Patrick Lacefield interviews
Ungo, Guillermo
Photo by Marvin Collins /IMPACT VISUALS uillermo Ungo is general secretary of the National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) of El Salvador, a social democratic group. The interview below was...
...GU: I don't know, really...
...PL: Was there popular support in the poorer neighborhoods for an insurrection...
...The repression by the security forces was on a selective basis, mainly targeting social forces that were closer to the FMLN rather than the political parties...
...We have a center, a right, and a left...
...The one officer, Colonel Benavides, whom they've detained for the Jesuits' killing, represents only the tip of the tip of the iceberg...
...They proposed to put any reforms to a vote of the whole people...
...The repression in the wake of the offensive was harsh...
...They assumed the supposed military weakness of the FMLN, and the geopolitical changes affecting the United States and the Soviet Union meant that the FMLN would grow weaker...
...The FMLN cease-fire was not well understood politically...
...PL: So some in the FMLN thought that this offensive would touch off an insurrection...
...We know that there is a rethinking of El Salvador in State Department circles...
...Cristiani, they say, is good, D'Aubuisson bad...
...Just the opposite...
...GU: I believe so...
...If you talk to Cristiani about the death squads, he says that they exist because of the FMLN...
...Just stop shooting...
...PL: What is the discussion within ARENA and the army about a negotiated settlement...
...Democratization and human rights are at the center of the agenda...
...You cannot cure a man if you do not realize that he is sick...
...EDS...
...The killing of the Jesuits put this right back on the agenda...
...Everybody has this idea that an insurrection is a whole people rising up—Hollywood-style...
...That wasn't even true in Nicaragua...
...The hard-line sectors of the government and the military—the majority influence— thought that they could buy time...
...Well, they are soul mates...
...You need twenty families in a given neighborhood...
...We won't place mines and booby traps, won't sabotage electric poles or declare transportation stoppages...
...There was little pressure internationally on Cristiani from people like ex-President Arias of Costa Rica...
...The latter knew Cristiani wasn't going to sell them out...
...So, in Mexico, the hard-liners gave a little...
...The government wanted to go slow, the FMLN to go fast—each for tactical reasons...
...We heard this from the neighborhoods...
...Really, we had seen talks without negotiations...
...We have to use military means...
...They didn't even lift the siege of the National University...
...GU: We have lost political space, and it's not easy to recover that...
...Both sides needed talks...
...In the second round, held in August in Costa Rica, not much was achieved...
...The interview below was conducted by Patrick Lacefield, national organizational director of Democratic Socialists of America...
...Our aim last year was to develop our own forces so as to avoid the "bonsai" strategy of the counterinsurgency...
...Their strength was that they had accumulated weapons and people, trained people, gathered intelligence...
...I think the FMLN got disappointed much too quickly...
...In many ways, we are back to square one—where we were in 1980, when General Haig drew the line and American aid was questioned, supervised, and conditioned—badly conditioned but nevertheless conditioned...
...PL: Can you evaluate the current situation in El Salvador in the wake of the November offensive by the FMLN guerrillas...
...But the army didn't give back anything...
...Bush's list, though, will be very limited—for the sake of SPRING • 1990 • 155 Reports from Abroad appearances only...
...Of course, that also makes it harder to talk about the structural changes necessary...
...PL: And what is the situation for the Salvadoran democratic left in these troubled times...
...They wanted a cease-fire in place and the political recognition that came with it...
...GU: The situation has evolved slowly since then— with the good, the bad, and the ugly...
...Then came the FENASTRAS bombing, the October 30 bombing of a left-wing union, which killed eleven people...
...Some political space for the opposition remained...
...They thought: The other side only understands strength...
...They wanted to bleed the army and stay in positions in the capital for some time...
...Both sides were not, however, equally serious...
...Then there is the damage done by the offensive and the cost of the war...
...The FMLN suspended the next round of talks, due to take place in Venezuela...
...We have a fascist party...
...Salvador will again be at the center of the agenda...
...The government took advantage in order to attack the rear guard of the FMLN and claim to control the whole country...
...What comes out in the end is that both armies are strong in defensive terms...
