The Land of the Smoking Gun

By Thomas A. Sancton

Terrorism and turmoil imperil U.S. hopes for moderate reform

"We are in the wildest country and among the wildest people we have ever seen," wrote one of Conquistador Hernan Cortes' commanders about Guatemala in 1524. It was only the first of many unflattering stereotypes of Central America. In the U.S. in the 1850s, the heyday of Manifest Destiny, the region was regarded chiefly as an inviting target for territorial expansion. By the turn of the century, the United Fruit Co. was cheered on as it went buccaneering through the region, buying governmental favors for the sake of more and cheaper bananas. Bananas, in fact, were the raison d'etre of Central America in the minds of most Americans, who saw the "banana republics" as a comic-opera fiefdom for U.S. commerce.

Today there is nothing amusing about this strife-torn and suffering region, if there ever was. Its five nations with 20 million people make up one of the most impoverished belts of the Western Hemisphere. If the bustling capitals have made it into the modern age, their vast rural areas are still largely shrouded in the semifeudalism of bygone centuries. Except for the transistor radio and the motorcycle, few of the amenities of modern life have ever arrived. Village women weave their own brightly colored dresses on primitive handmade looms. Water is fetched from a common spigot, and ox carts are still a common mode of rural transportation. A glaringly unequal distribution of wealth and land remains a festering source of political instability.

The volcanic terrain seems to reflect the violent conflicts that the region had known even before the Spanish conquistadors first arrived in the 16th century. Nowadays, Central America is once again the land of the smoking gun. It is torn by struggle and threatened by a chain reaction of upheavals that could have far-reaching repercussions throughout the Americas. Warns Lieut. General Wallace Nutting, senior officer of the U.S. Southern Command: "All of Central America could very easily radicalize, and a very substantial wedge would be driven between north and south."

The revolution that toppled Nicaragua's dictator, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, twelve months ago sent shock waves through the region. On the one hand, it stirred yearnings for reform and revolt among both students and the disfranchised peasants; on the other, it prompted panic-stricken oligarchs, determined to retain historic power, to harden then-resistance to change. Ironically, while Nicaragua itself has been able to make considerable headway in consolidating its revolution--peacefully, thus far --a spiral of terrorist violence has escalated elsewhere. Lawless gunmen of both the left and right have brought El Salvador and Guatemala to the brink of civil war with an orgy of killings.

Last week alone in El Salvador, where a reformist military-civilian junta is struggling desperately for survival, political murders claimed some 70 victims. In San Vicente, one youth was found hanging from a highway bridge, a stick of dynamite attached to his chest; another was found on the street, his head lying some yards from his body. Nine other bodies were found tossed in front of churches; each bore a cardboard sign with the all-too-familiar signature of the ultra-rightist Escuadron de la Muerte (Death Squad). In Guatemala City, meanwhile, right-wing Newsman Mario Rivas Montes was machine-gunned to death, apparently by a leftist hit squad.

The mayhem threatens to spill over into Honduras, now in the midst of a delicate transition to civilian rule. If only by proximity, it also sends shudders of unrest even into staunchly democratic Costa Rica. Only Panama, which in fact has never considered itself part of Central America, has been spared direct involvement in the regional strife.

Nowhere has the turmoil caused more concern than in Washington--and with good reason. Though Central America is an area of substantial interest to the U.S., American policy toward it has long been both lackluster and frequently counterproductive. Now the U.S. is faced with a chilling worst-case scenario formulated by its own policymakers. The scenario: a chain reaction of leftist revolutions that might turn the once subservient tropical basin into a rim of hostile Marxist states taking their cues from Castro's Cuba. That concern was underscored in an intelligence report, just released by the House Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, describing Cuba's role in aiding the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. One political analyst cited in the report, the CIA's Randolph Pherson, stated that "Cuba sees itself as the arsenal, the training center, the adviser and the catalyst for revolution" throughout the region. Other experts, however, give less weight to Cuba's influence in El Salvador and Guatemala.

Whatever the extent of Cuba's involvement, Washington has been trying to counter it with a firmer Central American strategy. It is aimed at expanding U.S. influence in the region and shoring up the beleaguered forces of moderate reform. Many other observers of Central America, however, believe this exercise in damage control may be too late. "The house is burning down, and we're looking for fire insurance," says Historian Richard Millett. "We want easy grace--grace without paying for past sins."

