It’s Past Time for Peace Talks

Last weekend’s rebel offensive against the U.S.-backed government of El Salvador came as a surprise, but the fact that the rebels were capable of launching coordinated attacks and inflicting major damage did not. The offensive is a reminder that the Salvadoran civil war could go on endlessly unless all parties to the conflict--including outside supporters--get serious about peace negotiations.

The Salvadoran war has gone on for more than 10 years already and claimed an estimated 70,000 lives, yet it seems no closer to a resolution than ever. Although the government of recently elected President Alfredo Cristiani not long ago agreed to peace talks with representatives of the guerrillas’ Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, two meetings have yielded little progress. Extremists in Cristiani’s rightist Arena party, whose platform calls for defeating the rebels at any cost, have prevented him from bargaining with the FMLN. The rebels have been more flexible, but FMLN spokesmen were threatening to boycott subsequent talks because of an increase in violence against labor unions and political parties sympathetic to their cause. The guerrillas blame the violence on right-wing death squads and the Salvadoran military, which have no enthusiasm for peace.

Whatever moral advantage the rebels might have gained because of the rightist violence has been dissipated by the ferocity of their offensive. Nearly 500 people have been killed in fighting in eight of El Salvador’s 14 provinces, fighting that has paralyzed the capital city of San Salvador since Saturday night. Many of the dead were innocent bystanders caught in fire fights or in bombing and strafing attacks by government planes and helicopters. The fighting can settle nothing. It can only terrify an already war-weary people into obeying whoever happens to be holding guns on them at any given moment.

The Bush Administration would portray the rebel attacks as a last, desperate attempt to overthrow the government, but that is no explanation. If the FMLN has learned anything since its “final offensive” in 1981, it is that it is not likely to ever topple a Salvadoran government with the resources of the United States behind it. But it isn’t clear that the Salvadoran and U.S. governments have learned similar lessons in the same period.

There is evidence that the FMLN gets support from Nicaragua’s Sandinistas and Fidel Castro’s Cuba, but it is also obvious that the rebels are a threat because of the help they get from significant numbers of Salvadorans--not a majority, to be sure, but an angry minority that would be better dealt with inside the political system than outside. The rebels are no threat to bring down the government soon, but they have the strength to cause trouble for many years.

More than likely, the rebels launched their offensive to remind Cristiani, the Salvadoran military and their Washington supporters just how much pain they can inflict even after a decade of battlefield stalemate. The reminder probably was more effective than some analysts would have guessed as recently as last week.

So far the FMLN has been willing to give ground in the negotiations, a sign its leadership realizes a final victory is unattainable. It is time for the Cristiani government to respond in kind. And if Salvadoran officials are reluctant to do so, their friends in Washington must prod them along.