...They said, "Well, we are going to test the army...
...This way they can say, "See, we are a democracy...
...So it was a mixed bag...
...in order to hunt down sympathizers...
...Perhaps Cristiani wants to give more—but not much more...
...Now we didn't have talks, we didn't have negotiations...
...I think that they were playing different bets...
...My guess is that they had two or three families instead of twenty...
...We were making progress but not fast enough...
...It was launched because of strength and weakness...
...We believed that this was a big mistake...
...They acted out of weakness because they believed that time was running out—what with the retreat of Soviet power, the fragile situation in Nicaragua, and the balance of forces in the region...
...In the army, there are those with a "total war" mentality, a killing mentality...
...The FMLN has an advantage in offensive terms...
...GU: The FMLN began talks with Cristiani mid-year and, in a way, it was easier for them to talk with Cristiani than it had been with Duarte...
...156 • DISSENT...
...We are approaching a period where there will have to be a turn toward genuine negotiations or an escalation in the war and repression...
...They thought that they could combine insurrection with a military blow in order to knock the army down...
...There are signs of both things...
...In theory, there is a consensus on the "shopping list" of army officers who need to be retired...
...They achieved that...
...We'll bleed the other guy to convince him that he has to negotiate...
...They bled the army but were also bled themselves...
...When they talked to us, no, because they knew we were skeptical...
...Also, the FMLN became disappointed because they had reduced the intensity of the warfare, declaring a unilateral cease-fire for ten days...
...When they saw that the other side was taking advantage without being serious, they decided to launch a general military offensive...
...Some procedural agreements were reached and it was something of a suc154 • DISSENT Reports from Abroad cess for the FMLN because they appeared open, flexible, and substantive...
...Perhaps some differences are developing because of the talks D'Aubuisson wants to give the FMLN only peanuts...
...Even the political leadership in the United States begins to understand this...
...The problem is that with [the ruling party] ARENA, we don't just have a conservative party...
...The Christian Democrats are realizing that to build up a center-left, they need us as we need them...
...You talk to [Guatemalan President] Cerezo or [his defense minister] Gramajo and they acknowledge how deeply rooted the death squads are in the Guatemalan and Salvadoran far right...
...then we can discuss everything...
...This they didn't get...
...Even the Christian Democrats, when they were in power with the backing of the army and the United States, couldn't rule the country...
...It's natural...
...There are differences, but they don't seem to run too deep...
...They gave up the idea of merging the two armies and spoke of reforms to the current constitution...
...The army has to be restructured so that it can be trusted...
...After Cristiani's election as president last year, there was a tenuous coexistence...
...They want us not to grow, to exist simply as a beautiful little tree fit to decorate the garden of Cristiani and Bush...
...You don't have to lay down your arms, they said...
...GU: This is always a question—about differences between "goods" and "bads" within ARENA and the army...
...Still, we have to evaluate our chances of operating within the country...
...The conservative sector, no matter their majority in the National Assembly and control of the executive, cannot impose a settlement...
...Every time we go to talks, they commit some new killing to undermine the talks...
...The guerrillas had been preparing for the offensive for a long time...
...PL: Then came the talks between the ARENA government and the FMLN rebels...
...Cristiani needed talks so as to improve his image— internationally more than internally...
...Not knock it out but knock it down...
...Now, for the first time, Cristiani is saying that he cannot govern the country...
...They had put these plans aside for a while because they were satisfied with the talks They had hopes...
...You are waging war, you have contingency plans...
...There were lots of parties—birthday parties, baptisms, other meetings where people had an excuse to come together...
...Now, things have eased a little...
...The government wanted private talks, the FMLN open talks...
...Now the army is asking, "Who had parties in their homes before the offensive...
...He talks about the low world price of coffee and the failure of what was expected to be a bumper crop in the east of the country...
...It's all relative...
...He just continued to urge the rebels to cease fire and lay down their arms...
...Because he had the trust of the far right and the army...
...There will not be a military victory...
...The FMLN, realizing the limitations of time, gave concessions—agreeing to lay down their arms and incorporate themselves into the prevailing system if there were a profound democratization process...
Vol. 37 • April 1990 • No. 2
