Better Than None

The government of El Salvador and guerrilla groups that have been fighting to overthrow it for nearly seven years plan to try to talk peace once again on Sept. 19. There are few signs that either side is prepared to give enough ground to make the new talks successful, but perhaps any negotiations are better than none.

Two previous negotiating sessions late in 1984 were so inconclusive that they discouraged both sides from meeting again for almost two years. The government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte insists that the rebels lay down their arms and agree to work for peaceful political change before anything else can be discussed. The rebel groups allied in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front and the Democratic Revolutionary Front, which are undefeated despite more than $2 billion that the United States has spent in support of the government, insist that they they be promised a share of power before they stop shooting.

Even when representatives of the two sides met recently in Mexico City to plan the negotiations, they spent almost two days wrangling over where to meet. They settled on the Salvadoran farming town of Sesori, in a region of the country still contested by guerrilla forces and the Salvadoran army.

Sesori is an apt place for peace talks. The town has been nearly devastated by the civil war--a conflict that has claimed more than 50,000 lives and displaced nearly one-quarter of El Salvador’s 5 million people since 1979. If nothing else, the site may prompt the two sides to work toward an initial agreement on the one issue that they both talk about: “humanizing” the war.

Precisely what that means, however, could lead to even more disagreement. The guerrillas are likely to insist that it means less bombing of rebel-held areas by the Salvadoran air force. The government is likely to insist that it means that the rebels should stop using the crude land mines that are currently causing the most serious casualties for the armed forces.

We continue to believe that a more logical issue on which to begin Salvadoran peace talks is a cease-fire agreement, with each side agreeing to stand in place and take no aggressive actions against the other as long as the talks continue. Salvadorans are so exhausted from the war that even a temporary halt to the fighting could create the political momentum for peace, thereby persuading hard-liners on both sides that their only hope for continued support among the people of El Salvador is to make the concessions needed to end their stalemate.

Without concessions by both sides, the only prospect for El Salvador is more bloodshed, for a very long time to come.