Serving Notice

Three neighbors react

The 150 or so women, most of them dressed in black, stood outside the gates of the presidential palace in San Salvador waving signs adorned with pictures of relatives. It was one more demonstration by those whose loved ones are listed as missing but are widely assumed to have been killed by the country's death squads. Last Wednesday, however, Jose Napoleon Duarte left his office and plunged into the mob of weeping women, leaving his bodyguards scrambling. As the women tugged at his sleeves, Duarte promised that the cases would be investigated. He then strolled back to his office, shouts of "Viva Duarte!"echoing behind him.

It was an auspicious moment in the first week of El Salvador's new President. Constantly asked by reporters about promised reforms ("Give me a few weeks, please," he said in general exasperation), Duarte seemed intent on moving cautiously. However, he did order an eleven-member military commission to 'Open an inquiry into the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. Meanwhile, Roberto d'Aubuisson, Duarte's rightist rival in last month's elections, who was once accused by former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Robert White of plotting Romero's murder, received a visa to visit the U.S. After denying D'Aubuisson permission to enter the country during the past year, the State Department decided that the gesture might persuade the Salvadoran to cooperate with Duarte.

If El Salvador seemed caught up in its internal affairs last week, Honduras and Nicaragua appeared preoccupied with foreign relations. In a veiled rebuke to the U.S., General Walter LOpez Reyes, the commander of Honduras' armed forces, attacked the autocratic policies of his predecessor, General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, who was ousted by the military in March. In a televised speech, LOpez announced that the 37-member Armed Forces Superior Council was once again the final arbiter of all defense matters. Though Lopez did not criticize the U.S. directly, his talk served notice that Washington could no longer depend on the unquestioning collaboration of the Alvarez years.

The major sore point between Honduras and the U.S. is the training of Salvadoran soldiers on Honduran soil. In 1969, El Salvador and Honduras fought a brief war; though animosities have abated, a border dispute remains. Recently, Washington insisted that 1,200 Salvadorans be allowed to participate in the joint U.S.-Honduran miltary exercises, dubbed Granadero I, that aided last week. In addition, some 4,000 Salvadorans have been trained at a Honduran military base near Puerto Castilla. Honduran military officials are renegotiating with the U.S. the terms of operating the base. Though the Salvadorans will probably remain, the Honduran government would like to link a new agreement to a settlement of the border squabble.

In Nicaragua the conciliatory atmosphere prompted by Secretary of State George Shultz's quickie trip to Managua two weeks ago seemed to evaporate swiftly. Accusing the U.S. of plans to step up "the war of aggression against Nicaragua," Defense Minister Humberto Ortega Saavedra announced a "massive mobilization of the people." Ortega detailed the expected enemy offensive, but the reason for the speech was an attack last week on the northern Nicaraguan city of Ocotal by U.S.-backed rebels. The heavily fortified town of 15,000 was held by the rebels for four hours.

Nicaragua's Sandinista government suffered another critical blast last week, but not from the Reagan Administration. After a two-year study, the Organization of American States (OAS) released a report charging that the Sandinistas had abused their country's Miskito Indians. Since they came to power in 1979, the Sandinistas have tried to exert control over the Miskitos, who live in isolated hamlets on the Caribbean coast. The OAS investigation, which was requested by the Sandinistas themselves, concluded that the worst violations occurred between 1981 and 1983 and included torture and the killing of about 35 Miskitos. The report added that the Sandinistas have made "significant advances" in their treatment of the Miskitos. But there are also fewer Indians than before: about 17,000 Miskitos have fled the country for refugee camps in Honduras. qed