EL SALVADOR: A Negotiated Revolution

...Although the accords do not end the economic and political dominance of the coffee-growing elite, for example, they abolish or weaken the principal mechanisms of repression which the elite has traditionally used to maintain its power...

...The military has so far shown dealing with military and security issues were to be implemented...

...At 11:55 p.m., U.N...

...Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali described the accords at the formal signing ceremony in Mexico City on January 16...

...Their primary arena of struggle was organizing and mobilizing trade union and other "sectoral" support, popular organizations, and international solidar- ity...

...Only ifand when these issues are resolved will Salvadorans believe that a "new period"ofpolitical struggleby peaceful means is at hand...

...The PRTC organized urban commandos...

...The struggle to change or preserve the traditional order has not ended...

...The National Resistance (RN), the Communist Party (PC) and the Revolu- tionary Party of Central American Work- ers (PRTC) had some combat units, but controlled little territory or population...

...The accords propose profound changes in the power and purview of key institutions ofSalvadoran life, and thus lay the groundwork for further change...

...The government acknowledges the legitimacy of the FMLN as a political party...

...The Legislative Assembly plans to review its recent amnesty proclamation after the Truth Commission concludes its investigation, so even those the commission finds responsible may go free...

...The wave of euphoria that washed across the country following the signing of the accords on January 16 has dissipated in the face of longstanding barriers of hatred and instinctive mistrust...

...For the ARENA-controlled government and the business community, the ceasefire means an end to the FMLNsponsored sabotage that has crippled the country's economic infrastructure...

...Many RN supporters are middle- class intellectuals in San Salvador...

...It must now seek to win support from the rank and file of those organizations...

...Secretary General Javier Pdrez de Cuellar's term of office, President Cristiani went through the other draft indicating what he would accept and what he would reject...

...Despite interim agreements on human rights monitoring (in July 1990) and a package of constitutional amendments (in April 1991), the fundamental issues at the heart of the negotiations were not resolved until the final hours of the final day...

...The government also promises to moderate the effects of economic adjustment policies on the poor and to enact a $1 billion National Reconstruction Plan to rebuild the "conflictive zones," areas under FMLN control during most of the war that were most affected by the fighting...

...The government blames the FMLN for encouraging a wave of new occupations...

...They recognize, however, that even with a united opposition, ARENA's formidable electoral machine will be difficult to defeat...

...The FMLN's military strength helped create greater opportunities for the opposition as a whole, but the guerrilla front did not represent all opposition forces...

...Prospects for the FMLN The end of the armed struggle means the FMLN can compete openly as a political force in Salvadoran society...

...With the cessation of hostilities, the first of these becomes irrelevant and the second more a liability than an asset...

...Although the government promises to try to purchase occupied land in the conflictive zones from absentee owners and turn it over to current tenants, for example, if landowners refuse to sell, the government only pledges to relocate tenant-occupiers to other land in the same general area...

...The social-economic arena remains the fundamental political battlefield...

...The government also hopes to stimulate economic growth so that ARENA can run in 1994 as the party of peace and prosperity...

...The government agrees to participate with representatives of these sectors in a social-economic "forum" that will try to develop a consensus on economic stabilization policies and reconstruction programs...

...Civilian, democratic and "popular" sectors of Salvadoran society stand to benefit from the accords...

...Unlike the provisions dealing with political and security matters, the social and economic agreements are couched in legalistic, frequently vague, and sometimes contradictory language...

...They face the immediate prob- lem of finding economic resources to support ex-combatants and their fami- lies...

...In exchange for this more favorable economic environment, the government grants significant concessions to the FMLN...

...Two groups-the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL) and the Revolutionary Army of the People (ERPFprovided most of the armed combatants and military lead- ership during the civil war, and con- trolled significant temtory and popula- tion in Chalatenangoand Mod vrov- inces, respectivel...

...These tensions are rooted in the di- verse characteristics of the five organi- zations that make up the FMLN...

...FMLN leaders accuse the government of violating provisions re- quiring it to respect existing land ten- ancy while legal solutions are worked out...

...The government and the FMLN have promised to carry out the commission's recommendations...

...The FMLN's strength has been its military capability and its clandestine organization...

...The Treasury Police and National Guard are to be abolished, and a new national police force is to be built from scratch...

...The two agreements, however, were not identical...

...Although all five groups will seek to expand their support in urban areas, the FPL and the ERP must devote considerable effort to consolidating their influence in the territories they control...

