SAN SALVADOR : Deadline for Peace
With tensions escalating, Saturday is the final deadline for El Salvador’s leftist guerrillas and the U.S.-backed army to meet terms of a U.N.-brokered agreement that seeks to end 12 years of civil war.
Under the treaty, guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front are to lay down their weapons and demobilize by the deadline. Similarly, the army is to disband several elite battalions and reduce its 63,000-member force by half.
However, it seems highly unlikely that the deadline will be met. Each side continues to accuse the other of violating the peace accords, and the United Nations has asked that the deadline be moved back to Dec. 15--a change that the right-wing government of President Alfredo Cristiani is resisting.
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