"We will see who is stronger, the speculators or the Nicaraguan peasants, laborers and factory workers."

Nicaraguan peasants, having played a vital part in the Sandinista revolution, are participating actively in agrarian reform.

Nearly 300,000 Nicaraguan peasants rode on mules, trudged down mountain trails and forded rivers in recent weeks to register to vote.

His appearance at the talks provided a rare public glimpse of a fighter who is widely known among Nicaraguan peasants by his nombre de guerra, Tono.

Most of its members were young Nicaraguan peasants and workers, driven by Sandinista policies to the point of rebellion.

Predictably, only one example is cited: the Nandaime rally and the arrests of Nicaraguan peasants on suspicion of aiding the contras.

The contras have also gained popular support of many of the Nicaraguan peasants in the remote mountain areas of the interior.

He was a Nicaraguan peasant, a dangerous man with knowledge of the jungle and of this specific area.

"A presence for peace within view of a contra camp," she recalled, "appeared to deter the contras' attacks on Nicaraguan peasants in poor villages."

Contra recruits - coffee-brown young men with the broad, Indian features of northern Nicaraguan peasants - raced to gather the crates.