Cristiani Vows to ‘Rescue’ El Salvador, Will ‘Seek Contact’ With Rebels

Alfredo Cristiani, leader of a right-wing party once linked to death squads, became president of El Salvador on Thursday, marking the country’s first transfer of power from one democratically elected president to another.

After taking the blue-and-white sash symbolizing the presidency from outgoing President Jose Napoleon Duarte, the 41-year-old graduate of Georgetown University in Washington told the 6,000 guests and diplomatic delegates that the theme of his administration will be “the rescue” of the country and that his government “will be based on the principles of liberty, honesty, legality and security.”

“Our government is going to rescue the nation’s sovereignty, rescue real nationalist values and promote pride among Salvadorans,” he said.

No Plan to End War

While his 50-minute address stressed his desire for unity and an end to the nine-year war with a Marxist revolutionary movement, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the new president made no new proposals for ending the conflict, which has taken as many as 60,000 lives.

Instead, he revived an old and guarded pledge made during the campaign that preceded his overwhelming victory March 19 to open talks with the front, saying he will appoint a commission to examine what points would be included in any dialogue.

“We will immediately seek contact with them (the rebels),” he said, “but not to make proposals that they can reject and continue an endless game that only serves as a propaganda exercise.”

But other than saying any talks would have to be outside El Salvador, he offered no other details.

The swearing-in was held in a barn-like structure normally used for trade shows. The building, decorated in the red, white and blue colors of his party, the National Republican Alliance, or Arena, had to be illuminated by a gasoline-powered generator because the power lines were sabotaged by the guerrillas.

At least 90% of the country was without electricity after the guerrillas blew up key transmission lines early Thursday, so only a handful of people were able to watch or hear the televised transfer of power.

A rebel threat to attack cars, buses and other vehicles emptied the country’s roads and hampered business, and heavily armed troops patrolled roads and city streets, but a promised guerrilla offensive to make “Salvador ungovernable” failed to materialize, and there were no reports of serious clashes during the day.

In his speech, Cristiani warned the FMLN, as the guerrilla movement is commonly called, that “the Marxist war in El Salvador has no future” and that while “we don’t want to use force to govern . . . neither will we endure a terrorist war against the economy and the people.”

While his call for new talks with the FMLN drew applause, he received his most enthusiastic reception when he criticized the Duarte government for corruption and running “an arbitrary” and closed economy.

‘Arbitrary and Corrupt’

With the outgoing president, who is dying of stomach cancer, sitting stoically at his side, Cristiani said, “we now have an arbitrary and corrupt system” that will be reformed to “reduce the role of the state to an absolute minimum.”

He pledged to return control of foreign trade to the private sector and while denying that he would abolish Duarte’s land reform, he said that “the people will have to assume responsibility for their own lives.”

A millionaire coffee grower married to a millionaire coffee grower’s daughter, Cristiani has opposed turning land over to peasants. Instead, he said Thursday, his government will give credit and technical assistance. This brought loud applause from the right-wing businessmen and politicians sitting in the hall.

And while he spoke of a return to a market economy, Cristiani said El Salvador will continue to need major international aid. In reality, the only serious foreign assistance comes from the United States at the average rate of about $1.5 million a day.

Surpassing the enthusiasm for the new president was the audience’s nearly wild response at the first mention of Roberto D’Aubuisson, a dismissed army major who founded Arena and is widely connected to the death squads held responsible for killing tens of thousands of people in the first years of the civil war.

D’Aubuisson, a self-professed anti-American nationalist who was elected as Arena’s “maximum leader” for life earlier this year, is considered the more-moderate Cristiani’s most serious challenger in the exercise of real power in the government.

His attitude was expressed during the new president’s speech when he pointedly failed to clap as Cristiani said his government would oppose the use of violence to govern. And when the national anthem was played, D’Aubuisson raised his clenched right fist in the neo-fascist salute of his party.

Cristiani, whose choice of D’Aubuisson allies for Cabinet and military appointments has worried Washington, pledged during his speech to respect human rights and to promote the rule of law.

Among those attending was a U.S. delegation headed by Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

With the audience heavily stacked in Cristiani’s favor, the odd man out in the ceremony was Duarte, whose five years in power saw a deterioration in the economy and no slackening of the civil war that he had pledged to end.

When the one-time U.S. favorite entered the hall, there was almost no applause, but he walked rapidly to his place, ignoring the audience’s indifference.