WORLD, Page 50The Sheraton SiegeGuerrillas take the war into the wealthy sections of the capital,as new questions are raised about the U.S. role and the deaths ofsix JesuitsBy David Brand
For 28 hours, the drama played out on the world's television
screens, and for a while it seemed as if it would provoke direct
U.S. military intervention in El Salvador's ugly, decade-old civil
war. Twelve Green Berets from Fort Bragg, N.C., part of a U.S.
advisory team in El Salvador, were holed up on the fourth floor of
the Sheraton Hotel in San Salvador's wealthy Escalon district,
while about 20 heavily armed young guerrillas, who had seemingly
blundered into the hotel, roamed the floors above and below them.
But there was no shoot-out. Instead, as part of an agreement
brokered by the Roman Catholic Church, the guerrillas slipped away,
and the U.S. soldiers, using journalists as a shield, ran from the
hotel to waiting military vehicles. But so alarming was the event
that President George Bush, acutely mindful that he had been seen
to be dithering during October's aborted coup in Panama, quickly
convened a meeting of a National Security Council emergency group
and ordered a small contingent of the supersecret Delta Force into
San Salvador. At one point Bush even made the embarrassing claim
that the U.S. commandos had "liberated" the Green Berets.
The incident pointed up yet again that guerrillas of the
Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (F.M.L.N.) continue to
have the ability to paralyze the government of President Alfredo
Cristiani and outwit the Salvadoran army. Just as the 1968 Tet
offensive in Viet Nam forced Washington and the American public to
question the U.S. position in Southeast Asia, the F.M.L.N.'s latest
attacks have raised fundamental doubts about the whole U.S.
approach to El Salvador.
The slaying on Nov. 16 in San Salvador of six Jesuit priests
has caused such outrage in Washington that Congress is suddenly
talking about reducing U.S. aid if the Cristiani regime does not
conduct a thorough investigation. Last week the House of
Representatives narrowly blocked a Democratic proposal to hold back
30% of the $85 million in U.S. military aid to El Salvador this
year. The events of the past two weeks also underscore U.S.
intelligence failures, most notably the now apparent undercounting
of the F.M.L.N. forces. Judging by the scope of the rebel push,
Washington officials concede that there are considerably more than
the estimated total of 6,000 rebel soldiers.
The Sheraton siege brought the U.S. the closest it has ever
been to exchanging fire with the Salvadoran guerrillas. It occurred
just as the rebels' ten-day-old offensive, which had been fought
in some of the capital's poorest neighborhoods, Soyapango, Cuidad
Delgado and Mejicanos, seemed to be winding down. In the early
hours of Sunday morning, hundreds of guerrillas were streaming out
of Mejicanos' streets, badly battered by days of intensive
government firepower. Where the rebels went, or how they managed
to elude the government troops, no one seemed to know. But two days
later, they re-emerged from the gullies and ravines that border the
city's exclusive Escalon district and took control of several
blocks of the neighborhood, which is filled with luxurious
ranch-style homes set off by manicured lawns. As the government
sent in its helicopters and light tanks, it became clear that the
rebels had switched tactics and were showing the rich that the war
could come to their elegant front doors. Some demonstrated their
support for the government troops by sending servants out with
cookies and milk.
One group of rebels was apparently trapped by the army as it
moved along a ravine behind the Sheraton, and fled into the shelter
of the lobby. The guerrillas probably did not know that among the
guests were the Green Berets and Joao Baena Soares, Secretary
General of the Organization of American States, who was trying to
work out a cease-fire. As the rebels took up residence in the
