The Third Circle: The FMLN
TO A LARGE EXTENT, THE CHRISTIAN Democratic Party owes its successive election victories in 1984 and 1985 to the presence and effectiveness of the FMLN on the Salvadorean political scene. El...
...The government dreams that once it has defeated the FMLN, a kind of Marshall Plan will open the doors to El Salvador's future development...
...JANUARY/MARCH 1986 37Duarte tervention is an integral part of the project, essential both to control the military situation and to manage the political crisis...
...Certainly it weakens the Army by forcing it to divert large numbers of soldiers to guard important economic targets...
...9. The search for a just political settlement of every aspect of the conflict must take priority over the humanization of the war...
...El Salvador may continue to go through the democratic motions...
...It no longer even occupies the center between two extremes...
...is rector of the Central American University (UCA) in San Salvador and director of its journal Estudios Centroamericanos (ECA...
...It is hard to foresee the war deteriorating so badly that both sides conclude that its cost is unacceptable...
...If they are the best that Duarte can manage, he will probably be forced to hand over the facade of government and power to a coalition of rightist parties when his term is up in 1989...
...presence could be withdrawn and the Salvadoreans could conduct their power struggle peacefully...
...The government sees organized labor as the main problem, but also fears unrest among other low-income groups...
...Each side accuses the other of obstructing the process...
...Its aim would not be to settle the entire conflict, but merely some aspects of it...
...For many, these attacks will be seen as spilling over into the realm of "terrorism...
...nor will they ease up on the military front to create an appropriate climate for talks...
...delivered at the Ayagualo talks, as the basis for arriving at such a settlement...
...Either way, the FMLN is digging the grave of the Christian Democrats, whose program will become more irrevocably synonymous with counterinsurgency the longer the war goes on...
...On the government side, the topic of dialogue has slipped lower and lower on the list of priorities since the two rounds of talks at La Palma on October 15, 1984 and Ayagualo on November 30 of the same year...
...In a recent communique, the newly created Ministry of Culture and Communications called on the political parties, the business and professional associations, and "all sectors," to stand together in the fight against the FMLN, arguing that their differences were secondary compared to the gulf separating all of them from the insurgents...
...To be sure, a heavy responsibility also lies on the FMLN's shoulders...
...Marines and advisers or Salvadorean military personnel, but also civilian officials of the government...
...each is convinced that, disarmed, it would fall a defenseless victim to the other...
...All this, of course, pulls the Duarte government in two contradictory directions: in order to advance its populism and reformism, it has to rely on U.S...
...Humanization would simply be the first step in a process of dialogue that might lead to more far-reaching solutions and in the long run to an overall settlement...
...But even if an FMLN victory still appears a remote prospect, it is more than likely that the rebels' revised strategy will prevent the Duarte Administration from making any appreciable progress...
...6. Under present circumstances, neither party can use dialogue to pursue the surrender or unilateral disarmament of the other...
...This does not mean, however, that the FMLN sees the Christian Democratic Party and its ideology as its ultimate enemy...
...Marine guards in San Salvador's Zona Rosa on June 19 was only the most dramatic example: there have also been FMLN attacks in Santa Ana, San Miguel, Zacatecoluca and other cities...
...the government's assessment that the end of the war is in sight may be overly optimistic...
...The FMLN has devoted little thought to the costs of economic recovery, and has not worked out where the money will come from to resurrect the country from the ashes of a prolonged war...
...This was true in thec ase of the Inds Duarte kidnapping...
...In fact, it only grows fiercer, engulfing more of the country...
...As a result of the repression of the 1980-82 period, and the excessive militarism encouraged for a time by its leadership, the FMLN abandoned its work with the urban masses...
...Guerrilla warfare, meanwhile, would subject the armed forces to a process of attrition, both material and moral...
...W HAT SPACE, IF ANY, REMAINS FOR dialogue in the midst of this confrontation...
...Rebel propaganda habitually claims that sabotage deprives the regime of economic resources for the war effort...
...While the ideology of the Christian Democrats might arguably make them natural allies of the FMLN (as happened in the case of their ideological blood relaREPORT ON THE AMERICAS 32Protest returns to the city streets tive, the Democratic Revolutionary Front, or FDR), their reliance on U.S...
...In other words, the FMLN is less hostile to the Christian Democrats per se than to the role which the party has chosen to play in the U.S...
...The strategy of building mass support rests on three things: -a partial decrease in human rights violations...
