Starting a New Chapter

By James Kelly

A festive inaugural an assassination attempt and a surprise visit

The day seemed more like a fiesta than a state occasion, a jubilant celebration with blue skies and sunny faces. As platoons of schoolchildren paraded through the streets waving tiny blue-and-white Salvadoran flags, vendors sliced tangy strips of green papaya for hungry onlookers. The sizzle of hot dogs on the grill mixed with the blare of Chuck Mangione jazz over the loudspeakers. When each of the 45 foreign delegations was introduced, the velodrome in downtown San Salvador reverberated with the applause of 6,000 spectators. U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, his placid expression breaking into a grin, received the second longest ovation. But the loudest and wildest cheers went to the onetime civil engineer whose appearance on the stage elicited thunders of "Duarte! Duarte! Duarte!" After taking the oath of office from Julia Castillo Rodas, head of the Legislative Assembly, he waved his arms above his head, then kissed his country's flag. Declared the new President: "Today brings light into the long night of horror that El Salvador has been living through."

For Jose Napoleon Duarte, it was a moment to savor. Robbed of what looked like certain victory in 1972, then beaten by Salvadoran soldiers and exiled to Venezuela for seven years, Duarte realized a long-cherished dream when he was sworn in as his country's first freely elected President in half a century. For El Salvador, the day proffered the sweet promise that after nearly five years of civil war and a dozen years of political turbulence, the country might begin to heal. For the Reagan Administration, the inauguration symbolized its most successful accomplishment in the region, what Washington saw as a showpiece of evolving democracy. "El Salvador is a dramatic example of civilized political change," said an admiring Jose Figueres Ferrer, 77, a former President of Costa Rica.

Immediately after the ceremony, Shultz flew off to a surprising destination: Nicaragua, whose Sandinista government Ronald Reagan has consistently assailed as a "reign of terror" dedicated to exporting Communist revolution to the region. For 2 1/2 hours the Secretary of State conferred with Junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra at Managua's airport. After the obligatory photos, Ortega swung his chair around so as to face Shultz. Though aides were present, Shultz and Ortega did almost all the talking.

The Secretary of State reiterated the longstanding U.S. conditions for better relations. The Sandinistas, Shultz said, must stop supporting the rebels in El Salvador, send an estimated 10,000 Cuban and Soviet advisers home, cut back their oversize military arsenal, and restore the civil rights that were suspended when the government proclaimed a "state of emergency" in March 1982. In response, Ortega stressed his primary complaint: the Administration's continued backing of the contra guerrillas, who are fighting to topple the Sandinistas.

The get-together produced no dramatic results, though both sides agreed to keep speaking. "These talks possibly alleviated U.S.-Nicaraguan distrust," said Shultz. "But trust is something you build up over time." The Secretary of State also insisted that his trip was not an independent negotiating bid, but an expression of support for the Contadora group (Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama), which has been trying to reach a diplomatic solution to the region's conflicts. The Shultz trip not only undercut critics who complain of Reagan's militaristic approach to the area's problems, but was a welcome change of tactics. For the first time, the Administration opened a formal channel for talking with the Sandinistas instead of shunning them.

The impetus for the Shultz trip came from Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid during his visit to Washington last month. De la Madrid bluntly told Reagan that the time was ripe for fresh feelers. Though a top State Department official has met quietly with the Sandinistas five times over the past year, the last session, in March in Managua, turned into an anti-U.S. diatribe. Impressed by the Mexican President's plea, Reagan told Shultz to try for a meeting. The Nicaraguans readily agreed, though an argument over where to meet (Shultz, due to join Reagan in Europe, insisted on Managua's airport, while the Sandinistas held out for the city itself) made the venture uncertain right to the end.

Two days earlier, an assassination attempt had rocked one of the less successful pillars of U.S. policy in Central America. Eden Pastora Gomez, the redoubtable leader of one flank of the CIA-sponsored contras, had invited about 15 reporters to his headquarters inside Nicaragua. The group was driven from San Jose, the Costa Rican capital, to the San Juan River, which serves as the border between the two countries. There the reporters climbed into two long dugouts with outboard motors and chugged up the river for two hours, until they reached a two-story wooden building. Ushered to the second floor of Pastora's headquarters, the journalists found the guerrilla commander at a narrow table. After some cheerful banter, the questioning began. Suddenly, in the middle of a response, a bomb exploded in a white-hot flash. "It was a human whirlwind," said Jose Antonio Venegas, a photographer for La Nation, a Costa Rican newspaper. "Blood splashed against the walls, people flew through the windows. Someone screamed, 'Save me, help me, don't leave me here!' All I knew was that hell was there on the edge of the San Juan River."

Seven people were killed, including Linda Frazier, 38, an American journalist who worked for an English-language newspaper in San Jose. Among the 28 injured was Pastora, who suffered first-and second-degree burns on his face and shrapnel wounds in his legs. Seriously hurt was Susan Morgan, a Newsweek stringer whose legs and arms were fractured. Some could crawl out of the building, but others lay moaning in the wreckage for nearly an hour before being pulled out. Two hours passed before a doctor and two nurses arrived.

