The Constitutions of El Salvador, 1824-1962
El Salvador has functioned under fifteen constitutions since it
achieved independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century. The
vast majority of these documents were drafted and promulgated without
the benefit of broad popular input or electoral mandate. The nature of
the country's elite-dominated political system and the personalistic
rule of presidents drawn from either the oligarchy or the military
accounted for the relatively short life span of most of these documents.
Some of them were drafted solely to provide a quasi-legal basis for the
extension of a president's term, whereas others were created to
legitimize seizures of power on an ex post facto basis.
The first Salvadoran constitution was produced in 1824. It declared
El Salvador independent as a member of the United Provinces of Central
America. The
dissolution of the United Provinces necessitated the promulgation of a
new constitution in 1841 as El Salvador emerged as an independent
republic in its own right. The 1841 constitution was a liberal document
that established a bicameral legislature and set a two-year term for the
nation's president with no possibility of reelection. The latter feature
contributed directly to the demise of the document in 1864, when
President Gerardo Barrios dispensed with it and extended his term by
legislative decree.
That same year, Barrios replaced the 1841 constitution with one that,
not surprisingly, increased the presidential term to four years and
allowed for one reelection. This issue of presidential tenure proved to
be a major point of contention for the next two decades. The 1871
constitution, drafted by resurgent liberal forces, restored the two-year
term, prohibited immediate reelection, and strengthened the power of the
legislative branch. This document too, however, fell victim to
individual ambition when President Santiago Gonzalez replaced it with
the constitution of 1872, which restored the four-year term. Similarly,
the constitution of 1880 was used to extend the term of President Rafael
Zaldivar. The four-year term was retained in the constitution of 1883,
but presidential tenure was reduced to three years in the constitution
of 1885. The latter document, although it never formally came into
force, owing to the overthrow of Zaldivar by Francisco Menendez, was
nonetheless an influential piece of work, primarily because it formed
the basis for the constitution of 1886, the most durable in Salvadoran
history.
The constitution of 1886 provided for a four-year presidential term
with no immediate reelection and established a unicameral legislature.
Some limits on presidential power were incorporated, most notably the
stricture that all executive decrees or orders had to comply with the
stated provisions of the constitution. This constitutional litmus test
of executive action was, at least in theory, a significant step toward
an institutionalized governmental system and away from the arbitrary
imposition of power by self-serving caudillos. The constitution of 1886
showed remarkable staying power by Salvadoran standards, remaining in
force in its original form until January 1939. It was reinstated in
amended form after World War II. The 1939 constitution that filled the
wartime gap was designed by President Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez to
ensure his uninterrupted rule; it increased the presidential term from
four to six years. Martinez's effort to extend his rule still further by
inserting a provision for the one-time legislative election of the
president was one of several grievances fueling the public unrest that
drove him from office in 1944.
The wartime constitution was revised in that same year. Although
technically titled the Reforms of 1944, this document is also sometimes
referred to as the Constitution of 1944. It was supplanted in 1945 by
yet another charter, the constitution of 1945, which endured for only
one year. The 1886 constitution, in amended form, was reinstated in
1946. These changes reflected the political uncertainty that prevailed
in El Salvador between the termination of Martinez's long tenure as
president and the advent of the military-led Revolution of 1948.
The constitution that grew out of the Revolution of 1948, under which
Oscar Osorio was elected president, was the constitution of 1950. It
retained a unicameral legislature and changed the name from National
Assembly to Legislative Assembly. The 1950 charter also restored a
six-year presidential term with no immediate reelection and, for the
first time, granted Salvadoran women the right to vote.
A Constituent Assembly appointed by the military-civilian junta and
headed by Colonel Julio Adalberto Rivera drafted a document that was
promulgated as the constitution of 1962 but that was basically quite
similar to the 1950 constitution. Relatively long lived by Salvadoran
standards, it was not superseded until 1983, by which time the personal
and political guarantees of the constitution had been suspended by a
state of emergency.
El Salvador - The Constitution of 1983
The Political Setting
The sixty-member Constituent Assembly elected in March 1982 was
charged with producing a new constitution. This new document was
expected to institutionalize, although perhaps in modified form, the
reform measures taken by the various junta governments after 1979; it
was also to serve as the master plan for a system of representative
democratic government. In addition to crafting the structure of that
government, the Constituent Assembly was responsible for issuing a
schedule for presidential elections.
