Salvador, Rebels Reported in Agreement on Dialogue

The Salvadoran government and leftist guerrillas agreed to establish a permanent dialogue “with a timetable and agenda” to bring an end to the nation’s 10-year civil war, a Roman Catholic Church official said Thursday.

Msgr. Gregorio Rosa Chavez, auxiliary bishop of San Salvador and an observer to two days of peace talks here, said the negotiations most likely will be held monthly, with church and international observers.

“Peace that has eluded us for 10 years cannot be achieved in 10 days,” Rosa Chavez said. “But to get on the right road with the will to reach peace is a qualitative leap.”

Rosa Chavez made the announcement late Thursday night as the two sides continued to hammer out details of a procedural agreement. Details of the agreement are expected to be disclosed today.

Rosa Chavez said they are negotiating the “substantive points” of discussion that will be on the agenda of future talks.

On Wednesday, the Farabundo National Liberation Front rebels presented the government with a three-phase proposal for sweeping political reforms in exchange for laying down their weapons to organize a legal political party.

Rosa Chavez said it was “impossible” for the two sides to take up substantive issues here but that the rebel proposal “undoubtedly” would be used to draw up the agenda.

The rebel proposal called for a cease-fire by Nov. 15 and fundamental political reforms leading to a complete guerrilla demobilization by next February. The government, on the other hand, arrived with a proposal calling for talks every two months.

The meetings Wednesday and Thursday were the first between the Marxist-led guerrillas and the rightist government of President Alfredo Cristiani, who took office June 1. Rosa Chavez described the climate in the talks as “serious” and said they may continue for an unscheduled third day today.

“There is a feeling that the climate would allow them to advance even further,” he said.

After the first day of talks, the rebels had complained that the government had sent a “low-level” delegation with a weak, strictly procedural proposal and no power to make decisions. They said the military should have been represented on the government team.

Rosa Chavez said that “eventually representatives of the (military) high command will have to be present, but that will not be today.”

As to the disparity between the rebel and government proposals, Rosa Chavez said, “It is a question of methodology. The FMLN (rebels) brought its whole package. The government brought chapters.”

But he said they agreed to pursue a serious negotiation without delay tactics.

The rebel proposal calls for a new attorney general, Supreme Court and Legislative Assembly. It would leave the Cristiani government in place, but it would reform the constitution and electoral laws and would push up the 1991 municipal and legislative elections to next year.

The proposal also calls for the prosecution of human rights abuses committed by the military and paramilitary “death squads” as well as the restructuring of the army and security forces. The rebels want security guarantees for their return to civilian life with verification by the United Nations and Organization of American States.

There has been no official reaction to the rebel proposal from Washington or from Cristiani, but conservative sectors of the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena party) voiced their opposition. Much of the military also is expected to object.

El Salvador’s vice minister of defense, Col. Juan Orlando Zepeda, told reporters in San Salvador on Thursday that “it remains to be seen with how much sincerity (the rebels) have offered this package. . . . The Communists are very dialectic, and it is common for them to play with words.”

San Salvador Mayor Armando Calderon Sol, also of the Arena party, said it would be unconstitutional for the government to push up the date of elections.

The rebels’ peace proposal calls for negotiating a cease-fire by Nov. 15 and a permanent demobilization of the guerrilla army by next February.

“We are not demanding a quota of power, but conditions under which we can compete for power,” rebel commander Joaquin Villalobos told reporters Thursday. “The purification of the army is not just a demand by the FMLN, but it has been demanded by many sectors, including the U.S. government.”

The United States has spent more than $3 billion in the last decade to prevent a rebel victory, but the guerrillas see the planned Contras’ demobilization in neighboring Nicaragua as a sign that the Bush Administration is looking for ways to reduce U.S. military involvement in Central America.

They hope that an agreement signed by the five Central American presidents in Tela, Honduras, last month can be used to bring international pressure for a settlement in El Salvador. That agreement, concerned primarily with Nicaragua, does call for negotiations in El Salvador.

Salvadoran military leaders have said they suspect the Marxist-led rebels are using dialogue as a ploy to gain the political initiative.

But the rebels say their plan, which eliminates previous demands of power-sharing and integration of the government and guerrilla armies, offers the United States a “low-cost” solution, in the words of one of them.

“We want this proposal to be discussed in El Salvador and in Washington,” said rebel spokeswoman Ana Guadalupe Martinez.