From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Proceso 544: Wagering on Peace
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 08:10:23 GMT

/** reg.elsalvador: 129.0 **/
** Topic: Proceso 544: Editorial 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: Editorial 1992

Center for Information, Documentation and Research Support (CIDAI)
Central American University (UCA)
San Salvador, El Salvador
 
PROCESO 544
December 31, 1992
 
EDITORIAL:
Wagering on peace
 
     This has been the year for wagering on peace. At the start of
1992, the final accords were reached which allowed the Peace
Agreement to be signed by the two sides on January 16. On February
1, the cease-fire period formally began, and concluded on December
15. Overcoming obstacles, some of which were quite dangerous, and
amid a measure of uncertainty, the two sides formally declared
peace just before the end of 1992.
     This closes a chapter of El Salvador's history, a chapter of
irrationality which produced a dirty war, an open war, and massive
and systematic human rights violations. At the same time, this ends
a phase in which experience has painfully demonstrated that armed
violence is not the best way to settle social and political
differences. The war's brutal violence forced the two warring sides
to seek political means to negotiate its end and to lay the
groundwork for a society in which coexistence might be possible on
the basis of respect for human rights.
     The end of the conflict was possible because both sides, with
different levels of intensity and perhaps for different reasons,
wagered everything on peace. The two sides convinced themselves, or
were convinced, that the path of military conflict was closed. Both
sides are aware, however, that the job is not yet finished. For
President Cristiani, the current challenge of peace is the
challenge of poverty. For Shafick Handal, democracy cannot be built
on multiplying poverty.
     The great challenge facing El Salvador is to diminish the
nation's alarming levels of poverty, which has spread and deepened
over the last three years with the government's structural
adjustment programs. Economic policies such as these, which
disproportionately benefit a few while rapidly shrinking the middle
class and increasing the number of poor and marginalized, are
neither acceptable nor prudent in political terms.
     Now that the armed conflict is over, it is worth recalling
that its structural causes remain present, that the war was only a
manifestation of the nation's widespread poverty. The end of the
conflict has yet to be felt in the area of economic, social and
cultural rights. Furthermore, the accords signed regarding these
areas have yet to become a reality. In the short run, making
progress in this sphere is imperative for justice and social
stability. The war will only be definitively won when those rights,
and human rights, prevail. We are still far from that goal, and
there is apparently strong resistance to working toward it.
     El Salvador has social and economic needs which require
immediate attention, over and above political needs, and especially
over electoral needs. These needs were postponed once already given
the urgency of demilitarizing society. At that time it was felt
that without demilitarization, it would be virtually impossible to
struggle for economic, social and cultural rights, because the
demands would not be heard and protest would be repressed. Events
of the last year have borne out that position. Now that
demilitarization has been achieved to a sufficiently acceptable
degree, the urgent social and economic problems cannot be postponed
for another year, until the 1994 elections.
     The virtual launching of the 1994 election campaign last
December 15 does not bode well for the Salvadoran people, not to
mention the national exhaustion which sets in from such prolonged
campaigns. The impoverished majority cannot be left to its fate
while the political parties dispute State power among themselves.
The extreme poverty in which the majority of Salvadorans live
requires that politicians pay attention to this very serious
problem, and postpone their electoral ambitions. Furthermore,
postponing solutions another year will only provoke violent social
protest.
     This distressing national reality requires a pact to refrain
from beginning the electoral campaign until late 1993. The
political parties should commit themselves to work for national
reconstruction, and seek ways to promote sustained development and
remedies for extreme and relative poverty. Another pending task is
national reconciliation. This will only be possible if it is
grounded in a national vision which includes, as fundamental
elements, the establishment of the truth and the search for social
justice. The political parties and the government are the ones who
must provide the example by offering true gestures of
reconciliation. Immersing themselves in an electoral campaign at
this time will make it practically impossible to seek and find
points of reconciliation.
     This is the perfect moment to begin confronting the challenge
of poverty. Otherwise, we will run the risk that social protest and
civil disobedience will make the country ungovernable, which is in
no one's interest. We would also lose the negotiating impetus
generated by the end of the armed conflict. Only those who lack
vision and whose interests are selfish and scarcely nationalist are
incapable of perceiving the urgency of this task.
     The negotiations, the signing of the peace accord, and the
subsequent peace process were possible because both sides wagered
on peace. Today, the entire society must make another great short-
and medium-term wager, this time on democracy and social justice.
No political party or social sector alone will be capable of
carrying out the democratic, social and economic transformations
required in El Salvador in order to consolidate peace. Therefore,
the nation demands a supreme effort to agree to postpone the
electoral campaign and seek consensus around social and economic
alternatives.
     The road to the future has not been built, but we Salvadorans
have learned to open new paths under difficult circumstances, using
creativity and great imagination. Wagering on peace is a commitment
to continue sowing rationality in order to benefit the great
majority. It is not easy, but neither is it impossible.
 

** End of text from cdp:reg.elsalvador **

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