The peace that Duarte has offered is
being dropped from his A-37 planes.
Radio Venceremos (FMLN),
October 17, 1984.
I think that the extreme Left is doing
everything possible to destroy the
possibilities for peace.
Napole6n Duarte, October 24, 1984.
Within days of the peace talks at La
Palma, El Salvador returned to war-
as-usual. The Army mounted major
operations in three provinces. The
guerrillas paralyzed traffic in the east-
ern third of the country and moved
their attacks into the capital itself. The
rhetoric of war replaced the rhetoric of
peace.
It is easy to be cynical about the
peace talks-about the motives that
led each side to sit down and talk,
about the fanfare that accompanied
the event and about the prospects for
peace in El Salvador. Admittedly, La
Palma was but one day in the life of a
country at war-an “event” and not yet a process. But La Palma did mark
a sharp break with the country’s past,
and offered the chance for a still re-
mote future of peace.
For two days, El Salvador was the
scene of once unimaginable events-
beginning with the arrival of FDR
leaders Guillermo Ungo and Rub6n
Zamora aboard a Colombian Air
Force plane on October 14, and their
42-mile drive to a guerrilla camp in
the mountains above La Palma. Their
only protection was the press corps–
a convoy of two dozen cars that nearly
drove its prey off the road. On com-
mercial radio stations, the terms “ter- rorist” and “subversive” gave way to
“los sefiores del FMLN” in a series of
unprecedented interviews with rebel
leaders. At La Palma, a Christian
Democratic leader embraced his son
descended from the hills for a day.
The Mothers of the Disappeared dem-
onstrated. A rebel music ensemble performed.
Most importantly, a sector of opin-
ion in El Salvador suddenly regained
its voice on October 15. Where the
word “dialogue” once was spoken in
hushed tones, and those who sup- ported it were shot, there was now a
crowd of thousands applauding the
dialogue and demanding it be sincere.
Just as suddenly, the fanatic Right
was silenced-if only for a day. They
were not part of the celebration at La
Palma. They were probably home
plotting.
The Cradle of Peace
Just after dawn, I joined a caravan
of buses and trucks chugging up the
highway, packed with government employees, peasants and party stal-
warts. Many had been given the day
off, lunch money and a free ride to La
Palma by the Christian Democratic
Party. But most seemed to be travel- ing there because they wanted to be
part of history-they were curious, adventurous
and, most of all, hopeful that they might be witnesses to the be-
ginning of an end to the war. There were more soldiers lining the
route than I had ever seen before, but
even they seemed relaxed, with an oc- casional flower protruding from the
barrel of an M-16. Once over the
bridge into Chalatenango province,
not a soldier was in sight.
It has been that way for several
years now-the strange passage from
Army control, to no-man’s land, to
the FMLN banner over the highway
welcoming visitors to territorio libre.
This time, however, there were no
FMLN patrols to greet the visitors and
ask for “a small donation for the
cause.” Just hundreds of peasants
from surrounding villages walking to
La Palma. And a brand new banner
proclaiming “An Honest Dialogue
Will Bring Peace -FDR-FMLN.”
In the town of La Palma, now call-
ing itself “the cradle of peace,” Boy
and Girl Scouts provided the only security as they tried their best to
keep the crowds in the central plaza under control. People clustered on
tree branches until they broke, climb-
ed on rooftops and pushed against the
human barrier of scouts to get closer
to the village church where the twc
sides would meet.
In the preceeding days, the rebel
leaders had bitterly attacked Duarte
for creating a “circus atmosphere”
and security nightmare in La Pal- ma. Yet as the crowds boisterously
cheered their arrival-just as they had
cheered Duarte moments before-the
exhilaration showed on the faces of
FDR leaders Guillermo Ungo and
REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
r
4Ruben Zamora, and the FMLN com-
andantes.
In addition to Ungo and Zamora,
the rebels’ negotiating team consisted
of Fermin Cienfuegos, leader of the
National Resistance (RN), and
Facundo Guardado, of the Popular Liberation
Forces (FPL). Cienfuegos,
a former medical student and an or-
ganizer of the earliest guerrilla cells, was a familiar name to journalists who
interviewed him in Managua and
Mexico back in 1981-82. But Guar-
dado was an unknown entity to a press
corps largely ignorant of El Sal-
vador’s pre-war history. A peasant
from Chalatenango, he was a founder
of the country’s first farmworker
union in 1972, and secretary general
of the People’s Revolutionary Bloc
(BPR)-the largest mass organization
of the Left-until his arrest in 1979.
