Keeping the Options Open

By George Russell

CENTRAL AMERICA

As worries grow about El Salvador, a new U.S. initiative takes shape

There are no plans to send American combat troops into action any place in the world." For what seemed to be the umpteenth time, Ronald Reagan gave that assurance last week about the limits of U.S. involvement in Central America. But even as he once again cleared the air, Reagan further obscured it. The President saw no point in telegraphing any of the other moves that Washington may have in mind to deal with a region that is stubbornly aboil with Marxist-inspired insurrection, and where the Administration feels that vital U.S. interests are at stake. As Reagan put it at his White House press conference: "I just don't believe that you discuss those options or what you may or may not do in advance of doing any of those things."

That statement also summarized Reagan's biggest problem with the region: the climate of public uncertainty surrounding U.S. action in tiny, embattled El Salvador. The reason is that a propaganda battle of substantial proportions is being waged alongside the war between El Salvador's civilian-military government, backed by the U.S., and 4,000 to 6,000 Marxist-led guerrillas that Washington charges are being supplied with arms from nearby Nicaragua and from Cuba.

On the one side, the Reagan Administration has said with deliberate ambiguity that it will do "whatever is necessary" to prevent a guerrilla victory, which the U.S. fears would accelerate Soviet-sponsored subversion throughout Central America. On the other, Administration opponents charge that the U.S. is blundering deeper into an open-ended military commitment to a losing cause. So far, the Administration has done little to back up its most important contention, namely that the real U.S. aim in El Salvador is not a military victory but the political and economic framework needed for democracy to flourish in a strife-torn and bitterly impoverished region.

Skepticism over the Administration's approach reached a new pitch last week after three delegations of U.S. Congressmen descended on El Salvador to take then-own soundings. One of the most vociferous of the skeptics was Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, who arrived with fellow Democrat Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island. After a private meeting with El Salvador's Defense Minister, General Jose Guillermo Garcia, Leahy emerged with Pell and U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Deane Hinton and complained that he "got along very badly" with the general, who had energetically demanded more U.S. military aid. For his part, Pell told Garcia that "Congress would not continue to authorize unlimited funds for El Salvador if there continued to be gross violations [of human rights], gross assassinations and cruel murders."

The same conclusion was reached by another visiting Congressional team, Representatives Tom Harkin of Iowa and James L. Oberstar of Minnesota, both Democrats, and Republican Jim Coyne of Pennsylvania. Criticizing the regime's "inhumane" military tactics at a news conference, Oberstar said flatly that the Salvadoran government "should not have our military support."

This week President Reagan is finally expected to address at least some of the skepticism by unveiling an important new element of U.S. policy in Central America. In an address to the 28-member Organization of American States in Washington, he will describe the Administration's long-awaited Caribbean Basin Initiative. The proposal, originally conceived almost a year ago in cooperation with Mexico, Venezuela and Canada, is a package of trade concessions and aid aimed at relieving the explosive economic conditions that are the root cause of the region's unrest. The plan is also what has so far been missing from the Administration's Central American policy--a constructive counterpoint to the shipping of more arms and military advisers to countries under siege.

As a major part of the plan, the Administration will ask Congress to grant special, duty-free import conditions for most of the countries in the region over ten years. A second component of the package will be tax incentives to spur private foreign investment. Finally, the Administration will ask Congress for an extra $300 million in economic assistance for the countries concerned in fiscal 1982, which ends Sept. 30, in addition to the $350 million to $400 million already budgeted. The same approximate total--$600 million to $700 million--is included in the budget for 1983.

Of the current year's $300 million supplementary aid request, about one-third is intended for El Salvador, atop $184 million in military and economic assistance already scheduled for the country. In addition, the Administration will ask Congress to grant El Salvador $60.8 million in military assistance and $164.9 million in economic aid in 1983.

