El Salvador
At a Snail's Pace
Envío team
Amidst errors, the right's unwillingness, the left's justified distrust and even an assassination attempt, the Salvadoran peace process continues very slowly on its course.
The implementation of the peace accords continues to face difficulties because both the FMLN and the government engender delays. The timetable, which will have to be fulfilled sooner or later, has clearly not been met as agreed. The reasons given are either technical, or the difficulty of reaching consensus on certain issues, or that each party wants to guarantee the other's simultaneity on any measure it adopts, given the real distrust that predominates between them. But all that can be overcome.
What really endangers this desperate peace are the accords that appear to be fulfilled to the letter but, in reality, twist the spirit and work against efforts at demilitarization and democratization. Along these lines, two events happened this past month that complicated the process. One was a legislative decree that confirmed the continuity of the structure of former security forces such as the Rural Treasury Police and the National Guard, instead of their dissolution, as agreed. The other was the new incursions of combat planes into the settlement zones of the former FMLN guerrillas.
FMLN suspends participationConsequently, though the FMLN was making an obvious effort to concentrate its military forces (programmed for April) and demobilize 20% of them (programmed for May 1), it decided to suspend the process, at least temporarily. In addition to these political reasons for the suspension, there are also no social or economic guarantees for the relocation of its combatants, such as land, credit or study grants.
During the last air-space violation, the commanders of the forces concentrated in Perquín ordered their troops to shoot at the plane. But even if it could have been proven that the plane belonged to the Salvadoran Air Force, this would be the only incident in violation of the cessation of armed confrontation. For its part, the military division of ONUSAL, the United Nations observation team, stated that no military plane had taken off from the Ilopango air base, and pointed out that it has no control over civilian flights.
In any case, as with previous government delays, the FMLN's decision to suspend its troop demobilization did not appear to have provoked a significant crisis by month's end. What it has done is increase mutual accusations of noncompliance, especially with reference to timetable delays.
ONUSAL appears to have remained unruffled by all these problems. It decisively stated that, despite the delays, all the accords would be completely fulfilled by October 31. To move the process along, a team including the FMLN, the government and ONUSAL was established in mid-May to examine the gravity of the delays and non-compliance. This was one reason for the delay in publishing an evaluation by the Committee for the Consolidation of Peace (COPAZ) of the accord implementation. It had been announced that the publication would be available in mid-April, but like everything else related to the peace process, it has been postponed.
On May 19, Vladimir Flores, a bodyguard for a member of the FMLN commission overseeing the accords, was shot five times in an assassination attempt. He survived, but the FMLN withdrew from COPAZ that same day, and did not return until May 27, after having held direct talks with ONUSAL and the government in which president Cristiani agreed to conduct a thorough investigation.
Given the characteristics of the attack, it was immediately suspected that it was an urban ambush conducted by paramilitary forces. The FMLN accused the armed forces and called the action the first breach of the ceasefire, apart from the aerial incursions. General Zepeda, vice-minister of defense and a member of COPAZ, called the FMLNs attitude "exaggerated." Representative Salguero Gross, current COPAZ coordinator, said the same, and both attributed the attack to delinquents.
The other members of COPAZ, especially those on the extreme right, took full advantage of the FMLN's weeklong absence. The same day the FMLN withdrew, the other members decided to elect the slate from which the new National Civil Police (PNC) director will be named. While the list includes its current coordinator, Ernesto Arbizú Mata, the favorite of the FMLN and other progressive sectors, it also includes Benjamín Cestoni, current president of the Governmental Human Rights Commission, who had already been refused by the FMLN. The FMLN's absence tipped the balance toward the government-armed forces-ARENA-PCN-MAC alliance. It is a given that Cristiani will appoint Cestoni as the PNC director.
FMLN, acting and reacting The FMLN had announced in April that it would fulfill the accords despite any obstacles that the government could put in the way, to move the process along and break the reactive dynamic causing it to bog down. It is obvious that delays in fulfilling the accords work to the benefit of the government and the armed forces.
Some if not all leaders of these two sectors have no interest in fulfilling the accords. They feel forced to fulfill them, though under protest, but do so by exerting the least effort possible. At the same time, putting off their fulfillment can only result in more problems. Who "won" the negotiations resulting in the accords will become obvious in the 1994 presidential and congressional elections, but having FMLN forces that still have not demobilized or former public security structures and elite battalions that remain armed would totally change the political process, making the accords unfeasible. It would be even worse if the new civil police force remains unformed or incomplete.
An interesting pattern of coincidence has emerged: in the days immediately prior to the deadline for fulfilling key agreements, some event always occurs that holds up the timetable or induces a negative reaction from the FMLN. The strange over-flights of combat planes took place at the moment of concentrating the FMLN's forces, provoking it to suspend the process on two different occasions. The National Association of Private Enterprise (ANEP), averse to the process, has interfered with the Land Commission's work and postponed the Concertación Forum. The government, for its part, has not complied with the concentration of army troops or the dissolution of the former public security forces, also provoking the FMLN to postpone the first phase of its troop demobilization.