Protest demonstrations and sit-ins ob-
tained his release, at a cost of 23
people shot dead on the steps of San
Salvador’s Cathedral. Guardado had
not been seen in public since. Many spectators were disappointed that Joaquin Villalobos, leader of the
FMLN’s largest military faction, was
not part of the rebel delegation, as
previously announced. FMLN leaders
said it would have taken Villalobos at
least five days to walk to La Palma from Morazdn, and charged that
Duarte had refused to provide a
helicopter. While some people, in-
cluding the U.S. ambassador, tried to
interpret his absence as a sign of dis-
unity in rebel ranks, Villalobos broad-
cast his strong endorsement of the
talks over Radio Venceremos.
Long Lost Friends
As the church doors closed behind
the rebel delegation, I wondered about
the atmosphere inside. Ungo was
Duarte’s running mate in 1972. Zam-
ora was his young prot6g6 in the
Christian Democratic Party. Would
they embrace after so many years?
(Insiders later said they did not, but asked about each other’s families as
an acknowledgement of the intimacy
they once shared.) And how would
the rebel comandantes interact with
the dour General Vides Casanova,
dressed in camouflage fatigues? Was
the General there to support Duarte’s
-n thousand people waited under a burning sun.”
initiative, or to make sure he didn’t
overstep the bounds of what the Army
might tolerate?
For five and a half hours, ten
thousand people waited under a burn-
ing sun for the two sides to emerge. Government dignitaries and their fam- ilies were crouched on the stone pa-
tio of the church-men and women
dressed in white as a symbol of peace.
They appeared proud of their presi-
dent and amazed by the exuberance
and size of the crowds.
As the hour of decision approach-
ed, the Boy Scouts made way for two
young men to enter the small space at
the front of the church occupied by the
Christian Democratic elite. Cameras and rolls of film were strung from
their necks. They might have been
taken for journalists had it not been
for the beards and baseball caps that
gave them away as guerrillas, who
were checking out the scene before
their leaders emerged from the church.
The government dignitaries began whispering, elbowing each other ner- vously, until one of them cried out
and pointed to one of the guerrillas.
“That’s Neto! Hey, we went to high
school together! Neto, don’t you re-
member me?” The face under the
baseball cap remained impassive, without a flicker of recognition. “I re-
member him, too,” said another man from the government group. “That’s
Ruben Zamora’s brother!” Neto’s
face broke into a broad smile. Candies
were passed around. The head of El
Salvador’s Supreme Court joked that
he really should arrest Neto. “This is
a crazy country,” said one woman
joyously. “We’re at war and peace at
the same time.”
A Plea For Patience
The brilliant sunshine became a driz-
zle and then a downpour just as Arch-
bishop Rivera y Damas emerged from
the church at 3:30. Everyone sensed
immediately from the smile on the
archbishop’s face that the meetings
had gone well. The Joint Com- muniqu6 confirmed it. The delegates
to the talks had agreed to establish a
commission made up of four represen-
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1984 5itives appointed by each side and a
moderator chosen by the Church. The
,mmission’s task would be to “de-
elop appropriate means to incorpo-
Ite all sectors of the nation in the
:arch for peace,” to “discuss all
tose aspects that lead to peace in the
iortest time possible,” and to “dis-
cuss measures to humanize the armed
conflict.”
The communique was strong on
procedure and short on substance, but
at least the dialogue had not been bro-
ken off. The two sides would meet
again in late November. No mention
was made of a cease-fire and no major
concessions were made by either side. But it seemed clear that each side had
sought to avoid emphasizing insuper-
able differences in the interest of
keeping the door open to future talks.
By pre-arrangement, the FDR- FMLN delegation and the government addressed the crowd for 15 minutes
Trade Unionists Released–A Step Toward National Reconciliation
While the eyes of the world focused
on the historic meeting at La Palma on
October 15, another step toward na-
tional reconciliation in El Salvador went unnoticed. There were no TV
cameras to cover the release of El Sal-
vador’s longest held political prison-
ers, their nervous journey aboard Red
Cross vans to San Salvador’s airport
and their flight to political exile in the
Netherlands. Yet the Salvadorean
government’s decision to free these ten trade unionists-and the prison-
ers’ decision to choose exile over re-
maining in their homeland-is a re-
flection of both the process set in mo-
tion at La Palma and the many obsta-
cles that lie ahead on the road to real
peace.
