Rebel chief looks to end ``culture of uprisings''

Dressed in military trappings, dark sunglasses and an olive green cap, Turcios lead a delegation which last Wednesday met in Managua with the Minister of Defense, Jaime Cuadra, in order to discuss terms for the disarmament and demobilization of the group.

``We are not your typical armed group that has existed in Nicaragua, which rises up today and sells arms tomorrow,'' said Turcios after a prolonged negotiation at the Ministry of Defense.

``Behind our struggle are social demands which we plan to make public at the appropriate times,'' agreed the Nicaraguan military chief, who in the past decade fought with the Farabundo Martí Front of National Liberation (FMLN in Spanish) against the Salvadoran government.

The joint chiefs of staff of the FUAC and authorities of the Nicaraguan government reached an agreement Monday night in which the 200 men will enter a zone of peace while a definitive accord in negotiated.

International organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS) as well as local humanitarian groups will act as guarantors and make sure that both sides honor the truce.

Turcios said that the negotiations are ``an embarrasing topic'', but held that the rest of the joint chiefs of staff of the FUAC were motivated ``to find a path on which there were no conquerors or conquered.''

The rebel leader said that his comrades are taking the negotiations calmly because they do not want to run the same course as the other rearmed groups to whom the government broke their promises after they demobilized.

Because they were discharged from the Sandinista army, the FUAC has created ties with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN in Spanish) who, it is thought, supply them with arms.

``The Sandinista Front has never delivered even a rifle much less artillery,'' assured ``Tito'', second in command to Turcios, regarding the rumors.

Turcios was optimistic that following the success of the accord attained three days ago, the negotiations would go much more smoothly and that they would think about a definitive disarmament accord.

The FUAC demands that the government deliver land, credit and technical assistance in its attempts to change and lay down its arms.

The men assured that they rearmed because the government of former President Violeta de Chamorro (1990-1997) broke promises made in the 1990 accords.

Four Nicaraguan groups have rearmed themselves in the past six years, demanding lands and facilities with which to cultivate them.

Those groups were the North 3-80 Front, composed of roughly 1000 ex ``contras''; the Ramón Raudales National Front, ex Sandinistas; the Revolutionary Front of Workers and Farmers; and the FUAC.