...But the end of fighting is also likely to test the cohesiveness of the rebel alli- ance...

...Opposition forces hope to forge a center-left electoral alliance...

...The RN's influence, for example, derived from its clandestine affiliation with key leaders of important popularorganizations...

...The accords do not resolve the fundamental causes of the civil war...

...The government agrees to fully implement existing agrarian reform law and to "harmonize and unify" all agrarian legislation in a new Agrarian Code...

...VOLUME XXV, NUMBER 5 (MAY 1992) prised of two members from the government (one of whom represents the armed forces), two from the FMLN, and one each from the six political parties represented in the Legislative Assembly...

...But with the end of armed struggle, they share some common in- terests...

...Will the armed forces really be purged of officers guilty of human rights abuses and will it be reduced by at least 50...

...The military will be reduced in size and mission, and will lose its autonomy from REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 4civilian control...

...Military reform and the aboJlition of security forces responsible for human rights abuse will make it easier to transform the skewed land tenure system and economic inequality at the root of political conflict in El Salvador...

...The government will likely use the reconstruction program to try to isolate the FMLN by offering economic incentives to those who support the government and by creating parallel mass organizations to compete with FMLN-controlled groups...

...Given the excesses and destruction of the last decade, to be able to say that parameters exist at all is no small achievement...

...For the smaller organizations that lack a territorial and mass base, continued political struggle through social movements is essential...

...The Significance of the Accords "A revolution achieved by negotiation" is how incoming U.N...

...It will take time to erode those barriers, and the calendarof implementation set by the accords does not grant much time...

...Responsibility for supervising implementation and verifying compliance with the accords is vested in the National Commission for Consolidation of Peace (COPAZ), which is comPeasants occupy land in the conflictive zone of Chalatenango...

...As of late April, the armed forces were still showing considerable reluctance to comply with the accords...

...The problem is that their constituencies, and other political players such as the extreme Right, were not at the negotiating table, and thus did not share in building this new relationship...

...helicopter pilots...

...With the clock ticking down to the midnight expiration of U.N...

...The PC has backing in the labor movement and among intellectuals, in addition to some influence in rural areas outside Chalatenango and Morazh...

...The Front also acknowledges the government's right to pursue neo-liberal economic policies, though not their desirability...

...The peace accords implicitly recognize this pluralistic political environment...

...Adding a final note of ambiguity, the government also reserves the right to evict tenants who occupied land after July 1991...

...Can the new professional, national police force, comprised primarily of people who were not combatants on either side, be rapidly deployed...

...The negotiation process revealed and reinforced a reality which the "two-sided" nature of military conflict often obscured: that the FMLN is part of a broader spectrum of political and social forces seeking fundamental change in Salvadoran society...

...Indeed, every major provision has been the subject of disputes over inter- pretation and complaints of non-com- pliance...

...Beyond that, they must create eco- nomic activities independent of gov- ernment control that can provide em- ployment and goods to their supporters as well as generate funds for political organizing...

...mediators informed waiting reporters that a comprehensive settlement was at hand...

...Despite the fact that there is a consensus within the FMLN on the need to establish a new political party to serve as the electoral vehicle of the Front, for example, the RN views such a party warily because it fears that the FPL and ERP will numerically dominate...

...Both groups also place a high priority on insuring that their supporters will be able to hold onto land occupied during the past decade...

...The government will effectively be in charge of implementing the National Reconstruction Plan in the conflictive zones where the most far-reaching social and economic changes will occur...

...These government promises, nebulous as they are, apply only to the conflictive zones...

...As the two men were turning their notes over to a U.N...

...An independent commission will review the record of every officer and decide which to retain...

...The FMLN's legal status will enable it to continue to struggle for its political program, parts of which the accords actually enact...

...The accords do not, however, guarantee a new social and economic order for El Salvador...

...The FMLN agrees to accept the legitimacy of constitutional democracy and of the Cristiani government...

...He is also director of the Institutefor CentralAmerican Studies in New York...

...Given these different characteristics and interests, every strategic and tactical issue facing the FMLN in the post-accord period has the potential to generate ideological and organizational conflict...

...The eleventh-hour flurry of activity was a fitting end to almost two years of negotiations which seemed constantly to teeter on the verge of collapse, only to be salvaged by last-minute concessions from one side or the other...

...Neither do the accords directly address problems of urban misery and employment needs outside the conflictive zones...