...The FMLN in turn presents the biggest threat to the Christian Democrats' plans...
...Administration would not have encouraged a victory by the centrist Christian Democrats, who acknowledged the need for greater social justice while remaining hostile to the extreme alternative of a Marxist government...
...everything else is secondary to this...
...Indeed, when the two sides open their mouths on the subject, they seem to be describing two entirely different things...
...An extended version of this comment on the FMLN's November 1985 dialogue proposals appears in the November-tDecember 1985 issue of Estudios Centroamericanos-Ed...
...The rebels will not choose to intensify the pace of their military actions or step up revolutionary violence in order to force their adversaries to the negotiating table...
...the railroad system is virtually paralyzed...
...This in turn makes dialogue extremely difficult, since for the Duarte government and its mentor in Washington, the counterinsurgency project is effectively non-negotiable...
...plan, has placed itself in conflict not with the oligarchy but with the insurgency...
...Telephone lines, too, have been hit, but repairs are easier and the effect has been less dramatic...
...The Salvadorean electorate was impelled to vote for the center, represented by Duarte's Christian Democrats, in order to rob the FMLN of its base of popular support...
...Though only the extreme Right has come out publicly against any form of talks with the FMLN, the fact remains that the government too has made dialogue objectively difficult...
...The FMLN is convinced that this economic development is impossible under present conditions, with at least 40% of the national budget directly or indirectly devoted to underwriting the costs of the war...
...Dialogue must not be used as a stratagem, but as a process that aims to bring about a comprehensive negotiated political settlement...
...and it would guarantee the humane treatment of casualties and prisoners of war...
...The only alternative open to the Duarte government is to advance further along the path of dialogue...
...The FMLN's main priority is to be effective against those it has defined as its principal enemies in the current stage of the war...
...It may also hold true in future actions...
...The war will be more savage...
...Electricity lines are a constant target for attack...
...It must also confront short-term problems, both internal and external in origin...
...But since Ayagualo, actions by both parties, as well as the polarization of their positions, have managed to bog down the talks for more than a year...
...This unevenness has limited the effectiveness of the new strategy somewhat, and has even given rise to some partial setbacks...
...intervention: so much so that it is effectively neutralized...
...Both sides could give ground...
...El Salvador's dependency on the United States deeper and more irreversible...
...damage in this area has more to do with aerial bombing and crop burning by the armed forces...
...The insurgents believe that this will bring the prospect of an all-out offensive closer, which in turn would take them to the verge of seizing power...
...Instead, it will step up a campaign of sabotage that is likely to deliver the coup de grace to any prospect of economic development...
...both find ways of justifying their stand...
...The full results of the strategy have yet to be seen, but the FMLN itself appears full of confidence...
...The FMLN, then, pursues dialogue to the extent that it can help frustrate the Reagan Administration's counterinsurgency plans...
...Such a dialogue would proceed step by step (the FMLN itself began at Ayagualo to talk in terms of "phases...
...The FMLN, for example, might halt acts of economic sabotage that adversely affected the living standards of the population, and suspend attacks on development projects that benefit the poor majority rather than the business elite...
...Now, it has again understood that it cannot hope for a political victory, or even a favorable change in the military balance, in the absence of mass support...
...And that cannot happen without negotiations with the FMLN...
...But precisely because of this, the government has balked at them...
...In its new pronouncement on dialogue, the FMILN makes sixteen basic arguments...
...A dismal record for a government that claims to be inspired by Christian values...
...At present, the military perspective is the key to the government's strategy and the backbone of its survival...
...Consequently, the prospects for a wide-ranging dialogue shrink...
...Talks on the hmasnization of the war, for example, in the fullest sense of the term, could bring the country closer to a comprehensive dialogue, in addition to implying real improvements in the lives of the poorest sectors of the population...
...The FMLN will desist from financing itself through war taxes on landowners and other wealthy groups, if the government and the armed forces are willing to give up the financial support they receive from the Reagan Administration...
...From this these observers have concluded that the FMLN has begun a slide toward eventual defeat...
...Similarly, the talks should take place before a small group of witnesses acceptable to both sides...
...El Salvador is a country which traditionally had voted for the Right, with or without the help of fraud...
...The present Salvadorean government and its armed forces, then, are the enemy which the insurgents are out to destroy, given that the oligarchy has for the time being been silenced by the shifts in U.S...
...But to aggravate the government's dilemma, the FMLN has again begun to challenge the PDC for mass loyalties...
