From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Proceso 544: Politics in 1992
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 08:10:31 GMT

/** reg.elsalvador: 130.0 **/
** Topic: Proceso 544: Politics in 1992 **
** Written  9:54 am  Jan  8, 1993 by cidai@huracan.cr in cdp:reg.elsalvador **
From: cidai@huracan.cr (Centro de Informacion Documentacion y Apoyo a la Invest. - UCAJSC)
Subject: Proceso 544: Politics in 1992

Center for Information, Documentation and Research Support (CIDAI)
Central American University (UCA)
San Salvador, El Salvador
 
PROCESO 544
December 31, 1992
 
POLITICS IN 1992
 
     There is no question that the fundamental aspect of Salvadoran
politics in 1992 was the process of carrying out the Chapultepec
Accords signed on January 16. The process has, in effect,
constituted a novel effort at peacemaking, the principal objectives
of which were not only ending the war which has racked the nation
for the last twelve years, but also, and above all, generating the
transformations which are indispensable for building a truly
democratic society. The process, therefore, has both strengthened
the demilitarization of society (by ending the military structure
of the FMLN and reducing and purging the Armed Forces) and created
forms of organization, social coexistence, dialogue and social
interaction which were heretofore nonexistent in El Salvador.
     Naturally, this process has not been easy to carry out; it has
certainly not lacked difficulties and obstacles. The key analytical
tool necessary to interpret the course of the peace process
throughout the year is to examine the series of impasses which
arose and the way in which each was resolved. Consequently, we can
divide the peace process into three well-defined periods, based on
three key crises which arose in the process of carrying out the
peace accords during the stipulated time-frame.
     The first crisis occurred 100 days after the peace accords
were signed, and only began to be resolved a month later, thanks to
the intervention of the United Nations, and using the mechanism of
face-to-face talks between the two sides. Overcoming the first
crisis allowed for the resolution of a number of important points,
in which delays had built up great mistrust between the two sides
and on the part of the international community. Some of these
points included the way the first demobilized FMLN combatants were
to rejoin civilian life, the abolition of the National Guard and
the Treasury Police, and the first steps toward transferring lands
in conflict zones and legalizing the FMLN as a political party.
Despite the importance of these steps, they were only the minimum
necessary to keep the process on course and maintain confidence in
the results.
     The second crisis blossomed in early August. The same
mechanisms used to overcome the first crisis were again applied, as
well as new methods which managed to get the process back on
course. The critical points this time had to do with the following
aspects: the end of the armed conflict, programs to help former
combatants rejoin civil society, land transfers, foreign aid for
programs tied to the peace process, the installation of the Forum
for Economic and Social Consensus-Building, the National Civilian
Police and the Public Security Academy, re-establishing public
administration and human rights, military and reserve service and,
finally, pending legislation. On August 19, the two sides reached
a new accord which allowed the crisis to be resolved.
     The third crisis, the most conflictive and tense of them all,
began to emerge in October as the peace calendar approached its
final deadline despite a long list of unfulfilled commitments and
delays. The delays included a whole gamut of aspects which were
central to the peace accords. In other words, the crisis was not
due simply to a deadlock around the complex agrarian problem, but
also to other points, including President Cristiani's resistance to
adopt the administrative measures contained in the Ad Hoc
Commission report on the Armed Forces, as well as the failure of
the legislature to pass a substantial package of new laws aimed at
reforming the administration of justice and the electoral code, as
well as legalize the FMLN as a political party. The objective
situation of non-compliance and delays led all players -except the
government- to agree to reschedule the deadlines for a third time.
 
