cries@mtxinu.COM (10/14/89)
/* Written 3:50 pm Oct 13, 1989 by cries in ni:cries.regionews */
/* ---------- "ElSal: Peace Talks-War Talks Back" ---------- */
EL SALVADOR: PEACE TALKS - WAR TALKS BACK
(cries.regionews from Managua October 13, 1989
Shortly after the first round of peace negotiations in
Mexico City between the Salvadoran government and the FMLN
(Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), war and
repression intensified sharply. "Just 48 hours after the
dialogue, discouraging reports continue," declared Monsignor
Gregorio Rosa Chavez, San Salvador's auxiliary bishop. He
cited death squad threats against teachers, dynamite attacks
against labor union offices, and more than 40 deaths in the
capital in that week alone.
A few days later, on Sept. 20, the US Senate approved an
additional $5 million in military assistance for President
Alfredo Cristiani's regime, bringing this year's total to
$90 million. Salvadoran Vice-minister of Defense Colonel
Orlando Zepeda said the aid will go to equip anti-riot
police to counter "street disorders", such as the one on
September 15, in which 20,000 unionists and students
demanding peace and democracy were met with tear gas and
clubs. At least 100 trade union leaders and 40 campesinos
were arrested in the week following the talks.
FMLN Offensive
The FMLN responded by ending its unilateral 10-day post-
dialogue truce with a country-wide offensive that both sides
said was its most fierce in several months. With attacks in
10 of the country's 14 departments, guerrilla sources
claimed they caused at least 90 losses to the government
army, destroyed a military airstrip near Morazan, and
inflicted heavy damage on an army barracks in Chalatenango.
The army and governing ARENA party "are using the peace
talks to escalate war and repression, which is heightening
tensions," said the FMLN General Command in a communique
explaining the offensive. Armed Forces spokesperson Major
Mauricio Chavez Caceres admitted to the Miami Herald that
the army carried out operations in the areas where
guerrillas had declared a truce, but said the military had
not in fact promised to respect any cease-fire.
Round Two In Costa Rica
Both sides say they are committed to continuing the peace
talks, with the second round scheduled to be held October
16-17 in San Jose, Costa Rica. At the August 7 Central
American presidential summit in Tela, Honduras, Cristiani
pledged "to carry out a constructive dialogue with the goal
of securing a just and lasting peace" in El Salvador. The
FMLN has been pressing for negotiations for months.
In Mexico City, it was agreed that talks would occur on a
monthly basis. Cristiani told Time magazine that this is
heartening. "What happened to [former president] Mr. Duarte
was that he had isolated meetings with [the FMLN]. If one of
those meetings failed, that was it." He also said that
although the guerrillas eventually must lay down their arms,
it is "not necessarily a first step." This is a change from
the government's original hardline position that disarmament
is a prerequisite to serious negotiation.
The makeup of the government delegation will be a test of
sorts for the prospects of round two. At the first meeting,
two cabinet ministers were present: Presidential Minister
Juan Martinez, and Justice Minister Oscar Santamaria. The
military was conspicuously absent and the government refused
to allow outside observers. For the San Jose session, the
government has agreed to send military representatives,
upgrade the rank of its delegation, and allow observers.
The United Nations and the Organization of American States
(OAS), as well as the Salvadoran Catholic Church, have all
expressed interest in sending observers to San Jose. If they
are indeed seated at the talks, their "honest broker" role
should heighten pressure for more concrete results.
FMLN: Peace By January 1?
The FMLN delegation to round one, led by top comandantes
Joaquin Villalobos and Shafik Handal, put forward a far-
reaching proposal that would see the war's end by New Year's
Day, followed by guerrilla "integration into political
life." The proposal calls for a cease-fire no later than
November 15 based on the following key points:
* reforms to the judicial system and appointment of its
authorities by government-opposition consensus;
* a halt to repression and full rein of democratic
liberties under UN and OAS supervision;
* trials to bring the killers of Archbishop Romero to
justice, along with those involved in the death squads;
* a stop to the return of lands expropriated under the
Duarte government's limited agrarian reform, and the
repeal of current economic measures which raise the cost
of living;
* an internal purge and professionalization of the armed
forces;
* submission to the Legislative Assembly of any
constitutional reforms called for by the negotiations;
* advancement of the date for legislative and municipal
elections, now scheduled for 1991;
* mutual guarantees over the location and operations of
each side's military forces to ensure the cease-fire.
After a cease-fire, the FMLN would transform itself into a
legal political party while negotiations proceeded -
bringing its leaders and activists, radio stations, and
other publicity instruments out from underground. "This is a
step with great risks," guerrilla delegates declared, "but
we are ready to assume them as a show of our effective
willingness, even when negotiations for a definitive halt to
hostilities have not been completed."
A definitive halt to hostilities - which FMLN negotiators
proposed for no later than January 1 - would involve a
restructuring of the electoral system with the participation
of all parties; recognition of a single national army and
its gradual reduction in size, and; dissolution of the
various government police and security forces and the
formation of a single force under civilian command. Finally,
the guerrillas proposed that US military assistance be
converted into a "fund to aid the country's economic and
social recovery."
Negotations: Sign Of Weakness?
The government claims the FMLN comes to the negotiations
weaker than ever, and thus so far refuses to grant any
concessions. But guerrilla spokespeople maintain that
recognition given them at the Tela summit as a co-
belligerant came as a result of the failure to defeat them
on the battlefield. As Comandante Nidia Diaz of the FMLN's
Political-Diplomatic Commission put it in August, "With our
surprise attacks and daily combat in the cities, as well as
the qualitative leap we took with the last nationwide
maneuvers, it's clear there are no military targets beyond
the reach of the FMLN."
The guerrillas have said the war's cost in lives and
suffering - more than 70,000 dead, 7000 "disappeared," one
million of El Salvador's five million people displaced
either within or outside the country, and intolerable socio-
economic tension and deprivation - are the reasons why they
want to negotiate peace. And they believe that both the US
and ARENA realize that counterinsurgency is ineffective and
are under pressure to find a peaceful solution.
The proof will come from the interplay between the
battlefield and the negotiations. FMLN spokesperson Salvador
Samayoa commented, "We are maintaining the military
offensive because we understand that all political
negotiation is always a question of correlation of
forces.... We believe that a change in the political and
military correlation of forces will lead to a negotiated
solution to the conflict."
Comandante Joaquin Villalobos, as reported in Time, said
after round one that a prolonged war "no longer corresponds
to the reality of the world. If a revolutionary asked me
today what to do, I would say, `Conspire to launch a short-
term war.'"
Villalobos called the negotiations "a ring parallel to the
armed struggle," and warned, "Whoever doesn't know how to
join that battle, will lose."
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