The Pendulum Swings to Salvadoran Left

The five Central American presidents may have signaled an end to the war in Nicaragua when they agreed to have the Contras removed from their Honduran sanctuary in exchange for the Sandinistas’ holding of earlier-than-scheduled open elections. This brings the war in El Salvador back to center stage and clarifies the logic behind the peace proposal offered recently by the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN). It also underlines the importance of the plan by several key FMLN leaders to travel from Mexico City to San Salvador this weekend. It would be the first time that the guerrilla leadership appeared publicly in the capital of their country since 1980.

The FMLN has proposed that the March 19 presidential election be postponed until September. They would participate by supporting the candidates of their political allies in the new Democratic Convergence. Most important, the rebels agreed to accept the election results and the legitimacy of whatever government emerged from the vote. A key condition of their proposal was U.S. neutrality.

While the move was widely viewed as skillful, it was also met by a great deal of skepticism: What if the Salvadoran army and government accepted the offer instead of automatically turning it down (as they seem to have done)? How could participation in elections, even with suitable guarantees, possibly benefit the FMLN guerrillas?

The answers are yet to be fully known, but some are obvious. Since 1980 the insurgents have realized that the more their struggle is militarized and the less it is politically centered, the more difficult it would be. Also, while they knew that no arrangement was possible during Ronald Reagan’s tenure at the White House, they hope--perhaps naively--that the Bush Administration may be more willing to enter negotiations in El Salvador. But one of the main underlying motives for the FMLN’s bold move must be found in the pendular movement of regional symmetry.

Since 1981, when the wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador became regional, each side has tried to make symmetry work in its favor. Each side has struggled to impose identical conditions--of war or of peace--on different situations, hoping that what was favorable to its interests in one country at a given moment would be unfavorable to its enemy’s interests in the other country at the same time. In the early 1980s, when the FMLN and the Sandinistas were strong and the Contras and the Salvadoran army weak, symmetry worked in favor of the left and against the United States. The latter could not afford to have the same deal cut in both countries.

As the Contras received more aid and got stronger, and as the Sandinistas faced growing economic and international difficulties, and as the FMLN stagnated and the Salvadoran regime stabilized, the effects of symmetry swung over to the U.S.-backed side. The Reagan Administration tried to use the situation in El Salvador as leverage to further its aims in Nicaragua.

Today symmetry is clearly perceived by the FMLN and the Sandinistas as being squarely on their side. The commandantes in Managua evidently believe that the Contras are finished and that, despite their country’s economic woes, they can win a competitive election. The guerrilla leaders in El Salvador consider themselves stronger than ever militarily and in moderately better shape politically. Their military strategy has once again put the army on the defensive, and their “mayor elimination” campaign in the countryside, while cynical and brutal, has worked. Most rural mayors have resigned, and the central government’s local authority is virtually non-existent.

The Sandinistas and the FMLN now call for the same objectives and propose the same rules in both countries: elections, guarantees and an end to outside help for everybody. This means an end to U.S. and Honduran aid to the Contras and a significant drop in whatever backing the Salvadoran guerrillas continue to receive from Managua. It also means an end to massive U.S. aid ($1 million a day) to the government of El Salvador.

In Nicaragua the Sandinistas win hands down; in El Salvador the insurgents either win tactically, by making the army responsible for prolonging the war, or strategically, by reducing U.S. involvement and participating in elections under conditions that would assure the FMLN-backed candidates a far better showing than most people would expect.

The key to understanding Central America has always been the balance of forces--knowing who’s up, who’s down. After Contra aid was defeated, and once it became evident that the FMLN had outlasted Ronald Reagan and several billions of U.S. aid dollars, it was obvious that the basic equation would eventually return to what it was in 1980: the Sandinistas in power, the FMLN making a serious bid to achieve it. Plus ca change