El Salvador Bitter End

Ravaged by cancer, reviled by many of his countrymen, Jose Napoleon Duarte ! refuses to give up. Since returning last month from the U.S., where doctors confirmed he is suffering from inoperable stomach cancer, the Salvadoran President has ignored physicians' orders to limit his work load to three hours a day; he routinely puts in seven or more. Last week he addressed the National Assembly, met with church and business leaders, and conferred with visiting Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez. This week Duarte will return to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington to undergo chemotherapy, but he wants to be in El Salvador when the end comes. Says a close adviser: "He knows this is the final stage of his life. But rather than rest, he prefers to die working on the job."

Both sides in the country's eight-year civil war are already jockeying for advantage. The leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front is believed to be preparing its first major push since 1983. Although in the past the war was fought largely in the countryside, San Salvador is likely to be a major target for any new rebel operation. Intelligence reports say a shipment of guns was recently smuggled into the capital. Last week guerrillas ambushed an air force truck in the city, killing one civilian and wounding three soldiers.

The military, whose relations with Duarte were often strained, is gearing up for new fighting. A series of high-level changes, announced in Duarte's absence, put hard-line officers in charge of five out of six brigades as well as the intelligence and personnel branches of the armed forces. If the right- wing Nationalist Republican Alliance party wins the presidency next June, as is widely predicted, analysts expect the army to launch an all-out campaign against the FMLN.

Duarte's Christian Democratic Party last week resolved a long-running feud over who its presidential candidate should be. The winner: Fidel Chavez Mena, a former Planning Minister, who defeated a challenge by the longtime party boss, Julio Adolfo Rey Prendes. Although Duarte and the candidate are not on the best of terms, Rey Prendes' close ties to corrupt officials led the U.S. embassy to favor Chavez Mena. "It is almost like Duarte is already completely forgotten," says a European diplomat. "It is really quite chilling."