TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/100289/10028900.009

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.6 KB | 107 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 26

EL SALVADOR

Conversations with Two Foes


In an exclusive pair of interviews, El Salvador's President and
a rebel leader explain why peace may now be possible


    After ten years of a bloody civil war that has claimed some
70,000 lives, there are no eternal optimists left in El
Salvador. Blind hope went out of fashion after then President
Jose Napoleon Duarte met with failure in three meetings with the
leftist guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation
Front. Since the last talks in 1987, the two sides have dug in
with renewed determination. Now, four months after Alfredo
Cristiani, 41, succeeded Duarte as President, there is new talk
of reconciliation. Representatives of the government and the
F.M.L.N. met two weeks ago in Mexico City to develop a framework
for future dialogue. The most promising result of the
get-together is that the two sides have agreed to resume their
discussions in Costa Rica in mid-October.

    Cristiani and Joaquin Villalobos, 38, the F.M.L.N.'s top
comandante, agreed to talk with TIME separately last week about
the prospects for peace. Though they clearly remain divided on
important issues, each man spoke without rancor of his enemy
and acknowledged that a fight to the end is no longer feasible.
"It's time to look for an agreement and forget about (past)
accusations," said Cristiani. Villalobos, in turn, conceded that
a prolonged war "no longer corresponds to the reality of the
world. If a revolutionary asked me today what to do, I would
say, `Conspire to launch a short-term war.'"

    Both men displayed a willingness to yield on demands that
once seemed immutable. Cristiani abandoned the government's
requirement that the guerrillas lay down their arms as a
prerequisite to serious negotiations. While insisting that the
rebels must eventually surrender their weapons, he said it was
"not necessarily a first step." The President, whose rightist
Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) has strong links to El
Salvador's armed forces, also offered publicly for the first
time to consider a drastic reduction in military manpower. If
the talks succeed, he said, "there would be a demobilization of
the armed forces. We don't believe there's a need for a
55,000-man army if there is peace."

    Villalobos also demonstrated a greater flexibility. In what
appeared to be a fundamental shift of philosophy, the
comandante said that given the changes in the international
climate, the time for violent struggle has passed. "We can't at
this time aspire to an armed revolution that the Soviet Union
will subsidize," he said. He suggested that the F.M.L.N. would
now be willing to embrace a "multiparty system." Asked if he
could coexist with the right, Villalobos responded, "Of course,"
but went on to say of ARENA, "After you reaffirm your legitimacy
in an electoral contest in which we all participate, you have
every right to turn back every reform you wish and to do with
the country what you will."

    Signaling a new candor, Villalobos said the F.M.L.N. had
"made mistakes," including a failure to negotiate a peace
agreement in 1980. He also acknowledged that the rebels have
received arms from Nicaragua. Although Nicaraguan President
Daniel Ortega said as much to Cristiani last August, it was the
first public admission from the F.M.L.N.

    Such forthrightness will be essential if the two sides are
going to settle their monumental differences. Before there can
be an election in which both sides will agree to participate,
for instance, there must be a permanent cease-fire. In
mid-September the F.M.L.N. announced an eleven-day unilateral
truce, but Cristiani claims that the rebels have not honored it.
Said he: "They're still attacking our forces and using (land)
mines."

    Peace talks have been known to founder on far less. As of
now, the discussions are scheduled to begin Oct. 16 and to
continue on a monthly basis, as proposed in Mexico City.
Cristiani is heartened by this timetable. "What happened to Mr.
Duarte was that he had isolated meetings with (the F.M.L.N.),"
he said. "If one of those meetings failed, that was it."
Cristiani expressed a willingness to discuss the F.M.L.N.'s
proposals for judicial and electoral reform. At the same time,
he shot down key elements of the F.M.L.N.'s nine-point plan put
forward in Mexico, most notably the guerrillas' bid to move up
legislative and municipal elections scheduled for 1991.

    Both men seemed to suggest that once a peace is negotiated,
the U.S., which has supplied more than $3 billion in military
and economic assistance over the past decade, will recede to
the political sidelines. Cristiani said that after a settlement
is achieved, "this military aid should turn into economic aid
and keep on flowing into the country while it recovers
economically." Villalobos, who called for an end to U.S.
military aid, voiced skepticism that the Bush Administration
"would choose to continue indefinitely its support for the war."
He also hoped for "proper relations" with the U.S. Last week the
U.S. Senate voted to boost military aid to El Salvador by $5
million, to $90 million.

    As for keeping the peace talks on track, Cristiani
expressed doubts about the guerrillas' aim of achieving a
permanent settlement by the end of January, warning that it
could take all five years of his administration to achieve an
accord. "If the process that we've agreed to in Mexico keeps
going, there's always hope," he said. "But it won't be easy."