Giving Peace a Chance

By George Russell

As crowds cheer and hopes rise, Duarte meets the rebels face to face

Jose Napoleon Duarte stood on the outskirts of the dusty provincial town of La Palma, poised for a meeting that few of his countrymen had dared to imagine would take place. "They said we could never do it, but we are here," declared the stocky populist President before plunging into a crowd of camera-laden journalists and citizens waving paper flags. Then Duarte and his unarmed four-man entourage moved toward the town's Sweet Name of Mary Church, an angular structure built in 1960. Inside the building they faced the most important confrontation of Duarte's political career, and what could be a major turning point in the country's five-year civil war.

Moments later a more elusive assemblage of five men and a woman slipped into town: fatigue-clad guerrillas of the Marxist-led Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (F.M.L.N.) and shirt-sleeved civilian representatives of the guerrillas' political arm, the Democratic Revolutionary Front (F.D.R.), the government's main adversaries in the Salvadoran conflict.* The rebel group followed Duarte's contingent inside the church, and the doors closed behind them. The two sides sat down at a plain wooden table beneath a crucifix and a quotation painted on the blue wall that admonished COME TO ME, THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE WEARY. Thus began the first formal meeting between the two opposing forces in the bloody war that has taken more than 50,000 lives.

When the delegations emerged 51 1/2 hours later, they had little of substance to report to the crowd that had kept the long vigil. The two sides agreed only to form an eight-member peace commission, with four representatives each, that will meet again in November. Meantime, the war would continue: there was no accord on a ceasefire. Said Guillermo Ungo, speaking for the rebels: "There are, obviously, differences. But we have reached a preliminary agreement." From the steps of the church, F.M.L.N. Commander Eduardo Sancho Castaneda shouted a theme to the crowd, which quickly took it up: "We all want peace, we all want peace, we all want peace."

After the guerrillas quietly moved out of town, Duarte emerged from the church, took a microphone and, while one of the Salvadoran Boy Scouts--the main peacekeeping force in town--held up a bullhorn, praised the "admirable attitude of both sides." Each, Duarte told the crowd, was aware of the "misery, pain, injustice and lack of liberty of the Salvadoran people ... We aren't offering miracles. But Salvadoran people together can gain the miracle of their liberation and peace for all." Said Duarte: "These have been among the most transcendental hours in Salvadoran history."

Though the emotional pitch reached by the throng at La Palma soon shrank to more realistic levels, it was clear that Duarte had accomplished an extraordinary feat for his battered and deeply divided country. The President had fulfilled, against considerable odds, a daring promise to open a dialogue with his enemies, an offer he first made ten days earlier before the United Nations General Assembly. In the process, the Christian Democratic leader had captured world attention, surprised and pleased the Reagan Administration and transformed the psychological landscape of his nation. Said Democratic Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, an observer at La Palma who has worked behind the scenes to encourage dialogue between the Salvadoran army and the guerrillas: "No matter what happens next, Duarte has unleashed a kind of dynamic for peace."

That momentum came at a critical moment. As Duarte and the rebels sat down in La Palma, the Sandinista government of nearby Nicaragua was preparing for the Nov. 4 elections that are intended to bolster its diminishing international credibility (see following story). At the same time, efforts to finish a draft version of a five-nation Central American peace treaty, the so-called Contadora Act, were hitting a new roadblock. After launching a highly publicized campaign for acceptance of the treaty without further amendment, Nicaragua refused to attend a gathering last week of Central American foreign ministers in Honduras to consider additional treaty safeguards. The Nicaraguans blamed President Duarte, among others, for allegedly saying that the Contadora peace process was not resolving anything. Earlier in the week, the Latin American nations sponsoring the Contadora process (Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama) had met briefly in Madrid to try to reconcile the opposing points of view in the draft treaty. They failed to reach a solution, but vowed to continue their efforts.

