Some Grounds for Optimism

By Laura L

El Salvador's army gains, but the contras face new problems

To the Salvadoran army, the rugged northern department of Morazan has long been enemy territory. The leftist guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front have held Perquin and other towns so firmly that the U.S.-trained government troops dared not come near. But last week 3,000 men of the Salvadoran Third Infantry Brigade entered a number of villages in Morazan. Somewhat to their surprise, they encountered only perfunctory resistance. The rebels quickly abandoned the towns, melting into the green hills near the Honduran frontier and leaving behind booby traps. Confident that the victory would hold, the brigade's commander, Lieut. Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, commended two freshly combat-tested battalions in a field outside Perquin.

Little more than three weeks after the installation of newly elected President Jose Napoleon Duarte, El Salvador is once again reverberating with the sounds of combat. But this time they are not the sounds of defeat. The Morazan operation, part of an 8,000-man nationwide counterinsurgency sweep that also covered the departments of San Miguel, Cabanas, Usulutan and Chalatenango, was the first assault since a military shake-up sent two officers to posts overseas shortly before Duarte's inauguration. Another auspicious sign for Duarte came when a Salvadoran judge sentenced five former National Guardsmen to 30 years in prison for the 1980 murder of four American churchwomen. As a result, the U.S. Congress will release $19.4 million in military aid that it froze pending resolution of the case.

The successful Morazan operation pleased no one as much as the U.S. military advisers, who have long been urging the Salvadoran army to shed its "9t05" habits and aggressively pursue the guerrillas in their strongholds. The army also helped relocate hundreds of peasants who have been alienated by a guerrilla recruitment drive. In addition, the Salvadoran army says that since January some 400 demoralized rebels have turned themselves in to the army. Monterrosa's brigade now plans to establish a permanent presence, including a forward command post, in the reoccupied areas.

Duarte's promise to carry out reforms, together with the army's advances, has inspired a new sense of optimism within the Reagan Administration. "We've been on a real up cycle for the past three or four months," says a senior State Department official. "On the other hand, it ain't gonna stay that way." The Administration still expects the guerrillas to launch a new offensive in the fall, timed to embarrass Reagan just before the U.S. elections. "It is absolutely essential," says Colonel Joseph Stringham, the recently departed head of the U.S. military group in El Salvador, "that the Salvadoran armed forces keep their operation going so that the guerrillas can't stop and resupply or take a break."

The Administration is also pleased that Nicaragua's Sandinista government has shown a new willingness to talk to the U.S. Although it is not clear what steps will follow Secretary of State George Shultz's surprise meeting with Junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra in Managua on June 1, the State Department sees Nicaragua's new openness as a sign that the Sandinistas have recognized that the U.S. means business.

Nonetheless, the Administration is having difficulty continuing its not-so-covert support for the contra forces fighting to overthrow the Sandinistas. Although the Senate voted, 63 to 31, last week to reject a proposal to limit U.S. military involvement in Central America, the House has repeatedly refused to act on the Administration's request for $21 million in CIA funds for the contras. Faced with the deadlock, Administration officials were involved in legislative horse trading that could result in dropping the contra aid in exchange for additional funding for the Salvadoran military.

The Sandinistas have tried to take advantage of the situation by engaging contra troops on both their northern and southern borders. But they were not prepared for the persistence of 1,500 men from the strongest contra group, the 10,000-strong Honduran-based Nicaraguan Democratic Front (F.D.N.), which last week managed to advance deep into Nicaragua, reaching the eastern edge of Lake Managua. The F.D.N.'s ability to fight will be severely curtailed if U.S. funds are stopped. According to the group's leaders, current stockpiles of weapons will allow them to continue the struggle only until mid-July. Then the contras will have to seek increased funding from Cuban groups in Miami, who have already made substantial contributions of food and medical aid.

The Sandinistas have been doing better against the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Democratic Alliance (ARDE), a separate contra unit that is operating in the southern part of the country. Last week the Nicaraguan army drove an estimated 1,000 ARDE troops back toward the San Juan River, on the Costa Rican border. ARDE has been hampered in part by a temporary cutoff of money by the CIA, which has unsuccessfully been pressuring ARDE into an alliance with the F.D.N. Some ARDE leaders favor merging, but the wing under the command of Eden Pastora Gomez has refused to do so on the grounds that the F.D.N. is run by onetime members of deposed Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle's hated National Guard. The cutoff of CIA funds, together with a bomb blast that injured Pastora four weeks ago, has left the group in disarray.

U.S. officials do not consider ARDE'S problems terminal. They note that any guerrilla force's strength is its ability to withdraw and rebound, choosing its targets according to its capabilities. Says a senior State Department analyst: "Two months ago they were in roses; right now they're looking a little disheveled. All military forces go through cycles." The same rule, however, applies to El Salvador's leftist guerrillas. --By Laura Lopez. Reported by Jon Anderson/San Salvador and Barrett Seaman/Washington

With reporting by Jon Anderson/San Salvador and Barrett Seaman/Washington