El Salvador
A New Chapter Begins
Nitlápan-Envío team
With the recent peace accords and the death of the far right's top leader, Roberto D' Aubuisson, one chapter of Salvadoran history ended and another began. Still dealing with the same social contradictions, the country is facing a process of what are virtually revolutionary changes.
After negotiations in which both sides, working with the United Nations, made serious efforts to reach consensus, the task now is to carry out in practice what on February 1 was but a stack of signed documents, backed by tremendous popular enthusiasm.
During this new stage, the Cristiani administration cannot be seen as anything more than a transition government. It has responsibility for state and society, but is not an active subject in the transformations underway. ONUSAL, the UN organization charged with verifying the accords, has "intervened" in both the army and the public security forces. COPAZ, responsible for carrying out the changes specified in the accords, has "intervened" in the executive, legislative and judicial branches in order to make those changes happen. Only after the accords are implemented will the final test fall to the Cristiani government: the 1994 elections.
The new stage also begins with a new methodology: the search for negotiated consensus and reconciliation as a substitute for confrontation, from either the right or the left. The constellation of political transformations agreed to in the very delicate process that produced the accords will only be effected if unnecessary confrontations are avoided. Today, beyond a traditional analysis of left and right, the pragmatic and radical tendencies of both sides must be given major consideration.
After several generations of being accustomed to the use of force, both the left and the right are trying to get used to this new scenario. To date, the political sectors are making greater efforts than the popular movement and business sectors to arrive at accords through consensus.
At the same time, the Salvadoran people are becoming aware of the deep political transformation that began this new stage. It is being confirmed by the FMLN's presence in public activities, in the ongoing work of COPAZ, in debates and news programs and in the camps where its soldiers are concentrated. The FMLN is no longer a clandestine force censured by the government; it has become a definitive and socially recognized protagonist in the life of the country. The accords and socio-political changes also aim at transforming the great majority of the population into active political protagonists who, with the military submitted to civilian power and the political spaces rightfully belonging to the people opened, can express themselves publicly and freely.
Separation of forces and cease-fireOf all the accords, those referring to implementation and supervision of the cease-fire appear to be moving forward with the greatest normality, despite some delays in compliance with the established calendar. ONUSAL recognizes these delays as involuntary and normal in a process of this complexity, and, so far, they have not essentially affected the advance of the accords.
A joint working group made up of Spanish army General Victor Suanzes Pardo, head of the ONUSAL military observers, and representatives of the armed forces and the FMLN is coordinating the cease-fire. ONUSAL's military division was constituted in the two weeks after peace began, and is made up of 332 members (Latin Americans and Europeans).
The first phase, the cease-fire established in the accords, has been virtually executed. The FMLN concentrated its forces in 50 previously established areas, primarily zones of guerrilla presence and control. The 63,000-man armed forces are concentrated in 100 military barracks, centers of economic and military interest and fixed bases. The FMLN presented its inventory of weapons and forces to ONUSAL: the guerrilla force was established at 8,600 troops and its weapons at 4,000 rifles and artillery.
The first objection in the cease-fire process came from the armed forces and Cristiani himself, who considered it impossible that the FMLN would have more troops than arms. The FMLN characterized Cristiani's judgment as "speculative," reiterating that the arms issue is a commitment the FMLN took on with the United Nations and not with the government.
In the second phase of the cease-fire, which began on March 1, the FMLN forces concentrated in 15 positions, and the army in 62, the same ones they will occupy in peacetime.
The FMLN's presence in zones near population centers and highways since the cease-fire formally began has attracted many kinds of visitors, including both sympathizers and the curious. The FMLN camps have become virtual tourist attractions and political schools. Recent FMLN charges of military flights over these zones of concentration, and the announcement that it would shoot them down if the flights continued, created serious tension between the Salvadoran and Honduran governments; the Cristiani government was forced to admit that the planes were from Honduras and were violating Salvadoran airspace.
COPAZThe Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (COPAZ), inaugurated on February 1, has been the most active group in this new stage, and, given its composition, is the most qualified to search for political consensus. It is made up of one representative of each of the six parties sitting in the Legislature, along with two members each of the FMLN and the government. In addition, COPAZ observers include ONUSAL delegation director Iqbal Riza, who headed the UN electoral mission in Nicaragua, and Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chávez, representing the Catholic church. If COPAZ decisions were made by a majority vote, the votes would be virtual ties, given the different political tendencies represented. Since this would hamper the smooth advance of the accords for which COPAZ is responsible, it was decided during the negotiations in Mexico that COPAZ would reach its agreements by consensus. This gives a special dimension to the decisions and proposals COPAZ is presenting almost daily to the different state powers, and helps increase the quality of its actions. Despite certain delays in scheduling and implementation, recognized by all COPAZ members, the machinery is oiled and moving.
