From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: What Now for Salvadoran Army (1 of 3)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The NY Transfer News Service
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 21:09:18 GMT


Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit

From el diario/La Prensa 12/14/92

Translated and edited by Toby Mailman. "el Diario/La Prensa" is
a Spanish language newspaper published in New York City.

                  What Now for Salvadoran Army?

                   (First of a 3-part series)

In the last two years the Salvadoran armed forces have been
on the bench of the accused, but now their guilt or innocence is
not disputed so much as their ability to become an institution
conscious of its true role in a democratic society.

According to opposition politicians the military dominated
this country [El Salvador] during the last 60 years and only the
peace agreements between the government and the guerrillas opened
up the possibility to initiate profound reforms to demilitarize
the society.

General Mauricio Vargas, second in command of the armed
forces high command and a member of the government's peace
commission, said that it is not fair to blame the entire
institution and that among his criticisms is a "lack of
historical memory."

"We military people have made mistakes doing things, and the
civilians have made mistakes not doing things, so that we all
have to examine our consciences because the problem is not above
all military," he added.

The peace accords signed by the government of President
Alfredo Cristiani and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation
Front (FMLN), whose period of execution ends on Dec. 15,
established, among other things, the reduction and purging of the
army, which provoked resistance and criticism from within the
army.

"I give it merit for having been able to put up with
everything, despite certain errors and abuses of authority, it is
adjusting to the peace process, which it supported, knowing that
it is going to be `mutilated,' not defeated," said Sigifredo
Ochoa, a retired colonel who is currently a parliamentary deputy
representing the government party.

However, he acknowledged the need for a "cleaning...when one
feels bad one takes a purgative to feel better. This will serve
as a trimming, in the end it [the armed forces] will come out
stronger," he said.

Ruben Zamora, Vice President of the Legislative Assembly,
said that "if there is a transition toward a profound
demilitarization the armed forces will have made a trade-off,
turning over political power in exchange for professionality and
legitimacy."

The FMLN guerrillas, who at the beginning of the 1980s
demanded the dissolution of the armed forces, now accepts that
that is not necessary, but that what is important is to transform
them into an institution "called on to play a potential role in
civil society, serving democracy," according to Leonel Gonzalez,
of the FMLN's general command.

"It won't be easy, for more than 60 years the armed forces
exercised their dominance and accumulated a mentality of power
and impunity and a culture of wanting to impose itself on the
society," he added.

All sectors agree that the purging will allow for the
arrival of new officers who, in the face of a different reality,
will more easily assimilate the transition process.

"It's important that the officers of this new army
understand that their function is to serve society and not to be
served by society, because to the degree that it can realize that
it will subsist," said Gerardo Le Chevalier, a Christian
Democratic deputy.

 For Zamora the process of change the mentality of the armed
forces and the "re-definition of its new role in a new stage is
as important as the transition process of the FMLN," which must
change from a guerrilla movement to a political party

General Vargas insisted that "the past no longer counts, it
is past and it has to be taken as a point of reference to build
the future, not to sit on the bench of the accused, but to
project the vision for tomorrow."


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