A majority of the members, known as deputies, of the Constituent
Assembly represented conservative political parties. All told,
conservative parties had drawn approximately 52 percent of the total
popular vote. The moderate Christian Democratic Party (Partido Democrata
Cristiano--PDC) had garnered 35.5 percent. These results equated to
twenty-four seats for the PDC and thirty-six seats for a loose
right-wing coalition made up of the Nationalist Republican Alliance
(Alianza Republicana Nacionalista--Arena), the National Conciliation
Party (Partido de Conciliacion Nacional--PCN), Democratic Action (Accion
Democratica--AD), the Salvadoran Popular Party (Partido Popular
Salvadoreno--PPS), and the Popular Orientation Party (Partido de
Orientacion Popular--POP). Representatives of these five parties issued
a manifesto in March 1982 decrying both communism and Christian
democratic communitarianism and declaring that both ideologies had been
rejected by the people by way of the ballot box. The coalition leaders
suggested that they were preparing to limit Christian democratic
influence on the drafting of the constitution and to exclude the PDC
from participation in the interim government that was to be named by the
Constituent Assembly.
The original exclusionary aims of the rightist coalition, however,
were never completely fulfilled. During its existence, from April 1982
through December 1983, the Constituent Assembly came under pressure from
a number of sources, most significantly from the United States
government and the Salvadoran military. United States envoys from both
the White House and Congress pressed Salvadoran political leaders to
incorporate the PDC into the interim government and to preserve the
reform measures, particularly agrarian reform. At stake was the
continuation of United States aid, both economic and military, without
which El Salvador would have been hard pressed to sustain its democratic
transition in the face of growing military and political pressure from
the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front--Revolutionary Democratic
Front (Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberacion Nacional- Frente Democratico
Revolucionario--FMLN-FDR), the leftist guerrilla (the FMLN) and
political (FDR) opposition groups that unified in 1981 in an effort to
seize power by revolutionary means. El Salvador's military High Command
(Alto Mardo) recognized this reality and lent its considerable influence
to the cause of continued PDC participation in government. The Christian
Democrats had been brought into the junta governments at the urging of
reformist officers; by 1982 the PDC and the military had come to a
practical understanding based on their shared interest in maintaining
good relations with the United States, expanding political
participation, improving economic conditions for the average Salvadoran,
and fending off the challenge from the Marxist left. Realistically, the
last objective was preeminent and encompassed the other three. Lesser
influence was exerted on the deputies by popular opinion and
demonstrations of support for specific reforms. For example, campesino
groups staged rallies outside the Constituent Assembly's chambers to
press their demand for continuation of the agrarian reform decrees.
The actual drafting of the constitution was delegated by the
Constituent Assembly to a special commission composed of representatives
of all the major political parties. The assembly agreed to reinstate the
1962 constitution with only a few exclusions until a constitution was
produced and approved. At the same time, the deputies voted to affirm
the validity of the decrees issued by the junta governments, including
those that enacted agrarian, banking, and foreign commerce reforms.
Having reestablished a working legal framework, the assembly voted
itself the power to act as a legislature through the passage of
constituent decrees.
Since it could not serve as both the legislative and the executive
branch, the Constituent Assembly was required to approve the appointment
of a provisional president. Many observers believed that Arena leader
Roberto D'Aubuisson Arrieta, who was elected president of the assembly
on April 22, 1982, was the most likely candidate. D'Aubuisson's reputed
ties with the violent right wing, however, militated against him. It was
reported that the United States and the Salvadoran High Command lobbied
persuasively against D'Aubuisson's appointment, mainly on the grounds
that his negative image outside El Salvador would complicate, if not
preclude, the provision of substantial aid from Washington. Apparently
swayed by this argument, the members of the Constituent Assembly
appointed Alvaro Magana Borja, a political moderate with ties to the
military, to the post on April 26. In an effort to maintain a political
equilibrium, Magana's cabinet included members of all three major
parties-- Arena, the PDC, and the PCN.
