To Save El Salvador

By George Russell

Fearful of a leftist victory, the U.S. steps up its aid to a beleaguered regime

"There is no mistaking that the decisive battle for Central America is under way in El Salvador."

So said Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas O. Enders last week, as he defended the Reagan Administration's support for the beleaguered civilian-military government of El Salvador before three U.S. congressional committees. Enders' statement was buttressed by the firmly held position of Secretary of State Alexander Haig. The Administration's top diplomat bluntly asserted before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the U.S. "will do whatever is necessary" to prevent the downfall of the Salvadoran regime headed by President Jose Napoleon Duarte. Said Haig: "I am not about to lay out a litany of actions that may or may not take place. We are actively considering a whole range of options--political, economic and security."

Was Haig hinting, as some Congressmen suggested, that the U.S. might want to make substantial troop commitments in El Salvador? The answer to the question, from Deputy White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes, was that "the President has said he has no plans to send troops anywhere." But then Speakes added: "At the moment."

The fact is, there is little if any prospect that President Reagan would send U.S. forces into El Salvador. As Haig himself remarked, Reagan has a visceral reluctance to consider any such idea. But the Administration is moving quickly to help the Duarte government. After a guerrilla raid at El Salvador's principal military airport, Ilopango, the Reagan Administration announced last week that it would rush $55 million in emergency military aid to the Duarte regime. Much of the money was needed to replace six helicopters and eight airplanes that were destroyed in the guerrilla attack. The replacement helicopters were already on their way to El Salvador last week.

The tough statements by Haig and Enders, and the latest relief measures, came as Congress was reviewing the $129 million in economic and military support that the U.S. proposes to provide El Salvador in 1982. Troubled by the Duarte government's dismal human rights record, Congress in December demanded that President Reagan certify in writing that the Salvadorans had made a "concerted, significant" effort to eliminate brutality by local security forces, and were also making "continued progress" in carrying out political and economic reforms. Congress also demanded assurances that the Salvadoran regime was making "good faith efforts" to investigate and prosecute the murders there a year ago of four American churchwomen and two American aid officials.

The Reagan Administration duly submitted the required certification, even though the congressional demand was a bit unrealistic. For one thing, assigning specific blame for atrocities can be difficult in a chaotic situation like that in El Salvador. For another, the congressional directive ignored the question of murders carried out by the left-wing guerrillas. But as various human rights organizations began to assail the U.S. for supporting the Duarte government, the Administration took a tough stand, arguing that El Salvador occupied an important place in an East-West struggle for dominance in Latin America. As Haig put it, "The threat to democracy from opponents of peaceful change is particularly acute in El Salvador. The Duarte government is committed to political reform. Its opponents are determined to win by force what they could not achieve by ballot." Added Enders: "To withhold assistance at this point would be to abandon El Salvador."

In short, the Administration made it clear that it intends to draw a line in El Salvador, as part of its view that Soviet-and Cuban-backed subversion lies behind armed insurrection in the Western Hemisphere. Said Enders, before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee: "If El Salvador is captured by a violent minority, who in Central America would not live in fear? How long would it be before strategic U.S. interests were at risk?"

Enders' rhetorical questions pinpointed the reasons the Administration has taken such a firm position on El Salvador. That strife-torn country of 4.9 million people, roughly the size of Massachusetts, has the highest population density (593 per sq. mi.) and one of the lowest per capita incomes ($670 a year) in all of Latin America, and Washington is committed to support the Duarte government at a time when its survival is by no means cer tain. But the Administration fears that any slackening of U.S. support might lead to a major opportunity in Central America for Soviet-sponsored Cuba, abetted by the neighboring, Marxist-dominated Sandinista government of Nicaragua. U.S. policy is therefore to aid and encourage the Salvadoran government in its anti-guerrilla efforts, while simultaneously supporting economic and political reforms.

Unfortunately for U.S. planners, El Salvador, a beautiful country of lush vegetation and picturesque mountain gorges, is currently one of the most violent lands in the world. An estimated 20,000 Salvadorans have been killed in the past two years alone. As many as 1,000 are murdered or disappear each month. Last week, for example, at least 19 people were killed during an antiguerrilla sweep by the Salvadoran army through a poor suburb of the nation's capital, San Salvador. According to the army, the victims were subversives who put up an armed resistance to the raid. But most independent observers agree that the victims were unarmed residents who were taken from their homes by the soldiers and shot. Many of the corpses were clad only in their underwear.

Although there is documentation that the rebels too have been responsible for many random shootings, most victims of the violence have apparently died at the hands of security forces, possibly acting under orders from El Salvador's right-wingers who oppose the Duarte government and are against all social reform, especially recent land reform programs.

The position of innocent Salvadoran civilians caught in a crossfire between the opposing forces is likely to get worse before it gets better. For one thing, the guerrillas are becoming more active. Last week the so-called Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front launched attacks on Salvadoran military positions in various parts of the country. In one raid, the government claimed that the guerrillas killed 400 civilians, in addition to twelve members of a local army outpost. But when journalists were taken to a mass grave of victims of the attack, they discovered that it was not big enough to hold more than a dozen people. Diplomatic sources estimate that as many as 40 people may have been killed in the attack.