The case of the jailed trade un-
ionists-all members of El Salvador’s
hydroelectrical workers’ union (STE-
CEL)–dates back to August 22, 1980, when they took part in a na-
tionwide general strike protesting
widespread government repression. The STECEL workers shut down the
country’s major electric plants, until
they were rounded up by national guardsmen, tortured and interrogated for 70 days and then moved to
Mariona prison where they languished
for exactly four years. The prisoners became a cause cel-
dbre in union circles in the United States and Europe, as telegram cam-
paigns were organized for their re-
lease and union delegations visited
them in jail. Their treatment epito- mized the lack of a functioning judi-
cial system in El Salvador: no access
to legal counsel, no formal charges
filed against them, no trial.
Yet prison was still a safer place
than the streets. On June 11, 1981, the
17-year-old daughter of one prisoner,
Jos6 Valencia, was kidnapped by
armed men in civilian clothes. Her
body was found days later in a public
garbage dump. On August 20, 1982,
the wife and 13-year-old daughter of
Hector Recinos, the union’s top lead-
er, were “disappeared” from the
streets of San Salvador. “We are the
lucky ones,” the prisoners insisted to
visiting trade union leaders from the
United States in 1983. “At least we
made it to jail.”
On October 8, the same day as his
speech at the United Nations propos-
ing talks with the FMLN, President Duarte announced that a military
judge had cleared the trade unionists and ordered their release. Yet the pris-
oners, remembering a fellow unionist
who was released and then killed by
unknown assassins last spring, re-
L to r: Dutch Ambassador Bertens
with Recinos and Valencia.
fused Duarte’s offer to open the prison
gates until secure arrangements could
be made for direct transport to the air-
port and exile abroad.
One week later, nine of the prison-
ers and their families were quietly flown to the Netherlands in the com- pany of the Dutch Ambassador. Dur-
ing the long hours of waiting at the
airport, they expressed a mixture of
joy and sadness. “We are not leaving
our country by choice,” said Recinos,
“but because the death squads force
us to do so. Giving us our freedom is
easier for Mr. Duarte than punishing
those responsible for so many
deaths.” Since Duarte’s inauguration in June
1984, El Salvador’s labor movement
has begun to slowly recuperate from
years of intense repression. Unions that have operated virtually under-
ground for the last four years now talk.
of plans to re-open their offices and
hold public meetings. They have been
among the strongest voices supporting
a dialogue for peace. But the death squads have already threatened re-
:prisals. The Secret Anti-Communist
Army issued a communique on Oc-
tober 5 warning that unions and union
leaders who engage in strike activities
“will be targets for annihilation by
our forces.” One trade union leader
has already been killed. If El Sal-
vador’s civil war is to end peacefully,
then Duarte must prove that condi- tions can be created for the armed op-
position to enter the democratic pro-
cess. One test of progress will be the
fate of the labor movement. An esti- mated 8,239 trade unionists were
killed, disappeared or tortured in El
Salvador between 1979 and 1981,
prior to the outbreak of full-scale civil
war. Peace cannot mean a return to
that past.
6 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
6 REPORT ON THE AMERICASeach. “This is a first step,” said Guil-
lermo Ungo, “but many more steps must
be taken.” People in the crowd
took the rare opportunity to express
their sympathies without fear, shout-
ing “Ungo, Ungo!” Fermf.n Cien-
fuegos led the crowd in chants of
“We Want Peace!” and pleaded for
patience to achieve a lasting peace: “You have
waited here for five hours but
the Salvadorean people have also
struggled for 50 years.”
Napole6n Duarte emerged to the
cheers of equally vocal fans. “We
never believed it would be possible in
a single meeting to formalize all as-
pects of peace. We aren’t offering miracles. But we’re fighting so the
Salvadorean people can achieve the
miracle of their own liberation.”
The two sides were never seen to-
gether at La Palma. Yet their meeting placed the guerrillas and government
in a position of parity for the first
time. Two sides to a conflict. Two ar-
mies and two political visions. The FDR-FMLN clearly gained an enor-
mous measure of legitimacy and rec-
ognition in the eyes of those who wit-
nessed the spectacle at La Palma, those who watched it live on national television and those who read about in
the international press. But what was
in it for Duarte?
Why Did Duarte Do It?
It was a complete turnaround. Since the FDR-FMLN first issued its call for
dialogue two years ago, Duarte had
rejected any suggestion of sitting down to talk and insisted that the reb-
els first lay down their arms. First
surrender, then we’ll talk, he said.
U.S. advisers say the Salvadorean
Army has “seized the initiative” in
the war. The U.S. Congress has praised Duarte as a true democrat and
given him millions in economic and
military aid. So why did Napole6n Duarte change his mind? The U.S. press has generally fo-
cused on Duarte’s personality to an-
swer that question. Duarte, the im-
petuous man of grand gestures, the
gambler, the consummate politician,
the messianic believer in his own
power to “save El Salvador” from
chaos. All of that is true. But what the
press failed to note was the political
context in which Duarte reached his
dramatic decision.
