Killing of Jesuits Alters Equation in Salvador ‘Tet’

The assassination of the Jesuit leaders in El Salvador early Thursday is a historic epiphany--a moment when old perceptions are replaced by new truths. This crime, evidently committed by pro-government forces, took place six days into a widespread guerrilla uprising that was already being called 1989’s version of the Tet offensive.

The Tet offensive began in February, 1968, when Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese forces took control of many regions in South Vietnam, including parts of Saigon--even vaulting the walls of the U.S. Embassy. This stunned U.S. policy-makers, who had been issuing regular proclamations about the guerrillas’ weakness and declaring “the light at the end of the tunnel” was in sight.

The Tet offensive triggered a crisis of confidence in U.S. policy-making elites and prompted millions of Americans to question the U.S. role. The intensity of the Salvadoran uprising and ferocity of the government response could well mark a similar turning point.

There are two obvious parallels between the Salvadoran offensive and the Tet offensive.

First, in 1989 as in 1968, the offensive has opened a credibility gap. U.S. policy-makers in Washington and San Salvador have been predicting the imminent withering away of the Faribundo Marti Liberation Front for more than five years.

In 1984, Pentagon officials said the Salvadoran guerrillas would be eliminated by the end of 1986. In 1985, top U.S. military advisers said the rebels would be reduced to bandits, perhaps inside the year. In 1987, U.S. Ambassador Edwin Corr claimed the number of guerrillas had been cut in half and would be eliminated altogether in five years. These predictions have now ceased--the Salvadoran guerrillas can cite Mark Twain to U.S. policy-makers: The reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.

The second similarity to Tet: The insurgents’ claims of substantial military and political strength have been borne out. As in Vietnam, reports of Salvadoran guerrilla strength were dismissed as propaganda by most U.S. politicians, policy-makers and many journalists.

A few reporters checked out the guerrillas themselves and came away with a different impression. In December, 1987, two attended a New Year’s bash in Perquin, the guerrillas’ unofficial capital, and reported the FMLN threw a party attended by more than 800 armed guerrillas and uncounted civilians from the town and countryside. Electric generators powered fluorescent floodlights, a sound system and a dance band; a banquet had been trucked in. After traveling extensively in FMLN-controlled territory, one reporter described “a confident rebel army preparing for a final showdown with the government.” As after Tet, guerrilla military strategists are gaining credibility as U.S. officials lose it.

But there are two important differences between the Salvadoran and the Tet offensive.

First, in February, 1968, tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers lived in Saigon. There are only about 150 uniformed U.S. soldiers in El Salvador today. U.S. lives are not yet at stake--only U.S. dollars. Roughly $1.4 million a day in U.S. aid props up the Salvadoran government. So the guerrilla offensive is unlikely to grip the U.S. consciousness as Tet did.

Second, while Tet cracked the Washington consensus behind the war in Vietnam, the bipartisan consensus on El Salvador has held. Even Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), a longtime liberal critic of Reagan policy in Central America, stresses his unequivocal support for El Salvador’s right-wing government against the guerrillas. Nowhere in Congress or the media is heard the kind of criticism of the U.S.-backed war effort voiced during Tet by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright or CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite.

The consensus on El Salvador, however, will be tested by Thursday’s assassination of Ignacio Ellacuria and five other clerics. Ellacuria was rector of the University of Central America and a leading promoter of Salvadoran peace talks. His murder, and the killings of hundreds of civilians by pro-government forces attacking guerrilla strongholds, is likely to cause second thoughts in Washington.

Meanwhile, the Salvadoran military has instituted a 24-hour curfew, shut down independent radio, TV and print outlets, and suspended the constitution--all in an effort to control the news flow out of their country. After the first day of the offensive, for example, no news came from the provincial capitals where guerrillas launched attacks. Media reports during Tet divided the Washington elite; it is possible that reporting on the Salvadoran offensive may yet do the same.

The remaining question is: What will be the military outcome in El Salvador? Here is where the Tet analogy exposes the uncomfortable choices now facing U.S. policy-makers in Central America.

The U.S.-backed government in El Salvador has launched a massive air-power counterattack to wipe out guerrilla strongholds. Secretary of State James A. Baker III prepared the way by calling the Salvadoran guerrillas “terrorists” and blaming them for the mounting civilian death toll. Yet, by all accounts, the terror felt by the civilians in regions held by the FMLN is not the result of guerrilla actions. Civilians say they fear the government’s helicopters and bombers.

Air power is both the strength and the weakness of the Salvadoran military and U.S. policy. The FMLN has admitted that the significant introduction of helicopters in 1984 forced them to give up, for the most part, their previously successful large-unit attacks.

But the helicopters only heightened the Salvadoran military dependence on high-tech equipment, instead of the small units, night patrols and local intelligence networks that most military strategists believe are the only chance against guerrillas. And while the air war broke up the rebels’ large units, it forced the FMLN into exactly the small-unit tactics most sustainable for guerrillas. Instead of remaining concentrated in northern and eastern provinces, the FMLN now regularly mounts coordinated actions in all 14 provinces. The small units have had to build local support networks for survival, enabling them to blend into local populations. And perhaps most significantly, the FMLN has built an extensive militia of part-time combatants who aid local attacks but are not counted in U.S. intelligence assessments of FMLN power.

The reality of the last four years, then, offers little support for the notion of guerrillas in decline--but few analysts have faced this fact. The truth is that U.S. taxpayers have spent over $3 billion to buy a standoff, a most bloody standoff.

U.S. policy-makers may have won the war in Washington--but not necessarily in El Salvador. While Washington talked about a struggling democracy, the real power in the country continued to be the military and security forces. headed by many of the same officers who presided over infamous slaughters of civilians.

The military outcome of the guerrilla offensive has not yet been decided, though every day that passes with the FMLN holding on represents a partial victory for the rebels. As Tet showed, the ultimate military outcome of such a major offensive may be irrelevant. In military terms, most historians agree that the United States and South Vietnam inflicted severe damage on the Viet Cong during the Tet offensive. The Salvadoran military also has the tools of war to turn back the current FMLN offensive. When that happens, the military will declare victory--just as the U.S military declared victory after Tet.

As with Tet, a deeper and deadlier stand-off seems guaranteed unless the uprising leads to serious negotiations. As long as the Bush Administration and the Democratic Congress see the FMLN as only marginal terrorists, instead of a viable organization representing a significant popular force for social-economic change, productive negotiations between Salvadoran combatants are doomed.

And as long as political approaches are shut off, U.S. policy-makers can only pursue military options, thus virtually guaranteeing eventual defeat for the U.S.-backed Salvadoran government.

The keyword is eventual . After the Pyrrhic victory of Tet, U.S. policy-makers spent years, billions and thousands of lives to sustain the U.S. presence in Vietnam. For how long after the guerrilla uprising of 1989 will U.S policy-makers intervene in El Salvador? How long will it take them to learn the ultimate lesson of Tet?