Arias Peace Plan

I would be more inclined to believe President Reagan's professed sympathy for "Freedom Fighters" all over the world if he had the same enthusiasm for the blacks in South Africa and the Palestinians in the Middle East as he shows for the Contras in Nicaragua. HARMON FELLOWS Joshua Tree

Congratulations to The Times for its fine editorial summarizing the many ways in which President Reagan's Central America policy has failed, and calling for support of the Arias peace plan, and for a more constructive strategy and rational basis for U.S.-Nicaraguan relations. One contradiction in The Times' analysis is that it lauds the elements of the Arias peace plan including "an end to outside interference in each country's internal affairs," but calls for continued U.S. financial support to opposition groups in Nicaragua--which is obviously interference which would continue to violate international law. In our own country, aid from foreign governments for internal political activities is prohibited.

We are now halfway through the 90 days given the Central American peace plan to succeed or fail, and the outlook is shaky. Part of the problem is equivocation by the Reagan Administration. On Aug. 8 President Reagan "welcomed" the initiative, authored by Costa Rica's President Oscar Arias Sanchez and signed by the five Central American governments the day before. But conservatives read the plan as abandonment of the contras , and by Sept. 4 Secretary of State George P.

The Times once again has fallen over backwards in trying to stand up for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Your editorial writer still thinks that without the Contras' pressure, the Sandinistas somehow will accede to the Arias peace plan. This totally ignores what the Sandinistas have done in the past few weeks while giving lip service to the plan--arrested opposition leaders, temporarily closed La Prensa, expelled U.S. diplomats, etc. And who says that a communist government that relies on military support from Cuba and the Soviets and that admits its intention to export the revolution to neighboring countries is not a threat to the United States.

While the Nicaraguan government declared a unilateral truce in conformity with the Arias Peace Plan (Part I, Feb. 12), the Reagan Administration and its surrogates, the Contras, used the occasion to rearm, a direct violation of that peace initiative. Perhaps now that the House of Representatives has voted to deny further aid to the Contras, peace in Nicaragua will have a chance, and the Contra terrorist attacks such as the one described in Wiwili will cease. NORMA LITMAN Whittier

Reagan, Secretary of State George Shultz and the rest of that gang don't speak for the majority of the American people when they say that Nicaragua hasn't complied enough with the Arias peace plan and more Contra aid is needed. Purported Reagan Administration support for the Arias plan has been seen all along as the fraud it is by me and everyone I know. We should deny any further assistance to the Contras. NATE SCOBLE Los Angeles

I congratulate the five U.S. congressmen, including our own Dreier and Dornan, for their bravery in marching in totalitarian Nicaragua in protest of the failure of the Sandinista government to comply fully with the Arias peace plan. I suppose they will move on now, first to Honduras and then to Washington. I wonder if they would be brave enough to march in the democratic country of El Salvador or would dare to take part in a demonstration against the democratic regime in South Korea.

Congratulations to The Times for its fine editorial summarizing the many ways in which President Reagan's Central America policy has failed, and calling for support of the Arias peace plan, and for a more constructive strategy and rational basis for U.S.-Nicaraguan relations. One contradiction in The Times' analysis is that it lauds the elements of the Arias peace plan including "an end to outside interference in each country's internal affairs," but calls for continued U.S. financial support to opposition groups in Nicaragua--which is obviously interference which would continue to violate international law. In our own country, aid from foreign governments for internal political activities is prohibited.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz failed Monday to get four Central American nations to condemn Nicaragua for allegedly refusing to implement a regional peace plan, settling instead for a mildly worded statement calling for renewed efforts to end conflicts in the area.

The piece by Vaky is right on. The timing is right to use diplomacy and an economic strategy to not only bring peace to Central America, but pressure on the Sandinistas to live up to their agreements under the Arias peace plan. The U.S. Administration's ends were not consistent with the means, as overthrowing the Sandinistas through the Contras was never a national policy with costs that were politically feasible. But assuming, as the Administration has, that the Contras forced the Sandinistas to the peace table, now is the time to make the ends and means consistent.

While the Nicaraguan government declared a unilateral truce in conformity with the Arias Peace Plan (Part I, Feb. 12), the Reagan Administration and its surrogates, the Contras, used the occasion to rearm, a direct violation of that peace initiative. Perhaps now that the House of Representatives has voted to deny further aid to the Contras, peace in Nicaragua will have a chance, and the Contra terrorist attacks such as the one described in Wiwili will cease. NORMA LITMAN Whittier

Peel away the rhetoric in President Reagan's State of the Union address, and you will find hyperbole, superpatriotism but little substance. He begins by reminding us that he doesn't plan to take it easy in his last year in office. If he doesn't choose to take it easy, that will be a definite change in his behavior. Reagan tells us that more people in the last year have climbed out of the hole of poverty than in 10 previous years. This sounds like something he concocted to suit himself.

Reagan, Secretary of State George Shultz and the rest of that gang don't speak for the majority of the American people when they say that Nicaragua hasn't complied enough with the Arias peace plan and more Contra aid is needed. Purported Reagan Administration support for the Arias plan has been seen all along as the fraud it is by me and everyone I know. We should deny any further assistance to the Contras. NATE SCOBLE Los Angeles

The 100th Congress of the United States of America is a "chicken" Congress! In the face of national indignation over "Contra-scam," after hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured by the Reagan Administration into the aborted overthrow of a postage-stamp Central American country--many of those millions revealed to have been misappropriated and unaccounted for by the leaders of a small, rag-tag band of jungle mercenaries miscalled "freedom...