Much Talk About Talks

By George Russell

To appease Congress, the U.S. leans toward negotiations in El Salvador

"A sea change in attitudes." Thus did Democratic Congressman Clarence D. Long of Maryland last week describe the latest act in what has become a lengthy, confusing and important political psychodrama over U.S. involvement in war-torn El Salvador. Long, who is chairman of the 13-member House Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, had just listened to Secretary of State George Shultz express support for what seemed to be a new and more moderate solution to El Salvador's ugly three-year civil war.

According to Shultz, the Administration is willing to support talks between the government of El Salvador and the less radical members of the Marxist-led rebel movement that is trying to overthrow the regime. But the U.S. would not, Shultz stressed, offer the guerrillas a share of power that they had not won at the ballot box. Said he: "We will not support negotiations that short-circuit the democratic process and carve up power behind people's back."

The change was one of emphasis, not of substance. But it could prove crucial in winning congressional support for the Administration's request for $110 million in U.S. military aid to El Salvador in addition to the $26 million that has been appropriated so far this year. Various Senate and House subcommittees will vote on parts of the aid proposal this week. Rejection of the measure would be a major blow to U.S. policy in El Salvador. According to the Administration's own gloomy forecast, the Salvadoran government is in danger of losing its war against some 6,000 guerrillas of the Marxist-led Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (F.M.L.N.) unless the Salvadoran army receives more money, arms and advisers.

The critical question in Congress last week was whether such influential moderates as Long would go along with the Administration's plan. Many members of Congress were talking about attaching strings to any aid that is approved. The condition most frequently mentioned: that the U.S. should actively promote talk, not fighting, in El Salvador.

For weeks Washington has been buzzing with the notion that negotiations of some kind with the guerrillas and their supporters are the only way of avoiding hopeless involvement in a Central American quagmire. The idea, which was promoted by France and Mexico in 1981, has the backing of a number of other West European and Central American governments. It gained further momentum during Pope John Paul II's recent eight-day trip through the region, during which he issued a call for "dialogue" between the adversaries in El Salvador. In principle everyone, including President Reagan, endorses the idea. But everyone also has his own notion of what such talks should and should not cover, and of who should be talking to whom.

The challenge to the Administration's aid proposal was put most bluntly by Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Operations Subcommittee. In an emotional Senate speech, Inouye disputed the Administration's thesis that the Salvadoran guerrillas represent a Cuban-and Soviet-backed military thrust to produce a revolutionary domino effect in the U.S.'s backyard. He described the 22,000-member Salvadoran armed forces as violent and corrupt, and urged the Salvadoran government to open negotiations "with all parties to the conflict" before any additional U.S. military assistance is provided.

Opponents of the Administration's Salvadoran policy have been notably vague about the kind of negotiations they favor. Many, however, seem to agree with the rebels that bargaining should include the question of power sharing.

Much of the responsibility for the current confusion rests with the Administration. Shultz and Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas O. Enders have insisted that U.S. policy has not changed since 1981, when former Secretary of State Alexander Haig first cast the Salvadoran struggle as an East-West conflict. The chief elements of U.S. strategy have been to buttress the Salvadoran government with guns, money and American military advisers (who currently number around 37), while encouraging political and economic reforms as well as an improvement in El Salvador's doleful human rights record. The U.S., say Administration officials, has always favored talks with the guerrillas, if they will first agree to participate in the normal Salvadoran political process.

But that emphasis has not always been clear. After U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick visited El Salvador in February, the White House let it be known that it wanted to send more military aid and advisers. Some White House staffers began to second-guess the political judgment of Assistant Secretary Enders, who had never before been considered a soft-liner on U.S. policy in El Salvador. Enders was concerned that congressional support for Administration policy might erode without some display of flexibility on the negotiation issue. The Administration's hardening attitude created the feeling that it would in no circumstances support negotiations.

The Reagan Administration's goal is to build upon its first efforts to bring democracy to El Salvador. Almost exactly a year ago, 74% of the electorate defied guerrilla threats and voted freely for a Constituent Assembly that is expected to produce a new constitution for the country next month. But since the election, U.S. policy has suffered several major reversals. Right-wing elements, led by Constituent Assembly President Roberto d'Aubuisson, won the upper hand in the Assembly and, in postelection bargaining, tried hard to sabotage U.S.-inspired reforms. The improvement in the observance of human rights in El Salvador is halting at best. Right-wing death squads and trigger-happy armed forces units still roam the country, adding an average of 100 victims a week to the estimated 35,000 Salvadorans who have died in the three-year conflict.

