EL SALVADOR The Offensive in Perspective
Ostertag, Bob & Miles, Sara
On November 11, forces of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) launched their largest offensive of El Salvador's decade-long war, striking in all the country's principal...
...Assessing the overall results of the offensive is problematic, but some points are clear...
...ARENA economic projections' had assumed the opposite, a large-scale repatriation of capital...
...Thousands fled...
...As we noted in the September Report, there is no consensus among Salvadoran leftists that an insurrectionary political climate prevails...
...Continuing the sort of show biz dialogue which has gone on in recent years-in which the two sides talk because they cannot afford not to, rather than actually seek a framework for a settlement-may indeed be more difficult than before...
...Tactical adjustments are without doubt under intense discussion and the guerrillas are unOctober funeral of murdered union leaders: What will happen when the FMLN drops the other shoe...
...While the situation remains extremely fluid, it is at least clear that the events of November did not prove the FMLN's insurrectionary thesis to be correct...
...For the government, however, the situation appears more difficult...
...According to several rebel sources, the ferocity of the bombing caught the FMLN by surprise...
...While this tactic may be effective for saving the day in a particularly dire moment, it is not a basis for retaking the offensive...
...Thousands more who were unable to escape hid at home, while bombs and strafing rocked their neighborhoods...
...Given the fact that the Salvadoran air force was headed by the powerful Gen...
...Business people report that the direct effects of the offensive on the economy were catastrophic...
...Embassy are again trying to ease some restrictions in order to legitimize the government...
...But the movement leadership had gone into hiding, and the army's attacks only yielded the murders of the six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper Julia Ramos and her daughter Celia...
...The rebels sustained serious losses: They acknowledged 401 dead, including several high-ranking commanders, and the number of wounded is surely much greater...
...However, it is doubtful that the lack of a full-scale insurrectionary response can be entirely attributed to tactical decisions on the part of the rebel leadership or to the bombing...
...Any political opening at all, however, will be extremely fragile, and will certainly evaporate when the FMLN drops the other shoe...
...but when the bombing began in earnest, the trend was abruptly reversed...
...Several fixed targets were hit, including President Alfredo Cristiani's residence and the capital's First Brigade barracks, but these were essentially for psychological effect...
...In Nicaragua in 1979, for example, anger at Somoza's bombardment helped turn the Sandinistas' final offensive into a full insurrection...
...In contrast to the situation in 1981 after the FMLN's previous attempt at insurrection, the popular movement has gone deep underground, but has not been destroyed...
...Superficially, the offensive pushed such an option farther from the picture, by supposedly hardening the army's resolve...
...As one movement source commented, "probably the best thing that could happen to Cristiani right now would be for the unions to put 5,000 people marching in the street so he can show he is democratic...
...Given the level of bombardment, fighting would have required incredible heroism...
...By the next morning, the rebels were in control of the city's northern perimeter-a half-moon connecting the country's main highways and -controlling access to the nearby mountains...
...Mixed Results In our Reports on El Salvador last year, we described the rebels' unorthodox intention of further irregularizing the war as their "strategic counteroffensive" unfolded...
...The main objectives were the working-class barrios on the northern outskirts of the capital, and in this the guerrilla forces were more successful than they had anticipated...
...The armed forces were unable to mount any coherent counterattack short of massive aerial bombardment...
...likely to make the same mistakes twice...
...From early on November 16 through the next day, planes terrorized the barrios...
...The reasons for this are worth exploring, since the tactics chosen are part of the story behind the lack of a widespread insurrectionary response to the offensive...
...The murders of the Jesuits and the sealing off of virtually all political space in the country was the result...
...The next crucial move for the Left may well be in the political arena...
...In the past, arrests meant little as cases of human rights violations wound through the byzantine Salvadoran legal system and were eventually dropped after the heat was off...
...But real negotiations require a fundamental shift within the Salvadoran elite and the United States, and the divisions occurring now indicate that the offensive was not without its benefits in this regard...
...The process of purification of the armed forces has already begun...
...Yet the November offensive was much more conventional than foreseen...
...As one army colonel put it in a published account, "We realized that we could lose it all, or that San Salvador could end up like Beirut--a divided city...
...That night Joaquin Villalobos of the FMLN's General Command went on the clandestine Radio Venceremos to call for a full-scale insurrection...
...Both the Salvadoran Association of Industrialists and the National Association of Private Capital demanded that Cristiani postpone his program of structural adjustment...
...Finally, the rebels themselves withdrew, though not before occupying the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city, demonstrating that the air force would not bomb the rich...
...7barricades, providing food and intelligence, using homemade weaponry, etc.--evaporated, and most residents chose to flee...
...Rather, FMLN fighters were spread out among the barrios, apparently to provide for the broadest contact possible between guerrilla fighters and the poor, and in this way to maximize the opportunities for civilians to participate in the offensive...