There’s a saying in El Salvador:
“Duarte may be crazy, but he isn’t
stupid.” He has the populist’s instinct for reading the public mood. His invi-
tation to La Palma was a calculated political move to halt the erosion of
his social base, quell divisions within
his own party and prepare for the Leg-
islative Assembly elections scheduled
for March 1985.
Things have gone better for Duarte
with the U.S. Congress than with his
own Legislative Assembly–domi-
nated by a bloc of right-wing parties
and endowed with considerable power
under the new constitution. Duarte
has lost every major legislative bat-
tle-from agrarian reform to universal conscription. If he is to realize his
dream of “saving El Salvador,” he
must sweep the March elections and
gain control of the Assembly.
In the weeks leading up to La
Palma, however, there were signs that
Duarte was in danger of losing his
most powerful constituency. The cen-
trist labor unions of the Popular Democratic Unity (UPD) had signed a
“social pact” with Duarte prior to the March presidential elections. In ex-
change for pledges of economic re-
forms to benefit the poor, and a clear
commitment to seek a dialogue for
peace, the unions turned out the vote
for the Christian Democratic Party.
But in his first four months in of-
fice, Duarte seemed more intent on
placating El Salvador’s conservative business sector with generous conces-
sions than with fulfilling his pledges
to labor. The UPD unions publicly de-
nounced his economic policies and
threatened to withdraw their support
unless a dialogue with the opposition
was initiated promptly.
Rivals within Duarte’s own party
didn’t miss the opportunity to play on
labor’s discontent. Planning Minister
Fidel Chav6z Mena, once considered
as a possible presidential candidate,
advocated more equitable economic
policies. Charged with developing a
national strategy for economic recov-
ery, he stated publicly that recovery
would be impossible without peace
achieved through political means.
There was even talk of forming a new
party “to rescue the Social Christian
principles” on which Christian De-
mocracy had been founded. There were undoubtedly other fac-
tors that went into Duarte’s decision: pressure from European governments
on his recent diplomatic tour; the de-
sire to up-stage Nicaragua’s surprise acceptance of the Contadora draft
treaty for regional peace, and comply-
with its call for negotiations to end
civil conflicts. Perhaps Duarte wanted
to assert his independence from the
United States, at a time when the
Reagan Administration could hardly
oppose a peace initiative.
For the moment, Duarte has up- staged his rivals and vastly improved
his party’s chances of winning a
majority in the Assembly. He has dis-
armed his critics in Europe and the
United States, assured himself of time
and money for the war effort, and
further isolated his opponents on the
right. But Duarte also has taken a
huge political risk. His peace initia-
tive is a treasonous act to the ultra-
Right which already has issued threats
against his life. General Vides Casa- nova went along to La Palma, but that
is no guarantee of the Army’s con-
tinued support. How much room does
Duarte really have to negotiate? And
if the talks break down, who will the
people blame?
What’s To Negotiate?
A pact of silence has prevented
either side from discussing the sub-
stance of the peace talks. But in a
“Document of Principles and Norms”
presented to the rebels at La Palma, Duarte
set forth the central issue of debate:
“From this forum I wish to tell the
ideologues of El Salvador’s rebels in
arms to tone down their strategies to
adapt to the country’s new circum-
stances. This is not the same El Sal-
vador that they left in 1978 and 1979.
A climate of freedom pervades our
country. Political parties are respected and their activities are promoted and
the people choose their leaders freely. Abuses of authority and violations of
human rights have decreased to a min-
imum level and those guilty of them
are sought out and punished . . . El
Salvador has a new society today.”
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1984 7During the talks, Duarte presum-
ably cited the oft-repeated claims that
death-squad killings are down dramat-
ically; that the security forces have
been reorganized and purged of their
most corrupt and brutal elements; that
the Army has been “profession-
alized” and now respects human rights; and that a new commission has
been established to investigate politi-
cally motivated killings. The rebel delegation may well have
countered with the following points:
* Only a handful of Salvadorean
officers accused of human rights
abuses have been transferred, mainly
to diplomatic posts abroad, while the
others remain on active duty. Not one
has been subjected to civilian or mili- tary justice.
