WORLD, Page 28CENTRAL AMERICABack to Square OneThe U.S. is disappointed in the outcome of El Salvador'selection, but Bush and Congress get their act together onNicaraguaBy 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
