Hopes for Salvador Talks Fade as Duarte Assails Rebels

Prospects for the continuation of government peace talks with El Salvador’s rebels took a turn for the worse Thursday as President Jose Napoleon Duarte attacked insurgent leftist leaders for sticking to demands unacceptable to his government.

Although he repeated a willingness in principle to meet again with the rebels, Duarte insisted that guerrillas fighting his government return to the original spirit of the talks, begun at his invitation last October. Top Duarte aides said the rebels must show this spirit by dropping their demands for power-sharing and for a merger of government and rebel military forces.

The rebels made both demands in November at the second round of talks.

“They have conditions I cannot accept because the conditions are against the democratic constitution I must respect,” Duarte said at a press conference. “Therefore, if they insist . . . my answer obviously will have to be no.”

Duarte said that before setting a date for a third round of talks, he will have to “evaluate all factors.”

Known here as the “dialogue,” the government’s discussions with leaders of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front are aimed at ending five years of civil war.

Talks were expected to resume this month. Now, if they resume at all, aides to Duarte said, it will not be until after March 31, when elections for the National Assembly and town halls are over.

The first round of talks took place in the mountain town of La Palma, and the second was conducted in a Roman Catholic retreat in Ayagualo.

“I contrast the spirit of La Palma with the spirit of Ayagualo,” Duarte declared. “The spirit of La Palma was sincere.”

At La Palma, Duarte placed limits on the negotiations, saying that they could not result in accords that contravene El Salvador’s constitution. This means that Duarte can neither offer a share of power to the rebels nor incorporate guerrillas into the armed forces.

Duarte, at La Palma, offered the rebels amnesty and invited them to participate in elections.

The left, which has long contended that the existence of Salvadoran death squads makes it unsafe for leftist candidates to participate in government-run elections, responded with its own demands at the November session.

“We found that the left was negative in Ayagualo,” Duarte repeated. “When they went out (from the meeting), they made speeches not in the direction of finding ways to obtain peace, but in an attitude against proposals of peace. They were talking war.”

Duarte accused the rebels of attempting to make publicity points by first rejecting a cease-fire at Ayagualo, then offering one later and then publicly announcing a proposal for a new round of talks in a communication dated Jan. 11.

“They want a tactical dialogue,” Duarte said. “When the time comes when things are ripe, when everything is in readiness to obtain good results, I will make the decision.”

Despite Duarte’s assertions that talks will resume, it was clear that a consensus for continuing the dialogue has seriously weakened since Ayagualo.

Duarte’s own representatives at Ayagualo have since expressed misgivings about resuming conversations. Two of the four members of the government group, Col. Reynaldo Lopez Nuila, who is vice minister of defense, and Abraham Rodriguez, a confidant of Duarte, said they will not return to the table as long as the rebels demand power-sharing and a merger of the guerrillas with the armed forces.

“The fact is that the objective conditions for a successful dialogue do not exist,” said Rodriguez, who is a businessman and an official in Duarte’s Christian Democratic Party. “Neither side feels weak enough to give ground.”

After initial acquiescence, El Salvador’s volatile right wing has also closed ranks against resumption of the talks. Military men believe the rebels are using negotiations only to find ways to strengthen themselves in their battle against government forces.

At a press conference this week in Mexico City, leftist leaders charged that the political right is hamstringing Duarte’s peace effort.

Duarte acknowledged that the right wing does “not want dialogue,” but he rejected assertions that rightist pressure had delayed a return to the talks.

Duarte’s political advisers are debating whether to make peace talks an issue in the coming legislative elections. The balloting, for seats in the 60-member assembly, is considered important because the legislature now is controlled by rightists who oppose almost everything Duarte stands for.

Rightists in the assembly, led by Roberto D’Aubuisson and his Arena party, have derailed land reform, slashed Duarte’s budget proposals and adopted an electoral law that, in effect, would bar Duarte’s son from being a candidate for mayor of San Salvador.