TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/030590/0305005.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.0 KB | 124 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 32

EL SALVADOR

The Hapless Peacemaker -- Jose Napoleon Duarte: 1925-1990


By JILL SMOLOWE -- Reported by John Moody/San Salvador


    He was a man possessed of a messianic conviction that he and
he alone could bring peace and democracy to his bloodstained
nation. And for a long time after Jose Napoleon Duarte became
President of El Salvador in 1984 Washington shared his belief
that he could make a difference. Six years later, however, El
Salvador remains as desperate as ever. The bitter civil war
lurches on, with the country's 5 million people still hostage
to the brutal campaigns of the far-right death squads and the
left-wing guerrillas. Duarte's economic and social reforms are
mostly in ruins, and his pledges to punish human-rights abuses
and corruption remain unfulfilled. Last week, at the age of 64,
Duarte died in his home in San Salvador, his body ravaged by
cancer, his spirit diminished by the disappointment of
unrealized dreams.

    The promise that was Duarte flickered most brightly in 1984,
the year he rode to the presidency on a wave of popular
enthusiasm. Pledging an end to the civil war and the beginning
of an era of stability, Duarte became El Salvador's first
freely elected civilian President in half a century. It was a
particularly satisfying victory, since Duarte had been robbed
of the presidency in 1972, when Salvadoran soldiers halted the
vote count and beat the candidate severely. Duarte fled into
exile in Venezuela, not venturing home until seven years later,
when a coup paved the way for his participation in a
military-civilian junta. When the presidential nod finally
came, he proclaimed, "This moment is just the beginning of a
much longer road."

    Little did he suspect just how long -- or rugged -- that
road would be. For most of his early life, there had been ample
good luck. His father, a tailor, struck it rich in 1944 by
winning the national lottery. That, and a partial scholarship,
enabled Duarte to attend the University of Notre Dame, where
he earned a degree in civil engineering. When he returned home,
Duarte married the daughter of his father's best friend and
joined his father-in-law's lucrative construction firm as a
partner. In 1960 Duarte helped found the Christian Democratic
Party, and four years later he began the first of three
consecutive terms as mayor of San Salvador.

    The initial months of his presidency were a heady time, as
Duarte set his agenda in motion. He created a commission to
investigate death-squad killings, shuffled the command of the
security forces and toured the richer capitals of the West in
search of foreign aid. He found his most receptive audience in
Washington, where a charmed Congress soon approved more than
$200 million in military and economic  assistance. Over the next
five years, U.S. spending would surpass $3 billion;
Washington's faith in Duarte endured long after his support at
home had eroded.

    The steady downward slope of Duarte's tenure could be
charted from one October to the next. His first October, in
1984, was a time of triumph as he strode into the small town
of La Palma for the first of three meetings with leftist rebel
leaders. A year later, as hostilities continued, tragedy hit
home when Duarte's eldest daughter, Ines Guadalupe Duarte
Duran, was kidnaped and held by rebels for 30 days. That
October, Duarte personally supervised the complex negotiations
that secured Ines' freedom, briefly abandoning his tough line
with the guerrillas and freeing 25 political prisoners in
exchange. The double standard aroused the contempt of some,
especially within the powerful military, who charged that he
had compromised his ability to govern.

    In the months that followed, Duarte tried unsuccessfully to
get the peace talks back on track. He also implemented an
austerity program that enjoyed greater support in Washington
than in San Salvador. A hefty devaluation of the Salvadoran
colon and a tax on coffee, the country's main export, pushed
inflation to the 40% mark and raised unemployment close to 50%.
Wary businessmen sought investments abroad, while some of the
unions that had once supported Duarte joined a new opposition
labor confederation. In October 1986 an earthquake flattened
much of San Salvador, killing 1,500 people and inflicting $1
billion in damages. When hundreds of millions of dollars poured
in, including $250 million from the U.S., the Duarte
government was accused of squandering the funds.

    During the next year, charges of corruption haunted Duarte's
government. The death squads returned; mutilated bodies once
again littered the roadsides. And the leftist guerrillas
regained their momentum, waging successful assaults on military
and economic targets throughout the country. As the country
spun back toward chaos, Salvadorans came to regard Duarte as
little better than a pawn of the Reagan Administration. That
October, when Duarte journeyed to Washington for a White House
visit with Ronald Reagan, he touched his hosts by kissing the
American flag. At home, that same image came to symbolize the
power that Duarte had forfeited.

    The waning months of Duarte's administration were beset by
political turmoil. In March 1988 Duarte's bitter political
rivals, the ultraconservative Nationalist Republican Alliance
(ARENA), won control of the national  legislature. Duarte's
attempts to heal a deepening rift within his Christian
Democratic Party failed, and one year later ARENA's
presidential candidate, Alfredo Cristiani, triumphed, with 54%
of the vote.

    Friends eulogize Duarte as the man who, as one close adviser
put it, "started a process, a tendency toward democracy."
Detractors, such as Jesuit scholar Ignacio Martin Baro, assert
that "history will remember Duarte as the President who
mortgaged the sovereignty of his country to the Americans."
Duarte may best be remembered, however, as the leader who could
not live up to his own best intentions.