...You could not believe," said one man who hid under his bed, "that you could be so frightened and live...
...By the end of three days, despite heavy fighting, they remained firmly entrenched in the barrios...
...Though at several times during the war the FMLN has successfully overrun strategic government installations, no action of this nature materialized during the offensive...
...The stated purpose of the rebel offensive was to move the country closer to a negotiated solution-the point at which we ended our previous Reports...
...And with the FMLN's claimed acquisition of surface-to-air missiles, bombardment may be less effective even as a tactic of last resort...
...During the night, security forces raided houses throughout the city and ransacked the offices of several unions and human rights organizations...
...Rafael Bustillo, perhaps the most hardline officer in the entire military, this assumption seems inexplicable...
...Commenting on Benavides' arrest, one FMLN source noted, "This is historic...
...For three days this seemed to be successful...
...This time, however, the FMLN may have the ability to keep the burner turned up high...
...On November 11, forces of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) launched their largest offensive of El Salvador's decade-long war, striking in all the country's principal cities: San Salvador, San Miguel, Santa Ana, Usulutdn, and Zacatecoluca...
...Its dream of economic recovery has become a nightmare...
...Stunned by the FMLN invasion of their own neighborhoods, many of the rich have fled taking their money with them...
...These kinds of divisions, amid the increased polarization brought about by the offensive, open new political space in the middle...
...Despite the difficulties the FMLN encountered, the rebels withdrew in good order...
...As to the regime's response to the offensive, we argued the ARENA government would not resort to crude and blatant repression until "the FMLN's hoped-for insurrection develops a more tangible, threatening form...
...According to FMLN sources, the rebels' plan was "to fight for three days and see...
...The effect of the bombardment was far more dramatic than the appeal to insurrection...
...Larger political questions are fundamental...
...This would be consistent with the rebels' goal of a limited reconcentration of rural forces to hit the army in the countryside as a counterpart to their efforts in the cities...
...People from the press, unions, human rights groups, the churches, popular organizations, universities, and even the Christian Democrats went into hiding or exile...
...The more varied, irregular, and limited kinds of collaboration available in the early days-building VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 6 (APRIL 1990) Sara Miles and Bob Ostertag are free-lance journalists and the authors of two NACLA Reports on El Salvador published in 1989...
...This is precisely what happened in the first three days of the November offensive...
...And on December 16, after army pronouncements of the FMLN's demise, the rebel radio reported an all-day battle in the countryside, claiming that two govemment companies were torn apart, 29 were killed, 30 wounded, and 24 captured...
...At about the same time, the army high command decided to begin massive aerial bombardment of the rebel-held barrios, and ordered a wave of repression against the political opposition, church figures, and the legal and semilegal organizations of the popular movement...
...Tensions between the military and the United States have been exacerbated by the handling of the case...
...The army essentially remains under a sort of guerrilla siege, with rebels still near the peripheries of the cities and able to hit its troops in the countryside...
...By centering the more conventional military confrontation in the barrios, the FMLN left residents with only two options as the battles escalated: flee or fight...
...But they claim to have recruited extensively during their stay in the barrios...
...Despite the tremendous strength the rebels showed in their offensive, it appears that the intricacies of urban warfare continue to pose tactical difficulties the formerly rural-based movement has yet to resolve...
...Though the army's atrocities may not actually result in the loss of U.S...
...assertions that the FMLN spent its forces in the first round and has been dealt an overwhelming blow are highly exaggerated...
...Embassy of Benavides' direct involvement was subsequently identified by the Embassy and then detained by the Salvadoran high command, as relations between the military and the Embassy sank to an all-time low...
...aid, foreign political pressure has led to the arrest of eight people, including Col...
...Given the impact of the offensive, they argued, the program would lead to total economic collapse...
...Both sides appear to have shared the assessment that the situation had reached a definitive moment...
...Civilian collaboration seemed to be increasing, as residents built barricades and air raid shelters, provided food and intelligence, and took up arms...
...Guillermo Alfredo Benavides, for the murder of the Jesuits...
...In our interview with Commander Leo Cabral, [NACLA Report on the Americas, September 1989] he stated the FMLN's belief that full deployment of the army's conventional firepower in the cities would be "politically impossible...
...With the immediacy of the threat past, Cristiani and the U.S...
...These people won't do it the way we would, and they won't do it all the way, but they cannot avoid beginning the process...
...While the FMLN's initial emphasis was to organize the population to stay and fight beside them, in some areas the rebels reversed themselves and told civilians to flee...
...Tragically, the Jesuits are no longer there to help fill it, and the legal space for political opposition has disappeared...
...U.S...
...The Salvadoran officer who informed the U.S...
...Politically, the rightist camp is divided by tensions which will be difficult to resolve...
Vol. 23 • April 1990 • No. 6