...The Struggle Ahead At the official signing ceremony in Mexico City President Cristiani said, "We understand that what begins from this moment is not the re-establishment ofa pre-existing peace, but the inauguration of an authentic peace founded on social consensus, on basic harmony between social, political and economic sectors, and, overall, on a conception of the country as a totality, without exclusions of any sort...

...Military officers will not be punished for past abuses, with the possible exception of prominent cases of human rights violations (such as the 1989 murder of five Jesuit priests and, on the FMLN side, the 1991 execution of two wounded U.S...

...The FPL and the ERP are ideologi- cally quite different from each other and are competitors for the leadership of the Left...

...The Salvadoran peace accords represent an effort to move in the opposition direction: to define the conditions and rules under which a military conflict can be re-converted to strictly political struggle...

...Despite these real achievements, the FMLN faces serious obstacles to maintaining the same degree of political influence it enjoyed as the armed vanguard of forces seeking change...

...Business, labor and consumer groups have not been shunted aside either...

...Already disagreements have arisen about whether such an alliance must support a Christian Democrat for president, and about how to allocate candidate slots for the Legislative Assembly...

...Will the death squads cease to operate...

...President Cristiani's vision of a long-term harmony of interests will likely prove illusory...

...Those will be decided by a"''Truth Commission," comprised of three foreigners, which is free to choose the cases it will consider and may recommend prosecution...

...Shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve, at the United Nations Plaza in New York City, Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani and Comandante Leonel Gonzalez of the Farabundo Martf National Liberation Front (FMLN) reached agreement on a series of social and economic issues that for two weeks had blocked a final settlement of the decade-long civil war in El Salvador...

...The first test of whether the accords can change the political dynamics of Salvadoran society came on March 1, when the first provisions Nazarlo de Jesdis Graclas, a union organizer, was the first death-squad victim since the ceasefire beaan...

...In deliberately general terms, the accords empower a special commission to "adopt the decisions and measures" necessary to "facilitate" the resolution of conflicts between prior owners and current tenants...

...All of this ambiguity reflects an un- lerlying reality: although the accords rormally end military hegemony and he oligarchy's absolute hold on power, hey do not resolve the political conflict hat led to military confrontation...

...The main loser, at least on paper, is the Salvadoran armed forces...

...Over the course of almost two years of intense negotiations, members of the negotiating teams for the government and the FMLN built up enough mutual trust to acknowledge that the other side seriously wanted peace and would comply with agreements reached...

...They have a pre- dominantly peasant membership and in rural areas their local leaders are heavily influenced by liberation theology and often became active through Christian base communities...

...If the military provisions are implemented, we can expect a prolonged and vigorous political struggle over the social, political and economic provisions of the accords, the reconstruction program, and the 1994 elections...

...Temtorial, sectoral and ideologi- cal differences within the guerrilla front will act as centrifugal forces tugging at the center...

...The government makes no commitment to land reform outside these zones beyond pledging to carry out existing law...

...Among the questions still pending are: Will the Treasury Police and National Guard be truly abolished, and not simply relabeled...

...Some provisions even reinforce the authority of the ARENAcontrolled government...

...Despite these changes, neither the existence of the military nor the preservation of privileges associated with military life is in question...

...The key political battles will be over social and economic policy...

...ARENA party and FMLN Comandante Joaqufn Villalobos, who had been meeting separately, had also come to a consensus...

...German military strategist Carl von Clausewitz once described warfare as a continuation of political conflict by other means...

...Legislation is pending that is designed to eliminate orcontrol the private armed units that have often operated as rightwing death squads...

...The accords do go significantly beyond the issues more commonly dealt with in negotiations of this type, such as cease-fire, demobilization and amnesty...

...stenographer, a messenger rushed in to announce that Armando Calder6n Sol of the ruling George Vickers isa professorofsociology at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center...

...nternal FMLN documents speak of a 'new concept of revolution" and a "new concept of victory," both of which stress the notion that progressive de- mocratization will ultimately lead tc the state's subordination to civil soci- ety...

...Ac- cnowledging the work that lies before hem, FMLN leaders speak of a "new xriod" of political struggle among in- .erest groups that will be governed by lew rules of democratic competition...

...They are keenly aware that the rural population in areas they control will not be willing to bear the same level of economic sacrifice as during wartime...

...Nevertheless, the accords do establish the parameters of political struggle in El Salvador for the foreseeable future...

...After the accords were signed, security forces evicted peasants charged with "illegally" occupying land in conflic- tive zones...

...And no timetable was set for organizing the social-economic forum involving government, business, labor and consumer .epresentatives...