The seemingly impossible problems of peaceful reconciliation were also very much on Duarte's mind in La Palma. As he had promised the U.N., he intended to offer the F.M.L.N. an amnesty for political crimes if the rebels would lay down their arms and join in nationwide municipal and legislative elections scheduled for March 1985. On the other hand, Duarte wanted to stress that since he took over last June as El Salvador's first freely elected civilian President in 50 years, the grounds for armed insurrection against undemocratic rule have disappeared. As Duarte put it at a press conference following the La Palma meeting, "I said that the mere fact that we were in La Palma was a fundamental change and that it represents an important step."

Until the last minute, it was doubtful whether that step would be taken. After they recovered from the surprise of Duarte's offer and agreed to attend the meeting, the rebels continued to seek guarantees of personal security for Political Spokesmen Ungo and Ruben Zamora, who have spent the past four years in exile. Finally, oh the day before the La Palma meeting, the duo arrived at El Salvador's Cuscatlan Airport from Panama, aboard a Colombian air force plane, with three foreign ambassadors as diplomatic escorts. The atmosphere aboard the aircraft, said Swiss Ambassador to Central America Franc,ois Nordmann, "was extremely tense." The rebels were greeted at Cuscatlan by International Red Cross officials, who drove the pair down a highway patrolled by hundreds of Salvadoran army troops.

As Ungo and Zamora arrived, government crews were hard at work on the 50 miles of road to La Palma from San Salvador, the capital. Their mission: to fill hundreds of cavernous potholes with asphalt before President Duarte traveled to the rendezvous. In La Palma's central plaza, there was a fiesta mood. Townspeople gathered to watch advance brigades of the international press prepare for the next day's meeting. While television technicians strung cables and tested sound systems, local women were hanging white pennants and banners that proclaimed DUARTE PRESIDENT OF PEACE.

The most striking change in La Palma, however, was the absence of armed guerrillas in the streets. A town of 3,200 set amid pine forests and mountainous peaks, La Palma has been considered for the past three years to be within guerrilla-controlled territory. By Sunday, neither rebel fighters nor units of the 41,000-member Salvadoran army were in sight. Both sides were apparently respecting a mutual pledge to keep all armed forces outside a six-mile radius of the meeting place. In the town square, Boy and Girl Scouts were being drilled on how to maintain order.

Amid the bustle of preparation, there was an interlude of comic frenzy as journalists spotted Ungo and Zamora traveling up the road from San Salvador to a rendezvous with their rebel cohorts. Press cars, pickup trucks and vans roared off in pursuit. Soon there were between 30 and 40 vehicles jammed door to door, bumper to bumper, along the rutted gravel road. In the back of a careering pickup truck a Salvadoran TV reporter attempted to film a news report. A U.S. photographer hung precariously out the window of a speeding yellow taxicab. The cars carrying the rebel leaders sped away, while a Red Cross van tried and failed to block the press pur suit. Local peasants gaped in astonishment as the clanking caravan roared about seven miles past La Palma to the Honduran border, executed a U-turn and raced back again. Finally, the rebels stopped on a cobbled La Palma side street and agreed to be interviewed. Then Ungo and Zamora continued to their clandestine meeting point, where they were greeted with flowers by F.M.L.N. fighters and spent the night reviewing strategy for the next day's meeting.

As the crucial day dawned, hordes of ordinary Salvadorans began streaming into La Palma. The Duarte government urged the President's supporters to make an appearance at the peace talks. The guerrillas had also turned out their followers, and strands of red flags joined the white banners overhead. In the town square a group of 100 schoolchildren waving white pompons were soon surrounded by lean, stony-faced fieldworkers and their families. Between 15,000 and 20,000 witnesses eventually filled the town. None of them, impressively enough, carried the ubiquitous machetes that serve the peasants as both tools and weapons.

Meantime, Duarte was making his own deliberate progress from the capital, accompanied to the meeting by three political aides and Defense Minister General Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, who was included as a further gesture of good faith to the guerrillas. As Duarte later told it, the emotional high point of his roughly two-hour trip to the talks came as his red Toyota pulled away from the last army checkpoint, 16 miles south of La Palma. Two officers stepped up to say goodbye. Recalled Duarte: "They said, 'God bless you, and may you bring back peace.' That means I had convinced them of what I was trying to do."