...The FMLN will accept any kind of monitoring to ensure a halt to all new supplies of weapons or war materiel to either of the two contending forces...
...They have arisen rather from economic conditions and the relative decline in the level of state terrorism...
...For the FMLN, this is the path to a just settlement of the conflict, the result of an agreement between Salvadoreans...
...It feels, too, that its mass following can only grow larger and more deeply committed...
...To humanize the war would not mean institutionalizing the conflict or accepting that it will go on forever...
...The FMLN hopes to use peace talks to slow down the escalating pace of intervention until it can be halted altogether...
...large areas of the country are regularly without power, and no region is immune from the threat of blackouts...
...Dialogue should be serious and public, and should be open to the participation of all social sectors...
...Within a general framework, it proposed a number of partial negotiating points, including: REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 38-an end to outside supplies of war materiel to both armies...
...Nevertheless, the most serious recent attempt to place the question of peace talks on the agenda has come from the rebel side (see box...
...nor is it a strategic priority for the FMLN...
...but its overall goal would be a comprehensive settlement...
...At this stage, the FMLN will regard the PDC's potential for weakening the oligarchy-in theory, the rebels' main enemy-as irrelevant...
...1. The original causes that gave rise to the war, far from disappearing, have grown more acute...
...We stand by our earlier proposal for a comprehensive political settlement...
...Even though some of his Christian Democrat colleagues may be less sanguine, Duarte himself believes that his military situation has improved and his popular support has grown...
...intervention, one could envision-at least theoretically--an alliance between the FMLN and the PDC, which could put an end to the power of the oligarchy once and for all...
...But what matters is that both sides, rightly or wrongly, believe themselves to be operating from a position of strength...
...The FMLN may underestimate Washington's determination to keep up an endless supply of money and mat6riel to the Salvadorean armed forces...
...Token successes on that scale may satisfy the Reagan Administration, but they will not satisfy the Salvadorean people...
...A PARTIAL DIALOGUE, HOWEVER, IS NOT out of the question...
...But the FMLN plans a third type of action also: it will attempt to hit vital points inside the cities, or key economic targets, even where these are protected by heavy concentrations of government troops...
...And if the FMLN's attacks are successful, the loser will be not only the counterinsurgency project but the politicians who acted on its behalf and the ideology they represent...
...First, as an elected government which claims to rule democratically, it legitimizes the U.S...
...Each step in itself would be gradual, but each would be part of a cumulative sequence...
...Then again, there is no sign of either side concluding that, on top of all its other costs, the war is ultimately unwinnable, no matter how long it goes on...
...interference...
...The FMLN will treat the entire project as a single entity and will attack it as such...
...no series of agreements on how to humanize the fighting will lead to ending it...
...Admittedly, the new strategy has been implemented at an uneven rhythm by the different groups within the FMLN...
...The goal here is to stave off not only the danger of a popular insurrection allied to the military endeavors of the FMLN, but also the more immediate threat of social instability...
...The government insists that this would lead to a violent, non-democratic seizure of power by the FMLN with Soviet bloc support...
...Its benefits would be aimed at reaching a large part of the population, thereby diminishing mass unrest and correcting the worst anomalies in the workings of the system...
...counterinsurgency plan...
...N EVERTHELESS, THE DUARTE GOVERNment has come to represent the FMLN's main short-term enemy for two reasons...
...JANUARYIMARCtH 1986 33ReCtort1 o th Americas Duarte The best example of the first type was the devastating attack on the Armed Forces Military Training Center (CEMFA) in the eastern department of La Uni6n on October 10...
...No matter how often the argument is made that the war is objectively destroying the country--perhaps to the point where recovery becomes impossible-it will not stop the fighting...
...Whatever their origins, however, they do represent a new awakening of the labor movement...
...as such, they arouse great sympathy and optimism on the part of the FMLN, which is now preparing itself to give leadership to the new mass discontent...
...The FMLN, too, persists in seeing Duarte's Christian Democratic government as its main immediate enemy, and the target of its fiercest attacks...
...The parties of the Right have gained good political mileage out of their constant propaganda charges that the specter of communism lurks behind the Christian Democrats' program of "communitarianism," and that a PDC government would usher in a totalitarian regime of the Left that would spell the end of all private enterprise...
...This new phase of the war will see the combination of large-scale regular warfare with permanent irregular guerrilla actions...
