A Country Up for Grabs

By Thomas A. Sancton

Moderates duel with the right as El Salvador's election nears

In the sweltering heat of late afternoon, about 1,500 men and women gathered to show their loyalty to their leader. Most of the faithful in the dusty San Salvador courtyard held flags of green and white, the party colors, that they waved from side to side, creating a sound like rustling leaves. Party officials wore distinctive green shirts. An elderly woman gave out green-and-white ballpoint pens. The Christian Democrats, members of the country's moderate center party, knew that their fortunes in the March 28 election might well decide whether El Salvador could find a democratic solution to its growing crisis, or sink further into the political violence that has taken some 30,000 lives since October 1979.

Even in last week's peaceful gathering, there were inevitable reminders of the strife that now rages through the tiny, heavily populated country. As party officials raised their arms to wave or flash victory signs, their shirts rode up to reveal the black barrels of pistols--standard equipment in a campaign in which threats of death vie with leaflets and posters as tools of political persuasion.

Neither the fear of possible violence nor the heat sapped the enthusiasm of the housewives, laborers, students and professionals for the man they had come to support. As the preliminary speeches droned on, they began to chant his name in unison: "Duarte! Duarte! Duarte!" The cheers reached a crescendo as Jose Napoleon Duarte, leader of the Christian Democrats and President of El Salvador's civilian-military government, appeared on the makeshift podium.

Duarte, 56, whose sad, craggy face shows the wear and tear of more than two decades of political struggle, described the challenge confronting his party and country in the approaching election. "A few short days before you all flock massively to the ballot boxes in order to decide the destiny of the country," he said, "there are still voices heard that ask if our country has a way out of the crisis that afflicts it. In this transcendental moment of my life, I respond to you, 'Yes.' "

Duarte's optimism will face a crucial test on election day. His Christian Democrats form the most moderate of six parties that are running for the 60-seat constituent assembly that will frame a new constitution, name an interim President and prepare for national elections. But Duarte's chances, on which the Reagan Administration has staked its hopes for democracy in El Salvador, are threatened from two extremes: the far-right National Republican Alliance (ARENA), led by the zealous and charismatic Major Roberto d'Aubuisson, and the leftist guerrilla groups that are boycotting the election.

Even as the Salvadorans prepared to vote in the middle of a civil war, political unrest continued to rumble elsewhere in the region. In Guatemala, where a guerrilla insurgency has escalated in the past year, General Angel Anibal Guevara Rodriguez was officially confirmed as the country's next President, continuing the rule by right-wingers and the military. But Guevara's election was marred by widespread charges of fraud. Warned one Guatemalan opposition leader: "Something is going to happen here. I can feel it. The will of the people has been mocked one time too many." In Nicaragua, the leftist Sandinista regime declared a state of emergency to counter what it called "aggression directed against our country" by Nicaraguan exiles and the U.S. In Washington, meanwhile, it was revealed that the U.S. had increased the number of its military trainers in Honduras from 25 to as many as 100 in response to the military buildup in neighboring Nicaragua.

In spite of its high stakes, an important question hanging over the Salvadoran election is whether enough voters will turn out to give the results any real legitimacy. There is considerable public skepticism about the electoral process in a country where the military has stolen or manipulated elections since 1931. Moreover, the election is taking place in a climate of political terror in which citizens are threatened by the guerrillas if they go to the polls. Said U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Deane Hinton: "You'll see on the 28th whether the Salvadorans go out and vote and say no to violence and yes to democracy, or whether those fellows with the bombs and guns intimidate the people so they do not go out and vote."

Top U.S. officials were expecting a major rebel offensive before March 28, but the guerrillas launched only a handful of low-level probes around San Salvador last week. On Monday, groups of insurgents attacked army posts in the suburbs of Cuscatancingo, Mejicanos and Villa Delgado. Next day, rebels opened fire on the army-escorted funeral procession of two civil guardsmen killed in the Cuscatancingo clash, causing the mourners to scatter and abandon the cortege.

In rural Chalatenango department, meanwhile, four Dutch television journalists seeking to film rebel encampments were killed, possibly in an army ambush. Their deaths highlighted the perils facing the scores of foreign reporters who have flocked to El Salvador to cover the continued fighting (see PRESS).

Seeking to overcome rebel attempts at intimidation, Duarte's government is making it as easy as possible for Salvadorans to vote. Only minimal identification papers will be required. Laws obliging citizens to vote in their home town will be waived. The authorities will provide free transportation to the polls in some areas but not in combat zones. To make things easier for voters who do not read and write, the ballots will bear the distinctive colors and symbols of all six parties. There will even be a change in the usual method that is meant to prevent multiple voting: voting lists have been abolished and, instead of stamping voters' fingers with indelible ink, invisible ink and special ultraviolet detectors will be used at the polling places. The reason: guerrillas have threatened to cut off all fingers bearing telltale ink marks.

According to Dr. Jorge Bustamante, head of the Central Election Council, such measures should assure a respectable turnout. He cites recent polls indicating that even in some combat areas, as many as 75% of those eligible intend to vote. U.S. analysts, however, talk hopefully of only a 30% to 35% level of voter participation. Still, Ambassador Hinton optimistically declares that the polling will be the "first honest elections in 50 years."

Striving to get out the vote, Duarte argues that a Christian Democrat majority would give him a mandate to extend the ambitious land-reform program begun in 1980 and increase his control over the right-wing security forces that are blamed for many of the country's political killings. He rejects negotiations with the guerrillas, calling on them to recognize that "the solution here is not a violent or a military one, but a democratic one."

Duarte's aides admit that they face a tough battle. "This is the worst time for us to go into an election," says Julio Adolfo Rey-Prendes, former mayor of San Salvador and the unofficial head of the Christian Democrats' slate of assembly candidates. "The economic situation is terrible. Violence and terrorism are still very active. We seem to have made enemies from both extremes." But Rey-Prendes is confident that his party will win a majority or, alternatively, be able to form a coalition with one of the more moderate conservative groups, such as the National Conciliation Party (P.C.N.).

The Christian Democrats' main campaign tactic recently has been to play on popular fears of their chief opponent, D'Aubuisson's right-wing party, ARENA. A recent Christian Democrat documentary, entitled D'Aubuisson Naked, showed film clips of the rightist leader making public threats against political and religious figures who were later assassinated or attacked. Images of the bodies or funerals were spliced into the film. Among the victims: the late Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who was assassinated by a gunman while saying Mass at the altar on March 24,1980.

D'Aubuisson, 38, has a reputation for terror that belies his boyish good looks and his present efforts to moderate his image (see box). A one-time armed forces intelligence officer, he gained the nickname of Major Blowtorch for his reputed skill at interrogating with that instrument. Former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Robert E. White, testifying before a U.S. Senate Committee, said that there is "evidence, if not 100% conclusive, that D'Aubuisson and his group are responsible for the murder of Archbishop Romero." White also linked D'Aubuisson to the right-wing death squads, a charge that D'Aubuisson denies. He has been accused of plotting to overthrow the present junta but never brought to trial.

Financed by expatriate oligarchs and rightists within the country, D'Aubuisson launched ARENA last spring. He talks about altering the junta's land reform and exterminating the Communists. By that he sometimes seems to mean anything from a Christian Democrat to a Marxist guerrilla. Aided by slick electioneering techniques, D'Aubuisson's party picked up momentum last month and emerged as the main challenger to Duarte's Christian Democrats. The candidate who has been so closely associated with violence was himself the victim of an assassination attempt in February. Sometimes D'Aubuisson will take off his shirt to show reporters evidence of the wound on his right shoulder blade.

While Washington was seeking to shore up the beleaguered forces of moderation in El Salvador last week, the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua declared a 30-day state of emergency in response to what it called U.S. threats of "aggression" and "covert plans" to undermine the government. The decree suspended most basic civil rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and the right to a judicial hearing before detention. The Sandinista government has put the press under strict censorship and restricted travel abroad for government officials, military personnel and political figures. In addition, a special new patriotic defense contribution will be levied to help defray defense costs.

That drastic action followed the destruction of two bridges near the Honduran border, which the Sandinistas blamed on U.S.-backed "counterrevolutionaries." The State Department officially answered that charge with a perfunctory "No comment." Privately, a senior State Department official said that he could not rule out the possibility that some U.S.-based exile group might have been responsible.

As alarmed as they were by the new restrictions, many Nicaraguan moderates and some leading businessmen blamed the reaction of their government more on Washington than on the Sandinistas. Citing Washington's recent propaganda attacks and rumors of U.S.-backed "destabilization plans," Alfonso Robelo Callejas, a leading moderate, declared: "The state of emergency is a very logical reaction. The Americans provided a lot of the elements." Others feared that the Sandinistas were exploiting the situation to edge toward greater control. Jaime Chamorro Cardenal, acting editor of the opposition daily La Prensa, called the emergency decree "one more step in the radicalization of the regime."

At week's end, Nicaragua called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council so that Junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra could personally discuss what a Sandinista spokesman called the "ever increasing danger of a large-scale military intervention" by the U.S. It was not clear whether the Nicaraguans could muster the nine Security Council votes required to convene a session. Would Ortega engage in negotiations while in the U.S.? Said a Nicaraguan official: "We are well disposed to carry out any talks." But State Department officials were not inclined to go along. Said one: "The U.S. regards Nicaragua's initiative as a transparent propaganda effort."

--By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by Bernard Diederich/Managua and James Willwerth/San Salvador

With reporting by Bernard Diederich, James Willwerth

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