Salvador Peace Glimmer

The rebels who are at war with the U.S.-backed government of El Salvador have drawn up a serious peace proposal that could end the fighting. But it can succeed only if President Alfredo Cristiani, El Salvador’s military leaders and the United States are just as serious.

The peace plan was made public last week by officials of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) who met in Mexico City with delegates sent by Cristiani, the right-wing politician elected to head El Salvador’s government in June. The mere fact that representatives of the two most extreme political factions in El Salvador would even sit down and talk was a hopeful sign. So it is more encouraging that three days of meetings in the Mexican capital resulted in an agreement to begin peace negotiations next month in Costa Rica. The joint communique issued by the two sides said the peace talks would aim to end the 10-year-old civil war “by political means in the shortest possible time.”

That optimistic tone was possible only because the FMLN delegation, which included two of the rebel coalition’s top guerrilla commanders, made a specific offer to stop the fighting by early next year if the government agrees to a series of specific reforms in El Salvador. The rebels said they would agree to a cease fire on Nov. 15, and to demobilization of their fighting units by Jan. 31, 1990, if the government agrees to a sweeping overhaul of the country’s justice system and military. Rebel spokesmen also offered to transform their movement into a political party and try to achieve power peacefully, if the government agreed to advance the date of elections now scheduled for 1991.

But despite the FMLN’s peace offer, it would be naive to expect a quick or easy end to 10 years of bloodshed in El Salvador. Once the peace talks begin, it is likely they will be long and difficult. Even as the government delegates were leaving Mexico City on an upbeat note, spokesmen for two groups back in El Salvador that could easily sabotage the talks were criticizing the FMLN peace plan.

An official of Cristiani’s Arena party dismissed the request for early elections as “beyond consideration.” So the first test of the new president’s political clout, a power that many analysts feel is quite limited, will turn on whether he can persuade his political allies to give peace a chance.

Even more worrisome, a Defense Ministry spokesman said the nation’s 60,000-man army would not be reduced as long as Marxism remains a threat to “the nation and the Central American region.” In some extreme cases, El Salvador’s military caste equates Jesuit priests with Marxist subversion. That rather paranoid notion of national security is grounds for wondering whether the Salvadoran high command will ever agree to demobilize the manpower and firepower it has amassed with more than $1 billion worth of U.S. aid. The military was the single most powerful, and corrupt, institution in El Salvador when the civil war began in 1979. While it has become somewhat more professional under U.S. tutelage, it is also more powerful than ever before. No peace plan will work in El Salvador unless the generals and colonels support it. And they are unlikely to cooperate unless their North American paymasters insist on it.

The rebels know that. That is why their peace plan--and the public-relations offensive that accompanied it--was aimed as much at the Bush Administration and Congress as at public opinion in El Salvador. This became even clearer after the Mexico City talks, when the rebels’ leading field commander, Joaquin Villalobos, granted a rare interview to the New York Times in an effort to present a reasonable, moderate face to the United States. Described by some as a rigid Marxist, Villalobos said he favors political and economic pluralism in El Salvador and peaceful coexistence with the United States. He also admitted that the rebels have made mistakes in their effort to defeat the government, including assassinating political rivals and using terrorism and sabotage as routine tactics.

There are undoubtedly many people in Washington, and certainly in San Salvador, who don’t believe Villalobos. But there is no way to be sure he and other FMLN leaders are not sincere without putting them to the test. And that will happen only if the Cristiani government comes to the peace talks with specific counterproposals to the rebel peace plan.