El Salvador: Optimism, but--

There was an upbeat mood to Thursday’s meeting between President Reagan and El Salvador’s President Jose Napoleon Duarte. But, while some optimism about El Salvador is justified, the severe economic and political problems still facing the country must not be underestimated.

The principal reason for Duarte’s and Reagan’s optimism is that things are going better on the battlefield for El Salvador’s U.S.-supported government than when Duarte last visited Washington a year ago. Thanks to massive infusions of U.S. military aid and technology, the Salvadoran army has finally begun to pursue guerrilla groups more aggressively and consistently than it has in five years of warfare. The guerrillas are far from being defeated, but they are on the run. The rebels have been unable to mount any large-scale attacks since last year, and are instead focusing their military efforts on terrorist attacks against government officials and sabotage against El Salvador’s shaky economy.

It is the Salvadoran economy that poses Duarte’s greatest challenge at present. It is estimated that the average Salvadoran’s standard of living, which was not high when the civil war began in 1979, has declined 30% since then. Half the country’s work force is unemployed or underemployed. And the Duarte government must pay a foreign debt of almost $2 billion by exporting agricultural commodities, like coffee, whose prices are dropping.

But before Duarte can begin wrestling with El Salvador’s economic problems he must negotiate peace with the rebels. His initial steps toward dialogue, taken late last year, were encouraging. They bogged down, however, just before congressional elections in which Duarte’s Christian Democratic Party was challenged by right-wing parties that wanted no peace talks. Duarte supporters won the elections overwhelmingly. Yet, in spite of the political advantage that this gave him, Duarte has not renewed the dialogue. It is time for him to do so.

The war in El Salvador began because important political factions in the country decided that taking up arms was the only way to bring about social and economic reform. Most of those opposition groups are still allied with the guerrillas, providing them with legitimacy that they would not have on their own. The political estrangement that led to the civil war must be ended by bringing as many of those civilian factions as possible back into the political process to work for change peacefully. Until Duarte does so, the shooting in El Salvador will not end, and it will be impossible for him to deal with the nation’s economic problems.