...Flying home: Marines killed in the Zona Rosa attack forces, but a new strategy, the need for which was first identified by People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) Commander Joaqufn Villalobos...
...Such extreme charges may admittedly be due in part to the historic stupidity of the Right in El Salvador, but they also indicate the depth of the aversion that the oligarchy and big private capital feel for the PDC and Duarte's populism...
...Dialogue, as an effort to bring about a political solution, requires the presence of mediators, who must act impartially and respectthe legal equality of the two sides...
...strengthening social organizations and labor unions loyal to the Christian Democratic Party...
...Under present conditions, this obstacle appears insurmountable...
...No matter how often the suffering of the people is invoked, it will not break the deadlock...
...Add to this grim picture the FMLN's systematic effort to sabotage the economy, and the inescapable conclusion is that the second component of the counterinsurgency project-economic development-has virtually no chance of success...
...strategy-to crush, or at least neutralize, the revolutionary movement...
...In the FMLN's view, the Reagan Administration-ultimately its greatest enemy-has designed and set in motion a coherent counterinsurgency plan for El Salvador...
...Without the weapons of war in its hands, neither side feels safe...
...The first characteristic of the counterinsurgency strategy is its strictly military dimension...
...This strategy faces inherent difficulties...
...But these do not seem to have dented the FMLN's confidence...
...The main one is labor unrest and, in a more general sense, widespread discontent at the rapid and permanent deterioration in living standards...
...the government's economic policies favor business rather than the workforce...
...7. The present constitution is not valid, since it was not drawn up by the Assembly and does not address the needs of the majority of the population...
...he may manage to stave off economic collapse and so prevent mass unrest from sliding into popular insurrection...
...But they are in the FMLN's sights and are likely to be a priority target in the coming period...
...Advances of this sort would steadily remove the need for violence and draw the opposing forces closer to the roots of the country's problems...
...intervention...
...And so a comprehensive dialogue is impossible...
...In the period ahead, the FMLN intends to carry its military operations to every region of the country...
...16...
...He will be able to say that the FMLN did not win a military victory...
...T HE FMLN HAS CHOSEN TO COMBAT THE U.S./Christian Democrat counterinsurgency project along these three major lines...
...I JANUARY/MARCH 1986 35FMLN fighters leaflet potential supporters of the government and the PDC...
...There is no way therefore that the desire for economic development and social harmony can be given precedence over the pursuit of a military victory, or at least a negotiated settlement imposed on the FMLN by force of arms, which would leave it without any realistic hope of taking power...
...The first two tactics are growing more widespread, and there is already evidence that the third phase is underway...
...and the targets may not simply be U.S...
...Clearly at least one side is mistaken...
...The immediate future looks bleak...
...If this were to come about, the U.S...
...The FMLN believes that its military position, far from worsening, is on the point of a major upturn...
...Dialogue is nowhere near the top of the counterinsurgency agenda...
...But the sabotage campaign is also based on the understanding that economic development might lead the masses to reject the FMLN if they were convinced that a Christian Democratic government could offer them improved living standards...
...The FMLN argues the case for all these measures with great conviction...
...and it will not restrict these operations to exclusively military targets...
...This would pave the way for a far-reaching process of democratization and mass participation, far outstripping the limited ritual of elections...
...It complements the statements on political and military strat-, egy which the FMLN general command issued last June...
...The FMLN, on the other hand, maintains that the dispute can be left in the hands of the Salvadoreans only after a U.S...
...But to make matters worse, the "economic development" that the PDC has in mind is planned from a private enterprise perspective...
...Radio Venceremos and Radio Farabundo Marti continue to argue that sabotage of the Salvadorean economy is one of the FMLN's key strategic weapons in its struggle against the counterinsurgency project, and cite evermore impressive figures for the value of crops and infrastructure destroyed...
...Instead, it has begun to appeal to the most extreme sectors on the Right to bury the hatchet, even to collaborate directly with the government to defeat the common enemy...
...counterinsurgency project...
...Nor is there any prospect that one side will find itself staring defeat in the face and so rush to the negotiating table to secure what it fears it is about to lose on the battlefield...
...For without the threat of a seizure of power by the FMLN, the U.S...
...It should similarly include the sectors This will mean the recovery and preservation of El Salvador's independence and self-determination, at which point the contending claims of the different forces in the conflict can be worked out free of U.S...
...at the same time, it will attack each of its constituent parts...
