Dividing the Spoils

Salvadoran rightists form a coalition, freezing out Duarte

During his Palm Sunday sermon in San Salvador's Metropolitan Cathedral, Monsignor Arturo Rivera y Damas spoke of "this resurrection that renews our hope that sooner or later our people too will be revived." At that very hour, a recently elected member of the new constituent assembly, David Joaquin Quinteros, 42, a father of five, died at the Policlinica Hospital a mile away. Quinteros, a member of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), had been abducted the night before as he left a restaurant. Two hours later, he was found in a garbage dump with bullets in his arms, back and skull. He lived for another twelve hours before becoming the latest victim in San Salvador's circle of death and mourning. The assailants were unknown.

For the most part, however, terrorism declined as Salvadorans celebrated Holy Week. Behind the scenes, leaders of the six political parties that took part in the March 28 elections began negotiations to form a new interim government. The elections had been hailed in Washington as a triumph of the democratic process. But in the end, the moderate, U.S.-backed Christian Democratic government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte received only 40% of the popular vote and won only 24 seats in the 60-member constituent assembly. By contrast, two right-wing parties, Major Roberto d'Aubuisson's ARENA and the once powerful National Conciliation Party (P.C.N.) together received 55% of the vote, winning 33 seats. The two parties quickly created an informal coalition.

Since the election, the U.S. has maintained that the Christian Democrats should be represented in the government along with the two leading right-wing parties. Ambassador to El Salvador Deane Hinton has privately stressed that the U.S. Congress might be reluctant to continue its military and economic aid to El Salvador if the party that received the largest share of the vote is denied a place in the new government. A delegation of eight U.S. Congressmen visited San Salvador briefly last week and stressed the same point.

Strictly speaking, under the country's parliamentary system there is no reason why the right-wing parties have to include the Christian Democrats in the new government. But, understanding the need to retain strong U.S. backing, the rightists have negotiated at length with the Christian Democrats. In all likelihood the government will be headed by a President from ARENA (though not D'Aubuisson, who is generally acknowledged to be too controversial and abrasive for the job) and a Vice President from the P.C.N. The Christian Democrats may be offered a few of the lesser Cabinet posts in return for their support, but it is also possible that they will decide not to join the government and will instead go into opposition. Whatever happens, President Duarte is not expected to have a position of any consequence in the new regime.

In neighboring Guatemala, meanwhile, the group of junior officers who overthrew the repressive regime of General Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia last month has produced a dramatic change of atmosphere. The reason: the enthusiasm and apparent dedication of the born-again Christian who heads the three-man junta, General Efrain Rios-Montt, 55.

A onetime presidential candidate and a member of the California-based Christian Church of the Word, Rios-Montt seems to have set out to reform his country overnight. Relying on "God, my master, my king," as he says in his speeches, he has ordered the arrest of at least two dozen former officials on a variety of charges. He has called for a spiritual and moral transformation, promising "absolute respect for human rights." He has urged all priests who fled into exile during the previous regime to return without fear of reprisal, and permitted university students to hold a raucous and frequently outrageous annual protest parade that had been banned by his predecessor.

In Guatemala City, the familiar convoys of shotgun-toting bodyguards have disappeared, as have the street-corner patrols of combat-ready paratroopers in flak jackets and tiger suits. Vigilante policemen are no longer seen in public. There are even reports that the new junta has disbanded the dreaded judicial police force that flourished under Lucas Garcia.

Nobody suggests that Rios-Montt has yet addressed himself to such endemic Guatemalan problems as poverty, hunger and civil war. But he has done a notable job of gaining public trust as he restored order in the capital. He faces some opposition from the politicians, who want him to announce a date for new elections, and even from within the junta. But other Guatemalans are wondering if it would not be better to give the born-again general a chance to demonstrate what else he can accomplish.

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