Helicoptered to San Jose, the guerrilla leader was taken to the city's most exclusive hospital. His men immediately turned Pastora's floor of the Clinica Biblica into a fortress, sealing off elevators and stationing heavily armed guards in the stairwells. Costa Rican authorities, anxious about their country's neutral status, placed Pastora in government custody; on Friday he was flown on a stretcher to Venezuela.

As Pastora's men sifted through the wreckage looking for clues, the guessing game about who was responsible began. "It could have been the extreme right or the extreme left," said Adolfo ("Popo") Chamorro, spokesman for the Revolutionary Democratic Alliance (ARDE), the contra group that Pastora commands. Especially curious is the timing of the explosion. Since last year, the CIA has been pressuring ARDE and its 4,000 guerrillas to join forces with the Nicaraguan Democratic Front (F.D.N.), the 8,000-strong contra group based in Honduras. ARDE's political leaders, notably Alfonso Robelo Callejas, favored the alliance, but Pastora adamantly rejected it unless the F.D.N. got rid of several commanders who were members of Nicaragua's hated National Guard under former Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Early last month, the CIA threatened to cut ARDE'S funds if it did not team up with the F.D.N. by May 31. On Tuesday, May 29, Robelo and the other ARDE leaders decided to strike such an alliance with or without Pastora, even though he controls most of ARDE's guerrillas. Pastora responded by calling the fateful press conference to announce his defection from ARDE. "If Robelo wants to join the F.D.N., that's his decision," the rebel chieftain explained. "But I'm not going to do it." His next words were lost in the deadly roar of the explosion.

Costa Rican President Luis Alberto Monge implied that the Sandinistas might be responsible for the bombing, but ARDE leaders insisted that the camp area was clear of Nicaraguan soldiers. More logical culprits include ARDE members with access to the base, some of whom may have been angry enough with Pastora's decision to kill him. In the aftermath, Pastora's colleagues quickly down-played their disagreements, but the episode promised not only to delay ARDE's alliance with the F.D.N. but to strengthen Pastora's resolve against any union under conditions other than his own.

In El Salvador, Duarte faces the Herculean task of fighting a civil war while persuading the country's businessmen and military officers to accept reforms that might induce the leftist rebels to give up their arms and join the fragile democracy. Before taking over from interim President Alvaro Magana last week, he announced that he would reappoint General Eugenic Vides Casanova as Defense Minister, but only on condition that he cleanse the armed forces of their links with the coun try's death squads. A week earlier, Vides Casanova had removed Colonel Nicolas Carranza from his post as head of the Treasury Police. Duarte's most sweeping decision so far is to split up the command of the regular army and the country's three security forces, which are considered the breeding ground of the death squads. In stead of reporting directly to Casanova, the National Guard, National Police and Treasury Police will answer to Colonel Reynaldo Lopez Nuila, the newly named vice minister of public security.

Six Justice Ministry employees trained by the FBI over the past four months will serve as the nucleus of a new 20-man "judicial reform commission."

The unit's main task will be to uphold the country's revised criminal code, which is designed to make prosecutions easier, and to investigate death-squad murders. The first case on their blotter: the 1980 assassi nation of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Ro mero. Former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Robert White has accused Roberto d'Aubuisson, Duarte's rightist opponent in last month's elections, of masterminding that murder, although the charge has never been proved. "Nobody is going to be above the law in this government," Duarte told TIME. "If Roberto d'Aubuisson is guilty, then Roberto d'Aubuisson is going to jail."

Duarte has said he favors a negotiated settlement with the leftist guerrillas, but he is not expected to rush into any talks. One reason is that at the moment the army enjoys the initiative on the battlefield. Duarte also has vowed not to hold discussions as long as the guerrillas still bear arms. Instead, he is likely to promote a variation of the existing amnesty program, under which rebels who relinquish their weapons are offered protection and the right to run in next year's legislative elections. "But if they are after part of the government, they can forget it," says Oscar Reyes, pri vate secretary to the new president. "We worked for it, and if they want some of it they will have to do the same."

Behind the brave words lie harsh realities. Duarte's room for maneuver, especially on social reforms, will be constricted by the sorry state of the national economy. Some Salvadorans recall how the Christian Democrats acquiesced to rightist demands during their last turn in power, in 1980, while others remember how abrasively contentious Duarte can be. But not the least of Duarte's estimable qualities are his courage and optimism.

"Five years from now when I turn over the presidency to my successor, I intend to hand over a new country," Duarte has vowed. Amid last week's joyous hoopla, that statement struck no one as recklessly hopeful.

-- By James Kelly. Reported by David DeVoss/San Salvador and Johanna McGeary with Shultz

With reporting by David DeVoss, Johanna McGeary