* The death squads, generally be-
lieved to include off-duty and re-
tired military personnel, continue to
operate with impunity. In the month
of October alone, their victims in-
cluded a university professor ma-
chine-gunned in front of his home and
a trade union leader found beaten and
drowned. Humanitarian relief workers
have been kidnapped by armed men in
civilian clothes, only to turn up days
later in the hands of the National
Police. Recent death-squad com- muniqu6s have threatened union ac-
tivists and teachers. The total number
of death-squad victims may have de-
clined since Duarte took office, but
the structures remain intact and the
terror persists.
* The main causes of violent death among the civilian population today
are the bombs dropped by the Sal-
vadorean Air Force and the Army’s sweeps into territories contested by
the guerrillas. Two recent massacres
of unarmed civilians, in Cabafias and
Chalatenango provinces, were widely
reported in the foreign press and de-
nounced by the Archdiocese. Duarte’s
own inquiry absolved the Army of any
wrongdoing.
[A recent report by the respected human rights group, Americas Watch, states that, “As best we can deter-
mine, these attacks on civilian non-
combatants in conflict zones are part
of a deliberate policy. The aim seems
to be to force civilians to flee these
zones, depriving the guerrillas of a
civilian population from which they
can obtain food and other necessities.
The cost of pursuing this policy, in
terms of human suffering, is beyond
measurement. And, of course, it is a
policy that flagrantly violates the laws
of war.] The causes of the conflict in El Sal-
vador have not been eradicated. And the FMLN will not abandon the armed struggle in exchange for exaggerated
claims and vague promises. But nei-
ther did the rebel leaders, in subse-
quent statements to the press, make
power-sharing their bottom line. Ra-
ther, they emphasized concrete steps
toward the creation of a more just so-
ciety: a halt to the bombings of rebel-
controlled zones, full respect for
human rights and punishment of those
responsible for abuses; the right to or-
ganize workers in the countryside and
cities; economic measures to benefit the poor; and the withdrawl of all
U.S. advisers and military aid.
If Duarte’s document is read as a
statement of intent, rather than a list
of accomplishments, there is hope that
the way can be paved toward peace and truly fair elections. Recent his-
tory, including Duarte’s first term as
president in 1980-82, does not bode
well for the future. But La Palma tap- ped and unleashed a new social force:
the people’s profound desire for
peace. The sincerity of both sides will
be tested, as will the limits of Duarte’s power and the unity within rebel
ranks. Waging
War And Peace
The war most certainly will inten-
sify in the months ahead, as each side
seeks to demonstrate that it came to
the talks not out of weakness but out
of strength. There is no contradiction,
simply hard reality. But there will be a new arena of struggle in El Salvador, as each side tries to grab the political space opened
by the talks. The FDR-FMLN realized
long before La Palma that its struggle
could not be won by military means
alone. In the last year, it has em-
phasized the need to rebuild its urban structures and mobilize new sectors in
pursuit of basic economic demands.
Independent actors, in the trade un-
ions and Christian base communities,
will also be testing the government’s
commitment to controlling right-wing
violence and carrying out reforms.
Death-squad activity can be expected
to increase as a result, and left-wing splinter groups, particularly the tiny
faction that broke away from the
FDR-FMLN last year, may try to
sabotage the talks as a “sell-out” of the revolution. Things will get worse in El Sal-
vador before they get better. But there
will be signs along the way to indicate
progress or the lack of it.
One litmus test of the government’s
commitment to peace will be its choice
of delegates to the new peace commis-
sion and the next meeting in
November. If Duarte appoints low-
level officials, the FDR-FMLN will
most likely respond in kind. If the
Army is absent from the delegation, it
will be an ominous sign that Duarte
has failed to exert civilian control over
the military.
Another test will be Duarte’s pro-
gress in fulfilling his promise to inves- tigate specific cases of political vio- lence and prosecute the accused. So
far, his investigative commission has
said nothing. Nor does it have the
power to prosecute. That rests with
the attorney general and the courts, both controlled by parties of the ultra-
Right. Duarte must be prepared to do
battle with these forces, and to let
some heads roll in the Armed Forces
if his “new society” is really to take
shape.
The attitude adopted by the United
States will have a significant impact on the prospects for peace in El Sal-
vador. All indications are that the
Reagan Administration had no role in
formulating the La Palma initiative.
Indeed, it runs counter to what has
been the goal of U.S. policy for the
last four years: a military victory over
the rebels, whatever the cost in human
lives and suffering. If followed by
serious steps toward establishing re-
spect for human rights and the condi-
tions for a genuine democracy in El
Salvador, La Palma can become the
first step toward peace. If pursued as a
propaganda ploy, as a ticket to un-
limited aid from the United States and
further escalation of the war, then
there will be no end in sight.
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