Peace process inches forward
 
     The peace accords were received with a brief initial period of
political euphoria and popular enthusiasm, which was accompanied by
a rather easy process of beginning the separation of the two
military forces. Tensions, however, were soon apparent. By early
march, the peace process was beset with a storm of discrepancies
around how the accords should be interpreted, as well as mutual
accusations of non-compliance between the two sides. The most
flagrant violation, at this stage, was the government's ploy to
avoid dissolving the security forces. This is where the first
crisis originated, and it was not fully resolved until late June.
     This initial and profound impasse was only partially resolved
by the direct intervention of the U.N. Secretary General Adjunct
for Peacekeeping Operations, Marrack Goulding, who visited El
Salvador from March 11-14. On an operational level, Goulding's
presence helped resolve the problems which had emerged around the
separation of forces, which was incomplete on both sides; the sham
dissolution of the security forces; and the obstacles to creating
the new National Civilian Police. He was also able to clarify
issues surrounding the agrarian problem.
     It is worth noting that, with regard to the arbitrary
transformation of the National Guard and Treasury Police into
Military Police and Border Guard, respectively, Goulding forced the
government and the Armed Forces to promise to remove those
repressive forces from their barracks and to refrain from using
them under any pretext in public security functions.
     By all appearances, therefore, Goulding's visit put the peace
process back in order. However, after his departure the government
stepped up its disinformation campaign to discredit the FMLN. The
same was done by organizations tied to the ARENA party, aimed at
maligning ONUSAL's work. In fact, the promises made by the
government to Goulding were only partially carried out, and others
were simply ignored. The FMLN interpreted the government's attitude
as a dangerous shift which showed that the hard-line sectors who
hoped to roll back the accords were prevailing.
     A symptom of this was the government's obstinate attempt to
delay the creation of the new police force as a way to keep the old
National Police functioning. In reaction to the alarming spiral in
street crime, the government beefed up the old and discredited
police force, adding troops from the other dissolved security
forces (Treasury Police and National Guard). This was done without
consultation and in flagrant violation of the peace accords.
     The most serious violation of the accords at the time was seen
in the government's insistence on maintaining the structures of the
old security forces. On April 23, with the votes of ARENA, PCN and
MAC, the legislature passed amendments to the founding laws of the
National Guard and Treasury Police, simply eliminating their public
security functions. According to the letter and spirit of the peace
accords, those laws should have been repealed instead of amended.
     The first crisis in the peace accords thus reached its apex.
The FMLN sought to prevent a fatal outcome, sending a high-level
delegation to the U.N. on April 20 for conversations with top
officials of the international body, in which they explained the
series of obstacles and aggressions experienced during the peace
process. Following that visit, the peace process gradually adopted
a positive course characterized by progress seen in the execution
of pending accords, as well as the adoption of an efficient
mechanism to get the entire peace process back on course.
     On May 6, ONUSAL chief Iqbal Riza announced that the
government and the FMLN had agreed to begin direct consultation and
decision-making sessions, with the participation of ONUSAL, in
order to resolve conflicts which had arisen. This mechanism
included direct contact by means of working groups made up of the
FMLN, the government and the Armed Forces, and coordinated by
ONUSAL. The solution gave rise to a brief but intense 40-day period
of work which highly benefitted the peace process. The new
mechanism did not provide for renegotiating any of the accords, but
rather sought more practical ways to recover lost time. One of
these ways was the rescheduling of some of the accords as
needed.   
     As long as top leaders of both sides were holding meetings to
get the peace process back on track, some new progress was made.
There were four principal areas of progress: the installation of
the Forum for Economic and Social Consensus-Building; the
installation of the Ad Hoc Commission, in charge of evaluating the
records of active duty officers of the Armed Forces throughout the
12 years of conflict, as well as their ability to adapt themselves
to democratic changes; the beginning of the work of the Public
Security Academy; and, finally, the FMLN's self-proclamation as a
political party.
     However, it was not until the second half of June that the
peace process was able to overcome the principal delays plaguing it
so far. The Treasury Police and National Guard were truly and
definitively suppressed, and the National Civilian Police began to
be organized after the legislature passed the necessary law. In a
complementary fashion, the Public Security Academy began to train
the new police, while the government and the FMLN finally finished
concentrating their forces in the agreed-upon points. The FMLN then
began demobilizing its first contingent of rebels, sending them
back to civilian life on June 30.
     This first crisis, and its resolution, provided invaluable
information about the weaknesses and strengths of the different
actors involved in the peace process. It also allowed us a glimpse
of the dim outlook for the peace process if the problems were not
corrected. The most troublesome aspect was the extremely slow pace
of the process. During the first two-thirds of the time during
which the FMLN was to demobilize its forces, hardly any steps were
taken to alter irreversibly the military structure of the Armed
Forces.
     It became quite obvious that the government had decided on a
tactic involving complying with the accords only minimally, and
with unjustifiable delays. Only the intervention of outside forces
(U.N., Four Friends, U.S.) was able to force the government to
comply with more of the accords. The lack of adequate domestic
pressure can be seen as one of the greatest weaknesses of the peace
process.
     In effect, the government enjoyed a lot of space for
maneuvering out of its promises, and this was partly due to the
poor performance of COPAZ. This only demonstrated that the
traditional political system was incapable of providing guarantees
for seeing that the peace accords were adequately carried out.
     In terms of the FMLN, it became clear that its priority was to
consolidate the accords related to the demilitarization of society
and to the establishment of a new public security structure
independent of the army and under civilian control. Naturally, this
set of priorities led the FMLN to award less importance to, or
postpone, the socio-economic aspects of the peace accords.
 