Despite its defeat on the issue of the provisional presidency, Arena
continued to hold the balance of power in El Salvador through its
leadership of the conservative majority in the Constituent Assembly. The
areneros (members or adherents of Arena) vented their
frustration with the political process primarily in the area of agrarian
reform. In May 1982, Magana proposed a partial suspension of Phase III
of the reform, the Land to the Tiller program, for the 1982-83 harvest
season in order to avoid agricultural losses occasioned by the transfer
of land titles. The Arena-led coalition in the assembly seized on
this proposal and expanded it to include some 95 percent of Phase III
landholdings. This action was interpreted by interested parties both in
El Salvador and abroad as a bid by the right to eliminate agrarian
reform and to encourage the eviction of land recipients, a process that
was ongoing at the time, although its extent was difficult to quantify;
it led directly to a limitation by the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee of the United States Congress on military and Economic Support
Funds (ESF) aid to El Salvador. Although Arena's most important domestic
constituency--the economic elite-- continued to advocate the limitation
if not the elimination of agrarian reform, it was clear that such
efforts in the Constituent Assembly would have negative repercussions.
The failure of Arena's leadership to take this fact into account and its
seeming inability--or unwillingness--to seek compromise and
accommodation on this and other issues contributed to its eventual loss
of influence among center-right assembly delegates and the military
leadership.
In August 1982, in an effort to bring the areneros under
control and to prevent them from sabotaging not only the reforms but
perhaps the entire fledgling democratic system, Magana, apparently at
the strong urging of the military chiefs and the United States, brought
together representatives of Arena, the PDC, and the PCN to negotiate a
"basic platform of government." In what became known as the
Pact of Apaneca, the parties agreed on certain broad principles in the
areas of democratization, the protection of human rights, the promotion
of economic development, the preservation of economic and social
reforms, and the protection of the country's security in the face of the
violent conflict with leftist insurgent forces. Organizationally, the
pact established three commissions: the Political Commission to work out
a timetable and guidelines for future elections, the Human Rights
Commission to oversee and promote improvements in that area, and the
Peace Commission to explore possible resolutions of the civil conflict.
The guidelines established by the pact eased the chaotic governmental
situation to some degree; they were also significant in that they
brought Arena into a formal governmental association with more moderate
actors, such as the PDC, and committed the areneros, at least
in principle, to the preservation of some degree of reform.
The pact did not put an end to infighting among the political
parties, however. Magana, lacking a political power base or constituency
beyond the good will of the military, found it frustrating to try to
exert authority over his cabinet ministers, particularly those drawn
from the ranks of Arena. This conflict came to a head in December 1982,
when Magana dismissed his health minister, an arenero, for
refusing to comply with the president's directives. Arena party
leadership advised the minister to reject the president's action and to
retain his post. This proved to be a miscalculation on the part of
Arena, as Magana went on to have the dismissal approved by a majority of
the Constituent Assembly. Again in this instance, the behind-the- scenes
support of the military worked in favor of the provisional president and
against Arena.
The damage done to Arena's prestige by the dismissal of the health
minister was compounded by the party's efforts to influence the
appointment of his successor. Magana proposed a member of the small,
moderate AD for the post. The areneros, particularly
Constituent Assembly president D'Aubuisson, saw this (not without
justification) as an effort to diminish their influence in the
government and sought to defeat the appointment through parliamentary
maneuvering. They succeeded only in delaying approval, however.
Furthermore, after the vote the assembly amended its procedures to limit
the power of the assembly president.
Arena was not the only party to see its standing diminish after the
signing of the Pact of Apaneca. The PCN delegation in the Constituent
Assembly suffered a rupture immediately after the signing of the pact,
as nine conservative deputies split from the party to establish a bloc
they dubbed the Salvadoran Authentic Institutional Party (Partido
Autentico Institucional Salvadoreno- -PAISA). This move left the
assembly more or less evenly split between conservative and centrist
deputies.
The special commission charged with drafting the constitution
finished its work in June 1983. At that time, it reported that it had
reached agreement in almost all respects. Two major exceptions, however,
were agrarian reform and the schedule and procedure for presidential
elections. These issues were left to the Constituent Assembly to
resolve.
Of all the constitutional provisions debated in the Constituent
Assembly, those dealing with agrarian reform were the most contentious.
In light of the decline in the Arena coalition's standing and influence
and the corresponding gains of the PDC and its moderate allies,
eliminating the reforms altogether was ruled out. The conservatives
retained enough clout, however, to limit the provisions of the original
decrees. Their major victory in this regard was the raising of the
maximum allowable landholding under Phase II of the reform from 100 to
245 hectares, an action that addressed the concerns of some well- to-do
landowners but that put a crimp in redistribution efforts by reducing
the amount of land subject to expropriation. After the 1982-83
suspension, the Constituent Assembly twice extended Phase III of the
reform; the government accepted applications for title under this phase
until July 1984.
