No More Blank Checks : Resist the charm, stay tough with San Salvador

El Salvador’s President Alfredo Cristiani is a charmer, no doubt about it. He looks every inch the well-heeled businessman he was before being elected, and he speaks English well--even glibly--which helps when he visits Washington to lobby for more military aid.

Under intense pressure from Congress, which is still not satisfied that sufficient progress has been made in solving the murder of six Jesuit priests by Salvadoran soldiers in 1989, the Bush Administration has been withholding half of the $85 million in military aid allocated for El Salvador in the current fiscal year. Cristiani’s purpose in visiting Washington last week was to pry it loose, and President Bush is considering his request.

Cristiani also urged Congress to approve another $85 million for military aid in fiscal 1992. Key members of the House and Senate are threatening to hold up that allocation, too, unless they are satisfied with the Cristiani government’s investigations into the Jesuit killings. There is still widespread suspicion in El Salvador that higher-ups in the military either ordered the killings or tried to cover up the involvement of soldiers in the shocking incident.

Eight suspects are due to face trial in the case late this summer. Maybe the trial will provide more satisfactory answers to how and why the killings occurred than Cristiani has provided so far. Maybe not. But at least until the trial is over, Congress should continue to hold up any more military aid to El Salvador.

Even if the trial provides no new answers, the aid cutback maintains the diplomatic pressure needed to keep the legal process moving. This is not 1975 Vietnam, after all. The government is not going to collapse without a U.S. ally to back it up. And, notwithstanding reports of new Cuban military aid to the rebels, El Salvador will never be the Cold War battleground it was once touted as being.

Washington must not forget how bogged down the Jesuit case was until the threat of a cutback in U.S. military aid became real. That was also when peace talks between the government and the guerrillas began to move. Although still slow, the negotiations are at least being held regularly now. That is because El Salvador’s military has finally realized that the paymasters in Washington did not give it a blank check.

And, no matter what Cristiani claims, the real power in El Salvador still belongs to the generals. The only reason the murder trial and peace talks are moving along is because the Salvadoran military is facing the same painful truth the rebels accepted a while ago: The civil war can’t be won. Even assuming one side could overcome the other--something neither has been able to do despite almost 12 years of fighting that has killed more than 70,000 Salvadorans--the “winner” would have little. Just a shattered economy to rebuild and a defeated foe resentfully biding his time until another war breaks out.

Washington was right to stop pouring military money into this bottomless pit. It must not let itself be charmed into starting up again--and certainly not now.