Resistance to socio-economic changes
 
     The satisfactory pace of the process following the first
crisis lasted for only a short time. Signs of a new and more
serious deadlock soon began to emerge.
     On July 31, the second contingent of rebel forces was to have
demobilized, but did not. This was due fundamentally to the fact
that the new peace schedule was again beset with delays which, in
the estimation of the FMLN leadership, did not provide the
necessary conditions for disarming another 20% of its combatants.
This delays had to do with the government's failure to implement
assistance programs to help the former combatants rejoin civil
society; delays in land transfers to demobilized combatants on both
sides; obstacles placed by ARENA party members to the legalization
of the FMLN as a political party; and, finally, difficulties in
beginning the work of the Public Security Academy and, with it, the
National Civilian Police.
     Although the FMLN had warned that these problems would come to
a head, the government only answered with negative rhetoric.
According to the government, the peace process was unfolding
normally, although in reality, the situation was rapidly
deteriorating while precious time was being wasted. Later on, the
government finally acknowledged the existence of serious delays in
carrying out its part of the accords, but blamed them on delays in
foreign aid.
     During the last days of July, the mechanism of direct meetings
between the two sides, with ONUSAL mediation, brought back marathon
work sessions. Even so, the process did not get back on track
quickly. The intervention of Marrack Goulding was again necessary,
and he visited El Salvador from August 13-17. Two days later, both
sides agreed to reschedule the process, stressing compliance with
key aspects of the accords, some of which had already been
rescheduled after the previous crisis.
     With Goulding's second visit, the U.N. prevented the peace
process from going off on an uncontrollable tangent. Greater
political pressure was brought to bear on both sides. Goulding
personally issued a severe warning to the government and the FMLN,
saying that the time for debate and discussions had passed, and now
it was time to provide concrete evidence of their political
willingness to build peace. Part of the U.N.'s strategy was to try
to maintain the original dates and goals established in the first
peace calendar. Naturally, this placed greater pressure on the
government, which had systematically failed to comply with its
part; ONUSAL was to play a stronger role in verifying the accords
by means of a concrete and detailed ongoing list of unfulfilled
agreements.
     The fundamental factors which managed to restart the process
included: the FMLN's commitment to concentrate all its forces and
lay down its weapons on the stipulated dates; both sides agreed to
reestablish public administration in former conflict zones, and
define a special security regime; the government promised to begin
providing assistance to former combatants, including the so-called
emergency aid packages; it also promised to begin classes in the
Public Security Academy as soon as possible, and adopt all
necessary measures to get the National Civilian Police functioning,
as well as to adopt the legislative measures necessary to replace
the Armed Forces Territorial Service with a new military and
reserve corps.
     Even with those commitments in place, the peace process made
only meager progress on demilitarization and the consolidation of
the new police force. The FMLN, for its part, demobilized its
second rebel contingent on September 21. The economic and social
aspects of the peace accords became the most difficult ones to
implement, and threatened to produce a new crisis. Concretely, the
government and the FMLN failed to reach consensus around the terms
for land transfers to former combatants and existing landholders.
The government maintained an inflexible position which only
admitted the transfer of tiny individual plots, and discriminated
between former combatants and other landholders, offering the
latter only half the land it offered the former. The maximum amount
of funds allocated to pay for the plots was also too low to meet
market prices. The FMLN objected to the government's proposal,
arguing that, among other things, it would break up community farms
operated by the former rebels' social constituency during the war
years. Only U.N. intervention was capable of finding an acceptable
compromise.
     The solution to the second great crisis of the peace process
demonstrated, once again, that the difficult course of the peace
process was chiefly the fault of the government's strategy for
carrying out the accords. Above all, it left clear that the
government's determination to let political space and time slip
away while failing to comply with the accords had the basic goal of
getting the FMLN to demobilize in exchange for nothing. Even though
this ambitious goal could not be achieved in the hoped-for terms,
the government still made every effort to undermine the FMLN's
social influence, and tried to restrict the maneuvering room
available for its future political activities.
     This logic was behind the delays seen in setting up the
National Civilian Police, legalizing the FMLN as a political party,
and beginning land transfers in former conflict zones. On this last
point, as we mentioned above, the government made great efforts to
impose its ideas about private and individual property, which are
defended by Salvadoran big capital. This principle made it very
difficult to find viable forms to transfer and own land in such a
way as to benefit former combatants of campesino origin.
 
