Salvador Urged to Bar All Rights Abusers From Public Life : Central America: Guilty officials should be fired, and rebel violators should be banished from politics, U.N. report says. Cristiani repeats call for amnesty.

Even while pleading for a climate of forgiveness, the U.N. Truth Commission on El Salvador called Monday for the dismissal of all military officers and government officials cited for human rights violations and proposed that all violators, including rebel officers, be banned from taking part in Salvadoran public and political life for at least 10 years.

These provisions, which have already led Defense Minister Gen. Rene Emilio Ponce to resign and which threaten the career of other top-ranking officers, would likely also curtail the political ambitions of rebel leader Joaquin Villalobos, who was regarded by many Salvadorans as a future presidential candidate.

But the commission’s recommendations, which came in a lengthy report officially presented to the United Nations at a ceremony Monday morning, could be undercut by a proposal from El Salvador’s President Alfredo Cristiani that the National Assembly approve a general amnesty for all those cited in the exhaustive report on atrocities committed during the 12 years of civil war.

At a news conference in San Salvador, Cristiani declined to comment on specific allegations in the report, saying he had not yet had time to digest it. But he reiterated his call for a general amnesty--”to forgive and completely forget”--and urged Salvadorans to begin building a nation in peace.

“The Truth Commission report will help El Salvador to close a sad chapter in its history and help us move toward dedicating all our energies to forging the future we desire,” he said. “We must not continue refuting ourselves, denigrating ourselves, recriminating ourselves. We must turn that page and continue forward.”

Cristiani discounted any possibility of a military coup by army officers angered at being implicated in atrocities by the Truth Commission report, but he warned against possible violence from unspecified disgruntled sectors.

“I hope to God this does not happen, but if it does we are prepared to fight it,” he said.

While American jurist Thomas Buergenthal told a news conference at the United Nations that he and the other two members of the commission--former Colombian President Belisario Betancur and former Venezuelan Foreign Minister Reinaldo Figueredo Planchart--will not take any official position on amnesty, it was obvious that the Cristiani proposal would weaken the impact of the report and make it more difficult for Salvadorans to face the cruel reality of the past.

The commission said that “forgiveness . . . is indispensable,” but it also said that its report “is based . . . on the principle that individuals, even those caught up in the fury of civil war and the order of superiors, are accountable for their actions.”

The need to face Salvador’s past was raised by Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali when the report was presented to the United Nations by Betancur, who headed the commission.

“Some are asking whether, with the conflict at an end and with peace re-established, it was really necessary to dredge up the past and reopen old wounds,” said Boutros-Ghali. But, he went on, “in order to put behind them the trauma of the war, the Salvadorans have to go through the catharsis of facing the truth. . . . There can be no reconciliation without the public knowledge of the truth.”

The secretary general said the United Nations will help distribute the report to “the farthest reaches of the nation.”

Despite the possible banning of Villalobos and others from political life for their responsibility in a program of executing mayors opposed to the rebels, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) said it accepts the commission’s findings and recommendations. At a news conference at the United Nations, Ana Guadelupe Martinez, one of the FMLN commanders cited with Villalobos, was asked if she would accept a 10-year banishment from public and political life.

“We accept the report in its totality,” she replied, “and hope that all of it will be implemented. That is what will help El Salvador.”

By this, she meant that the FMLN members would accept its punishment, so long as the government violators of human rights receive their punishment as well.

The Truth Commission report made it plain that the military forces, supported by the government and the civilian establishment, were the main perpetrators of massacres, executions and kidnapings during the civil war.

The commission called for the dismissal of more than 40 military personnel, including Defense Minister Ponce, Vice Minister Gen. Orlando Zepeda and Chief of Staff Gen. Gilberto Rubio Rubio. None should ever be allowed to return to military or security duty, the commission said, and all should be banned from other public and political life for 10 years.

The international commission also called for dismissal and a 10-year ban on those government officials and bureaucrats who abused human rights or took part in a cover-up of the abuses. Among those cited was Supreme Court President Mauricio Gutierrez who, according to the commission, interfered with the investigation of the massacre of 200 men, women and children at the hamlet of El Mozote in 1981 by the army’s elite Atlacatl Battalion.

Although the United States was the main support of the El Salvador government and often defended the army’s behavior during the civil war, the commission did not focus on any American role in the abuses and in their cover-up.

“The role of the United States in El Salvador is a role more effectively studied by the U.S. Congress,” Buergenthal told the news conference.

But the commission did chastise the United States for failing to rein in Salvadoran exiles in Miami. These exiles, the report said, “helped administer death squad activities between 1980 and 1983, with apparently little attention from the U.S. government.”

“Such use of American territory for acts of terrorism abroad should be investigated and never allowed to be repeated,” the report said.

The commission also called for a special investigation of death squads to expose them fully and “put an end to such activity.”

These squads, “often operated by the military and supported by powerful businessmen, landowners and some leading politicians, have long acted in El Salvador and remain a potential menace.”

With its call for a special investigation, the commission seemed to acknowledge that it had not turned up complete evidence about these secretive squads that have killed more than 800 people, including Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. Although the report did cite the late right-wing political leader Robert D’Aubuisson as the commander of a death squad, many Salvadorans had expected the commission to produce a catalogue of businessmen and politicians with links to the squads.

Meisler reported from the United Nations in New York and Wilkinson from San Salvador.