No mention is made in the development plan of Nicaragua. The Reagan Administration increasingly views the Marxist-dominated Sandinista government of that country as the Central American equivalent of Fidel Castro's Cuban regime. Indeed, last week President Reagan gave a rather unusual rebuke to Nicaragua's newest Ambassador to Washington, Francisco Fiallos Navarro. In accepting Fiallos' credentials, Reagan abandoned protocol and warned Nicaragua of the "consequences of inviting alien influences and philosophies in the hemisphere."

The aim of the development plan, in the words of one U.S. State Department official, is "to avoid other El Salvadors." But there is no avoiding the thorny problems that El Salvador itself still poses. Pinprick guerrilla attacks in that country continue unabated, even after they were answered by an army sweep in the southern department of Usulutan. In fact, U.S. and Salvadoran intelligence officials are expecting a major rebel offensive as an attempt to disrupt El Salvador's March 28 constituent-assembly elections. That balloting is seen in Washington as a crucial step toward returning the country to full civilian rule.

The military situation in El Salvador was grave enough last week to prompt a two-day visit to the country by Lieut. General Wallace H. Nutting, the top U.S. military commander in Latin America. At the end of his tour, Nutting declared that "the government here is in control of the country at the moment." Noting that El Salvador's rugged and mountainous terrain favors the guerrillas, he said that "we have to think of just holding on until those guerrillas and their supporters lose their ideological commitment."

The question is how. U.S. military analysis of the Salvadoran army's ability to fend off the insurgents is increasingly gloomy. According to a top-level Pentagon assessment, El Salvador's military is only ''marginally" able to hold its own on the battlefield. Morale in the 15,000-member army is low. Says a veteran Pentagon analyst: "The Salvadoran military still have the numbers on their side, and they still have the firepower. But they don't seem to have the pizazz they had six weeks ago." The Pentagon's feeling is that the U.S. must soon decide whether to extend radically its military involvement in El Salvador, by one means or another, or pull out of the country entirely.

No such decision has been made by the Reagan Administration. Instead, the White House has called for recommendations on El Salvador from every pertinent branch of the U.S. Government. President Reagan made no comment last week about a report that the Administration had agreed on a plan to encourage Latin American governments to disrupt arms supplies headed from Cuba and Nicaragua to the Salvadoran guerrilla forces. According to the report, the CIA has proposed a $19 million program to build a broad opposition to Nicaragua's Sandinista government and to create "action teams" for paramilitary activities in Nicaragua and elsewhere.

The U.S. has made no secret of the fact that it wants to stop the arms flow to El Salvador's guerrillas. Secretary of State Alexander Haig last week denied that the U.S. was encouraging Argentina's military government to bolster the Salvadoran regime in any fashion. But he emphasized the concern of other Central American governments over the Salvadoran conflict and said that if any action is taken to halt the spread of subversion, "it is important that those states move together."

One sign of such movement came last week with notice of the abrupt cancellation of a meeting of the Socialist International, an association of democratic Socialist political parties, scheduled to begin Feb. 24 in Caracas. Reason: a dispute among the members over granting observer status to the Sandinistas. Increasingly alarmed at the Marxist-Leninist rhetoric of members of Nicaragua's ruling Sandinista national directorate, the Socialists from Venezuela, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic felt that the Sandinistas had no business at their meeting.

The Reagan Administration could take heart from such small signs of growing concern, even among Latin American democratic Socialists,with the problem of subversion in Central America. But the military threat, particularly in El Salvador, and the hard decisions about how to deal with it, remain a problem for the U.S. to face more or less alone. As General Nutting put it: "There is probably no quick, easy or cheap solution to the challenge here." The Reagan Administration still must convince Congress and the American people that the action it sponsors is worth the money and the effort, and above all, will achieve a beneficial result. --By George Russell. Reported by

Bernard Diederich/San Salvador and Johanna McGeary/Washington

With reporting by Bernard Diederich, Johanna McGeary

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.