No Salvation for El Salvador

...military and civilian advisers, whom it has labelled "military targets...

...Voicing his own skepticism about the value of the voting, he added: "There are still people who believe the elections will bring peace, although this seems very remote...

...Colonel Mauricio Ernesto Vargas, the Army's operations chief, is convinced that as a result of its civic actions program the military has come to be seen as a benefactor...

...Meanwhile the electoral campaign has led to increased violence in the country...

...The FMLN, which has said that "without independence no election is legitimate," has stepped up sabotage actions, kidnapped a PDC candidate from the town of Alegria in Usulutân, and publicly executed two peasants in Morazân department (later placing voting cards in their mouths as a warning to others...

...He graduated from the military academy in 1966-an important fact, because an educational reform made the class of '66 a particularly large one (46 instead of the usual dozen students...

...The Army is not alone in its disenchantment with the government...

...A major expansion of U.S...

...economic aid for stabilization, counterinsurgency and reparations...

...Some "excesses of authority" did occur in the past, Vargas admits, but he insists that these have been reduced to "sporadic" incidents and that "the guilty are punished...

...some of the 15,000 refugees from Honduras are now returning and are in need of basic assistance...

...They complain that human rights restrictions and corruption among the PDC politicians prevent them from wining the war as quickly as they would like to, but they reject the idea of a coup d'etat...

...During the last month at least 30 civilians have been killed in assassinations or military attacks by guerrillas, and by what appears to be death squads with close ties to the Army...

...In fact, the FMLN seems to have settled on a Vietnam-style "prolonged popular war" consisting of small punishing raids and an extensive use of land mines...

...has managed to survive and will continue to survive without exterior military or economic aid...

...The General also said: "We have not done well in the war, but we will not lose it...

...He declared: " The war ends with the imposition of the will of one party on the other...

...His unfortunate kissing of the American flag while visiting Washington this winter is a favorite of caricaturists from all sides...

...Several months ago the guerrillas assaulted a ranch in the eastern department of San Miguel, setting fire to the buildings and vehicles, and killing 251 head of cattle with gunfire and explosives...

...A Western European diplomat observed that the stalemate is more serious in El Salvador than in neighboring Nicaragua...

...Periodic FMLN traffic stoppages that paralyze 90 per cent of the roads between the capital and the conflict-ridden eastern parts of the country have similarly eroded rebel popularity...

...According to a U.S...

...Fighting in this tiny country-approximately the size of Massachusetts, with a population of 5 million-has so far cost over 60,000 lives and forced 12 per cent of the families out of their homes, mostly into crowded displaced persons' camps...

...The 5,000 armed members of FMLN, an umbrella organization for five insurgent movements, appear to have lost some of their ability to strike strong blows...

...report, sabotage cost El Salvador $1.5 billion between 197987...

...Perhaps this can be credited to his family background...

...It is too serious to be overcome by one force, " he told me shortly before returning to El Salvador at the end of January after eight years of self-imposed exile...

...It would mean a step back in the democratic process...

...One of his brothers is a professor of political science at UCA...

...and El Salvador has not yet recovered from the October 1986 earthquake that killed 1,500, left 31,000 without homes, and caused roughly $2 billion in damages...

...The latest talks last September, in the framework of the regional peace plan designed by Costa Rica's President Oscar Arias Sanchez, broke down after the assassination of Herbert Anaya Sanabria, president of an independent human rights commission...

...another fled the country after the military takeover of San Salvador University and today is a doctor doing medical research in Washington...

...But the indiscriminate deaths caused by the mines have aroused widespread criticism (they killed 300 civilians in 1987, a military source estimates...

...Moreover, several attempts at peace talks between the FMLN and the government, dating back to 1984 meetings in La Palma and then Ayagualo, have proved fruitless...

...Here there is no civil war," he argues...

...The FMLN...

...On the other side of the civil war, the Salvadoran Army has been working hard to improve its image and gain the population's support...

...Tandona officers tend to have Right-wing views, but according to an opposition leader their Caesarism is due mostly to the strong esprit de corps...

...You are contributing to making this country more and more dependent on so-called 'Yankee imperialism.'" Indeed, the damages inflicted each year by rebel attacks are roughly equal to the amount of U.S...

...aid brought against some of its candidates...

...Even as we spoke, though, the National Guardsmen who killed two American agricultural advisers and a Salvadoran government official in 1981 were being amnestied...

...Besides pointing to the economic deficiencies, accusing the PDC of corruption, and charging that the war against the Leftist guerrillas has been bungled, ARENA is hitting hard at Duarte's dependence on the United States...

...Today the Army numbers 57,000 men and over the past four years it has managed to recapture part of the rebelcontrolled regions...

...Elected four years ago on the populist slogan "Paz, pan, trabajo," President Duarte has provided neither peace, nor bread, nor work...

...In a public opinion survey conducted by UCA only 6.7 per cent of the respondents believed a change of government would bring peace, and 42.1 per cent thought a dialogue between the two sides was necessary...

...What we have is a Marxist-Leninist aggression...

...On the latter point the FMLN agrees: In a January broadcast Radio Venceremos announced that "Duarte is the best pawn of the American Administration in undermining the peace process...

...Especially hard hit were the electric system, the telephone network and bridges...

...Its impatience is part of a general decline in the popularity of the Christian Democrats, now divided over the choice of a candidate for next year's Presidential contest...

...In December the Air Force commander, General Rafael Bustillo, surprisingly conceded that the military was not close to resolving the situation either: "The war we are waging does not seem likely to end soon...

...last year's severe drought badly damaged other crops...

...Ruben Zamora, vice president of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR), the political arm of FMLN, thinks it will be impossible to tackle the country's myriad problems unless there is a spirit of unity: "Only a national consensus will get us out of the present crisis...

