Slide to the right:
C., J. & C., J.
SLIDE TO THE RIGHT AN EVER NARROWING SOCIAL-BASE SINCE THE COUP of October. 1979, one can trace the steps by which El Salvador's new government coalition became steadily smaller and more...
...Even the milk-and-water reformism of Duarte was offensive to them...
...American attitudes towards Garcia had undergone a shift familiar to those who remember our behavior in Vietnam...
...In June, the hard right, led by Roberto D'Aubuisson, began a determined effort to destroy the remnants of the government...
...In early January, 1979, the MNR representatives resigned from the junta, and the Christian Democrats (PDC) began to play a larger role...
...The coalition's leader was Colonel Alfredo Majano...
...1979, one can trace the steps by which El Salvador's new government coalition became steadily smaller and more right-wing...
...Meanwhile General Garcia became the next target...
...It is no coincidence that in the March 28 elections Cabanas gave the PDC its lowest percentage and the PCN its highest percentage of any of the fourteen departments, demonstrating that the election results had much to do with the military control of each department...
...But that opportunity has been missed...
...In March, 1980, the left wing of the PDC left the junta, while the center of that party, represented by Napoleon Duarte, took on a larger role...
...Given the narrowing social base for the government and the widening social base of the guerrilla opposition, the only "hope" for guerrilla defeat rests on a larger-scale reenactment of the matanza of 1932...
...From the crisis of December 1980-January 1981 until the elections of March 1982...
...Within two months, however, efforts at reform by the new coalition were stymied...
...On December 6, four American church women were killed, and Colonel Majano was removed from the junta...
...This stalemate was also reflected in the guerrillas' attempt to reorganize and in the growing moderation of their platform, ironically a reflection of the growing Communist influence in the revolutionary coalition...
...The original coalition established by the coup included all political forces from the Social Democrats (MNR) over to the moderate right in the army (represented by Defense Minister Guillermo Garcia...
...policy, the Democrats under Carter, here as in other policy arenas, were moving in a "Reaganite" direction...
...After Reagan's election in November, the hard right went all-out...
...who had done their best to undermine Carter's Salvadoran policies, found themselves imitating them...
...Since men...
...This marked the beginning of the end for Garcia, who finally left power in April 1983...
...At first our govern ment supported Garcia as a ''moderate" (Diem...
...and after Reagan's victory, the Reaganites...
...In May, Colonel Majano was demoted...
...pressure, mediated through General Garcia, the Christian Democrats would have been removed from the government altogether...
...On November 27.1980, five civilian leaders of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FRD) "disappeared" and were killed in the middle of San Salvador...
...until we found out that his "moderation" (necessarily in view of the nature of the society in which he operates) involved great tolerance for corruption and inefficiency...
...But at the last minute, the not-yet-in-power Reaganites made it clear that they would not approve a coup, and during the month of December, Duarte was able to hold his position against the right...
...On a visit to the United States in June...
...Then the government began to speak with admiration of hardworking, tough "real fighters" like Ochoa (Ky...
...The rebel's "final offensive" on January 10, 1981, was a dismal failure, with Carter authorizing military aid to El Salvador in the following week...
...Although the Christian Democrats did better than might have been expected in the vote, they did not, of course, win an absolute majority...
...The hard right continued to have some U.S...
...It was the United States, looking to shore up Duarte, which finally destroyed him by insisting on elections...
...J.C...
...D'Aubuisson accused Duarte of being a watermelon: "green on the outside, red on the inside.'') The hard right realized that the total domination of the Salvadoran economy by a coalition of due oligarchy and the military could not last if this mild reform, indeed even the appearance of reform, was allowed to persist...
...This meant the endangering of even the shreds of land reform...
...the only effect of American intervention has been to slow down and sometimes conceal the steady retreat of the government back to the narrow social base of 1972-79 that made the coup and today's revolutionary turmoil inevitable...
...If the United States had come in full strength to support the original October 1979 coup junta it is possible that something good might have resulted...
...Of those who had played important roles in late 1979, only Duarte and Garcia were still around...
...The elections were at first opposed by the right, but then D'Aubuisson saw the opportunity that the elections presented...
...without fully recognizing that these characteristics are linked to extremist political positions...
...Duarte was challenged by a faction of the PDC to his right, led by the leading Christian Democrat still in government, Foreign Minister Fidel Chavez Mena...
...Duarte, unwilling to call upon the "dangerous'' masses for aid but nonetheless hated by business, appeared crucial to the public image of the government in the United States and for gaining the support of the world Christian Democratic movement...
...In January 1983 he was challenged by the disobedience of Colonel Sigifredo Ochoa, the military figure who "ruled" the region of Cabanas...
...El Salvador had two governments in cloaked competition, frozen in their relations with each other by American pressure...
...J.C...
...Garcia, representing the moderate right in the army, had skillfully outmaneuvered those to his left in the first six months after the coup, but was now beginning to lose his "balance-wheel" position...
...Despite current Democratic grumbling about U.S...
...land reformer Rodolfo Viera and two representatives of the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) were murdered...
...March was also the month of the assassination of Archbishop Romero...
...Durarte was out, and an inoffensive army puppet, Alvaro Magana, became provisional president...
...On January 10...
...support (Jesse Helms and the like) but felt frustrated by the Reagan "sell out...
...Most likely it is too late even for diat, and barring the sending of American truops, our present level of intervention probably only slows down a guerrilla victory and makes it likely that the post-victory struggle will be between the Communists and the far left rather than between the Communists and the center...
...D'Aubuisson was encouraged by his meeting with many Reaganitcs...
...So far Duarte has fought off this challenge...
...A coalition of the right did get such a majority, and, except for the U.S...
...There was a double irony to American policy at this juncture...
Vol. 110 • June 1983 • No. 11