The U.S. suffered two more blows on the human rights front last week. A Salvadoran judge temporarily blocked the long-awaited trial of four national guardsmen accused of the 1980 murder of four American churchwomen near the capital of San Salvador. Despite the testimony of another guardsman who has confessed to complicity in the killings, plus FBI ballistics and fingerprint evidence, the judge said that Salvadoran justice demanded additional proof. Three days later, it was announced that the president of a Salvadoran human rights commission, a 34-year-old woman, had been killed during an army counterinsurgency sweep.

The news from other battlefronts has been no better. The Salvadoran armed forces, led by Defense Minister Jose GuillermoGarcia, have shown neither resolve nor proficiency. Ignoring U.S. advice, the Salvadoran military has wasted its energy in useless sweeps of remote hinterland areas, while the guerrillas have scored easy but psychologically important victories by briefly occupying towns in the country's economic heartland. A guerrilla campaign of economic devastation continues practically undeterred; last week much of the country was plunged once again into temporary darkness after guerrilla forces blew up a series of electrical power lines.

Complicating matters for the Administration is the fact that the Salvadoran insurgents have repeatedly said they are willing to negotiate. The most explicit offer came last October, when Guillermo Manuel Ungo, president of the Revolutionary Democratic Front, a group of five leftist parties now allied with the guerrillas, offered "unconditional" discussions with the Reagan Administration in order to end the war.

In reality, the guerrillas' position is hardly unconditional. It consists of five major points: 1) a demand to restructure the Salvadoran government in order to include both the guerrillas and their more moderate allies, thereby canceling the results of last year's election; 2) dismantling the 10,000-member Salvadoran internal security forces (which are widely believed to be responsible for the majority of the country's human rights atrocities) and including guerrilla regulars within the Salvadoran army; 3) a continuation, and possible extension, of the U.S.-backed economic reforms in El Salvador; 4) adoption by El Salvador of a non-aligned foreign policy, most likely meaning an end to the country's intimate ties with the U.S.; and 5) an agreement on future elections that would incorporate the insurgents.

The guerrillas have made one strong argument in favor of their own terms for negotiation. In El Salvador's violent climate, they and their allies can legitimately fear for their lives if they lay down their arms and join the country's fragile democratic political process. In 1981, for example, six Revolutionary Democratic Front leaders were murdered after a political rally in San Salvador. Says Leftist Spokesman Ungo: "We are not so stupid as to participate in elections that will result in our ending up in a cemetery."

Both the Reagan Administration and the Salvadoran government understand that fear. In his testimony last week, Shultz assured Congressmen that the U.S. would offer every effort to "make it genuinely safe and possible for people of all persuasions to take part" in the upcoming presidential elections. In El Salvador, the country's Constituent Assembly was debating a new amnesty law that, in theory at least, would allow the guerrillas and their supporters to rejoin the country's political process without fear of legal reprisal.

With U.S. encouragement, the Salvadoran government has created a three-member "peace commission" to serve as an intermediary in talking to the left. Last week, in a two-page advertisement in El Salvador's major newspapers, Provisional President Alvaro Alfredo Magana Borja called on the rebels to "reincorporate yourselves on the road of right and peace by abandoning your attitude of violence."

In Mexico City, however, Guerrilla Spokesman Hector Oqueli reiterated the insurgents' insistence on an unspecific "dialogue" with the Salvadoran government as an initial step in the negotiating process. Said Oqueli: "We don't want any preconditions. The best possible solution is a dialogue that could lead to negotiations." In other words, the guerrillas feel they must continue to fight as they talk.

The amnesty proposal, if it ever emerges from the Assembly, is foredoomed to rejection by the rebels. Despite their publicized appeal for negotiations on their own terms, the guerrillas have already declared that they now consider the tide of battle in El Salvador to be running in their favor. In touting their strength, they added a direct challenge to the Reagan Administration. Said the rebels' Radio Venceremos: "We cannot and ought not fail to place our plans in the framework of a regional conflict" to decide the future of Central America.

Those words sounded like a powerful reinforcement of Shultz's warning to skeptical Congressmen as he pleaded for continued support for Reagan Administration policy in the region. While admitting the need for further changes in El Salvador, Shultz added that "no amount of reform alone can end the conflict so long as the guerrillas expect military victory." Nor can the many calls for negotiation have much meaning until all parties are willing to demonstrate that they would truly rather talk than fight.

--By George Russell.

Reported by Timothy Loughran/San Salvador and Gregory H. Wierzynski/Washington

With reporting by Timothy Loughran and Gregory H. Wierzynski This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.