Impunity is shaken up
 
     As October 31 drew near, the peace process reflected an
unacceptable buildup of delays and non-compliance on the government
side, and the U.N. evaluation conducted in mid-September attested
to this. Nevertheless, the government adopted a dangerous,
aggressive and intransigent position to ward off a third
rescheduling which would inexorable postpone the stipulated
deadline for ending the FMLN's military structure. It arrogantly
and falsely asserted that it had fulfilled its promises, and flatly
demanded the demobilization and disarmament of the FMLN. In
addition, the extreme right accompanied that position with a
virulent and hysterical campaign of destabilization and
disinformation aimed at frightening the population into believing
that the war would begin anew.
     International pressure on the government was decisive in
overcoming the dangerous impasse. Between the last week of
September and the first week of October, El Salvador hosted the
visits of a series of international figures interested in the peace
process. Outstanding among them was Marrack Goulding, who arrived
for the third time, and two U.S. officials, SouthCom chief George
Joulwan and Assistant Secretary of State Bernard Aronson.
     Goulding came to try to resolve the complex land transfer
problem, which was holding up FMLN demobilization. Neither Goulding
nor land experts from the IMF, the FAO and the World Bank, who
arrived with him, were able to bring the two sides to an agreement.
However, the U.N. then drew up a proposal on October 13, which was
accepted by the two sides and subsequently implemented in its first
stages.
     The U.S. officials, however, came to support Cristiani. The
first area of support was around the difficult step of adopting the
administrative measures contained in the Ad Hoc Commission report,
aimed at purging the Armed Forces. In the second place, they
demanded that the FMLN continue the process of demobilization,
although they left open the possibility of extending the deadline.
     The results of these visits were not immediately apparent.
Military and right-wing pressure on the government shored up
President Cristiani's reckless and inflexible position, leading him
to challenge openly the mandate of the United Nations. Just one
week before October 31, U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-
Ghali sent the two sides a new proposal conceding a "grace period"
until December 15, in order that both sides might meet their
commitments. The intense government campaign demanding the total
disarmament of the FMLN, without anything in return, lost
credibility among the world community, and the extension of the
deadline offered the government an elegant way out.
     The new U.N. calendar proposed four phases, including four
sets of commitments and four key dates. The first phase included
the demobilization of the third contingent of FMLN combatants
(October 31) and guarantees for maintaining the landholding
situation in former conflict zones. The second phase included the
demobilization of the fourth contingent (November 20) and the
definitive legalization of the FMLN as a political party (November
27). The third phase included a set of measures regarding the Armed
Forces, the normal functioning of the new police force and the
formalization of international verification, on the one hand, and
the updating of the FMLN weapons inventory and the concentration of
the weapons, on the other (November 30). The fourth and final phase
included the demobilization of the Atlacatl Battalion (December 8),
followed by reforms in the judicial and electoral systems, the
verification of the last of the lands included in the FMLN
inventory, and the execution of the Ad Hoc Commission
recommendations; it also included the demobilization of the last
FMLN contingent and the destruction of its weapons (December 15).
     The FMLN publicly and immediately accepted the new peace
schedule. However, the group expressed its disagreement with some
of the points of the U.N. proposal, although it felt that in
general terms, the plan put things in their places and got the
peace process back on track. Moreover, as a good will gesture, the
FMLN began demobilizing its third contingent of combatants. The
government, however, provided an ambiguous response to the U.N.
proposal, one which practically constituted a challenge. President
Cristiani told Boutros-Ghali that he accepted the extension of the
deadline for the final demobilization of the FMLN, but that
meanwhile, he would halt the demobilization, reduction and
restructuring of the Armed Forces.
     The U.N. Secretary General, in attempt to get the government
to reconsider its unusual position, sent his special envoy Marrack
Goulding, who was accompanied this time by the architect of the
peace accords, the skilled negotiator Alvaro de Soto. The work of
these top U.N. officials forced the government to stop relegating
the purging of the Armed Forces to the back burner.
     In effect, at the heart of this third crisis was the
government's failure to comply with accords related to the Armed
Forces. In particular, the Armed Forces and part of the officer
corps flatly rejected the Ad Hoc Commission report, drawn up by
three notable citizens, which evaluated the conduct of active duty
officers. The military's rejection of the report was once again
cloaked in the rhetoric of constitutionality. It never denied its
guilt in cases of abuses of authority and other serious human
rights violations attributed to the institution. On the contrary,
the military justified to the hilt its unpunished and arrogant
behavior during the war, appealing to a supposed defense against
"Communist aggression."
     On the list of those who are to be discharged from the
military are practically all the nation's generals and colonels;
none of them has accepted the measure. President Cristiani,
therefore, sought to nullify the purging process and ratify
impunity, and began an intense bargaining session with the United
Nations. First he requested an indefinite time period to begin
discharging the officers gradually, or to wait until they retired
voluntarily. Then he proposed August 1993, then May, and finally,
as the Washington Post reported on November 9, December 1992. The
U.S. newspaper version coincided with the U.N. announcement that
the date set in the third rescheduling for carrying out the Ad Hoc
Commission recommendations had been extended two weeks, to December
31. This arduously negotiated concession was the only one the U.N.
made; it refused to accept the president's request to leave 14
officers (including the Minister of Defense) off the list, since
they had been most loyal to him and had even contained or
neutralized attempts at a coup.
     This time, with all this experience behind it, the U.N.
expressed that the new peace calendar was conceived in such a way
as to permit progressive advances on both sides while preventing an
accumulation of delays and flagrant non-compliance. In particular,
the U.N. took a transcendental step in its job of guiding and
verifying the process, by recognizing for the first time that
compliance with certain fundamental commitments on one side
depended on compliance with specific commitments on the other.
 
