cries@mtxinu.COM (09/28/89)
/* Written 4:45 pm Sep 27, 1989 by cries in ni:cries.regionews */
/* ---------- "ElSal:I'vw Fr. Ignacio Ellacuria" ---------- */
EL SALVADOR: "CRISTIANI IS A GOOD CALCULATOR..."
INTERVIEW WITH IGNACIO ELLACURIA - RECTOR OF THE UCA
(cries.regionews from Managua September 27, 1989
Ignacio Ellacuria is rector of the Jesuit University of San
Salvador. Both he and the university have a reputation of
holding progressive opinions and of not holding back on
making them public. The UCA has been subjected to strong
attacks by the Salvadoran right wing. For example, the
university's print shop was recently destroyed by a bomb.
Interview from "Pensamiento Propio" #63, September 1989.
By Gianni Beretta.
********************
**Q. Father Ellacuria, how has the Esquipulas II peace
process affected the situation in El Salvador?
**A. It has affected our situation a lot, it seems to me, if
one considers that in these past two years, ARENA has gone
from a position of open opposition to the regional peace
plan to the signing of the death sentence for the contras
and a proposal to begin negotiations with the FMLN at the
recent summit in Tela.
The Esquipulas process has also had its repercussions on the
FMLN whose armed struggle, although not discredited at
present, will be in the future if it doesn't negotiate. The
four summit meetings of the Esquipulas process have been
very positive, and hopefully, the road to peace will be
consolidated when the circle of summits closes next year
with the fifth one in Managua.
**Q. Did anyone win at Tela?
**A. Cristiani himself said there were no winners or losers.
Cristiani came out legitimized as the follower of the
democratization process begun by [former president Napoleon]
Duarte, and the armed way to power was delegitimized. At the
same time, Tela made a very clear distinction between the
contras and the FMLN and the presidents ratified what the
FMLN had been putting forward for some time: negotiation. So
from Tela, an image was projected of an FMLN that is not the
enemy of democracy and of a Cristiani who is not the head of
a dictatorial regime.
**Q. Cristiani shows a willingness to negotiate, but the
ultra-right and the army talk of dialogue without
negotiation...
**A. It's necessary to see where we are coming from and
where we are going. The extreme right - present in the
capital, the army, and the party - has maintained up until
very recently that dialogue would be anti-patriotic. In this
sense, for it to speak of dialogue is a big advance. There
is an emotional and a semantic problem here. The right
cannot accept the idea of the guerrillas having a share of
power, so they reject modifications to the Constitution and
participation of the FMLN in power and in the army.
My thesis is that we have entered into a new phase in the
Salvadoran process. The most recalcitrant rightists felt
betrayed by the Tela agreements. That's why you hear
appeasing declarations from Defense Minister General Larios
about how it is possible to dialogue but not to negotiate.
Cristiani, after all is said and done, had achieved
concensus on June 1 when he made the proposal to hold an
uninterrupted, unconditional dialogue by means of a
commission. The Christian Democratic Party (PDC) and the
Democratic Convergence, opting not to give any winning card
to Cristiani, got themselves confused by not entering into
this commission, a commission which could not be considered
partisan to the extreme right. They would have been able to
leave later if it didn't prosper. Cristiani was programming
a serious process of dialogue that would have caused
divisions in his party. Now he has returned from Tela
offering dialogue without the pre-condition of a cease-fire.
**Q. Does Cristiani have enough strength to do this?
**A. Alone, no. For his first project he counted on support
from the armed forces High Command and the US embassy.
Dialogue is difficult to sell in El Salvador; you are
quickly accused of being a communist if you propose it. But
the tendency is irreversible now. No one here can withstand
another five years of war, not even the United States. And
the confrontationist attitudes mistakenly assumed by the two
sides after the March 19 elections seem to have run their
course and are giving way to reconciliatory positions.
As well, there are no significant symptoms of Cristiani
being weakened. His economic measures have been applied very
carefully and that is a concession to the FMLN. And there is
evident fear of a social explosion, but Cristiani has shown
himself to be a good calculator and is at the same time
presenting the argument to the right that the situation does
not allow for going further with the economic plan.
