EL SALVADOR
The war is not over
THE negotiations between the Salvadoran government and the revolutionary opposition of the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) are at a stalemate, since President Alfredo Cristiani is refusing to discuss the issue of the army. While the FMLN has stated that it wants to continue the negotiations, it has also maintained its military pressure. Thus, on October 17, 1990 it launched attacks on the capital, attacking a barracks and shelling the airport. SERGIO RODRIGUEZ
FIRST balance sheet of the various meetings between the Cristiani government and the FMLN shows that the revolutionaries have manoeuvred capably in this difficult situation.
The far-right Salvadoran government of Cristiani's Alliance for National Renewal (ARENA) has tried to take advantage of the new international situation. But its objectives have proved illusory. According to the FMLN: "the schema according to which the Salvadoran problem is an integral part of the East/West conflict can no longer be defended in the light of present developments. A year has passed since the events in Eastern Europe and the FMLN remains in good health, both politically and militarily"'
Divergent views on how to end war
Throughout the negotiations, two divergent views on the way to finish the war have confronted each other. On the one side, the Cristiani government and his North American advisers have wanted to impose a plan for a transition on the Colombian model, that is to say a surrender disguised as "integration"? . On the other, the FMLN has tried to oblige its rival to reply to the urgent questions facing the country. 22 there governie anto difficulties iet The government has been trying to get a c the revolutionaries into allicules with International Viewpoint #194 • November 12, the aim of imposing its own logic. It wants above all to resolve questions which do not affect the state apparatus of the dictatorship - that is to say the army and repressive forces. Cristiani has shown himself ready to discuss human rights and accept the formation of a United Nations commission of enquiry on this theme. It even prepared a flexible proposal for holding elections to be put forward at the last Costa Rica meeting -which did not in the end take place.
The government is thus trying to get partial agreements and leave the problem of the armed forces to one side, and thus neutralize the FMLN. The aim of these manoeuvres is simple. Concessions are to be made on questions that are not central and thus make the FMLN's position -of not accepting a unilateral cease fire until the question of the army is resolved — seem incomprehensible. The revolutionaries would then be forced to participate in elections while the government retains intact its military apparatus. At the very moment when Cristiani was signing the accord on human rights he named General Ponce - chief of the most ultra-rightwing section of the Tandona? — as minister of defence.
FMLN signs human rights agreement
As for the FMLN, while it had agreed to sign the agreement on human rights, it now seems to have reverted to its initial conception of the negotiations. It did not agree to discuss elections at the last Costa Rica meeting, and has put the question of militarization back on the table, as the key to the negotiations.
The FMLN's demilitarization proposals are in fact very popular. The population, including some sections of the employers, is tired of the war. The Tandona's role in the war has become clear, along with that of the death squads and the profiteering of a small group of officers from the situation. By demanding the demilitarization of the institutions, the FMLN has once again struck the keynote of popular concerns in El Salvador.
The Cristiani government has also understood this, at a time when a new debate on military credits is about to open in the United States. The current of opinion in the US Congress and even more amongst the US public opposed to more military aid is growing. The present conflict with Iraq has if anything accentuated this sentiment, given the widespread preoccupation with the economic consequences of this action. Furthermore if the 1990
(C whole world has rightly welcomed the end of the East German secret police, similar enthusiasm should be aroused by the prospect of the downfall of this notorious army.
In such a context US aid to the El Salvador government death squads and army — responsible for the death of a large part of the population over the past years, apart from the much publicized murders of Archbishop Romero*, dozens of journalists and six Jesuit priests — becomes ever more incomprehensible to many Americans.
Cristiani attitude justifies military offensive
Nobody knows if the FMLN is planning to launch new military offensives. But they would find their justification in the immovable attitude of Cristiani, flowing from his need to defend the army's control over the country.
This war is not finished. Nobody can know what the next battle will be or how it will take place - whether around the negotiating table, in a general strike or a military offensive, but the FMLN has clearly maintained its ability to address the democratic sentiments of the population.* 1. Schafick Jorge Handal, press conference at the United Nations, September 20, 1990. 2. On March 9, 1990, the guerillas of M-19 in Colombia laid down their arms in exchange for the organization's participation in the electoral process. Its candidate for the presidency, Antonio Navarro Wolf, has in addition accepted the post of minister of health in the current Gaviria govemment. 3. The "Tandona" is the name given to the military class from which many of the current leaders of the Salvadoran army emerged. 4. Monsignor Oscar Amulfo Romero was assassinated on March 24, 1980, whilst celebrating mass in San Salvador cathedral. His assassins were the death squads led by major d'Aubuisson, leader of the party currently in power, ARENA. 5. During the offensive launched by the FMLN in November 1989, the army savagely murdered Father Ignacio Ellacuria and five other Jesuit priests from the Central American University. Nobody has been arrested for the murders and the only witness has "disappeared" - under the pretext of protecting him, the FBI has hidden him in the United States.
HE government of Alfredo Cristiani and the Bush administration operate in these negotiations on the basis of a geopolitical analysis of the situation inside El Salvador. In their view, the problems in the Soviet Union and the changes underway in Eastern Europe will progressively weaken the FMLN.
But the FMLN has never been either materially or politically dependent on the USSR. The Salvadoran government and the United States hope to do now with the help of the geopolitical situation what they have been unable to do for the past ten years.
Time and reality will prove them wrong .On the basis of this analysis, the government is offering negotiations without content, which offer no major changes. It proposes merely to change the names of some military units and move them. In return, the FMLN must call a ceasefire and disarm.
Historically, the FMLN is a national force, with international recognition and wholly independent of any ideological bloc. It is guided by national and popular interests. Nothing and nobody can change our will to carry through a national and democratic revolution in El Salvador.
The USSR may disappear, but as long as there are militarist governments and social injustice in El Salvador, the struggle will continue and the FMLN will lead it. End of Cold War does not affect struggle
The end of the Cold War does not affect us. On the contrary, nobody can now say that the FMLN is the fruit of the East/West conflict. In El Salvador, neither side has yet won nor defeated the other. It is thus simply illogical for one of the two parties to demand that the other disarm itself, on the basis of a prediction of bad days for international reasons.
In Salvador, there is one army in power and another that is fighting it. But Cristiani's army cannot govern or stabilize the country. The FMLN's power of veto is the most powerful instrument for the demilitarization of Salvador and the construction of democracy.
Three options for our country exist: either the two armies disappear; they continue to exist and become institutionalized; or, finally, one disarms the other.
The two first possibilities belong to the political domain, with the second being the most difficult to realize. The third can