Aside from the sections dealing with agrarian reform, the draft
constitution was approved by the Constituent Assembly without an excess
of debate. One exception was the article dealing with the death penalty.
The version finally approved by the assembly endorsed capital punishment
only in cases covered by military law when the country was in a state of
declared war. These restrictions effectively eliminated the death
penalty from the Salvadoran criminal justice system. Consideration of
the draft document by the full Constituent Assembly began in August
1983; the final version was approved by that body in December. The
effective date of the Constitution was December 20, 1983. The
Constituent Assembly, having completed its mandate, was dismissed at
that point, only to be reconvened on December 22 as the Legislative
Assembly. The membership of the body remained the same.
The Document
The Constitution of 1983 is in many ways quite similar to the
constitution of 1962, often incorporating verbatim passages from the
earlier document. Some of the provisions shared by the two charters
include the establishment of a five-year presidential term with no
reelection, the right of the people to resort to
"insurrection" to redress a transgression of the
constitutional order, the affirmation (however neglected in practice) of
the apolitical nature of the Salvadoran armed forces, the support of the
state for the protection and promotion of private enterprise, the
recognition of the right to private property, the right of laborers to a
minimum wage and a six-day work week, the right of workers to strike and
of owners to a lockout, and the traditional commitment to the
reestablishment of the Republic of Central America.
The Constitution consists of 11 titles, subdivided into 274 articles.
Title One enumerates the rights of the individual, among them the right
to free expression that "does not subvert the public order,"
the right of free association and peaceful assembly for any legal
purpose, the legal presumption of innocence, the legal inadmissibility
of forced confession, and the right to the free exercise of
religion--again, with the stipulation that such exercise remain within
the bounds of "morality and public order."
Title One, however, also specifies the conditions under which
constitutional guarantees may be suspended and the procedures for such
suspension. The grounds for such action include war, invasion,
rebellion, sedition, catastrophe (natural disasters), epidemic, or
"grave disturbances of the public order." The declaration of
the requisite circumstances may be issued by either the legislative or
the executive branch of government. The suspension of constitutional
guarantees lasts for a maximum of thirty days, at which point it may be
extended for an additional thirty days by legislative decree. The
declaration of suspension of guarantees grants jurisdiction over cases
involving "crimes against the existence and organization of the
state" to special military courts. The military courts that
functioned from February 1984 until early 1987 under a suspension of
guarantees (or state of siege) were commonly known as Decree 50 courts,
after the legislative decree that established them.
According to the Constitution, all Salvadorans over eighteen years of
age are considered citizens. As such, they have both political rights
and political obligations. The rights of the citizen include the
exercise of suffrage and the formation of political parties "in
accordance with the law" or the right to join an existing party.
The exercise of suffrage is listed as an obligation as well as a right,
making voting mandatory. Failure to vote has technically been subject to
a small fine, a penalty rarely invoked in practice.
Voters are required to have their names entered in the Electoral
Register. Political campaigns are limited to four months preceding
presidential balloting, two months before balloting for legislative
representatives (deputies), and one month before municipal elections.
Members of the clergy and active-duty military personnel are prohibited
from membership in political parties and cannot run for public office.
Moreover, the clergy and the military are enjoined from "carry[ing]
out political propaganda in any form." Although military personnel
are not denied suffrage by the Constitution, the armed forces'
leadership routinely instructed its personnel to refrain from voting in
order to concentrate on providing security for polling places.
Title Five defines the outlines of the country's "Economic
Order." As noted, private enterprise and private property are
guaranteed. The latter is recognized as a "social function," a
phrase that may function as a loophole for the potential expropriation
of unproductive land or other holdings. Individual landowners are
limited to holdings of no more than 245 hectares but may dispose of
their holdings as they see fit. The expropriation of land may be
undertaken for the public benefit in the "social interest"
through legal channels and with fair compensation.
Amendment of the Constitution is not a simple procedure. Initial
approval of an amendment (or "reform") requires only a
majority vote in the Legislative Assembly. Before the amendment can be
incorporated, however, it must be ratified by a two-thirds vote in the
next elected assembly. Since legislative deputies serve three-year
terms, an amendment could take that long or longer to win passage into
law.