Foremost among the American past "sins" in the region was a longstanding policy of supporting cooperative military regimes. The most glaring example of such support: the CIA-engineered military coup that toppled a reform-minded Guatemalan government in 1954. The Carter Administration seemed to foreshadow a change in policy with its human rights campaign. In 1977 Guatemala angrily rejected U.S. military aid because of the human rights provisions attached to it. In 1978, when Somoza's power was already threatened by the Sandinistas, Washington severed its special military relationship with the high-living Nicaraguan dictator. Soon afterward, the Administration announced a total reversal of previous U.S. policy: a shifting from hearty support of the status quo to a zealous advocacy of economic and political reform. Thus at a time when U.S. interests are being flouted in Iran and Afghanistan, and when even the European allies question America's right and ability to lead the West, Central America has emerged as a major test of U.S. credibility. Says Deputy Assistant Secretary of State James Cheek: "If we cannot be a force for moderate and peaceful change in our own backyard, we cannot do it anywhere. And if we are irrelevant to revolutions, in this world we are doomed." A country-by-country look at the volatile region:

NICARAGUA. Though it sent tremors through the rest of the region, the Sandinista-led revolution has brought a measure of uneasy stability at home. The collective Sandinista leadership, whose ranks include a number of self-proclaimed Marxists, has so far avoided the radical lurch to the left that its critics feared. The revolution that toppled Somoza was followed by no mass executions.

Freedom of the press and political pluralism appear to have been respected to some extent; there are six opposition parties, for example, and a moderate representative of the private sector sits on the ruling five-man junta.

Economically, the new regime has concocted a potpourri of socialism and private enterprise, a program dictated less by ideology than dire need. When they took over last year, the Sandinistas inherited a $1.5 billion national debt, $1.3 billion in war damages and an impoverished, largely peasant population. The government launched a number of ambitious reforms, from a sweeping agrarian redistribution and nationalization of banks to a literacy campaign that has already taught some 600,000 people to read and reduced the country's illiteracy rate from 50% to about 12%.

Though suspicious of the Sandinistas' ultimate goals, the Carter Administration has sought to keep them on the road of moderate reform with the promise of some $156.6 million in financial aid. That intended show of support, however, has been diluted by an embarrassing delay in passing an initial appropriation for the paltry sum of $75 million. Thus the new government has consolidated its power with no substantial material help from the U.S. Says one State Department official: "We missed a great opportunity to increase our influence."

Fidel Castro, meanwhile, did not hesitate to show his own support. Within hours of the Sandinista victory, he began sending Cubans to work in Nicaragua as doctors, teachers, engineers and military advisers. Today they total more than 2,000. But Nicaragua does not seem to be turning into a docile Cuban appendage. Says William Baez, director of a private enterprise group: "The government wants to go to some kind of socialist situation, but they don't want another Cuba."

EL SALVADOR. The Nicaraguan example directly influenced the coup that last October toppled El Salvador's own dictator, General Carlos Humberto Romero. In a desperate attempt to pre-empt a San-dinista-style revolution--with Washington's encouragement--a group of moderate military officers seized power. Then, in an effort to satisfy peasant expectations and calm labor unrest, the five-man military-civilian junta made its own attempt at reform. It expropriated some large estates and nationalized the core of the country's banking system.

The reforms failed to check the waves of political violence that have left almost 5,000 dead this year. Much of the killing has been the work of armed rightist gangs, who often operate with the approval of traditional elements within the military. But leftist guerrilla bands have countered with a ruthlessness of their own. The most spectacular example of this cycle of violence and counterviolence was the coldblooded murder last April of Activist Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, apparently by rightist gunmen. At his funeral, 35 people died in a stampede believed to have been sparked by trigger-happy leftists, who overreacted to an imagined rightist attack.

Even before the Archbishop's murder, the military's strong-arm attempts to maintain order had provoked the angry walkout of two civilians in the ruling junta. The junta averted collapse only when a leading moderate, Christian Democrat Party Leader Jose Napoleon Duarte, was persuaded to join it last March. Its hold on power, however, remains tenuous because it is caught in a vise between the right and the left. Earlier this year a rightist coup that would have ushered in a full-scale military takeover was quashed at the last minute, mostly because Washington threatened an aid cutoff if it was carried out.

The left, meanwhile, has managed to bring its faction-ridden forces together into a "Democratic Revolutionary Front" that combines Marxist guerrilla bands with more moderate reform groups. The guerrillas, who have some 3,000 men under arms, are not yet a match for the 15,000-man Salvadoran army. But they have long promised a full-scale military insurrection, and there are signs that it may soon get under way. Skirmishes between guerrilla bands and army units near the Honduran border last month left at least 30 soldiers and 100 guerrillas dead.

The economy, meanwhile, has come to a virtual halt. The wave of kidnapings and terrorism has frightened away investment. The result: 30% unemployment and runaway inflation. Warns Accountant Hector Figueros of San Salvador: "If there is no economic assistance, the country will collapse." Washington has offered $50 million in financial aid. While admitting that the outlook is bleak, State Department officials profess some heavily guarded optimism. Last week, for example, they were gratified by the junta's promise to set a timetable for "popular and free elections" within 30 days. Observes a Latin America expert: "The government has survived, and that in itself is miraculous."

GUATEMALA. The upheavals in Nicaragua and El Salvador, in turn, have fed a rightist backlash in Guatemala. The main source of right-wing violence is the Secret Anti-Communist Army (ESA), a vigilante organization that appears to enjoy the cooperation of the country's repressive military leaders. The group's avowed mission: "Annihilate the left"--meaning anyone from a Marxist guerrilla to a moderate reformer. As in El Salvador, victims of ultraright hit squads include university students and professors, journalists, union leaders, priests and opposition politicians, many of whom have been tortured and mutilated. Armed leftists, meanwhile, have launched sporadic guerrilla attacks, including the bombing last month of a military convoy truck in Guatemala City. The leftists also appear to be winning some support among the country's 3.4 million poverty-stricken Indians, who constitute almost half the population.

Amid this escalating violence, U.S.Guatemalan relations have sunk to a new low. Washington's pleas for democratic reform have gone unheeded. Like rightists throughout the region, Guatemala's military rulers appear to have written off the Carter Administration in hopes that a Reagan victory in November will reverse U.S. policy.

Despite the political chaos and repression, Guatemala's economy is growing by almost 5% a year, largely because of the country's increased nickel production and its new status as an oil exporter (258,000 bbl. sent to the U.S. since March). But most of the country's wealth remains concentrated in a few hands, despite a growing middle class. State Department experts believe that the country's potential prosperity could avert a total revolutionary upheaval, but only if political and social reforms are adopted. Says one frustrated U.S. official: "What they don't understand is that simply killing Communists doesn't solve the problem."

HONDURAS. The poorest country in the region, Honduras has so far experienced little of the political turmoil that has plagued its neighbors. Though military regimes have ruled for most of the past 17 years, the country's main problem is not repression but corruption. Honduras was rocked by scandal in 1975, when Strongman Lopez Arellano resigned in the face of charges that he had taken a $1.2 million bribe from United Brands, successor to the United Fruit Co.

Since then, there has been some progress toward democratic reform. The current provisional President, General Policarpo Paz Garcia, has agreed to cede power to a civilian government that will be elected next year. Last April's voting for a Constitutional Assembly gave a majority to the old Liberal Party, which was last in office in 1963, and made its leader, Roberto Suazo Cordova, 53, the front runner in next spring's presidential contest. Meanwhile, the Paz Garcia government, relatively moderate for a military regime, has raised minimum wages and begun to redistribute land in an effort to stave off social unrest.

While clearly pleased with this swing back to constitutional government, Washington is concerned that Honduras might be used as a conduit for arms shipped to the Salvadoran guerrillas from Cuba and elsewhere. There have also been reports that thousands of Somoza's former national guardsmen are holed up in Honduras and plotting a counterrevolution against the Sandinistas. Partly to help the Honduran government guard against such in filtration, Washington has offered it a $3.5 million military-aid package.

COSTA RICA. The one golden link in the Central American chain appears to be Costa Rica, with its 32-year history of peaceful democratic government. But the blessings of political stability have recently been clouded by economic difficulties.

Although it boasts the region's highest per capita income ($1,650), the country ran up a formidable $650 million trade deficit last year, mainly because of spiraling oil bills. The result has been declining growth, rising food prices and increased labor unrest. Warns Economist Angel Rodriguez Echeverria: "Unless we resolve our economic problems, Costa Rica could become vulnerable to the troubles of other Central American countries."

Some relief is coming from a petroleum pool that has just been created by Mexico and Venezuela, Latin America's major oil producers. The agreement, pro viding 160,000 bbl. to the region's petroleum importers with 30% credit, was signed last week in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose by Mexico's President Jose Lopez Portillo and Venezuela's President Luis Herrera Campins. The magnanimity was in keeping with the two countries' intensifying roles as concerned economic godfathers to Central America.

Costa Rica played a godfather role of its own during the Nicaraguan civil war: President Rodrigo Carazo tacitly aided the Sandinistas by allowing them to ship arms across his territory and establish training camps along his border. The Sandinistas even set up their government in exile in San Jose. That role apparently caused some frictions with Washington at the time, but the Carazo government remains strongly pro-U.S. and antiCommunist. Says former Foreign Minister Gonzalo Facio Segreda confidently: "If the extreme left takes power in El Salvador, the leftists rest--of but not Central Costa America Rica." will go to Perhaps so. If it came to that, however, it would be small consolation to admire one shining pearl at the bottom of a sea of anti- American trouble. --Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by Bernard Diederich/Mexico City and Roberto Suro/Washington

With reporting by Bernard Diederich/Mexico City, Roberto Suro/Washington

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