The problem is that massive government propaganda makes it appear that the FMLN is the one not complying. No one denies the FMLN the right to react strongly to the assassination attempt, but many observers to the peace process believe that it should carefully consider the consequences of its actions to avoid falling into a trap. Each time the FMLN reacts, the sectors opposing the accords move into a better position to obstruct the process. For its part, the FMLN seems to believe that the only way to gain the initiative in the accords is to fulfill them. But it is not so clear that it is obligatory to do so when there is not simultaneous or corresponding compliance. Delays and noncompliance tend to complicate the process even more.
In the midst of this situation, ONUSAL's authorized position has still not been heard. Its evaluation report will have important international repercussions. In addition, the Salvadoran people want a transparent process and are making their demands felt through concrete actions. Nobody wants to return to war, nor is such a thing imminent, but the specter of war has not disappeared. The FMLN has repeated in all forums that it is unwilling to participate in a Colombia-style transition.
While the process is close to a standstill, some things continue to move forward. For example, the campaign to form the National Police Force has begun. It was to have started in February, with the admissions process in April and the initiation of classes in the new Public Security Academy in May; but delays have meant the campaign is just finishing up, and the admissions process for the first contingent will not close until at the beginning of June.
Private enterprise boycotts concertationAnother example demonstrating that whatever is delayed eventually gets under way is the establishment of the Economic Concertation Forum, even though ANEP refused to participate. The Forum was inaugurated with representatives from the government, FMLN, political parties, workers organizations and the Association of Small and Medium Businesspeople of El Salvador.
ANEP gave as its reason for not participating that the legal framework does not create a climate of security and respect for ANEP's own rights. ANEP, however, is less trustful of the popular organizations than of the FMLN. An example of this followed a seminar sponsored by the Center for Democratic Studies of El Salvador to analyze the participation of the FMLN and private enterprise in national reconstruction. Participants agreed to form a mixed commission, made up of three high-level members from each side but acting in their individual capacity, to find ways to unblock the participation of private enterprise in the Forum. ANEP, however, has refused to meet directly with the organized popular sectors, which, in turn, have been the most contentious with respect to private enterprise.
A segment of big business, however, is interested in concertation. In fact, during and after the negotiations, FMLN representatives met with such individuals and later assessed those meetings optimistically. The problem lies with the private business leadership. Through newspaper spreads, ANEP had expressed a "monolithic position" with respect to the Forum. This supposed unity, however, was belied by threats and censure, signed by an ultra-rightist ghost organization, against ANEP "traitors" due to some unstated "vacillation." This could refer to the pro-concertation group in ANEP. In any case, a real contradiction between the far and moderate Right has begun to be revealed publicly.
Intense efforts to impede the installation of the Concertation Forum have failed. It is true that representation is incomplete, which will make it difficult to reach agreements between worker and large capital in the economic and social arenas. A probable consequence is that the Forum will not achieve spectacular results. Nonetheless, those who have the most to lose are precisely those who choose to be absent—large private business.
As the process evolves, many expect the more pragmatic and progressive private business sectors to begin to join the Forum, while those most opposed to the accords, democratization and demilitarization will become increasingly isolated.
The FMLN as a political party The Chapultepec accords anticipated the "promotion of a legislative decree to legalize the FMLN as a political party" on D-day plus 90, that is, the beginning of May. The FMLN's public proclamation on May 23 in the Salvador del Mundo plaza, however, took place without this decree having been issued.
The Presidency limited itself to sending a memorandum to the Legislative Assembly on the subject, and only after the FMLN called attention to the delay in the decree's issue. For its part, the Assembly pretended not to notice. ARENA has begun to express objections to the decree, and the recently formed rightwing National Solidarity Movement and even the Supreme Electoral Court deny the validity of the Mexico agreement. They argue that the FMLN should take all the steps that any other political party in formation would have to take. Their real goal is not to interfere with the formation of the FMLN as a political party but to diminish the validity of the peace accords.
In fact, the legislative decree envisioned in the accords did not intend to concede privileges to the FMLN. In the opinion of FMLN leader Schafik Handal, the organization could have set up tables on February 1 (D-day) and collected 10 times the 5,000 signatures required for a new political party.
The Constitution, however, explicitly prohibits the existence of armed political parties. Defending this legal issue, the right wing and army try to disregard the FMLN's active presence in COPAZ and other commissions, which recognize it as a "semi-legalized" political force. The accords contemplate the FMLN's transformation before and during the disarmament process precisely because the difficulty of being an "armed party" was overcome in the negotiations. The government negotiating team agreed not to apply the constitutional criteria because, at the time of legalization, the armed elements would be in the areas assigned by the accords, under United Nations control and in the process of returning to civilian life.
This issue, therefore, would not be the most serious one to be resolved by promoting the decree. In reality, the decree appears to be aimed at overcoming two obstacles in the current Electoral Code. First, this Code prohibits the registration of political parties that carry the name of a living or deceased person. And second, it does not consider the possibility of a coalition of parties registering as a permanent entity, and not only for electoral purposes. The FMLN, made up of five organization since 1980 (ERP, FPL, PCS, FARN and PRTC), plans to register as a political party with tendencies, or as a political front, in which the general command would be the overall directorate of a single party structure, but within which each of its organizations would have autonomy.
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