...Similarly, the FMLN's longstanding proposals for a joint government, fresh elections and a new army made up of both sets of military forces also present major difficulties for the government...
...As proof of its success, the FMLN would point to the more than 600 casualties it claimed to have inflicted on the armed forces in the month of October 1985 alone.* The FMLN envisions three distinct types of major military action...
...but that is the subject of a different essay...
...the rejection of U.S...
...NEW DIALOGUE PROPOSALS JUST WHEN THE DUARTH PRESIDENCY appears at its lowest ebb, both the FMLN and the FDR have again put the question of dialogue on the table...
...These measures would not simply be positive in themselves: they might also humanize the attitudes of the two sides, and thereby encourage some reconciliation between the contending forces...
...Labor unrest has produced a steady succession of strikes and protests, many of them involving organizations supportive of the Christian Democrats and far from sympathetic to the guerrillas, such as the Popular Democratic Union (UPD), the Salvadorean Workers Federation (CTS) and the Salvadorean Communal Union (UCS...
...discussion of the use of sabotage against the war economy...
...At the same time, the aim is to have each combatant play the role of political cadre as well...
...Both the FMLN and the government continue to see the war as a costly undertaking, but for the time being they also see it as the best available means for pursuing their goals...
...interference...
...And while it may stop short of sending in the Marines, growing U.S...
...The fullest discussion of the topic is contained in an extensive document signed by the FMLN's five top commanders and broadcast over Radio Venceremos on November 20...
...And since the target of Washington's counterinsurgency project is not the oligarchy but the revolutionary movement, the Duarte government, by virtue of its subservience to the U.S...
...In November 1985, the FMLN published a detailed new set of proposals for dialogue...
...Some FMLN members still remember their old alliance with the party in the 1972 and 1977 elections, when they joined forces against the military regimes of the day, the right-wing parties and powerful private sector interests...
...Some commentators have drawn overhasty conclusions from the most visible changes in the course of the war: they have observed the recent dispersal of the big revolutionary armies...
...Furthermore, it is a war economy, which cuts the resources available for development while increasing those used to destroy...
...The Salvadorean economy already faces major structural difficulties...
...Transport stoppages are continual...
...For the rebels, far fewer resources have been devoted to the question of dialogue than to waging the war...
...The success of the Christian Democratic program is therefore blocked...
...economic development, or, at a minimum, stopgap emergency measures to safeguard real wages...
...5. The government is a party to the dialogue by virtue of being a belligerent force, and not by virtue of its legitimacy, since the elections were fundamentally flawed and Duarte does not represent the will of the majority of the population...
...The rebels are an obstacle to the Duarte government not only in its role as the creature of the Reagan Administration, but also as a force capable of enacting reforms...
...It may also signify a new line of action, hinting at the extent to which the rebels are prepared to wage total war on the Duarte government and the PDC...
...This transitional government would resolve outstanding problems, including the existence of two armies, and would create the condition, for the Salvadorean people to choose the country's future direction freely and democratically, by means of genuinely free elections...
...However, it has also served notice, both in word and in deed, that it intends to carry out direct attacks on leaders and officials JANUARY/MARCH 198635 * The term refers to the north-central part of El Salvador, and includes the departments of Chalatenango, Cabafias and Cuscatldn...
...Duarte's defeat will be the proof that his decision to subordinate his Christian Democratic project to the strategic demands of the Reagan Administration set in motion untenable contradictions, that in the end doomed his presidency to failure...
...The dialogue which the FMLN wants and the dialogue which the Duarte government wants have very distinct goals...
...Without a doubt, many rank and file PDC voters may be potential FMLN sympathizers...
...For one thing, the gulf between the two sides is too wide...
...This explains why the Duarte government, Christian Democratic in its ideology and rhetoric, is under constant verbal and physical attack by the FMLN...
...To aggravate this, the ever harsher demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will have a negative effect 2 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 34on social benefits, hurting the poorest sectors most severely...
...These steps would lay the groundwork for a vigorous economy aimed at satisfying basic needs...
...The problem is also that both parties to the conflict remain confident of their own military strength...
...2, There is an objective and undeniable situation of dual power in El Salvador...
...All this means that a comprehensive dialogue--one that might lead to a settlement of the conflict and some kind of consensus on El Salvador's future-is out of the question for now...
...The reason is that the failure of the revolutionary movement, to which the Christian Democrats indirectly owe their victory, would mean a return to full economic, political and military power by a more or less modernized oligarchy...
...It has based its strength on the widespread sympathy which exists for the fight against those parties which defend the interests of the oligarchy...
...it has become all-embracing...
...their interests and proposals are diametrically opposed...
...The war is spreading...
...In the FMLN's view, it will not be long before this modified strategy yields major results...
...3. Although the FMLN as a political and military force is growing in strength, and remains confident of victory, it seeks dialogue and negotiation in order to avoid further foreign intervention, rescue national independence and minimize the social costs of the war...
...Instead, the FMLN will be more concerned that Duarte is in fact strengthening the Reagan Administration-their main enemy in practice...
...Because if the FMLN's attack on the Duarte government fails, the winner will not be Christian Democratic ideology, but the U.S...
...military aid...
...But that is not all...
...But the insurgency will not have been weakened, much less defeated...
...there is not always a rigid dividing line between supporters of the two groups...
...T HE SECOND COMPONENT OF THE COUNterinsurgency project is economic development...
...The FMLN, on the contrary, sees these signs as evidence of its new strategy and believes they imply a significant advance in the armed struggle...
...whereas without U.S...
...And so the war goes on...
...At the end of his five-year term, an already shattered country will be in worse ruins...
...The armed forces, meanwhile, represent its military spearhead...
...in all likelihood the revolutionary surge will continue unchecked...
...At the same time, the FMLN is prepared to discuss that proposal as well as any proposal made by the government...
...T O THE EXTENT THAT THE DUARTE GOVernment is at the core of the counterinsurgency project, it will become the central target of what may justifiably be called total war...
...T HE THIRD COMPONENT OF THE COUNterinsurgency project is its search for the support of the masses, or at least their neutrality...
...The Duarte government recognizes clearly that its main strength derives from the backing of the Reagan Administration...
...Each of these proposals touches on fundamental points that might lead to a negotiated settlement...
...This time, however, voters were swayed by a barrage of populist propaganda, and a series of structural reforms directed in theory against the capitalist oligarchy, which was ultimately held responsible for giving rise to popular protest and creating the objective conditions for Marxist revolution...
...Under present conditions, the Christian Democrats' reformism is a weaker force than U.S...
...4. The core problem to be resolved in peace talks is how to put an end to U.S...
...The letter was a closely reasoned and articulate document...
...strategy...
...This also denotes a strategic shift in the behavior of the revolutionary movement...
...But this was not in itself a continuation of the stalled peace process, even if it began to hint at some of the REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 36conditions under which a resumption of talks might be feasible...
...Of the two largest member armies, the ERP was the first to act on the new strategy, with the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL) following suit several months later...
...This followed the surprising appearance of a letter sent by the FMLNFDR to a three-day forum sponsored by the conservative National Conciliation Party (PCN) in San Salvador in late September...
...The attack on U.S...
...But the force of its logic does not necessarily mean that the proposals are actually viable...
...the future darker...
...A partial dialogue would set out to make the war less destructive and less dehumanizing...
...The rebels are sure to give the Duarte government a tough battle here, making it even harder for him to carry through a strategy that is already weighed down by its own intrinsic problems...
...y ET THE FMLN IS FAR FROM BEING THE only obstacle to dialogue...
...These actions are in no sense the outcome of a new revolutionary strategy...
...It is convinced that the political, as well as the purely military, results will be visible before long...
...The mere fact of presenting such a lengthy, articulate and well reasoned proposal indicates the serious attention which the FMLN continues to give the question of dialogue...
...Together with Archbishop Rivera y Damas, he acted as mediator in the release of lns Guadalupe Duarte, Ana Cecilia Villeda and 23 mayors, in exchange for the freedom of 22 political prisoners and 98 wounded FMLN combatants...
...S THE DUARTE GOVERNMENT CAPABLE OF this kind of progress...
...Indeed, it is entirely possible that the democratization process will suffer setbacks, if the response of the security forces to the revolutionary tide is to return more clearly to earlier patterns of human rights abuses...
...What we are seeing is not a random scattering of rebel * The armed forces press office (COPREFA) put the figure at 447...
...The government, meanwhile, could guarantee political space for the mass movement to make its real weight felt through popular organizations--labor unions, cooperatives, etc...
...instead it has become the moderate expression of one of those extremes...
...next are attacks on fixed Army positions defending access to major towns or strategic points on highways...
...On their long journey toward liberation, the Salvadorean people must first break free from the oligarchy and from U.S...
