WORLD, Page 26EL SALVADORConversations with Two FoesIn an exclusive pair of interviews, El Salvador's President and arebel 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
