El Salvador Spectator/Jimmy, Go Home
McGurn, William
EL SALVADOR SPECTATOR JIMMY, GO HOME! by William McGurn San Salvador T he first sight a visitor sees upon ar- 1 rival at the city airport is a poster of a four-year-old girl on crutches with half...
...While taking solace in a much-needed gin-and-tonic—an unfeeling government is forcing Salvadorans to vote sober—I spot a familiar gringo approaching, a big, dopey smile on his face...
...This is my second stint as an international observer, and as veterans can tell you the observing is the easy part...
...My companions for the day are an exceptionally mixed and amiable group, including a Canadian, a Catholic University professor, an Argentine congressman, and a former Reagan speechwriter...
...T wo days later, a number of us meet 1 with President Alfredo Cristiani over sweet coffee in an office in the presidential palace...
...In two short years in office, he has opened up the economy considerably, moved to assert civilian control over the armed forces, and started negotiations with the rebels...
...his brothers Aristides and Salomon Enrique are guerrilleros...
...And her human rights...
...The guerrillas responded much as the Democratic party did to George Bush's budget summit: by launching a new offensive...
...The hard part is getting up for the full-day briefings in our hotel, some of which begin at 7:00 a.m...
...Good question...
...ICOmo esta s?" the American says, slapping me on the back...
...Last year, in wake of the army killing of six Jesuit priests, Washington made life a little easier for the FMLN by cutting off half of the scheduled $85 million in military assistance to the government...
...At a cocktail party in the backyard of the American ambassador's residence, we met with other delegations, and it soon became clear that everyone is pleased the FMLN has stopped shooting long enough to allow its front groups to contest the elections...
...The guerrilleros are never going to defeat the Salvadoran government," says Roxana Chahin of the International Freedom Foundation...
...1 Y sus derechos humanos?—"Victim of FMLN mines...
...T he Salvadorans I meet exhibit con- 1 siderably more sense...
...Thinking of the soon-to-be-ended prohibition on alcohol, I push strongly for heeding the "but...
...by William McGurn San Salvador T he first sight a visitor sees upon ar- 1 rival at the city airport is a poster of a four-year-old girl on crutches with half her leg missing...
...Although we hear whining from various people along the way, what we encounter mostly is a decidedly Latin administrative process balanced by immense reserves of goodwill and effort, extraordinary in a nation that has been torn apart by a 12-year civil war...
...But I am reassured when I read the first sentence: Una vez ?nes merodea Jimmy Carter por Centro America (which my Salvadoran friends translate as "Once again, Jimmy Carter is snooping around Central America...
...One of the more distinguished Latin American affairs experts in our group points out that the only serious military threat the FMLN poses is to civilians...
...Watching the press pick up on some of the quibbles in our final statement, I have to wonder how the old Union government might have fared were there an Amnesty International or Washington Post around to cover, say, the Emancipation Proclamation ("Lincoln Plan Falls Short, President Bent on War...
...pero . . . ("You can go, but...
...The biggest obstacle to this is that the FMLN has a history of killing people who formally split with them...
...The FMLN murdered more innocent civilians, imported more weapons from Nicaragua, and executed two injured U.S...
...In other words, a handful of dedicated insurgents who refuse to lay down their weapons can effectively veto the clear preferences of the Salvadoran public as now expressed through seven free elections...
...By the time our group is sent out with a map and a lunchbox for our trip to Cuscatlan, it is a relief to get away from the hotel...
...In one town I see Franciscan nuns stroll by street vendors displaying hundreds of machetes on blankets, and elsewhere the political graffiti on the wall suggests that the people who sneak into New York City subway yards at midnight with spray cans have cousins down here...
...The FMLN is the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, and as the name implies it is a Moscow-and-Georgetown-backed insurgency that has inflicted countless deaths and $2 billion in damage on this small nation since 1979...
...At various junctures we inquire about the possibility of taking our minibus into nearby FMLN strongholds, and the answer is always the same...
...They can, however, continue to destroy infrastructure and keep out the foreign investment so crucial for the people's economic development...
...I whisper to an uncomprehending dignitary next to me that I hope we don't have to hear still another person tell us how wonderful it is that the FMLN is participating in these elections...
...I am here with the good folk of the National Republican Institute as an international observer for the March 10 municipal and congressional elections...
...There are rumors that a certain ex-American president is to arrive here for the elections, and I am horrified to open a copy of El Diario de Hoy, one of El Salvador's two leading newspapers, to find a photograph of Jimmy Carter in an advertisement placed by something called the Salvadoran Women's Front...
...The parties all come in to give their spiels, as do other notables such as the auxiliary archbishop from San Salvador, Msgr...
...Don't you think it's wonderful that the FMLN is participating in the elections...
...In the vote itself, for example, they will give the ruling ARENA party a solid plurality, with the bulk of the remainder going to the other moderate parties, while the Communists will console themselves with the headlines of the foreign press ("Rebel-Backed Parties in Salvador Charge Fraud," the March 13 New York Times will shout...
...I ask him whether he also thinks it wonderful that David Duke is William McGurn is the Washington bureau chief of National Review...
...For his troubles the poor man has had his promised military aid slashed in half, his chief foreign-exchange earner threatened with a boycott (though El Salvador contributed free coffee to the troops of Desert Storm), and his nation itself carved up between government and rebel areas in a secret U.N...
...A Georgetown alumnus (I regret to report that his socialist-minded predecessor, the late Jose Napoleon Duarte, was a fellow Notre Damer), President Cristiani is gracious and informal, and speaks impeccable English...
...Gregorio Rosa Chavez...
...Now that's party discipline...
...Evidently, there exist places where the former president is even less popular than he is at home...
...soldiers whose helicopter had been downed...
...Pueden it...
...The largest problem for the CD is whether to break their alliance with the FMLN," says the paper...
...participating in elections and not clanking his irons is some chain gang, but he is too happy to take umbrage...
...For the most part, our day is uneventful...
...I scan my briefing papers and come across a note about the Democratic Convergence party (CD), which professes to offer a leftist alternative to the insurgency...
...Victima inocente de las minas del FMLN, it says...
...These are the kind of people we should be negotiating with...
...document...
...His Excellency tells us he personally thinks it would be better if the opposition won, but then again that might be only out of loyalty to the family business...
...24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1991...
Vol. 24 • May 1991 • No. 5
