patth@ccnysci.UUCP (08/20/89)
Ported from PeaceNET: /* Written 12:07 am Aug 17, 1989 by cries in cdp:cries.regionews */ /* ---------- "ElSal: All Against ARENA" ---------- */ EL SALVADOR: ALL AGAINST ARENA No one could have imagined that President Alfredo Cristiani would be so isolated, even among the members of his own party, after just 10 weeks as president. Military pressure by the FMLN is getting stronger every day and an anti-ARENA alliance between the guerrillas and the opposition political parties is shaping up. And on top of this, the president had to back down on his attempts to introduce the idea of "symmetry" between the FMLN and the Nicaraguan contras into the regional political scene. The loneliness surrounding the new president, highlighted during the June 1 inauguration ceremony, has deepened to the point where there are those who wonder how much his government can take. Cristiani was questioned from the outset for the formation of his new cabinet. And the most acerbic criticisms came from sectors aligned with Roberto D'Aubuisson that wanted to see Air Force General Rafael Bustillo as Defense Minister but who had to resign themselves to the nomination of Humberto Larios, a man that the US embassy has confidence in. That decision, it would seem, unleashed a struggle inside ARENA that culminated with the assassination of the newly appointed Minister of the Presidency, Antonio Rodriguez Porth just one week after Cristiani took office. Cristiani was deprived of a key man - his ideologue and guide - who could have compensated for the new president's lack of political experience. The increase in repression, currently reaching the level of an average of one civilian being murdered and seven arrested every day, has sullied the image of moderation that Cristiani had cultivated. His international isolation is complete. Even in US Congress, which had to swallow the fact that ARENA won the elections, concerns are multiplying over the increase in human rights violationsu7 El Salvador. But the most evident failure of the new head of state has been his inability to form the commission that would open talks with the FMLN. And the ones who have refused to take part in it have been the opposition led by the Christian Democratic Party (PDC). Old Enemies, New Allies That party quickly had to give up the idea - suggested by the Bush administration - of being a "loyal opposition" to the ARENA government. This is due to one simple reason: by not reacting with determination to an economic policy that adversely affects the PDC bases (massive layoffs of public employees and the return of cooperativized lands to the large landowners), they would have been left with a very much reduced social base. The defeated Fidel Chavez Mena, at the helm of the PDC after taking the party leadership from the Duarte family, justified this turn by accusing ARENA of "being against everyone", ironically inverting the guerrilla slogan of "everyone against ARENA". The pace of events has accelerated so much that the initiative launched by the rebels on the eve of Cristiani's inauguration for the renewal of talks between the FMLN and the political parties, this time without ARENA, has already become a reality. At that time, many observers called the FMLN proposition unreal and ill-timed. But at the beginning of August, Joaquin Villalobos and Ferman Cienfuegos of the FMLN General Command met for two days in Mexico with top leaders of the PDC, the National Conciliation Party, and the Democratic Convergence. How can this coming together of the FMLN and the PDC, until recently bitter opponents, be explained? What are their common interests? Jockeying For Position For the PDC, represented in the Mexico meeting by Antonio Morales Ehrlich, an investment in the current situation is essential for its political survival. The electoral disaster it suffered limited the PDC to covering itself with these kinds of initiatives even though its former adversary, the FMLN, which managed to defeat it as a key instrument in the US counterinsurgency policy, has a clear advantage. With the present necessity to confront a common enemy in ARENA, the PDC hopes to gain another opportunity for more control in the future and to get better conditions for a fight for power. If it doesn't do this, it risks losing its social base and disappearing. For the FMLN, it's a question of an opportunity - accompanied by military pressure - to change the correlation of forces and irreversibly open the way to a political solution to the conflict, a negotiation that would make it the main protagonist on the Salvadoran scene until a transition of power takes place which is the most inclusive and as a consequence, the least traumatic possible. In this context, with the situation precipitating itself more and more each day in El Salvador, the rebels are offering the US government an honorable way out of a crisis which it doesn't know how to deal with. The forced honeymoon between the US and ARENA could end earlier than foreseen. Sectors in Washington in favor of negotiation appear to be stronger now than they were last May when members of the FMLN Political Diplomatic Commission were invited to meet with United Nations functionaries in New York. On that occasion, Cristiani publicly lamented that top guerrilla leaders were given permission to enter the United States while a visa for ARENA's top leader, D'Aubuisson, was denied. But the Salvadoran president should concern himself much more with this latest get together in Mexico. Unbalanced By "Symmetry" The first and effective repercussion of this understanding between the guerrillas and the political opposition, "everyone against ARENA", was seen at the recent Central American presidential summit meeting in Tela. Cristiani's regional counterparts took apart the thesis of symmetry and symbiosis between the Salvadoran and Nicaraguan conflicts. The host, Jose Azcona, liquidated with a penstroke the proposal by pointing out, "Comparisons are not possible because the contras are in a passive situation and have sanctuary in Honduras while the FMLN is in full action inside its territory." Although the FMLN rejected from the outset Cristiani's proposal to have direct talks with ARENA in order to remove any possibility of giving legitimacy to the government, on the eve of the summit they sent a letter to the regional chiefs of state declaring their willingness to hold a dialogue with Cristiani, but leaving it understood that it would not go to the negotiation table by itself but with the rest of the Salvadoran political opposition. With this proposal, they effectively outmaneuvered Cristiani. At the same time, the FMLN stepped up its military offensive, carrying out perhaps the most spectacular and hard-hitting nation-wide maneuver of the entire war. The problem is that in order to win at the negotiation table, military pressure is necessary. At the same time, the FMLN has offered to even dissolve its own guerrilla army once the rules of a democratic game are laid down and repression ends. Events have sped up with the visible break up of ARENA and because of the guerrillas' capacity to take initiatives. It even seems that the power vacuum left by the March 19 elections is being filled. From Pensamiento Propio #62, August 1989. By Gianni Beretta. --- Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange