Locked in Battle
ON OCTOBER 15, 1979 A GROUP OF YOUNG officers carried out a bloodless coup against the government of General Oscar Humberto Romero. Welcomed by the United States, and with widespread...
...support for economic development and improved living standards for the masses...
...Those four years may have brought us close to the final act of the drama, but so much death and destruction have not brought the protagonists any nearer to a solution...
...The FMLNFDR's proposal for a Government of Broad Participation seems to reflect a decision to abandon revolutionary idealism in favor of a political realism...
...By January 1981, the war had begun in earnest between two opposing armies...
...and political life has been revived to the extent of approving a new Constitution and holding fresh elections geared toward restoring constitutional order...
...The main means of achieving these goals is armed struggle...
...To make matters worse, the present balance of forces is such that none of the contenders can hope to prevail either through military means or by any of the political approaches attempted so far...
...the goal of destroying communism remains identical...
...The spiral of war between the contending blocs of Right, center-Right and Left makes this deadlock ever more acute...
...Both the PDC and the Reagan Administration saw elections-which the far Right at first resisted-as a convenient way of legitimizing their policies in the international arena and a source of greater domestic support for confronting El Salvador's ills...
...What is at stake today is less the solution than the issue of who will design a solution and on what terms...
...far-reaching agrarian reform, and reform of the finance system and foreign trade...
...state terrorism, whose tens of thousands of victims have been regarded by Christian Democrats, the National Unity government and the Reagan Administration alike as a necessary or inevitable consequence of the war...
...Not that this closes the door to dialogue and negotiation...
...the economy is still standing, at least in the sense that it is not quite flat on its back...
...Water distribution in a front-line battle zone...
...The outcome of the elections was that matters continued much as before, with slight variations under rightist pressure...
...the growing violation of human rights under Romero...
...The goal of popular power based on a worker-peasant alliance has been postponed if not abandoned, and any notions of alignment with the socialist bloc or the export of revolution in the region long ago gave way to a nationalist pledge to non-alignment...
...Of these, the first two elements are uppermost...
...Three factors prompted the coup-makers to act: structural injustice, which kept most Salvadoreans in abject poverty...
...It has, however, taken some initial steps toward recognition by compelling special U.S...
...the annulment of all economic reforms, allowing the Right to recover the absolute economic stranglehold it has traditionally enjoyed, with a full package of incentives and benefits for private enterprise...
...elections designed to produce a strong civilian government, capable of controlling the Army and security forces...
...Admittedly, it has prevented the FMLN from taking power and stopped El Salvador from falling into the hands of a threatening pro-Marxist government...
...of lesser importance, certain reforms intended to erode the base of popular support for the revolutionary movement...
...Washington's position becomes increasingly untenable: either forced to ally itself with extremist terror from the oligarchy, or redoubling its commitment to the centerRight, ironically the least viable contender within the logic of events in El Salvador...
...A ND SO THE DEADLOCK IN EL SALVADOR, aggravated by the crisis racking all of Central America...
...And El Salvador remains high on the list of the world's most violence-ridden countries, where national life and institutions have broken down to a tragic extent...
...Unless, that is, we see a dramatic shift in the positions of all those who play a major role in the conflict...
...on the contrary, the Left has made repeated positive offers in that direction...
...the plan backed by Washington and the Christian Democratic junta-also dedicated to military victory but by different means, including reforms...
...14 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 14Guerrillas guard a bridge in the eastern part of the country...
...The fact that the Christian Democrats ostensibly dislodged the oligarchy from government between 1980 and 1982 and launched some important reforms makes little difference...
...Against them stands the "Left" program of the FMLN-FDR, which has changed considerably over the last four years...
...T E "CENTER-RIGHT" SOLUTION IS THE I child of the United States and the Christian Democrats...
...The attempt of the so-called "center" to rein in the oligarchy was entirely secondary to the main goal of destroying a revolutionary movement that was seen as communist, and so a threat to private enterprise and the security of the United States in its own backyard...
...The United States, the Christian Democrats and even the Church believed the elections would end in victory for the PDC-supposedly the middle-way solution between the extremes of Left and Right...
...the destruction of the FMLN through improved political and military strategies, involving substantial increases in military aid and more sophisticated weapons of war...
...Its program has these characteristics and goals: "* the basic ideology of anti-communism...
...an attempt to monopolize all power, political as well as economic and military...
...To escalate that terror further would not only worsen El Salvador's standing as an international pariah, but would also imperil continued U.S...
...Now, the FMLNFDR offers a reciprocal security pact with the United States...
...This period of "war with reforms" misled many observers to identify three conflicting strategies: the far Right's determination to exterminate the FMLN without reforms...
...and the mounting unpopularity of the armed forces, who were tarnished not only by human rights abuses and their role in perpetuating social injustice, but also by the electoral frauds of 1972 and 1977...
...The goals of the far Right program may not have been fully realized either, but their essential methodsprimarily terrorism-have been allowed every latitude...
...Four years of war have complicated the situation still further...
...The present-day FMLN also seriously misread events and contributed to the destabilization of that first junta...
...economic and military aid...
...The coup found willing collaborators not only in the parties which today make up the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR), but also in the Communist Party and, to a lesser degree, among certain sympathizers and members of the guerrilla organizations...
...This war has taken three basic forms: * a war in the strict sense, backed by the United States with large-scale funding, training for thousands of troops and officers, and the presence of U.S...
...This was one of the bloodiest spells in Salvadorean history, with more than 25,000 killings...
...Only the swift intervention of the Reagan Administration stopped the winning bloc of parties from carrying out an overtly rightist program of government...
...This explains the paradox of why state terrorism claimed more victims before the March 1982 elections, when the PDC was in government, than under a National Unity government that included both the PDC and ARENA-the party accused of direct links to the death squads...
...Under the leadership of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), the attempt to find a "middle road" wore a new face between January 1980 and March 1982...
...But none of them can anticipate a short-term military victory or political settlement...
...restructuring of the Army and security forces to remove those responsible for killings and human rights abuses, and the formation of a new Army from a merger of the present Army and the troops of the FMLN...
...As a tradeMARCH/APRIL 1984 15Repo on, he Am*eria EL SALVADOR 1984 off, Washington was forced to agree to his designation as President of the Constituent Assembly...
...The contenders grow stronger with each new day, and none more so than the FMLN...
...The proposals of the Left appear irreconcilable with those of the Right, and only slightly less so with those of the center-Right...
...The United States insisted on Christian Democratic appointments to the new Cabinet and kept the presidency away from Major Roberto D'Aubuisson, the most notorious representative of the far Right...
...political pluralism, which does not imply immediate elections, but neither does it rule out elections whose exact form would be agreed upon later...
...The solution of the "Right" could also be acceptable to the United States, though perhaps softened through alliances with less extremist parties...
...Welcomed by the United States, and with widespread support among more senior officers, the coup aimed to head off a crisis that had been brewing since late 1976...
...Its battlefield successes, while undeniable, have neither defeated the Army nor forced its adversaries to the negotiating table...
...far from it-the Left is militarily stronger than ever...
...The center-Right option, often interwoven during the last four years with the far Right in its methods of fighting the war and its condonement or encouragement of human rights violations, has met with resounding failure...
...greater respect for human rights, curbing the death squads and strengthening the judicial system...
...The Government of Broad Participation is a compromise program...
...Far from improving the problems of civil war, rightist terror, unabated economic decline, political polarization and the breakdown of institutions had worsened between 1980 and 1982...
...While the conventional war of the center-Right only enhances the Left's military capacity, the threat of a powerful Left makes the far Right dig in its heels, confident of its ability to extract more U.S...
...Both the extreme Right and the so-called centrist or reformist options are committed in practice to the first two methods...
...military advisers, together with pressure on Nicaragua to stifle the flow of arms and munitions to the FMLN...
...It offered a middle way between the intransigence of the Romero government, backed by the oligarchy and big private enterprise, and the radical solutions proposed by organizations that were later to form the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN...
...The Christian Democratic junta had lost any ability to govern with authority, and the party claimed this was because its mandate came from a deal with the Army instead of through democratic elections...
...the terrorism of the Right drives thousands into the armed resistance of the Left...
...The Right's biggest gain was the gutting of the agrarian reform, and it enshrined this success in the new Constitution...
...lan j E CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS p of March 28, 1982 set out to resolve the secondary conflicts between Right and center-Right...
...But there were also reforms-above all in the agrarian sector-despite the active opposition of the oligarchy and big private enterprise...
...Its main characteristics are these: * an anti-communism so fanatical that it legitimizes any action that succeeds in doing away with "communists"-defined as anyone who condemns social injustice or the abuse of power...
...While the Right becomes more intransigent, the Left grows stronger...
...and the "extreme Left's" intention of seizing absolute power through armed violence and mass mobilization...
...The FMLN-FDR has also been unable to achieve its objectives, through either military means or negotiations...
...Its principal elements include: * the demand for a direct share in power, without that meaning a monopoly of power...
...a determination to annihilate the FMLN and all its sympathizers in a style of warfare that designates the enemy not as soldiers but as "murderous hordes...
...To their surprise, it was the PDC's opponents who emerged victorious, both in aggregate votes and the total number of deputies elected...
...envoy Richard Stone and the Salvadorean government's Peace Commission to open official talks with the FMLN as well as the FDR...
...Such is the calamity engulfing the Salvadorean people...
...Rnh NickelsherolWoodfin Came KErUK I UIN lt i1e NIKIL%_A 16by unidentified armed men...
...However, as the March 1982 elections made clear, there were really only two primary camps: one revolutionary and the other counter-revolutionary, even if the latter had its PDC/Washington variant and its extreme rightist one...
...But the FMLN has not been defeated...
...This definition has produced the kind of terrorism that has caused 45,000 noncombatant deaths since 1980...
...Without it, in all likelihood, the FMLN would end up taking power...
...In this dance of death, the reform initiatives of the center-Right stiffen the resolve of the frenetically anti-communist oligarchy and its military allies to oppose them...
...In fact, there is no contradiction: the Christian Democrats were never able to control the extreme rightists within the state apparatus and, more particularly, within the armed forces...
...If the others get in the way of the battle against the FMLN, they will be downplayed or abandoned...
...a mixed economy in which private enterprise would enjoy a reasonable place, without the abusive privileges or prerogatives it has enjoyed throughout Salvadorean history...
...In the two years since the March 1982 elections, a "National Unity" government--formed to paper over differences between the parties in power-has pursued the war against the FMLN as the backbone of its activities...
...The objective problems posed by El Salvador's history, its recent past and its present are extraordinarily complex, virtually impossible to resolve...
...THE PROGRAMS OF THE "RIGHT" AND "center-Right" in El Salvador may appear different, but past history and a shared hostility to communism and the FMLN have meant that there has been little distinction in practice...
...But the first junta established after the coup, composed of military officers and civilians, was in power only three short months before its reformist experiment was blocked by the oligarchy, big business and the military commanders who had been left in their posts...
...assistance-a stance which it saw vindicated by Reagan's "pocket veto" in December...
...This includes the right to hand pick reliable commanders and senior officers in the Army and the security forces...
Vol. 18 • March 1984 • No. 2
