Cut Aid, and See Democracy Abort : El Salvador: After 10 years, peace is within sight. Keep U.S. funding alive until a cease-fire can be achieved.

For the first time in a decade, El Salvador is on the threshold of peace. In the 15 months since I was elected president, in an internationally monitored exercise of democratic freedom, nothing has taken precedence over the pursuit of a just and lasting settlement of the bitter and bloody conflict that has wracked our small country.

We have made important headway in education, land reform and the judicial system, while our agricultural and manufacturing sectors have nearly doubled their productivity. In the critical area of human rights, we recently instituted a 24-hour office to monitor and investigate all allegations of violations.

During the past 10 years, El Salvador has accomplished what took Western democracies a century to achieve. Salvadorans are proud that our young democracy has survived, with strong American assistance, despite continuing guerrilla violence promoted from outside our borders. Hardly a day goes by that a bomb doesn’t explode or a power station isn’t hit with rockets. Yet we are more determined than ever to achieve a process of reconciliation. This includes the prosecution of those responsible for the Jesuit murders last November.

Let me emphasize that our own moral agenda requires that justice be served. In fact, last month I waived presidential prerogative and testified before the judge. The military high command has committed itself to full cooperation with the presiding justice, Judge Ricardo Zamora, and the case is moving forward. Complaints about a lack of rapid progress are unfair. President Bush cannot interfere in--or accelerate the handling of--the Noriega case any more than I can force the pace of Judge Zamora’s investigation.

My government is now engaged in intensive, U.N.-mediated negotiations to end the war. Despite the avowed goal of FMLN guerrillas to establish a Marxist state by force, we have met with them at the peace table five times since April. In July the FMLN and the government signed a human-rights pact that includes a pledge to observe basic human rights and an agreement to create a U.N.-monitored human-rights commission. For all Salvadorans, this is a watershed agreement.

Despite this progress, the guerrillas still refuse to accept a cease-fire, and until then, the United Nations will not be able to begin its critical work of verifying the procedures established under the human-rights accord.

Indeed, during the August round of negotiations, the FMLN presented a proposal that was far more harsh and unreasonable than their previous position: They demanded the immediate expulsion of more than 200 military officers and a total restructuring of the armed forces. All this before they even agree to a cease-fire.

The Auxiliary Bishop of San Salvador, Gregorio Rosa Chavez, as well as Congressman Joe Moakley (D-Mass), have criticized the FMLN for putting forward what seems to be a new, amorphous list of regressive, unrealistic proposals.

While negotiating peace, the guerrillas continue their attacks. The day before the talks were announced by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, an FMLN car bomb killed six people, including one civilian, and injured dozens. In July the FMLN assassinated two off-duty military officers. During August’s negotiations, the guerrillas attacked my office with mortars and artillery.

We believe that the FMLN did these things to provoke us into walking away from the negotiating table. It didn’t work. We shall strive to negotiate a political settlement until there is peace, no matter how many times the FMLN attacks.

The FMLN is suggesting that another offensive is imminent; indeed, a French woman was apprehended recently while trying to smuggle a large cache of sophisticated weaponry into our country from Honduras. After 11 bloody years, it seems the FMLN still believes that it can accomplish with violence what it can’t achieve through the democratic process. U.S. military assistance has been crucial to bringing us through the dark periods to the threshold of peace.

There is a move in the U.S. Congress--a response to the involvement by members of a military unit in the Jesuit murders case--to cut U.S. security assistance by half. Promoters of the cut argue that it will severely restrict our national defense forces and force our government into quick concessions.

Cutting aid will not end the war quickly; in fact, it may prolong it. The FMLN guerrillas are looking for a signal that the U.S. will abandon its earlier resolve, thus giving them grounds to continue the pursuit of their objectives by force.

I have made it abundantly clear that military reform, including a major reduction in the size of our armed forces, is a priority for my government. But while more than two-thirds of our soldiers are simply standing guard over our electrical power system and economic infrastructure, it is absurd for us to dismantle our defenses unilaterally before a cease-fire agreement.

Instead, I urge the continuation of full U.S. military assistance to El Salvador until the FMLN agrees to a cease-fire. When this is achieved, I am prepared to decline half of all available U.S. military aid. Our goal remains to free our people from the constant fear of attack and to incorporate the FMLN into the democratic process so that decisions are made with ballots, not bullets.

As discussions on military assistance resume on Capitol Hill, I respectfully urge Congress to support the peace process and not encourage the FMLN to believe that Washington is giving them the excuse to walk away from the peace talks or to launch a new offensive.