Salvador President Vows to Get Full Truth Behind Surge in Political Violence : Central America: Cristiani reacts to leftist’s assassination. Accord ending civil war may rest on stopping the killings.

Under intense pressure to fully investigate the death-squad-style assassination of a leftist leader, President Alfredo Cristiani pledged Wednesday in a private meeting with former guerrilla commanders to “find the whole truth” behind a surge in political violence.

The unusual meeting at Cristiani’s home--which was described by a participant--underscores the belief of many politicians, diplomats and others here that the very peace process that ended El Salvador’s brutal civil war now depends on a quick end to death-squad killings.

Cristiani called for help from the United States, Spain and Britain in investigating the murder of Francisco Velis, a ranking official of the former guerrilla front who was shot to death at close range Monday morning as he delivered his young daughter to a day-care center.

The two gunmen fled and were picked up by a truck that had blocked traffic, witnesses said. Two police officers stationed nearby did not intercede and said later that they heard nothing.

The shooting bore all the markings of a carefully planned, politically motivated hit, according to the former rebel Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front and U.N. peacekeepers.

A U.N. report issued last week denounced an “extremely worrying” resurgence in killings by clandestine death squads, similar to those that terrorized El Salvador in the early 1980s.

“It is important that there is an immediate (government) response . . . so that the blood of Velis is not shed in vain,” said Michael Gucovski, deputy chief of the U.N. mission here. “It is important so that the peace process can be maintained and (ultimately) fortified (despite) such a painful, unnecessary, criminal act.”

Gucovski spoke as he left the funeral Mass for Velis--itself a remarkable event because it was attended by politicians from the right and the left, as well as the diplomatic corps and U.N. officials.

U.S. Ambassador Alan Flanigan, who attended the later burial, cautioned that the American government “cannot tolerate this type of violence” and said FBI agents will be joining the investigation.

FMLN officials also hope that secret U.S. government documents, scheduled to be declassified in the next few days, will shed light on the death squads. Secretary of State Warren Christopher ordered the review of thousands of State Department, CIA and Defense Department documents pertaining to El Salvador and spanning the last decade as part of an evaluation of U.S. policy and conduct.

A U.S. official in Washington said the documents could be released as early as Friday.

Members of Cristiani’s political party, the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena), have been associated in the past with death squads, which conducted a campaign to eliminate rebel sympathizers at the outset of the civil war between Marxist guerrillas and U.S.-backed forces.

The Arena party on Wednesday joined the call for a thorough investigation of the Velis murder. In a newspaper advertisement, the party warned Salvadorans to “abstain from speculating and making false conjectures that will only exacerbate the situation and which could unleash more violence and terror in our country.”

Despite Cristiani’s pledge to get to the bottom of the Velis murder and other violence, some Salvadorans remained skeptical, pointing to a history in which few political killings have been fully prosecuted.

Velis was the first senior FMLN official to be killed since U.N.-brokered peace accords ended the 12-year civil war on Dec. 15, 1992. His murder shocked and frightened many former guerrilla leaders whose re-integration into civilian life has been a hallmark of the peace process.

“We want to see the leaders of these groups (the death squads) in jail and punished for their actions,” said FMLN spokesman Mauricio Chavez.

“We want to see it now, and if that does not happen, many people in our (rank and file) . . . can become desperate and can create an atmosphere of retaliation. The only way to avoid this is to seriously isolate and dismantle these groups.”

Leftist politicians say their phones have been tapped and complain that a secretive military intelligence unit that was to be dismantled under the peace accords in fact continues to operate, with many of the same agents and same files.

The fragility of the peace process in the wake of Velis’ murder was evident in the fresh graffiti on a statue outside the El Rosario church where the funeral Mass was conducted: Un asesinato mas, y no habra paz . (“One more murder, and there will be no peace.”)