Salvador Rejects Rebel Election Proposal : Government Refuses to Delay Voting but Will Study Peace Plan

Government officials of El Salvador on Tuesday rejected as “unconstitutional” a key demand by the country’s Marxist guerrillas for a six-month postponement of an upcoming presidential election as a condition for rebel participation in the balloting and their acceptance of its results.

At the same time, however, Communications Minister Roberto Viera told reporters that a 12-point proposal by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) disclosed Monday contains “positive elements” that will be studied point by point and answered in detail.

This view was echoed by Fidel Chavez Mena, the presidential candidate of the governing Christian Democratic Party and a close adviser to President Jose Napoleon Duarte.

The major elements of the rebel proposal call for the government and the military to:

-- “Cease assassinations, arrests and repression.”

-- Agree to reorganize the electoral process.

-- Respect the candidacy of the Democratic Convergence, a leftist political grouping that is running in the current campaign.

-- Withdraw the army from any involvement or interference in the voting.

In exchange, the guerrillas offer what represents a major shift of policy: their participation in the electoral process without first obtaining a share of power. Previous talks between the government and the rebels had collapsed over that demand for power sharing.

The rebel proposal included a promise to accept the outcome of the balloting and to stop intimidating mayors or the candidates of any party.

Open to Negotiation

Rebel spokesmen, who formally presented the proposal to the media in Mexico City on Tuesday, indicated that its terms are open to negotiation.

Viera, in laying out the government’s reaction, focused on the guerrillas’ demand that the voting scheduled for March 19 be delayed six months, until Sept. 15. That demand presents “an insurmountable constitutional obstacle,” he said.

“President Duarte recognizes that the proposal is positive,” Viera said, “but the postponement can’t be so long.”

El Salvador’s constitution requires that the first round of presidential elections take place no later than two months before the new president is to take office. In the current circumstance, Viera said, that means the election must be held by March 31.

Despite the talk of finding positive elements in the plan and promising to consider all of its points, other senior officials noted that the proposal fails to deal with such key questions as whether the guerrillas will continue the civil war that is now in its ninth year and whether they will lay down their arms if a candidate they oppose wins the election.

Another development that gives a negative cast to the prospects for a settlement of the civil war based on the guerrilla proposal was a statement from the defense minister, Gen. Carlos Vides Casanova, that the plan “is a ruse for power sharing.”

Opposed by Military

Furthermore, a senior government official, who asked not to be identified by name, said that all senior military officers recommended that the guerrilla plan be rejected, a stance also taken by leaders of the National Republican Alliance, or Arena, the nation’s major right-wing political party.

Former army Col. Sigifredo Ochoa Perez, vice president of the National Assembly and a powerful influence in Arena, said the rebel plan is “a trap and unconstitutional. . . . We are willing to talk. But what we cannot do is subordinate ourselves to a group of terrorist delinquents.”

However, while Viera and the others were tentatively rejecting the demand for postponing the election, FMLN leaders were telling reporters in Mexico City that all 12 points of their proposal, even the election date, are negotiable.

“We have made a proposal that we do not view as finished,” said Ana Guadalupe Martinez, an FMLN representative. The rebel leaders are willing to meet with government and army officials publicly or privately, in El Salvador or in another country, she said.

Another FMLN spokesman, Salvador Samayoa, denied that there is a serious constitutional obstacle.

“Those people are not rejecting this proposal because it violates the constitution, because they have never respected the constitution,” he said. “It is a purely formal, legal argument, an irresponsible argument in a situation in which peace is the issue.”

As to Vides Casanova’s charge, Samayoa reiterated that the guerrillas are dropping their previous demands for power sharing as a condition for ending the war. In so doing, he touched on a crucial missing element in Tuesday’s response to the rebel proposal: the reaction of the United States.

“For eight years (the United States) has been saying that the only obstacle to a political solution in El Salvador was our demand for a formula for power sharing before elections,” Samayoa said. “We are removing that obstacle for the United States. It’s their move.”

But the Bush Administration did not appear to be ready to make a move Tuesday.

Both the U.S. Embassy here and State Department experts on Central America recommended that the Administration issue a statement tentatively welcoming the proposal as a positive step--but one that the Salvadoran government would have responsibility for answering. However, in the absence of James A. Baker III, the secretary of state-designate who has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, career diplomats temporarily in charge of Central American policy decided not to say anything of substance.

Studying Proposal

“We have seen the proposal and are studying it,” State Department spokesman Charles Redman said.

Diplomats and some Salvadoran officials said that if the United States does not form a policy quickly, whatever chance the FMLN plan has of evolving into a peace process will be lost.

“There is no chance of the military accepting this unless the Americans put all the pressure they can expend,” said a Latin American envoy who asked not to be identified.

The United States has given El Salvador more than $3 billion in military and economic aid since the war began and continues to provide the country with more than half of its annual revenue.

Sources close to the rebels warned that if the offer is not developed into a positive step toward peace, a war that has killed between 40,000 and 65,000 people--half of them civilians--is likely to accelerate.

Freed reported from San Salvador and Miller from Mexico City.