...Yet we have won a quota of power on the battlefield and we intend to use that quota" says Vargas...

...The conflict has practically dropped out of the headlines, but it has not disappeared from El Salvador...

...The next day the guerrillas brought all traffic to a halt in the capital itself, where civilian busses and three gas stations were machine-gunned and bombed...

...military assistance in 1984 (from $81 million the previous year to $206 million) was accompanied by a purge of commanders linked to death squads...

...Its outcome, however, will have no impact on this country's most dramatic reality: the civil war...

...The soldiers have also become engaged in "civic actions"-building schools, distributing food and clothing, and providing medical care...

...New casualties are reported daily in the local press and no solution, political or military, is in sight...

...Instead, the struggle between the U.S.-supported Army and the Leftist guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) has become a permanent part of the national landscape...

...As for present human rights abuses, they could only be considered sporadic if measured against the situation in 1980, when murders attributed to the death squads averaged 800 civilians a month...

...Zamora explains that he is not interested in the March 20 balloting...

...Anna Husarska, a frequent contributor to the NL, recently returned from a five-week stay in Central America...

...At the beginning of the conflict its barracks-bound 24,650 troops were poorly trained, and between 197984 some units carried out massacres of civilians in the countryside...

...These morbid paraphernalia reflect the banality of the eight-year-old war...

...On February 22, the Army announced that 20,000 men backed by helicopters would assure smooth passage everywhere...

...In a TV commercial Colonel Sigifredo Ochoa, who became one of ARENA'S top figures last June (but is not eligible to run for President because he resigned too late from the Army), rejected any negotiated solution to the civil war...

...The voting is being hailed by the government as a sign of democracy...

...He went on to say that Duarte has let the U. S. use El Salvador as a pawn in a Central American geopolitical game...

...Although the villagers welcomed a rather unsophisticated Army doctor's ministrations, many refused to give him their name out of fear that it might be used in subsequent persecutions...

...FDR is not participating in the legislative elections, but in recent polls Convergencia Democratica, an alliance of different Leftist parties sharing its views, has ranked third (after PDC and ARENA...

...The anti-Sandinista rebels operate mostly from outside bases that could be denied to them, which would seriously hamper their actions...

...The contests are likely to be honest...

...It doesn't strike Salvadorans as strange that stalls in front of the capital's cathedral offer clay figurines of soldiers grabbing a blood-covered civilian, or a villager being stabbed...

...Through broadcasts on Radio Venceremos it has threatened to attack anyone connected with the electionsas well as U.S...

...The bodies of several suspected Leftist sympathizers (some showing signs of torture) were found after they were abducted by soldiers...

...We cannot agree with this practice" of interfering in the electoral process, Roman Catholic Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas said in a homily on February 21...

...During the past three years officers from the class-known as La Tandona, or "the Big Class"-have assumed overwhelming command in the civil war and begun establishing themselves in the Armed Forces leadership...

...Apart from creating a more pluralist ambiance, a moderate democratic Leftist opposition might in the future facilitate a negotiated conclusion to the armed conflict...

...And recent polls indicate that President José Napoleon Duarte's Christian Democratic Party (PDC) will probably retain the National Assembly majority it gained in 1985, despite charges of pocketing U.S...

...Still, as Salvadoran military men go, Vargas is fairly liberal and open-minded...

...Taking advantage of these adversities, the government's main contender on the Right, the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) has launched a fierce electoral campaign in the hope of recapturing control of the National Assembly...

...He may be right...

...General Bustillo's analysis of this type of destruction went much deeper: "The prolonged war that you impose produces each day new material and human losses...

...In rural areas the burning down of coffee, cotton and sugar cane crops, besides doing damage to the wealthy landowners, further debilitated the economy...

...The father helped Duarte to create the PDC, but Colonel Vargas stresses that he has nothing to do with the party...

...Asked why the Army constantly violates the Geneva protocols, the Colonel says they are not applicable to the conflict in El Salvador...

...To underscore his point about a new attitude, Vargas produced a military plan for 198 8 making lectures on human rights part of troop training...

...The FMLN's Radio Venceremos explained that this was done to "destroy the war economy of the Duarte regime and fulfill the slogan, 'we all eat or no one eats.'" San Salvador's Jesuit-run Central American University (UCA), usually sympathetic to the rebels, lamented in its weekly publication Proceso: "This unfortunate action doesn't bring any political or military advantages to FMLN...

...These and other FMLN actions aim at undermining the economy and discrediting the civilian government...

...In October 1984, while working with a group of French physicians from Médecins du Monde who attended displaced persons in combat areas, I witnessed one such military undertaking...

...In addition, thanks to Vargas' personal intervention with President Duarte, Colonel Roberto Mauricio Stäben, implicated in a kidnap-for-hire ring, was never prosecuted...

...Since Duarte cannot succeed himself, the dubious PDC label is being sought by former Planning Minister Fidel Châvez Mena and former Culture and Communications Minister Julio Adolfo Rey Prendes...

...Here the guerrillas virtually control sections of the national territory in the North and the East...

...His personal standing with the guerrillas is clearly less of a success story: A hand-made rebel poster hanging in his office calls him a thief, liar and assassin, and accuses the Army of human rights violations...

...The members of Tandona are growing impatient with the Duarte government...

...Their February 17 raid on an Army base in Usulutân (five soldiers and seven civilians killed, 12 others injured) was a far cry from a crushing attack a year ago on the heavily guarded El Paraiso base in Chalatenango (over 70 soldiers killed, including an American military adviser...

...his goal is to gain political ground over the long term and fill the vacuum to the left of the Christian Democrats...

...But in fairness it should be said that some of the country's economic problems have been utterly beyond the government's control: World prices for coffee, El Salvador's main export item, have fallen dramatically...