COPAZ has already defined its own working subcommissions (one dealing with the organization of the National Civil Police (PNC) and a special subcommission on socioeconomic issues) and chosen their members. It also managed to achieve consensus around a proposal for the new Electoral Tribunal, which is to replace the Central Elections Council. The tribunal will include a representative of the Democratic Convergence and of the Supreme Court; the latter will preside. The Legislative Assembly, after electing the new Tribunal's members from a list of proposals, then swore them in, with the exception of the Supreme Court representative and alternate, who declined their election.
The new public securityThe general coordinator of the National Civilian Police, attorney Ernesto Arbizú Mata, was elected in January by consensus among the negotiating teams. The subcommission created by COPAZ to implement the accords specifically dealing with the PNC will function as his consultative body. It falls to Arbizú to take the first steps in organizing this new police force and begin the search for financing. The total lack of funds for the PNC has been one of the concrete obstacles to the peace process in its first month. The proposal of a slate from which the PNC director is to be named is still pending; the final choice will be made by President Cristiani.
The PNC will replace the National Guard, the Treasury Police, the National Police and the civil defense patrols in the rural zones, taking over their functions of guaranteeing public security. This and the constitutional exclusion of the armed forces from public security tasks are the greatest achievements of the peace accords and the key mechanisms for demilitarizing and pacifying Salvadoran society.
As of March 1, the security forces were dissolved. Their members were transferred to the army, now under ONUSAL control, and thus will undergo the same purging, reduction in size and constitutional prohibition from carrying out public security functions to which the rest of the army must submit. Only the existing National Police is continuing its functions, under President Cristiani's command, and only while the PNC is being organized throughout the country.
All this will not eliminate poverty, which is the central problem still to be resolved, but in this new stage, the struggle to overcome poverty will not be accompanied by repression. The security and civil defense forces were the main pillars of militarism and the essential mechanisms used to submit the Salvadoran people to repression.
Control over the public security forces is undoubtedly the accord most lamented by the right wing and armed forces. They are thus doing all they can to distort this agreement and avoid the creation of the PNC. Their efforts are not unrelated to the front-page attention in the government media to delinquency and citizens' safety. Delinquency may well have increased since the end of the war—a logical phenomenon in a country accustomed to such violence and with so many accessible arms and explosives, particularly in the context of a severe economic crisis. But this does not explain how, in just one month, during which the security forces supposedly have put all their efforts towards public order, petty theft and even sizeable robberies could increase to such a degree. The only reasonable assumption is that the security forces have never been and still are not capable of guaranteeing the population's most basic security.
The right wing and the army still dream of once again controlling the security forces. Former General Onecifero Blandón, member of the subcommission working to create the new National Police, went so far as to propose transferring members of the dissolved National Guard to the still-functioning police forces to buttress them in their task of maintaining public order, a proposal backed by other rightwing figures.
Destabilizing elementsLabor conflict in the ADOC shoe factory along with the first steps in applying the agrarian accords have served as pretexts for the organized business sectors, the rightwing latifundistas and even some government institutions to call on the government to maintain public order and security. The army has taken out paid ads in the newspapers calling for military officials to take an active role in public security, although the army, as stated in the constitutional reforms agreed to in the accords, in no case is to take on such security tasks.
The case of ADOC, which dominates the national market and has a high level of exports, as well as installations in Costa Rica, is a dissonant element in the generally calm climate of the peace process during the first weeks. The union's radical proposals were answered by the "definitive" closure of the factory, an unfortunate precedent at a time when the socioeconomic forum has not even begun. This obstacle to better worker-management relations in the future and to the concept of concertación required by the accords demonstrates that pragmatism does not yet dominate in some sectors.
The most serious focal point of destabilization is the agrarian problem. In general, both the FMLN and private business sectors have acknowledged that, compared to other points in the accords, the socioeconomic themes were the least fine-tuned. The many holes and ambiguities will make implementation very difficult. Until mid-February, the big rightwing landowners carried out a campaign denouncing "land takeovers" in different parts of the country. Cristiani spoke of 260 "illegal takeovers." The FMLN denied that there had been any takeovers and declared that it was a question of attempting to "re-take" land they had abandoned during the war, primarily in FMLN-held zones. While there have been some takeovers, they are primarily of lands affected by the accords: properties over the constitutional limit of 245 hectares and those not currently under cultivation should be turned over to landless peasants.
The Chapultepec accords took up other land transfers as well: those in the zones that were under FMLN control, state lands that are not forest reserves and those that their owners voluntarily sell to the state. Lands in areas under FMLN control should pass, through sale, from the old owners to the current peasant tenants who were the guerrilla's social base. The FMLN has already presented an inventory to COPAZ, encompassing some 38% of all the country's agricultural lands.
The issue of land distribution is the most delicate of all, and is at the very root of the civil war that has just ended. It can be expected to continue generating conflict. "For us it is an issue of life or death," top FMLN top leaders have said.
