
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 24, 1990                   TAG: 9003242364
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS                                LENGTH: Medium

CONTRAS AGREE TO DISBAND NEXT MONTH

Nicaragua's Contra rebels agreed Friday to begin disbanding their troops in Honduras by April 20, five days before a new government is to take over in Nicaragua.

Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the archbishop of Managua, announced the agreement after a 7-hour meeting with leaders of the Nicaraguan Resistance.

The communique said the U.S.-backed rebels agreed to demobilize the 12,000 fighters based in Yamales, Honduras, near the Nicaraguan border. It said the 4,000 guerrillas inside Nicaragua would move into security zones supervised by Obando y Bravo and the United Nations.

Leaders of the rebels met with Obando y Bravo and representatives of President-elect Violeta Barrios de Chamorro who came to Honduras to persuade the rebels to disband before her April 25 inauguration.

President Daniel Ortega had said the Contras must disband for there to be a peaceful transition of power, and Chamorro and the Bush administration also said the Contras should return home.

Sources in the Nicaraguan Resistance, the rebel political and military organization, said before Friday's meeting began that the rebels wanted the Sandinista army and rebels to demobilize at the same time and in the same proportions.

The sources, who demanded anonymity, said other rebel conditions were:

Separation of the two sides: confinement to barracks for the Sandinista armed forces and to established security zones for the rebels.

Compliance with constitutional political, economic and social guarantees.

Strengthening of the independence of the judicial branch of government.

Authorization of a rebel commission to supervise demobilization in Nicaragua.

Rebel participation in the National Reconciliation Commission, a multisector commission created under the Central American peace plan, and in a national agency to manage funds for the demobilization.

Humanitarian aid for the security zones and rebels and their dependents waiting in Honduras to demobilize, and continued "special assistance" for five years.

Tax exemptions for repatriated rebels for the first year of the new government.

by CNB