CENTRAL AMERICAN LEADERS CONGRATULATE, PRAISE ARIAS
Author: Associated Press
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 1987
Page: 14
Section: NATIONAL/FOREIGN
Central American leaders heaped congratulations yesterday on Oscar Arias,
the Costa Rican president who developed a regional peace plan, persuaded them
to approve it and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, whose leftist government is at war
with US-supported contras, expressed "deep satisfaction" and said, "I
decisively join the recognition."
His message to Arias said, "With your initiative and effort you have
contributed to getting closer to the possibilities for establishing a firm and
lasting peace in Central America and to strengthening the constructive work .
. . the Contadora group started."
The Contadora group -- Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela -- began the
effort in January 1983 to achieve a peace agreement for Central America. Arias
stepped in after the effort stalled and got his plan signed Aug. 7 at a summit
meeting in Guatemala of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and
Nicaragua.
President Eric Arturo Delvalle of Panama, where the initial group began
its work at a meeting on Panama's Contadora Island, said in a telegram to
Arias that the Nobel Prize was a "merited honor that crowns the fervent,
tireless and successful efforts that you have carried out on behalf of the
pacification of Central America."
In Venezuela, Foreign Minister Simon Alberto Consalvi described the award
as support for peace in Central America and a rejection of "warlike formulas."
President Jose Napoleon Duarte was en route to Washington, which supports
his government in an eight-year-old war with leftist guerrillas. His
spokesman, Roberto Viera, said of Arias in a telephone interview, "I think it
is the feeling of all Central Americans to provide him support since he has
been a man who really has played a basic role of the first order in the search
for peace in Central America."
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