IN BOTH THE POLITICAL AND MILITARY
arenas, it appears that the situation in El Salvador
has become bogged down; there is no hope of the pres-
ent deadlock leading anywhere but to a greater exacer-
bation of the war. The United States, hostage to its own
policies and backed into a corner by its own rhetoric,
has chosen to promote a series of elections designed to
buy time. It aims to use that time to evolve a military
strategy capable of defeating the FMLN insurgents, and
build the legitimacy required to convince an increas-
ingly skeptical Congress that it should bear the cost of
the enterprise.
The contending forces in El Salvador, however, act
on the basis of their own interests and according to their
own agenda. The 1982 elections and the “National
Unity” government that emerged served only to
strengthen the most recalcitrant members of the Salva-
dorean Right, to a point where they entered into open
conflict with the goals of the United States for El
Salvador. The 1984 elections, then, set out to resolve the
power conflicts between the factions of the Right.
But this presents the United States with a serious
dilemma, since the Christian Democrat PDC (the party
that so far has most closely embodied Washington’s
goals) seems to have no chance of guaranteeing a viable
government, while ARENA (the other main contender
and the standard-bearer of interests opposed to those of
the United States) is unpalatable. All this has brought
the PCN to the fore as the apparent U.S. favorite.
However, the PCN has no prospect of forming a gov-
ernment on its own; it would be obliged to seek an
alliance with either the PDC or ARENA. Thus, the elec-
tions not only fail to address the country’s central prob-
lem-the war; they seem incapable, too, of resolving
the issue of power that they were designed to clarify.
This electoral blind alley is set against the backdrop
of serious problems for the armed forces, who seem
unable either to stop the advance and military develop-
ment of the FMLN, or to effectively assimilate the
mounting levels of aid arriving from the United States.
The Salvadorean vote will also take place in the context
of the United States entering an election year, in which
both Democrats and Republicans appear reluctant to
highlight the issue of El Salvador and Central America.
The Reagan Administration will have to stabilize the
war at its present level if it wishes to prevent it from
becoming a campaign issue. It seems to have reached the
conclusion that maintaining the status quo on the
battlefield means a substantial increase in military and
economic assistance to El Salvador, combined with a
series of military maneuvers on the Honduras-Salvador
border, designed to put pressure on the insurgents’ rear-
guard. In view of the state of the Salvadorean armed
forces and the special problems they face, military aid in
itself will not be enough to check the advance of the
insurgency. It is likely, however, to increase the social
and economic cost of the war and-together with the
maneuvers-to raise the level of direct U.S. involve-
ment in the conflict.
THE POLITICAL OPTION OFFERED BY THE
FMLN-FDR, centered around a process of nego-
tiations, seems for the time being to have no future.
Though talks with official representatives of the Salva-
dorean government and the U.S. special envoy pro-
vided a curtain-raiser for possible negotiations, the elec-
toral gambit will enable Washington to place talks on
the back burner for a good year and a half-time
enough, in the Administration’s view, to build the mili-
tary capability of the armed forces.
At the same time, neither the FMLN-FDR, the Con-
tadora group nor the members of the Socialist Interna-
tional appear to have enough leverage to bring about
negotiations whose agenda would go beyond setting the
terms for participation in fresh elections of the sort that
the FMLN-FDR has already rejected. In such circum-
stances, only a dramatic military advance by the FMLN
coupled with a striking new gesture of political flexi-
bility from the Left, could convince the Administration
that a negotiated settlement was preferable to military
intervention.
The elections scheduled for March 1984 seem, there-
fore, to foreclose political options and place the stress
on military ones. Given the dynamics of the situation so
far, and the present Administration’s propensity for
military solutions, it is hard to envision a short-term
scenario in which the United States can avoid becoming
directly involved in the war. And that is not all: congres-
sional approval of the new measures that the Reagan
Administration is about to propose-based on the Kis-
singer Commission Report-would make it difficult for
any subsequent Administration to change course.
This set of circumstances makes 1984 a critical year
for El Salvador. There is an acute shortage of both time
and political space needed if we are to avoid a worse
catastrophe than the one already upon us. Both seem to
be rapidly running out; nonetheless, some space re-
mains, and it must be taken advantage of before it is too
late.
REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
46IF ONE THING HAS BECOME CLEAR OVER
the last three years of armed conflict, it is that any
political settlement unacceptable to the United States
has only the dimmest hopes of survival; such a settle-
ment would probably spend its brief lifespan trying to
fend off attack. By the same token, a political settle-
ment that fails to take the FMLN-FDR into account will
have an equally slender chance of taking root.
Second, any reordering of Salvadorean society, any
political solution, will have to obey a set of real eco-
nomic and political constraints, some domestic and
some external. On the one hand, the economy is in
ruins. Its reactivation will require huge inflows of
foreign capital, which only the West is in a position to
provide. It will also require the dynamism of the private
sector. At the same time, the realities of geopolitics
situate El Salvador in the immediate sphere of influence
of the United States. For any social force in the country
to ignore these conditioning factors would be tanta-
mount to political suicide.
The FMLN-FDR seems to have come to terms with
this situation. Its efforts to broaden the base of its
alliance, like its willingness to seek a pact that would
guarantee U.S. national security, are a token of the
Left’s recognition of these constraints. They signify a
real moderation-not merely a tactical modifica-
tion-of the utopian proposals once sketched out by the
Left. At the same time, there are a number of powerful
groups within the country, some inside the armed forces
and others in the private sector, who also understand
these realities. What is more, they see the prolongation
of the war as a serious menace to their own survival, and
a mortal threat to the very survival of El Salvador as a
nation.
Over and above these groups are the “silenced ma-
jority,” who see with alarm that the present rhythm of
the war is forcing them to choose between ever more
polarized camps. They do not want this; indeed, the
prospect frightens them. These sectors recognize the
existence of the FMLN-FDR; in doing so, they have
come to exert a certain pressure which the contending
parties in the March elections cannot ignore, forcing
them to grapple head on with the problem of the war
and delineate a clear position or alternative vis-a-vis the
dialogue offered by the insurgents. At the same time,
they demand of the FMLN-FDR a concrete political
manifesto that will allow them to visualize their likely
political role and economic freedoms in the new social
order the insurgents are proposing.
Third, a number of Latin American countries are ex-
tremely worried that the prolongation of the war in El
Salvador is leading to a regionalization of the conflict,
which would pose a threat to their own national secur-
ity. It is in these nations’ vital interest to mediate be-
tween the warring factions and bring the fighting to an
end. It is also in their vital interest to head off any show
of force by the United States in Latin America, which
could eventually jeopardize their own sovereignty.
G IVEN THIS ARRAY OF FACTORS-SOME
of which are positive-it appears that the greatest
barrier to resolving the Salvadorean crisis is the unyield-
ing political will that sees the military defeat of the
Salvadorean rebels as a vicarious means of restoring
U.S. “credibility” as a dominant world power. True,
there is no guarantee that a change in that attitude
would bring about a short-term solution. But there is
every indication that as long as the United States re-
mains inflexible, the space for political alternatives is
closed, leaving the military road as the only real option
-not that military means can ever provide a genuine
solution to the Salvadorean crisis. Even if it proves pos-
sible to eradicate the insurgents, the structural causes
that brought them into being will remain and will give
rise to fresh rebellion.
A change of political will in Washington would clear
the way for a reordering of priorities and a more realistic
appraisal of both the real extent of U.S. power in El
Salvador and the relative autonomy, beyond Washing-
ton’s control, of the actors in the Salvadorean drama. It
is well within the bounds of reason to suppose that with
this shift of attitude would come a recognition of new
goals; primary among these would be the absolute
cessation of all forms of state terrorism. This would
mean a genuine and comprehensive purge of the mili-
tary and security apparatus, which would in turn open
up fresh space for political action, allowing all social
forces in El Salvador to carry out their activities free
from fear and hindrance.
All the available evidence suggests that a dialogue
between the contending social forces in El Salvador is
feasible and that sufficient international actors are
interested in serving as mediators and safeguarding the
outcome of the talks. If negotiations depend on
Washington changing a political posture that arises
from its false diagnosis of the Salvadorean crisis, then a
re-evaluation of the premises that led to that false diag-
nosis is overdue. It is entirely possible that El Salvador is
a matter of vital concern, in the mind of the Adminis-
tration, for the national security of the United States.
For El Salvador and the Salvadorean people, it is a ques-
tion of continued survival as a nation.
San Salvador, February 1984
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