The conflict produced in Salvadoran society by a change in land tenure goes hand in hand with a land conflict between Honduras and El Salvador. The Honduran government has charged the Salvadoran government with giving FMLN combatants and their families land still in dispute between the two countries. These lands include some 400 square kilometers located in what are called "pockets of litigation" on the border between the two countries. The Salvadoran government has denied the charge, but Honduras has asked the UN "blue beret" peacekeeping forces to intervene. The possibility cannot be discarded that the Salvadoran ultra-rightists are working in concert with the Hondurans to destabilize the peace process.
COMPETING PLANS FOR NATIONAL RECONSTRUCTIONSALVADORAN GOVERNMENT
I. General Objectives:
1. Overcome the causes of the war.
2. Promote reconciliation.
3. Make democracy possible.
4. Lay the foundations for a lasting peace.
II. Target population: demobilized, displaced or repopulated communities and/or families in conflictive zones.
III. Target territory: 106 municipalities characterized as most affected by the conflict and other zones in need of infrastructure reconstruction and repairs.
IV. Implementation Phases:
Phase 1, or Contingency: Emergency projects. $18.2 million available for field research to draw up socio-demographic profiles, rehabilitation of basic infrastructure, health and education services, productive capacity, production incentives and employment generation. No more than six months duration.
Phase 2, or Medium term: Cover programs and projects essential for attending to the basic needs of the target groups and territories. Projected cost is $1,304.7 million for: social and human capital needs (30%), infrastructure (30%), productive sector (19%), environment (6%), strengthening democracy (11%) and technical assistance (2%).
V. Organization of implementation: Within the institutional framework and structure of the state. Mechanisms managing funds and channels for popular participation (open forums or cabildos, social auditing commissions and technical reconstruction committees) will be established.
Between consensus and confrontationIn spite of so many years of war, confrontation and radical actions on both sides, the first month of the peace accords' implementation went forward without serious problems, although many of the main conflicts have been laid on the table. Both the Left and the Right recognize that without real political flexibility and pragmatism, the full implementation of the accords will turn into a prolonged confrontation that will completely distort the peace process.
The United States has taken a clear position. In a brief speech in San Salvador, Secretary of State James Baker characterized as "traitors" those who attempt to destabilize the peace process. The new US ambassador to El Salvador, Michael Kozak, is described by some Congressional sources as "one of the most able negotiators in the foreign service" and "a brilliant diplomat who is very sure of himself and thus can be rather inflexible as a conciliator." Kozak has been in charge of issues relating to Cuba and participated directly in conversations with General Noriega in 1989. In the opinion of outgoing US Ambassador William Walker, the change is not merely a routine one, given that in the new situation in El Salvador there are "tasks ahead for more conventional lawyers and diplomats, like Mike Kozak."
The calendar for the peace accords, established by consensus, has had some variations in practice. Conflicts like the one in ADOC and those linked to land problems, as well as the question of public security, could all generate more delays in or certain conditions for the implementation of the accords. On February 27, for example, the big capitalists in the business association ANEP publicly announced their conditions for participating in the Concertación Forum called by COPAZ for February 16, a date in this case not complied with. ANEP will only participate in a context of "stability" and only if the land issue is solved quickly.
In spite of all this, the peace process is irreversible. Many conflicts will continue to emerge according to the political moment at each step of the way, but the dynamic of consensus and concertación is taking hold.
FMLN
I. Objectives:
1. Attack the causes of the war and lay the foundations for equitable and participatory socioeconomic development, agreed to by all the social and political forces of the country.
2. Contribute to reconciliation, pacification and democracy.
3. Strengthen the institutions and organizations of civil society.
II. Priority sectors: Make those traditionally marginalized from development the subjects of the plan: displaced, repatriates, refugees, peasants from the conflict zones, agrarian reform and independent cooperatives, small holders and landless peasants, urban and suburban poor communities, FMLN and armed forces combatants.
III. Target territory: North transverse, central transverse and transverse, consisting of 209 municipalities given priority in Phase II. The FMLN will present a list for Phase I.
1) Emergency (1992-1993): projects of one month to two years’ duration. Socioeconomic area: documentation, reactivation of public services, recovery of cultural patrimony. Socio-political area: incorporation of the FMLN into institutional political life.
2) Stabilization and reactivation (1994-1997): projects from three months to five years’ duration: development infrastructure, regional production systems and insertion into the national economy, creation of an internal consumer market, broadening and reordering of social projects, promotion and recovery of environmental equilibrium.
Total investment: $1.33 billion
IV. Principles of Implementation:
a) The plan should be worked out among all social forces, the FMLN and the government.
b) Democratic participation should be strengthened.
c) The role of the state is to rebuild and repair necessary infrastructure.
d) The role of NGOs and other social forces is to carry out socioeconomic development projects.
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