Farewell to arms
 
     Despite the obstacles and limitations, the peace process began
to alter the archaic and unjust structures of power in El Salvador.
This was expressed in the three great crises of the process, which
shook up the established order which caused the long years of war.
The last 45 days of the peace process were no exception, in that
they unfolded in a context of renewed tension. The severe mistrust
between the two sides darkened the peace horizon during the final
stretch, but did not prevent a satisfactory denouement on December
15.
     During the first half of December, COPAZ and the legislature
worked frenetically against the clock to write and pass the laws
still pending, including amendments to the laws governing the
judicial profession, the Electoral Code and the law to benefit war
disabled. The legislature had previously passed legislation
guaranteeing that 25,000 families currently occupying lands without
a title would not be evicted during the land transfer process. Also
during that period, the FMLN demobilized its fourth contingent of
combatants, and began destroying its own weapons. Later, once the
U.N. confirmed that the Armed Forces would be purged in conformity
with the Ad Hoc Commission report, the FMLN turned in a revised
inventory of its weapons. The U.N. endorsed the inventory, which
opened the way for the government to demobilize the Atlacatl
Battalion. Finally, on December 14, the FMLN demobilized its fifth
and last contingent of combatants. ONUSAL then certified before the
Supreme Electoral Tribunal that the insurgents' military structure
was no more, allowing the court to lift the suspension on the
legalization of the FMLN as a political party.
     In this way, the first and i/.]decisive stage of the peace
process in El Salvador culminated with a formal declaration of the
end of the cease-fire, since both sides had irrevocably dismantled
the structures which had made the war possible. The celebration of
the protocol act marking this transcendental step was formally
witnessed by top officials of the United Nations, the United
States, the Central American countries, and the Four Friends of the
Secretary General. In their speeches, the guests issued appeals for
political tolerance and reconciliation. In the same vein, most of
the speakers warned that there was still much to be done to
consolidate a socio-political system capable of settling national
differences in a democratic and civilized fashion. In effect, now
that the first stage of the peace process is over, there is much to
be done to further the work which was begun, such as transferring
more lands, beginning the work of the National Civilian Police,
reordering political life and respecting human rights. Boutros-
Ghali accurately noted that full and true national reconciliation
will only be possible when the wounds left by the war are healed;
in other words, when the entire painful truth about the recent past
is known.
     The year 1993 will represent a great challenge, and great
hope; the greatest challenge, as President Cristiani said in his
speech, lies in combatting poverty. Next year will put to the test
the reforms to the political and social system contained in the
peace accords, based on the assumption that now there are
sufficient guarantees for defending human rights and exercising
political freedoms. Both conditions, as Shafick Handal stated in
his speech, are essential for achieving the structural justice
demanded by the majority of Salvadorans.
 

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