**Q. What about the differences inside ARENA?
**A. In my judgement, ARENA has three sectors with equal
weight. The "squadronists", dominant in 1980-82 and today a
minority that wants a "dirty war". The militarists, in favor
of total war and against negotiation, led by D'Aubuisson.
And the civilists led by Cristiani. The three agree on the
economic level to make things as easy as possible for
capital.
That is the biggest thing for Cristiani, to make them all
into civilists. In other words, make it into a conservative
right-wing party with a more or less reasonable political
practice.
**Q. What do you think of ARENA's version of the recent
murders?
**A. From my experience, when the FMLN does not take
responsibility for an action, that is credible. So it has to
be attributed to the "squadronist" tendency of ARENA.
Cristiani didn't fall for the provocation and impose
repressive measures. He didn't even withdraw his offer to
negotiate. Those actions aimed at creating domestic
instability - something which the FMLN has also had
illusions about - failed.
**Q. Has repression increased since ARENA took power?
**A. Quite frankly, I don't think that repression has
increased since Cristiani took office. More than repression,
there is persecution by the police in order to find out who
the FMLN guerrillas and their contacts are in the cities
because of their presence there. That, from the point of
view of political pragmatism, is inevitable with any regime.
It would be quite another thing if the past policy of terror
- killing 200 people a night as was done in 1980-82 - had
been brought back. Definitely, there are more human rights
violations, but I don't think that there has been a notable
increase over last year. As well, actions by the police and
military have little to do with Cristiani, just like it was
with Duarte. That has more to do with the High Command which
has agreed upon a certain general line with the US embassy
that doesn't fundamentally contradict Cristiani's policy.
**Q. Some accuse of the FMLN of terrorism...
**A. That is part of the ideological struggle by the army.
In reality, the FMLN is not a terrorist movement even though
in the course of its history, it has carried out terrorist
acts. Some of these, such as the assassinations of the
mayors, it doesn't recognize as terrorist. These kinds of
actions have been a small part of the overall activity of
the FMLN.
It is getting to the point where in its latest proposal for
dialogue, the FMLN even offers an end to insurrectional
violence - economic sabotage - which could become the first
point of negotiations. The FMLN has to abandon terrorist
violence for ethical reasons and insurrectional violence,
that usually doesn't result in deaths, for political
reasons.
**Q. Do you feel that there is no future for an
insurrectional explosion?
**A. For some time now, we have been putting forward that
idea. Perhaps that has been the point of most dispute with
the FMLN, but time is proving us right. In 1982, to sabotage
the energy network and call a transport strike animated the
masses to rise up. Today, on the contrary, it creates
enemies among the people as shown irrefutably by our polls.
As well, the FMLN, if it continues dreaming indefinitely of
an insurrection, cannot get further into a strategy of
political struggle, a struggle which would be profoundly
revolutionary (and openly Marxist as Comandante [Joaquin]
Villalobos says) although the conditions still haven't
become present throughout the country. That strategy was
already elaborated by the FMLN General Command last year
when they met for months in what I called their "Vatican
II". Out of that came their January proposal for
participation in the elections.
This process of "getting up to date" still hasn't finished
and there are tactical vacillations. But if conditions
improve, armed struggle can be supplanted by political
struggle. The people in the FMLN are very capable,
reasonable, patriotic, and by taking a close look at the 40
years of their heroic experience, they have realized what is
possible and what is not.
**Q. How do you view the meeting in Mexico between the
opposition parties and the FMLN?
**A. It is an obvious political ploy for whoever is in the
opposition in order to weaken the strength of the
government. There is also interest by the FMLN in forming an
anti-ARENA alliance. But the political project of the PDC,
like that of the National Conciliation Party, is much closer
to that of ARENA than to that of the FMLN. It's a purely
situational convergence. If the PDC were in government, it
would once again become the biggest enemy of the FMLN.
**Q. What role is being played by the United States?
**A. There are signs of a positive change between Bush and
Reagan. The United States continues to be the determinant
factor for Central America and for the Salvadoran process.
If Washington can arrive at an understanding with Managua
and the Sandinistas show that they can respect it, that
experience could be transferred to El Salvador. In this
respect, the coming elections in Nicaragua will be decisive
for the whole region.
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