Rebel Killings Rekindle Fear in San Salvador

At night, the streets of downtown San Salvador are mostly abandoned again. Youths, rich and poor, have curtailed their outings. Motorists await with dread the inevitable police searches.

Before the sidewalk cafe massacre of June 19, San Salvador had been changing. It was regaining its reputation as a city of people who like to stroll the streets, a reputation wiped away by years of bloody gun battles, mutilated bodies and never-solved disappearances.

Now, the tentative optimism that had crept over the city has disappeared. Strict security measures are back in force. Businessmen wonder whether their investments will ever be safe. Activists with leftist leanings fear they will be caught up in a right-wing backlash.

Rebels Disguised as Soldiers

The cafe killings, carried out by rebels disguised as soldiers, took place in a part of San Salvador known as the Zona Rosa--the Pink Zone--where a number of restaurants and discotheques are situated. Four U.S. Marines were killed, as well as nine civilians, two of them Americans.

The murders also shook the city’s fragile self-confidence.

“This is what the guerrillas want, to create a state of terror,” President Jose Napoleon Duarte said. “San Salvador is back in the news.”

Before the killings, a young painter said, he had thought the situation was improving, and he added: “I could have emigrated to Canada if I’d wanted to, but I decided to remain. Now, I don’t know.”

San Salvador, a 400-year-old city, sits on the skirts of a volcano--and on seemingly endless chaos.

Its downtown is distinguished by a large, unfinished cathedral in a sort of fake Florentine style topped by a massive, half-cantaloupe-shaped dome. The cathedral sometimes seems to be as much a home for San Salvador’s many ragged street people as a place of worship.

The city’s other monuments are turn-of-the-century iron buildings shipped piece by piece from Europe and reassembled in the capital: a hospital, a church and a market that was put together improperly, so that its main entrance is inside.

Noise of All Sorts

During the day, the narrow downtown streets are a maelstrom of diesel buses without mufflers, of record stores blaring music and of shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. Squat women sell bananas, avocados and religion medallions, and lean preachers shout the Gospel into megaphones.

San Salvador has grown from 500,000 residents in 1976 to about 900,000 today, and the metropolitan area bulges with 1.6 million of the country’s 5 million people. Thousands live in ramshackle refugee camps run by the Roman Catholic Church or by the government.

Most Salvadorans distract themselves from the civil war with day-to-day chores, trying to ignore the fact that they live on the edge of violence. Soccer is played on dusty fields each weekend, and television broadcasts of the national soccer team’s games bring the country almost to a standstill. Jogging, bicycling, even break dancing have taken root.

For much of last year and this, until June 19, the war had seemed far from the capital. The reprieve came about because right-wing death squads linked with the armed forces had killed many of the rebels’ sympathizers and broken up their base of support in the city. The election of Duarte’s Christian Democratic government led to a return of conditions approaching normalcy.

There were signs of new investment--not only the new restaurants in the Zona Rosa but middle-income housing developments as well.

Rebirth of Politics

And there was political activity of a sort not seen for years. The national university, shut down and occupied by the military since 1980, reopened. Students marched, if timidly, to promote government negotiations with the rebels.

The mood of the city was reflected in a poster put up on lampposts throughout the city. It showed Jose Antonio Morales Ehrlich, the new Christian Democratic mayor, smiling and giving the thumbs-up sign over the words El Ganador-- the Winner.

But winning is a relative matter in El Salvador, for the city continues to suffer from many of the ills that gave rise to social unrest and the armed uprising in the first place.

Most of San Salvador’s people lack adequate housing. Water is scarce, often obtained at neighborhood taps and carried home in plastic jugs.

The poorest people live in shanties cut from the sides of ravines. They find little work, and the jobs that are available pay little. Street urchins camp and beg where they can. One group of people live beneath a platform that supports a penny arcade on Heroes Boulevard--they spend as much of their handouts on Pac-Man as on food.

The poor numb themselves with a local firewater called guaro at musty bars with names like “La Palma” and “The Happy Iguana.”

Trendy--and Bloody

The wealthy tend to lose themselves in neon-lighted discotheques and restaurants like “Ciao’s” and “The Paradise.” There they try to forget the war, but it was at one of these places that the guerrillas struck June 19.

The threat of assassination never completely disappeared, even in the best times. Every few weeks, some politician or military officer would fall to a leftist gunman’s bullet. One recent killing took place on a tennis court, another in front of a school where the victim was dropping off his child.

Now, there are other reminders of the war: Military recruiters suddenly show up on street corners to press youths into service. Helicopters circle overhead, bringing in wounded from rural battlefields. Policemen carry rifles, not pistols, and there are frequent blackouts caused by the rebels’ sabotage of power lines.

The other day, a reporter was walking behind the Camino Real Hotel after a late-night pizza, when a Toyota van screeched up beside him. Four men emerged in plain clothes, and each flashed what appeared to be a police identity card and pointed guns at the reporter. They frisked him and, on learning that he was a foreigner, apologized. They said a policeman’s car had been stolen and that they, in their spare time, were after the thief.

Every Sunday, the archbishop of San Salvador, Arturo Rivera y Damas, reads a list of the dead and missing. As he speaks, he stands only feet away from a vivid reminder of the war--the tomb of his predecessor, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, cut down by a gunman while he was celebrating Mass at a hospital chapel.

Problems Without Solution

To many, the problems of San Salvador defy solution. Mayor Morales was asked not long ago how his financially strapped government could make the needed improvements and provide city services. “That,” he replied, “is the $64,000 question.”

Morales talks about stimulating a new effort among small businessmen, artisans and tradesmen; about exterminating bugs and pests; about self-help housing projects. He is short on specifics.

Even lowering the level of tension can be a mixed blessing, he said.

“The people don’t think about the war as much, and that is bad,” he said. “They begin to make demands on the economy, as if there were no war, and they are not as willing to sacrifice. The left takes advantage of this, and the middle class doesn’t like to sacrifice. They like their cars and their luxuries--their services, travel and dollars.”

Some Peril in Talks

Under Duarte, peace overtures have been made to the rebels. Talks have been undertaken, although little progress has been made. But even these overtures have created tension. Some people fear that the guerrillas will take advantage of the political opening to expand their following among students and workers.

Labor unions have interpreted the government’s softer line in their own way. There have been numerous strikes. Not long ago, a special police assault team stormed hospitals that were occupied by striking health workers.

The slayings in the Zona Rosa have further strained the political peace, and right-wing political figures and business groups are clamoring for a crackdown.

Duarte says he will not “fall into the trap” of indiscriminate persecution to punish the crimes of a few. Unbridled police action, he says, would take San Salvador back to a time of daily terror--a time still fresh in the city’s memory.