Rebels Drop Demand to Join Salvador Army

Guerrilla commanders Tuesday offered a plan to end El Salvador’s nine-year civil war that drops their longstanding demand to integrate the government and rebel armies.

But their proposal called for changes that the powerful Salvadoran army is likely to reject, such as a reduction of the armed forces to its prewar 12,000 soldiers, reorganization of the security forces and prosecution of human rights abuses committed by the military and paramilitary groups.

“Our front . . . manifests its willingness to cease the armed struggle in a definitive manner, incorporate into the political life of the country and recognize the existence of only one army in the framework of agreements to implement our peace proposal,” the proposal by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front said.

For years, the rebels demanded power sharing before they would participate in elections, and the integration of the guerrilla and government armies to end the war. The government contended that both would have been unconstitutional, and both demands have now been dropped.

The two-page proposal was signed by all five commanders of the front using their real names rather than noms de guerre --an apparent demonstration of their willingness to return to civilian life.

Leaders of more than a dozen Salvadoran political parties who are in Mexico for two days of talks with the rebels issued a joint statement calling for an “urgent” meeting among the rebels, government and political parties to negotiate the peace proposal.

“This is a transcendental step, a total change in their position, just like their acceptance of elections,” said San Salvador Mayor Armando Calderon Sol, a leader of the ultra-rightist Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena, party.

The parties’ positive reaction to the proposal throws into question whether presidential elections will be held as scheduled on March 19.

The representatives of the parties came to this Mexican government resort about 50 miles southwest of Mexico City on Monday for two days of talks with the guerrillas on an earlier proposal to delay elections.

Sought Vote Delay

The guerrillas offered last month to participate in elections if they are postponed for several months from the scheduled March 19 date and if the rebels are given guarantees of safety to campaign.

They said they would back leftist Democratic Convergence candidate Guillermo Ungo, whose party is allied with the rebels, if assured of absentee ballots for exiles and a new electoral commission that includes leftists.

The rebels originally asked for a Sept. 15 vote, but during the meeting they said they would accept a delay of five months from the date of a cease-fire agreement with the army. They said that if such an agreement were reached quickly, a vote could come as early as July or August.

Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte and the army, however, have adamantly opposed postponing the election. Arena leaders, who expect their candidate, Alfredo Cristiani, to win the March election, also originally opposed a vote delay.

But in a press conference Tuesday, Arena leaders softened their position, refusing to rule out a postponement. Afterward, Jose Francisco Guerrero, an Arena official, said their position has shifted because “now this is not just an election plan. It is a broader proposal” to end the war.

While making the peace proposal in Mexico, however, the rebels continued the war in El Salvador, exploding two car bombs that killed two civilians outside a military barracks in San Salvador and attacking the provincial capital of Zacatecoluca, killing three soldiers.

An elderly couple died and three people were wounded in the bomb explosion outside the 1st Brigade’s San Carlos Barracks.

Three soldiers were killed and five wounded in three hours of fighting in Zacatecoluca, the capital of La Paz province, according to the military.

The Mexico meeting marks the first time the rebels and political parties have sat down together.

The guerrillas and Arena party representatives held a private meeting early Tuesday that both sides described as positive.

The new plan does not address how the leftist rebels would dissolve their army, estimated at 6,000 to 7,000 combatants plus several thousand part-time militia.

Slaying of Archbishop

The rebels’ proposal calls for the prosecution of those responsible for “massacres and historic political crimes.” The rebels specifically cited the 1980 assassination of Oscar Arnulfo Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador, who was gunned down while saying Mass.

President Duarte has blamed the murder on a former National Guard intelligence officer, Roberto D’Aubuisson, a founder and leader of Arena. In the wake of the 1987 Central American peace plan, Duarte declared an amnesty for all political crimes except the Romero killing.

The Salvadoran Supreme Court, made up of a majority of Arena sympathizers, recently ruled out extradition from the United States of a suspect in the case, virtually assuring that it will not be solved.

The rebel proposal also calls for reducing the armed forces from about 52,000 to 12,000--the size of the army in 1978.

“This measure permits a reduction of the militarization of society in favor of the civilian life of the country, reducing the cost of war,” the proposal stated.

“In order for there to be democracy, (the military) must reduce its force and political weight in society, guaranteeing its obedience to the government freely elected by the people,” it says.

The third requirement of the proposal is to dissolve the current police forces--the National Police, National Guard and Treasury Police--and to restructure them into a single, “professional, adequately armed” security force under the interior minister rather than the armed forces.

“The current security forces are true centers of torture and terror that do not respect human rights,” the proposal said.