The guerrillas are not trying to gain and hold large areas of territory. They are not capable of doing so, and in any case their strategy at the moment is evidently to kill as many soldiers as possible, exploit the army's human rights abuses, and disrupt the economy and the upcoming elections. In past months, the insurgents, who number between 4,000 and 6,000, compared with the 14,000-member Salvadoran army, have aimed at destroying or dominating transportation and communication links. They have often been highly successful: last August, up to 75% of the country was without electricity at one time or another due to guerrilla attacks. El Salvador's gross national product, which grew by 4.4% as recently as 1978, shrank by 19.5% last year. A decline in world prices for such exports as coffee, cotton and sugar is a factor in the slump, but the war has brought new investment to a halt and driven many businessmen to close their doors and flee the country. Today guerrilla groups in Usulutan department loiter openly along the nation's most important highway, occasionally burning buses and trucks, collecting "revolutionary taxes" from travelers and delivering political lectures while Salvadoran army soldiers watch from a prudent distance. In one such incident, about 40 guerrillas armed with M-16s and older carbines blocked the road and burned a cotton truck and a Jeep. The marauders posed happily for pictures. About a mile away, a contingent of Salvadoran soldiers watched the billowing smoke rise in the sky. One of the soldiers, little more than a teenager, announced that his troop would visit the scene of the blockade "later."

Despite the recent guerrilla activity, the military situation in El Salvador is in effect a standoff. And, says one U.S. observer, "I don't see anything happening to move them out of that stalemate." The guerrillas complain of shortages of military hardware, though the Reagan Administration has made frequent accusations that significant numbers of weapons are being clandestinely supplied to the guerrillas by Nicaragua. According to some leftist sources, the main reason the insurgents failed to launch an expected offensive in mid-January was that their ammunition stocks could not sustain both a major attack and a longer-range war of attrition.

For its part, the Salvadoran army is plagued by lack of air transport, communications equipment and noncommissioned officers. In October 1980, the U.S. sent its first military advisers to El Salvador to improve the local army's antiguerrilla capabilities; today there are 51. In January, the U.S. began a basic training program for some 1,500 Salvadoran troops at Fort Bragg, N.C., and Fort Benning, Ga. It is the largest program of its kind ever undertaken by the U.S. to train foreign troops on domestic soil.

A contingent of 900 or so Salvadoran soldiers, scheduled to ar rive at Fort Bragg in mid-February to join 56 officers and NCOS already on the post, will learn the skills of a U.S. Army light-infantry battalion. The four-month intensive course (the equivalent of almost a full year's training for U.S. troops) is aimed at helping the Salvadorans operate in coordinated fashion as a large-scale military unit, something that the handful of U.S. instructors in El Salvador have been unable to pass on. Some 600 other Salvadoran trainees, who arrived at Fort Benning three weeks ago, are being given a combined 14-week basic training and officer candidate course. In their case, the aim is to build leadership qualities and to learn tactics like "military operations in an urban terrain," meaning, among other things, the proper techniques for house-to-house searches.

U.S. military training may well pay off for El Salvador in the medium and long term, but Washington hopes for more immediate political benefits from its policies to arrive no later than March 28. That is the date of El Salvador's constituent assembly elections, leading to a new constitution, which the U.S. hopes will be an important step for the country on the road to democratic civilian rule. The voting results are bound to be contentious, since all left-wing parties in the country have announced a boycott of the proceedings in order to protest their current exclusion from a share in political power. Thus the campaign field consists of only eight parties, most of them far to the right of President Duarte's Christian Democrats.

There is every possibility that the guerrilla forces, who control some 30 Salvadoran municipalities, will do their utmost to disrupt the voting through intimidation or armed attacks.

Nonetheless U.S. policymakers are counting heavily on the elections to augment the power and authority of Salva doran civilians, notably President Duarte, in dealing with the militant left and the paramilitary right. Duarte, a longtime opponent of the right-wing landowners and military figures who have dominated El Salvador for decades, was installed as President only after a "progressive" military coup in October 1979. A Duarte victory in the election would give his Christian Democrats a major say in redesigning El Salvador's political constitution and would also help dispel the suspicion that Duarte is critically dependent on the powerful local oligarchy.

The Christian Democrats are still the favorites in the election, but an ominous dark horse party is gaining popularity fast. That group is ARE NA (the Spanish acronym for National Republican Alliance), an ultrarightist organization headed by suave and ruthless Roberto d'Aubuisson, a former Salvadoran national guard intelligence officer.

Last December, most diplomatic analysts in San Salva dor estimated that D'Aubuis son, who is known locally as "Major Bob," would be lucky if his party were chosen by 1,000 of the country's 1 million to 1.5 million eligible voters. Now, its appeal bolstered by slick public relations techniques and energetic grass roots campaigning that emphasize law and order, ARENA'S popular strength is estimated at 15% of the electorate, vs. the Christian Democrats' 40%. ARENA'S popular support is still rising. Says one Western diplomat in El Salvador: "D'Aubuisson is now a third force." He may yet ally himself with the conservative National Reconciliation Party, the traditional political vehicle of the oligarchy, which has 30% support.

Thus it is conceivable that Christian Democrat Duarte could be maneuvered out of the presidency, making the problems of social and political reform in El Salvador even more difficult. If that happens, the battle for Central America that U.S. policymakers feel is now under way could well become a much bloodier affair.

With reporting by Johanna McGeary, James Willwerth

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