The La Palma meeting seemed to uncover a craving in almost every sector of Salvadoran society for an end to the bloodshed. Evelio Sorto, a teacher displaced by the war from his home in the northern department of Morazan, was among the crowd that trekked to La Palma. "If this opportunity is lost, we may never have another," he observed. Said Oscar Martinez, a local peasant: "This is a beautiful country, but the war is destroying it. I hope the leaders can forget their differences and think about what they are doing to El Salvador."

The country's extreme right, on the other hand, took strong exception to the peace mission. The secret Anti-Communist Army, one of El Salvador's death squads, named Duarte as a target for execution. The President was bitterly criticized by Roberto d'Aubuisson, leader of the ultraright Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and a former presidential candidate. The La Palma meeting, D'Aubuisson said, was "a monologue between old buddies for the same cause: socialism." But D'Aubuisson is increasingly the odd man out in Salvadoran politics: conservative business elements in ARENA supported Duarte's initiative.

If Duarte had anticipated the popular support that his peace mission would win, so, to a certain extent, had the rebels. In the past, the guerrillas have made offers of their own to negotiate; when they agreed to the La Palma meeting, said Zamora, it was in recognition of "domestic pressure. We know that if we separate from the people, it means we lose the war." Even so, one important guerrilla commander, Joaquin Villalobos, head of a faction known as the People's Revolutionary Army, was unable to attend. The reason: difficulties in traveling from his remote stronghold in the department of Morazan.

At the end of the La Palma talks, the F.M.L.N. representatives were still demanding satisfaction on the lengthy agenda that they had carried into the session. Among the items: the cutoff of U.S. military aid and training assistance for Duarte's government, the freeing of all "political" prisoners and an end to alleged government bombing of civilian targets. But some people present at the discussions were encouraged by the civility of tone. Said a government participant: "There were no hugs and kisses, but there was much more cordiality than expected. We had feared [the guerrillas] would be cold and formal, even hostile, but they were reasonably friendly and very civilized." Duarte's recollection of the guerrillas' demeanor was that "they were very hard at first" (see box). The guerrillas' own feelings about their attitude were summed up by Zamora: "We are in favor of a process that, although it may take time at the beginning, should acquire solidity as time goes on."

Duarte could claim one other striking achievement at La Palma: his initiative had at least in part transformed the civil war, in the President's words, into "a Salvadoran problem, which must be solved among Salvadorans in El Salvador." U.S. officials were not present at the La Palma talks, and according to a State Department analyst, Washington's suggestions to Duarte were limited to his personal security. Even then, the U.S. offer of a bulletproof vest for the President was turned down.

The Administration deserved some credit for helping Duarte. Washington has bolstered the Salvadoran military with training and military aid. And more. A U.S. plane on a surveillance mission over rebel territory crashed outside San Salvador last week, killing four American employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition, the U.S. strongly supported the democratic election process by which Duarte took office. The Administration also aided the Salvadoran armed forces in developing an increasingly aggressive stance toward the guerrillas on the battlefield. That, in the U.S. view, went a long way toward creating incentives for the La Palma meeting. Said a U.S. diplomat: "The guerrillas tend to shy away from negotiations as their power increases. They tend toward negotiations as their power weakens." According to that assessment, Duarte must still wage war in order to wage peace. Indeed, three days after the La Palma meeting, the Salvadoran army launched a new offensive against the guerrillas in northern Morazan. But in going those dangerous miles to La Palma, El Salvador's new President had given peace a measurably better chance. --By George Russell.

Reported by Ricardo Chavira and Harry Kelly/La Palma

*The F.M.L.N. delegation: Guillermo Ungo and Ruben Zamora of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, the rebels' political wing; Eduardo Sancho Castaneda (known as Ferman Cienfuegos), Lucio Castellanos, Facundo Guardado and Nidia Diaz, guerrilla military leaders.

With reporting by Ricardo Chavira, Harry Kelly/La Palma