, and Buddy Darden (Ga.).

The delegation learned from unimpeachable, indigenous sources that human-rights abuses under the Sandinistas are rampant. The Permanent Commission for Human Rights (CPDH) counts seven thousand political prisoners, a much higher number than at any time during Somoza's rule. The Sandinistas currently pretend to dispense justice through the Popular Anti-Somoza Tribunals. These kangaroo courts operate outside the regular judiciary; charges are based on flimsy evidence at best, and fewer than 1 per cent of all defendants are acquitted. During the past two years, 1,500 people have been convicted in this "court.' Since the beginning of the year, seven hundred Nicaraguans have been rounded up and jailed by the tribunal. The reason? They don't participate in Sandinista organizations--so, ipso facto, they are enemies of the state. High-minded advocacy groups like Americas Watch, the delegation was told, only complicate rights reform by glossing over Sandinista abuses while sensationalizing those of the Contras.

Labor unions are harassed unrelentingly by the Sandinistas. Although the Confederation for United Labor (CUS) operates within the law, the Sandinistas are out to destroy it. Recently, 19 of its members were jailed on trumped-up charges of murder and cattle theft. Yet, despite the hardships, 22,000 people are enrolled in the CUS, and 100,000 Nicaraguans support it.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH is persecuted by the Sandinistas. Its bulletin was banned, and the assets of its social-welfare organization seized. Radio Catolica was suspended because it broadcast a sermon by a high-ranking Church official who described liberty as "a gift from God' (later, the station was totally shut down). Yet 80 per cent of Nicaragua's Catholics continue to support the Church, whereas the so-called Sandinista Popular Church has, despite Ortega's efforts to portray it as formidable, only a tiny backing.

Before the trip, the Montgomery delegation consisted of two hawks (Montgomery and Darden) and two doves (Gray and Levin). After the trip, the doves had molted a little. "The situation is more complicated when seen in Managua than from Washington,' said Levin after returning. Most members of Congress now agree, which means that the Contras will get their aid, the war of attrition will stretch grimly on, and the Nicaraguan people will eventually topple their quondam revolutionaries turned dictators.