Terror, Right and Left

By Thomas A. Sancton

The scene was an all too familiar tintype of armed repression and political turmoil, a fitting symbol for the upheaval of the decade. Staccato bursts of gunfire echoed through the streets. Clouds of tear gas hung in the air. A phalanx of blue-shirted policemen, equipped with gas masks and steel helmets, blocked the avenue in downtown Guatemala City. They trained their rifles on the six unarmed men who were advancing, like prisoners of war, with their arms held high. One of them clutched a large manila folder. Its contents: a letter to Guatemala's outgoing President, General Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia, charging fraud in last week's presidential election and demanding a new contest. The politicians never delivered the letter; the police did.

The six marchers were a formidable and respectable group: the three defeated civilian candidates and their running mates. But they were stopped on their way to the presidential palace last week by a band of police, led by an officer brandishing a .45. "We have come peacefully, without arms," protested one of the candidates. "I don't understand." Suddenly, a red tear-gas canister landed in the street, scattering the group of journalists who had accompanied the candidates. Sniper fire popped like firecrackers a block away. Finally, the three presidential candidates--Mario Sandoval Alarcon, Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre and Gustavo Anzueto Vielman--offered to go alone to present their grievances to the authorities. The candidates never made it to the presidential palace. Instead, they were taken to police headquarters and lectured by Police Chief General German Chupina for almost an hour.

The struggle in the streets of Guatemala City was symptomatic of the chaos that was churning through Central America last week. Throughout the isthmus, a fight for power is evolving between extremists on the far right and on the far left that is leaving leaders who are even vaguely in the middle in an increasingly exposed and perilous position. For the Reagan Administration, the whirlwind of revolt and repression poses special and hazardous problems as it tries to find ways of helping the moderates and of bringing stability to a region that is in America's backyard.

The hour is already dangerously late. The Guatemalan government may have been able to turn aside the pleas of unarmed politicians last week, but the most populous (7.5 million) of the closely related quintet of countries is faced with a rising rebellion of dedicated guerrillas. In Nicaragua (pop. 2.5 million), the Sandinista guerrillas took power in 1979 and, despite their early vows to encourage "pluralism," have been moving zealously leftward ever since. Honduras (pop. 3.9 million) has a moderate government, but is fearful that it will catch the virus of rebellion from its neighbors. Even Costa Rica (pop. 2.3 million), a stable democracy, fears that its economic problems will cause social unrest that could lead to trouble.

But El Salvador (pop. 4.9 million) is where the crisis is the most acute and U.S. policy under the most tension. Guerrillas are increasingly challenging the civilian-military government headed by President Jose Napoleon Duarte. Says Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas O. Enders: "If El Salvador is captured by a violent minority, who in Central America would not live in fear? How long would it be before strategic U.S. interests were at risk?"

At a time when the U.S.--and indeed much of the world--is focusing its attention on the perilous situation in El Salvador, last week's events in Guatemala were equally foreboding for the future of the region. Not only had all the defeated Guatemalan parties overcome their rivalries to form an ad hoc coalition to protest the alleged fraud, but they had boldly challenged the military regime to repudiate the victory of its own favored candidate: General Angel Anibal Guevara Rodriguez, who had officially won a plurality of 35%. Guevara, 56, a tough-talking officer with a clipped mustache, had his own ready answer for his trio of opponents: "In all Latin American countries, the losers always declare fraud. If they have the proof, let them present it." Taking absolutely no chances on that score, however, the Lucas Garcia government hastily summoned its lameduck congress five days earlier than scheduled in order to confirm Guevara's election, a procedure that was to be followed by a burning of all the ballots.

The three defeated presidential candidates ordered their deputies to boycott the congressional session. That move paradoxically brought the opposition leaders, who range politically from moderate to populist conservative, to the same position as the country's guerrilla groups in opposing the legitimacy of the elections. The grim assessment of one Guatemalan businessman: "You now have the government with no popular support and the rest of the parties breaking away from the government."

So ended, in chaos, the electoral exercise that the Reagan Administration had hoped would restore some democratic legitimacy to the embattled, authoritarian Guatemalan government. The fiasco reflected the Administration's inability to shape events not only in Guatemala but in an entire area that has vital strategic significance to the U.S. As Guatemala illustrated last week, the flow of events is increasingly running against American interests. Despite the sincere efforts by Washington to nudge the military-backed system in Guatemala toward some kind of elementary civilian democracy, and to ameliorate the country's officially sanctioned violence, the situation after the election, for both the Guatemalan people and the U.S., is worse now than before the voters went to the polls.

The controversy over the voting fraud became almost secondary to the televised spectacle, shown throughout the Americas, of blatant police confrontation in the streets of Guatemala. The entrenched authorities may become more isolated and embattled, and therefore more inclined to crack down in every direction. The leftist insurgency, having failed to spoil the elections by its own campaign of violence, could exploit the increased polarization in the society and eventually watch the country's power groups disrupt and discredit each other.

The winners of the election are the forces of the extreme right and the extreme left. The losers are the forces of moderation, and probably the U.S. The already murderous and deteriorating political situation in Guatemala is more polarized than before, and undoubtedly will cause repercussions throughout the region. Indeed, the Reagan Administration views the intricate relationships of power among the Central American nations as a kind of kaleidoscope that can be jarred into a new pattern by any major event, like the Guatemalan elections.

Now the U.S. is watching with special concern the election campaign in El Salvador. President Duarte argues that a decisive victory will give him a popular mandate to extend the regime's reforms--notably a land redistribution program begun in 1980--and rein in the endemic violence that haunts El Salvador, much of it attributed to the government's own security forces. But he faces a tough challenge from ultrarightist candidates in the six-party contest. Major Roberto d'Aubuisson, a former Salvadoran national guard intelligence officer and a fierce extremist, has been campaigning aggressively on an unleash-the-army-and-crush-the-Communists platform, and has been gaining momentum. A victory by a coalition of D'Aubuisson's National Republican Alliance with the conservative National Reconciliation Party, the traditional vehicle of the oligarchy, would be a disaster for Washington's policy, which is aimed at shoring up the moderate center while providing military aid to fend off a mounting challenge from the country's five main guerrilla groups (see box).

The Salvadoran guerrillas, meanwhile, are boycotting the election campaign and disrupting it with bold attacks, principally on economic targets. A slashing rebel probe last week shut off a major stretch of the country's Pan American Highway and destroyed a key bridge, effectively isolating a third of the northeastern Morazan department and putting it virtually under guerrilla control. Displaying the same tenacity that they had shown a week earlier in heavy fighting around the Guazapa volcano, the guerrillas were able to surprise and tie down army forces with smoothly coordinated assaults within the provincial capitals of San Vicente and San Miguel, the country's third largest city.

The army's resources were too strained to do more than lay down lines of defending fire and call in strafing attacks along the roadside until the guerrillas finally dispersed into the dense surrounding hillside 24 hours later. The army did not pursue them, reports TIME Caribbean Bureau Chief William McWhirter. Next day, openly cynical townspeople defiantly drove past the army checkpoints in pickup trucks straining with market goods and in crowded passenger buses sagging on their axles. "The soldiers don't dare come up the road," said one of the passengers as they headed toward a highway where los muchachos--the guerrillas--were collecting "war taxes" from passing vehicles. Along the roadside lay the now commonplace evidence of the country's brutal strife: hacked and mutilated carcasses of the dead, some men, some teenagers. Newsmen could not determine why they were killed, or by whom. But one stripped corpse of a youth, lying face down, had a short rope around the neck--a telltale sign often left behind by the national guard.

The causes of the crises that are boiling over in much of Central America today can be traced as far back as the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. "We are in the wildest country and among the wildest people we have ever seen," wrote one of Hernan Cortes' commanders from Guatemala in 1524. The conquistadors subdued the people and established a feudal social order, in which native Indians and mixed-blood peons were no more than chattel of the colonial haciendas. After the Central American republics gained independence from Spain in 1821, the pace of exploitation of the peasantry accelerated. By the late 19th century, the demand for export crops like coffee and, later, cotton and bananas expanded the size of farms, increasing the division between rich and poor.

Soon the traditional social pattern of Central America was established: a relative handful of larger landowners, backed by the army, ruled in almost every nation as a prosperous oligarchy, while the campesinos struggled to stay alive.

From that tradition of entrenched social injustice flows much of the region's current political instability. Not only did that rigid social order prevent the growth of democratic institutions, it also slowed the development of an educated and enlightened middle class--a fact that has made the 20th century transition to democracy all the more traumatic. "One of the basic and most regrettable facts of life in Central America," says Costa Rica's President Rodrigo Carazo Odio, "is that in too many countries the status quo has been maintained by military force. People who have wealth have established a relationship with the armed forces. As a result of this connection, there has been an incredible increase in the misery of the population at large. The problem of Central America should be understood at its roots: it is a problem of social and economic injustice."

In the 1960s and early '70s, the situation rapidly changed, both for better and for worse. Helped by such measures as the establishment of the Central American Common Market, the countries of the region industrialized, bringing prosperity to a new middle class. But there was also an added explosion of social distress, as peasants, looking for jobs, surged into the overburdened cities. Most of the Central American countries were then hit by recession, added unemployment and high inflation after the 1973 world oil crisis. Prices for the region's most important export products fluctuated wildly but in general have sagged. The result: a regional economic crisis that has shattered rising social expectations, exacerbated the suffering of the peasantry and the urban poor, weakened the private economic sector and created a classic target of opportunity for domestic and foreign subversion.

Even today, the illiteracy rate in Guatemala is 47.5%, and the per capita annual income in the region ranges from a high of $1,820 in Costa Rica to $530 in Honduras. There were other factors at work causing unrest. The development of industry and large-scale commercial farming had the effect of politicizing the have-nots of Central American society. Urban workers built trade unions, and campesinos formed rural organizations. Eventually these groups began to demand entree into the political system. Costa Rica and Honduras managed to accommodate the new social pressures and achieved relative stability. But in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, where such organizations were often brutally resisted, revolutionary situations festered and finally burst.

The first eruption removed the late Nicaraguan Strongman Anastasio Somoza, whose corrupt and repressive regime was toppled in July 1979 after a popular insurrection led by the leftist Sandinistas who now rule the country--and after the Carter Administration withdrew support. In the cat's cradle of Central America, where the destinies of the countries are so intertwined, the expulsion of Somoza encouraged the liberals and the young, well-educated officers in El Salvador to overthrow General Carlos Humberto Romero three months later. That coup, coupled with the Sandinista victory, helped fuel a murderous escalation of right-left violence in El Salvador and in neighboring Guatemala. In the aftermath, guerrillas in both countries increased significantly their violent campaign to gain power as the kaleidoscope changed again.

While unrest spread throughout the region, the Carter Administration cautiously tried to encourage moderation by withholding military aid from countries that violated human rights, but the policy was either too little or too much, infuriated sovereign nations with its public preachiness and was not uniformly applied throughout the isthmus. Carter's program, and the Reagan team's tough East-West rhetoric, are only the latest examples of what many Central Americans consider to be U.S. insensitivity to the region's true interests by the power they refer to as "Tio [Uncle] Sam."

Says Costa Rican President-elect Luis Alberto Monge, who will take over in May: "It has been the tendency of the U.S. to behave toward this region like a fire brigade. Whenever a fire breaks out, the U.S. comes down and tries to put it out. At other times, there is an attitude of neglect toward your southern neighbors."

That neglect has often meant turning a blind eye to some of the most blatant right-wing dictatorships in Latin America. Says a Nicaraguan professor, who pointedly distances himself from the Sandinistas: "You can imagine how this makes many people in this area, whether they are resisting totalitarianism of the right or left, feel that you are a bit hypocritical."

Formally, U.S. policy toward Central America has been based on the declarations of two Presidents. In 1823. James Monroe proclaimed that no outside power would be allowed to meddle in the area. Specifically he meant the Europeans; the Monroe Doctrine was intended to protect the fledgling republics of Central and South America from recolonization by Spain, France and Britain. In 1904 Theodore Roosevelt added what is known as the "Roosevelt corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, declaring in effect that the U.S. reserved the right to interfere in Latin America in case of "chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society."

In practice, that often meant sending in the Marines to protect U.S. lives and business interests. American troops landed in the region 20 times between 1898 and 1920, twice in Nicaragua alone. In 1954, during the Eisenhower Administration, the CIA backed a coup that ousted leftist President Jacobo Guzman in Guatemala, initiating a tradition of right-wing military governments that has continued to the present day.

The history of past American ventures haunts the Reagan Administration and helps the left-wing extremists as the struggle continues in Central America. In many ways, the situation is different, country by country, and yet the common denominators--the poverty of the many, the wealth of the few and the growing social resentment--knit much of the region together. A rundown:

El Salvador. It looked at first like a victory for democracy. The coup that toppled rightist Dictator General Carlos Humberto Romero in October 1979 established a "progressive" junta that included civilian leaders. Trying to satisfy peasant expectations, the military-civilian junta later launched an ambitious reform program; it nationalized the core of the banking system and expropriated many of the larger estates for redistribution among the campesinos.

The strategy backfired. Outraged by the changes, rightist death squads and maverick security forces stepped up their terror campaign, murdering men and women suspected of sympathizing with the left. In retaliation, the rebel bands, whose total strength is now estimated to number between 4,000 and 6,000, escalated their attacks on military and economic targets, while the 14,000-man armed forces struggled vainly to crush the insurgency.

The result has been an increasingly bloody conflict that now each month leaves as many as 1,000 dead or missing. An estimated 20,000 Salvadorans have died in the past two years alone. Although the left is responsible for many of the random killings, most appear to be the work of the death squads and security forces.

In a barrio on the northern outskirts of San Salvador, a community of muddy streets, tin-roofed houses and open cooking fires, the people recall how the army swept through last month, apparently on a hunt for left-wingers. When the troops left, at least 19 people were dead. "You heard the trucks pull up," said a stout woman frying vegetables in a pan over a wood stove. "The dogs started to bark. The soldiers came marching fast down the streets. They banged on doors, and they dragged people out." It is a litany that could also describe the raids of many right-wing death squads. In El Salvador, the vultures have learned to go where the guns are firing.

Life has become an ordeal for the people of this hauntingly beautiful land of tropical flowers, green mountainsides and winding gorges. Already burdened with the region's highest population density (593 per sq. mi.) and one of Latin America's lowest per capita incomes ($670 a year), the Salvadorans now face the possibility of economic collapse. The war has brought foreign investment to a halt, chased millions of dollars' worth of capital out of the country and crippled many transportation and communication links. The country's gross national product has dropped 19.5% since 1978.

While the Reagan Administration is currently giving El Salvador $104 million in economic aid, it is also contributing $80 million to the armed forces. In October 1980, Washington sent the first of 51 noncombatant military advisers to El Salvador to sharpen the army's counterinsurgency skills. Last January, the U.S. Army began a training program for 1,466 Salvadoran troops at Fort Bragg, N.C., and Fort Benning, Ga. The Pentagon hopes that the course will solve one key weakness of the army: a lack of skilled young leaders to command small units. Says one U.S. military analyst: "The basic Salvadoran unit isn't trained to patrol. It doesn't ambush. It doesn't harass. It doesn't pursue. They've never had to fight before. This army is basically a year old."

As last week's battle action showed, the rebels are becoming increasingly bold. Their morale is clearly improving, while the soldiers' is declining, a major problem facing the army. Although the guerrillas are receiving equipment from outside sources, their success does not depend upon the quality of the rifles they carry. Indeed, journalists who have made numerous and often unscheduled visits to rebel units find that the most common armament is still a weathered carbine, and the heaviest a .50-cal. machine gun.

The guerrillas attribute their recent successes less to the quality of their guns than to the fact that they are getting effective guidance from both Nicaraguans and Cubans. Field commanders from El Salvador make frequent trips to Managua for consultations, and some travel to Cuba every two or three months to review tactics and targets.

The government, for all the apparent power it still retains, seems to be losing in the struggle to retain the loyalty of the people. Many Salvadorans are preparing to follow whichever side ultimately wins out. Nor does there seem to be much enthusiasm about the March 28 election, which Washington hopes will produce a solid majority for President Jose Napoleon Duarte's moderate Christian Democrats. A veteran politician who returned from exile and joined the junta, Duarte is essential to the political solution that U.S. policymakers are banking on. Even if the guerrillas do not succeed in disrupting the balloting, the results could be fatal for the moderates: the right may get a significant representation in the government. That could lead to further polarization, halt the land reform program and step up the violence even more.

One of the right-wing factions that could sap Duarte's strength in the assembly is led by Roberto d'Aubuisson, a former Salvadoran national guard intelligence officer who has been repeatedly accused of being a death squad leader, a charge he ignores. He has become an attractive campaigner with a winning smile and a promise to step up the war against the guerrillas. Atone recent rally, the members of the audience put their hands over their hearts while a tape played the party's anthem, a light plane soared overhead dropping party leaflets, and, just as the song ended, D'Aubuisson drove up in a bulletproof yellow Wagoneer. Addressing the crowd, he declared: "The guerrillas are destroying us with their guns, the

Christian Democrats with their laws. On March 28, we will show the army that we are saying thank you for the work they have done."

Campaigning in the provincial town of Zacatecoluca last week, Duarte was doing his best to drum up enthusiasm for the election. Although he may well be the country's best political orator, he was guarded and defensive as he tried to explain why the junta had not brought either peace or prosperity to the country.

Speaking from the tiled band shell of the central park square in Zacatecoluca, Duarte declared, "We are going through the exodus of the Jews from Egypt to the Promised Land. It is a long road. Elections are only the first step on the road to democracy." But few of the 2,000 or so faces in the square showed any belief that their future was still in their hands. As the haggard President left, the small village brass band struck up the national anthem, and, for an instant, there was a bit of magic. Duarte affectionately waved to the crowd with both hands. Many waved back to wish him luck. But the moment died with the fading notes from the band. The crowd dispersed in silence and the President was driven off in a heavily guarded group of armored vans.

Guatemala. Interviewed by TIME shortly after last week's stormy election. General Guevara said he planned to offer an amnesty to the guerrillas who have been fighting the government for years. But he was quick to add: "Those who do not accept will be battled against with all the resources of the state." Those tough words did not hold out much hope for a speedy end to the fighting that has been escalating on both sides since 1978.

Sporadic battles between left and right go back to the 1954 coup that brought the present military class to power. A leftist insurgency was brutally put down in the late '60s. But the country has never before witnessed the sustained political violence of today. The death toll has recently risen from 300 to 500 a month. As in neighboring El Salvador, much of the killing is the work of government security units, which are waging an all-out campaign to crush the small but hard-hitting leftist guerrilla movement. In addition, right-wing paramilitary groups, like the Secret Anti-Communist Army (E.S.A.), appear to do their murderous work with the tacit cooperation of the authorities and are responsible for another large portion of the civilian deaths. Such ruthless tactics on all sides have nearly destroyed the moderate political center.

Opposing the government are an estimated 3,000 guerrillas from four main Marxist factions, which receive some weapons and training from Cuba. Their strategy: isolate the capital and seize parts of outlying departments. The guerrillas are concentrating their propaganda and recruiting activities in areas inhabited by the country's poverty- stricken Mayan Indians, who make up roughly half of the total population.

The 14,000-member Guatemalan army is currently underequipped and undermanned to deal with the escalating rebel challenge. Though Guatemala is still Central America's richest country, its stagnating economy is unable to support a large-scale military expansion. U.S. military aid was cut off in 1977 when Guatemala refused to go along with Carter's human rights certification process. The Reagan Administration wants to resume military aid to help defeat the guerrillas, but in view of the regime's continuing abuses and last week's electoral farce, Congress would almost certainly block any such proposals.

Nicaragua. Thirty-two months after seizing power, the Sandinistas are presiding over a country that feels threatened from abroad and is increasingly divided at home. The military and security forces are growing, the economy is crippled, the public increasingly disillusioned. Since July 1979, the country's foreign debt has more than doubled, from $1.5 billion to $3.5 billion, while per capita income has dropped from about $800 a year in 1978 to an estimated $650 in 1981. Instead of achieving the political democracy they promised, the Sandinistas have moved to consolidate their power by postponing elections until 1985, restricting freedom of speech, outlawing strikes, jailing some oppositionists (including some avowed Communists) and forcefully moving against one of the country's minority groups, the Miskito Indians, whose loyalty to the new regime is suspect. Still, Nicaragua is not yet a totalitarian society. Outside the government, a limited pluralism is provided by such elements as the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement; the private sector, which accounts for over 60% of the country's G.N.P.; the Catholic bishops; and the independent daily La Prensa.

True to their Marxist-Leninist orientation, the Sandinista leaders make no secret of their "moral support" for the Salvadoran leftists. Still, they adamantly deny charges that they are channeling arms into El Salvador, although most objective observers are convinced that at least some weaponry is coming through Nicaragua. The considerable Cuban influence in Nicaragua is increasingly resented by the populace. There are now about 6,000 Cubans in the country, including teachers, doctors, technicians and advisers to the armed forces and state security apparatus. At a suburb outside Managua last week, a local resident pointed to some comfortable-looking villas under construction. "See those?" he said. "They're not for us. They're not for 'the people.' They're for the Cubans." He spat out the words.

Honduras. Although it is Central America's poorest country, and is threatened by the possible spillover of neighboring upheaval, Honduras has good cause to rejoice: last December its voters made Roberto Suazo Cordova their first freely elected civilian President since 1971. The election was the result of two years of U.S. pressure on the corruption-riddled regime of General Policarpo Paz Garcia. Though still in its fragile infancy, Honduran democracy can serve the region as a salutary model of popular government, and an example of the positive leverage that Washington can wield under the right conditions.

Costa Rica. The one politically sound link in the Central American chain is Costa Rica, which has long had a flourishing, multiparty democracy. In stark contrast to its militarized neighbors, Costa Rica has no standing army and little political violence. In last month's presidential elections, won by Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez, 76% of the electorate turned out to vote. But there is a major threat to the country's stability: its failing economy. Decades of high spending on social programs, plus spiraling oil bills, left Costa Rica with a $130 million trade deficit last year and a $2.9 billion public-sector debt. Inflation is running more than 100%. Incoming President Monge has pledged to follow a strict austerity program, which is likely to include cuts in public spending, but this move will be accompanied by substantial political risks.

As the struggle grows between the extremists in Central America, the Reagan Administration is coming under pressure from its allies abroad and liberals at home to try to help negotiate a settlement in the country where the stakes are currently the highest: El Salvador. Mexico has offered to act as an intermediary in the negotiations. But Mexico's motives and credibility are questionable. Privately, Mexican leaders admit that they are fearful of a Red tide sweeping through the countries to the south and spilling over their own borders. Publicly, however, they preach tolerance toward the possibility of more Marxist regimes in the hemisphere, and they chide the U.S. for its cries of alarm. In addition to their conciliatory rhetoric toward Castro and Communism, the Mexican authorities have allowed Cuban military aid to reach the Guatemalan insurgents across Mexican territory. There is little doubt that Mexico is playing a double game in the region. As a senior Guatemalan official put it last week: "Mexico thinks that by throwing meat to the Cuban dog, it can avoid being bitten itself."

The idea of a negotiated settlement seems attractive as a possible solution to El Salvador's bloodletting. But that course of action has serious drawbacks for the U.S. at this stage. It would give the guerrillas power that they had won neither on the battlefield nor at the ballot box. Negotiations would vindicate guerrilla warfare by abandoning the principle that an insurgency should not be allowed to force a government to the bargaining table by means of violence. The talks would also be bound to increase the momentum for an eventual leftist triumph.

What is more, a negotiated settlement would undercut the U.S. position in the East-West struggle with the Soviet Union; it would be proof that the leading power in the West could not find a way to protect a friendly government close at hand. The U.S. would appear to lack the strategy, the power and the will to influence events in the world at large. In Central and South America, where U.S. resolve is already under question, the result would be particularly troublesome.

U.S. strategists have another compelling reason to avoid negotiations in El Salvador at the present time. The Administration believes that it would have little chance of persuading right-wing elements to agree to a settlement that would include the guerrillas. More important, even the attempt could be dangerous. The rightists in El Salvador see negotiations as being a prelude to their political defeat and possible extermination. The rightist-military coalition in Guatemala is also feeling embattled and vulnerable. U.S. experts who have been studying the increasing frustration, belligerence and obstinacy of the right in Central America fear the ultraconservatives might join in an alliance against the left, creating an international ideological war in Central America.

Although the point is often obscured by its simplistic and angry bombast about an East-West encounter in Central America, the Reagan Administration already does have in place the framework for an effective policy that takes into account the North-South problems of dealing with unstable and economically troubled nations. The Caribbean Basin Initiative of economic aid for the Central American region was enlightened and constructive, and was so hailed by leaders in the region.

Using the Caribbean plan as a foundation, U.S. policy in the area should include four elements: 1) bilateral and multilateral economic aid; 2) military assistance directly linked to political reform; 3) sustained attention to, and assistance for, countries that are not yet on the brink of crisis; 4) fence mending and coordination with the Western Europeans and the Mexicans on policy in the area, even if it means backing down on the Administration's harder line toward Nicaragua. A survey of how these points might be applied throughout the region: > The fundamental problem in El Salvador is social and political, not military. The U.S. should continue its backing of the Duarte government and sustain it with economic aid. One probable difficulty even if Duarte does well in the elections: the economy may collapse. In that case, the U.S. should be prepared to increase its aid program. U.S. experts are convinced that El Salvador is by no means a lost cause.

> In Guatemala, the U.S. has influence it can use to encourage the government to reform. For one thing, the country's economy needs American investment. Second, the military is going to become desperate for U.S. arms to fight the guerrillas. As a condition for aid, the U.S. should insist that the generals who run the country stop repressing political opponents and start sharing power more widely and genuinely. Costa Rica's Monge believes that there are young officers in the Guatemalan army who realize that their country has to be more democratic to survive. Monge's advice to the U.S.: identify with those elements and help them prevail. > In Nicaragua the Sandinistas are unquestionably oriented toward Cuba and the Soviet bloc in foreign policy and are heading toward one-party, totalitarian rule at home. But the U.S. can still work to modify that government's behavior. The Administration should immediately soften its tone, thereby giving the Sandinistas fewer pretexts to justify their militancy and repression. In addition, the U.S. should work with Western nations to aid the non-Sandinista parties and the private sector. The Sandinistas' biggest worry is that they will be shunned by the Socialist International, an association of democratic socialist parties; that could mean West Germany would stop its aid program and Venezuela its system of selling the government oil at preferential rates.

>The U.S. should give political and economic support, and plenty of it, to Honduras and Costa Rica, the two democracies that are holding on in the whole troubled area. While Costa Rica's standard of living will suffer as the country takes the steps necessary to avoid bankruptcy, there is still good reason to hope that the underpinnings of its democratic institutions will remain intact.

Above all, the U.S. needs to recognize that everything has changed in Central America, that Tio Sam cannot ignore until the last desperate moments what is occurring not all that far south of the border. As events during the past months have proved dramatically, the U.S. has a vital interest in Central America's future. That interest will ultimately depend on forming a genuine partnership with the region. Says Fernando Volio, who will be Costa Rica's next foreign minister: e "We don't want to be involved in the global confrontation just for the sake of the superpowers. We want the U.S. to be involved for our sake as well, and we want to sense and see that clearly." By getting more involved with the Central American countries for their sakes, the U.S. will help its own cause in the long run. --By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by Strobe Talbott/San Jose and James Willwerth/Guatemala City

With reporting by Strobe Talbott, James Willwerth

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