TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/040389/04038900.028

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 8.0 KB | 159 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 28

CENTRAL AMERICA

Back to Square One


The U.S. is disappointed in the outcome of El Salvador's
election, but Bush and Congress get their act together on
Nicaragua

By William R. Doerner


    The wars in Central America have never had much in common
except for the angst they give the U.S. And so it was not
really surprising that the same week that saw a daunting shift
to the right in El Salvador also brought forth the first
bipartisan U.S. policy toward Nicaragua this decade. The Bush
Administration seems unsure how to manage the collapse of the
long U.S. effort to build a strong centrist government in El
Salvador. But it has accomplished a sharp break with the
Reaganite past in cementing an accord with the Democratic
Congress to wind down the futile contra war in Nicaragua. The
reversal leaves U.S. policy with an uncertain future.

    In El Salvador, Alfredo Cristiani, candidate of the
Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party, left all rivals
for the country's presidency far behind by polling an outright
majority, 54% of the estimated 1 million ballots cast.
Cristiani's victory, however, was muted by a voter turnout of
only about 50%. The high rate of abstentions translated in part
to support for the boycotting Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front (F.M.L.N.), the Marxist guerrilla force that
has battled for power for the past nine years.

    The real loser was the centrist Christian Democratic Party
of incumbent President Jose Napoleon Duarte, who is terminally
ill with cancer. Having lost control of the legislature to ARENA
a year ago, the Christian Democrats will hand over the chief
executive's office on June 1.

    The other big loser was the U.S., which has given its
public support and $1.5 million a day in aid to Duarte since
1984, when his election inspired hope that the war might end.
Washington desperately wanted to build the Christian Democrats
into El Salvador's bulwark against the political extremes, both
the Communist insurgents and ARENA, the paramilitary
organization turned political party that has been closely linked
to death squads responsible for thousands of political murders.
But the well-intended Duarte failed either to negotiate a peace
or restore his country's shattered economy; his government was
widely despised as both inept and corrupt.

    El Salvador's election, while fairer than some previous
exercises, was nonetheless seriously flawed. Election-related
violence took the lives of at least 30 civilians, including
three journalists, two of them killed by army troops. Guerrilla
forces effectively paralyzed public transportation and staged
several attacks in outlying towns. The vote was thus held down
not only by sympathy with the F.M.L.N. but also by fear of it.

    Fredy Cristiani, 41, sports an image of moderation but
comes from a traditionally rightist background. He is the
product of privilege and a 1968 graduate of Washington's
Georgetown University who heads family-owned coffee and
pharmaceutical businesses. Cristiani became active in ARENA a
year before the 1984 presidential election. Its candidate then,
party founder Roberto d'Aubuisson, was strongly opposed by the
U.S. because of his alleged ties to the notorious death squads.
Party leaders, eager to transform ARENA's tough image, chose
Cristiani to personify the new nonviolent party.

    But skeptical Americans wonder whether D'Aubuisson is gone
for good. He remains a Deputy in the legislature and leader
emeritus of the party. D'Aubuisson himself is unabashedly
confident. "Why shouldn't I have influence?" he asks.

    Since his election, Cristiani has assiduously subscribed to
a program of moderation, including immediate negotiations with
the revolutionary guerrillas, a goal that the U.S. also now
supports. "Why wait?" he asks. His yearlong campaign, however,
was short on specifics. He ran instead under the appealingly
vague slogan "The Change We All Want." Says Cristiani to the
U.S.: "All we ask is, Judge us from our track record, not by
perceptions."

    Publicly, the U.S. reacted cautiously to ARENA's victory.
The State Department reminded Cristiani that "our relationship
with the new government will depend on its adherence to
democracy and respect for human rights." Privately, officials
fear El Salvador will once again find itself polarized between
ultra-right and far left, with no centrist, reformist government
to protect the disenfranchised masses against the violence of
both.

    Ironically, the U.S. is finding it easier these days to
deal with Nicaragua. Late last week the White House announced
a "gentleman's agreement" with Congress to allot $4.5 million
a month in humanitarian aid to the Nicaraguan contras for the
next eleven months while diplomats work at pushing the
Sandinista regime toward democracy. The bargain ends, for the
moment at least, a fractious eight-year battle between the
Democrat-controlled Congress and the Executive Branch over how
to handle Central America. The product of intense lobbying by
Secretary of State James Baker, the agreement to fund the
contras but not any more fighting may mark a sea change in U.S.
policy. "I think we all have to admit," said Baker, "that the
(Reagan) policy basically failed because we were not united."

    The parties could split again: at Democratic insistence,
the agreement contains a provision for cancellation in November
if the contras provoke violence. But for now the Democrats and
Republicans have both signed on to a plan that guarantees the
12,000-man contra army will remain intact through next February,
when the ruling Sandinistas have promised to hold democratic
elections. That much had been an emergency goal for Bush, since
the current U.S. contra-aid program is scheduled to expire this
week. Congressional Democrats, who have grown resistant to such
assistance since the Iran-contra scandal, accepted this program
because it effectively sets a date for the contras' disbandment
and does little to interfere with the Esquipulas peace plan,
adopted in August 1987 by all governments in the region.

    The new aid for the contras is clearly a kind of
mustering-out pay designed to keep the contras, currently
bivouacked in Honduras, fed and clothed for another year, until
a more permanent solution is worked out. To that end, the plan
calls for the "voluntary reintegration" of the contras into
Nicaraguan political life or their "voluntary regional
relocation," language that makes it evident they are finished
as a fighting force, barring an act of major treachery by the
Sandinistas.

    Baker's next step will be to hold out a list of economic
and diplomatic incentives to reward democratic reforms in
Nicaragua. Such a list has not yet been compiled, but the
rewards will probably include the presence of an American
Ambassador in Managua for the first time in nearly a year, a
gradual lifting by Washington of its almost four-year-old trade
embargo, and loans through the Inter-American Development Bank.

    Baker's advisers have also tentatively concluded that any
successful policy in Central America must include an end to
Soviet support of the Sandinistas and the F.M.L.N. Thus Baker
expressed revived interest in a 15-month-old proposal by Moscow
for both superpowers to stop funding their clients in the
region, originally rejected by Washington because it implied
equal rights to intervene in hemispheric affairs. Washington
still considers the idea of joint cutoffs merely the "starting
point for negotiations," but at least it is willing now to
respond constructively to the Soviet initiative. The important
thing is that on this and other matters the U.S. is once again
using diplomacy -- after recognizing the failure of its
halfhearted military pressure -- to seek solutions to problems
in a region vital to its security.


-- Ricardo Chavira/Washington and John Moody/San Salvador