...If not, then Duarte will end his term having failed to come to grips with the main economic and political obstacles to democratic development...
...Both want power...
...Humanization would mean calling a halt to all forms of terrorism...
...second, within this overall framework of counterinsurgency, its populism and the reformist measures it offers may rob the FMLN of potential support among broad sectors of the population...
...The rebels measure their domestic adversaries by the extent to which they contribute to this plan, and the FMLN Ignacio Ellacuria, S.J...
...The FMLN's response has been to devise a new military strategy of its own, which it initiated in June 1984...
...The FMLN's current military strategy calls for a dispersal of its forces throughout the country...
...has identified the Duarte government as occupying the leading political role in Washington's strategy on both the domestic and international fronts...
...accordingly, it has fallen into line with the central thrust of the U.S...
...intervention in El Salvador...
...This may seem overoptimistic, not just in the short term but in the three and a half years that remain of the Duarte presidency...
...they are especially effective in wide areas of eastern and northern El Salvador, as well as the paracentral region.* It is not only the highways that are affected...
...That power can be measured in both political and military terms, as well as in control of population and territory...
...From the FMLN's point of view, dialogue is not something that pushes overall revolutionary strategy into second place...
...The government would find talks convenient as a means of ensuring economic development and social harmony, but it has no intention of bargaining away its military power...
...intervention...
...The first are aggressive ambushes of large mobile contingents of troops deployed to attack FMLN rearguard areas...
...8. "A negotiated settlement must include the formation of a transitional government of broad participation which includes the FDR-FMLN and allows the FMLN to retain its armed forces...
...Each combatant is called upon to act as an educator and organizer, to involve the masses once more in a series of struggles: from labor union demands and destabilizing protests to insurrectional activity and urban guerrilla warfare...
...Both the government and the FMLN talk of dialogue and propose that it should take place...
...This is certainly how the PDC itself and the Duarte government see the situation...
...counterinsurgency plan, albeit softened marginally by whatever influence the PDC can have along the way...
...For the government, the aim of dialogue is to have the FMLN disarm and pursue its revolutionary goals with purely political weapons...
...inthat make up the present government and keep its existing armed forces intact...
...That may be precisely why the search for a partial and gradual dialogue assumes such importance...
...The PDC has portrayed itself to the Salvadorean electorate as a middle-class party responsive to the needs of the poor majority...
...In any event, the FMLN will not be content simply to stand by and watch this process of deterioration run its natural course...
...they have noticed that the FMLN has engaged in fewer large-scale battles...
...The kidnapping of Inds Guadalupe Duarte, the president's daughter, may be more than a short-term tactic aimed at freeing important FMLN prisoners...
...For the time being, harvests remain largely unaffected...
...pullout...
...If the FMLN does not emerge triumphant, Duarte may claim provisional success for the central element of the counterinsurgency plan...
...they have seen declining levels of combat casualties, fewer prisoners captured and smaller quantities of arms seized...
...intervention turns the Christian Democrats into the FMLN's de facto enemy...
...it would mean full respect for the civilian population and their property...
...its political image abroad at this point becomes a secondary consideration...
...Neither may feel that it is in a position to deliver the knockout blow, but at the same time both sides are convinced that they can shift the balance in their favor...
...Within FMLN strategy, the basic purpose of dialogue is in fact to put an end to the crucial dimension of the counterinsurgency plan: U.S...
...In addition, if the Duarte government's economic policies were to bear fruit, the prospect of a revolutionary victory would become more remote...
...To negotiate the release of Inds Duarte and the kidnapped mayors, in exchange for the freedom of FMLN prisoners and the evacuation of wounded combatants, the two sides did hold a minidialogue mediated by the Catholic Church...
...The Duarte Administration no longer depicts itself as the embattled center, equidistant from the extremes of Right and Left...
...However, while the FMLN was responsible, indirectly and involuntarily, for the PDC's win at the polls, it also represents the main obstacle, both in theory and in practice, to a fullscale Christian Democratic triumph...
...At the moment, his chances of success apA long war of attrition pear slim...
...The impact of this new strategy has not been felt to any significant degree as yet...
...Sabotage of the war economy is a strategic weapon of the people and the FMLN: it is negotiable if the government and the armed forces are prepared to relinquish a weapon of equal strategic value" 12...
...Yet neither the human toll of the war nor the bleakness of the economic future will induce either side to end the war...
Vol. 20 • January 1986 • No. 1