El Salvador - GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS
The constitutional role of the Salvadoran armed forces is spelled out
in Title Six, Chapter Eight of the Constitution. The military is charged
with maintaining a representative democratic form of government,
enforcing the no-reelection provision for the country's president,
guaranteeing freedom of suffrage, and respecting human rights. The armed
forces as an institution is defined as "essentially
apolitical" and obedient to established civilian authority.
It should be borne in mind that such documents tend to reflect ideals
and goals for conduct, not the prevailing state of affairs at the time
of their drafting. In the late 1980s, the Salvadoran armed forces was an
evolving institution attempting to deal simultaneously with a left-wing
insurgency and the institutionalization of a democratic form of
government while also seeking to deflect what it perceived as threats to
its internal cohesion. One such threat was the potential investigation
and possible prosecution of officers on human rights charges, many of
them connected with the prosecution of the war against the guerrillas,
although such action was rendered less likely by the amnesty approved by
the Legislative Assembly in 1987 as well as by the political ascendancy
of Arena. Given its history, the heightened
importance of its role in dealing with the insurgents, and its interest
in preserving its institutional integrity, the Salvadoran military
certainly exerted political influence, particularly in areas of policy
directly related to national security. Indeed, the armed forces was
expected by all political actors in the country to play a role in the
country's affairs, and its power and influence were accepted by all
those participating in the democratic system.
Since the political influence of the armed forces, usually exerted
through the High Command, was exercised largely behind the scenes, it
was in many ways difficult to measure. There were indications, however,
that the military was attempting to cooperate with civilian democratic
leaders. The minister of defense and public security, General Carlos
Eugenio Vides Casanova, accompanied President Jose Napoleon Duarte
Fuentes to the October 1984 meeting with representatives of the FMLN-FDR
in La Palma. General Vides also appeared before the
Legislative Assembly a number of times at the request of that body to
testify on military issues. Both the air force, by restricting aerial
bombing, and the security forces, by showing restraint in dealing with
radical demonstrators in San Salvador, followed directives laid down by
the president. Perhaps the best evidence of military restraint under the
emerging democratic system was the fact that, as of late 1988, the High
Command had made no move to overthrow the existing government by force,
despite several reported appeals from Salvadoran political factions to
do so.
Another important development with regard to the military's political
role concerned its relationship with other actors, particularly the
elite and the political parties. By supporting a government headed by a
Christian democratic president and assisting in the implementation of
agrarian reform measures, the armed forces demonstrated in the 1980s
that their previous ties with the elite, particularly the agrarian
elite, no longer compelled them to resist almost every form of social
and political change. The dissociation by the military from direct
institutional support of any political party--in contrast to its virtual
control of the PCN during the 1960s and 1970s--also enhanced the armed
forces' political independence.
El Salvador - Local Government
Electoral Procedures
Electoral procedures in El Salvador are governed by the Electoral
Code, which was updated by the Legislative Assembly in January 1988. The
system it established is in some ways cumbersome and open to abuse but
adheres closely to electoral procedures followed in most Latin American
countries.
The organization in charge of administering electoral procedures is
the Central Electoral Council (Consejo Central de Elecciones), which
consists of three members and three alternates elected for five-year
terms by the Legislative Assembly. Nominees for the council are drawn
from the ranks of the leading political parties or coalitions, as
determined by the vote totals in the most recent presidential elections.
The president of the Central Electoral Council serves as the chief
administrator and the ultimate authority on questions of electoral
procedures.
In order to cast their votes, all citizens are required to obtain
from the Central Electoral Council an electoral identification card (carnet
electoral) certifying their inscription in the national Electoral
Register. The carnet electoral is presented at the individual's
polling place and is the only form of identification accepted for this
purpose. The card must bear the voter's photograph, signature (if
literate), and right thumbprint. The carnet electoral is valid
for five years from the date of issue.
The issuing of carnets electorales and the related
maintenance of the Electoral Register are the most cumbersome aspects of
the electoral system, particularly in rural areas where voters' access
to their municipal electoral boards frequently is impeded by poor
transportation and the effects of the insurgent war. Rural voter
registration has also been hampered by direct and indirect coercion by
the guerrilla forces, who have described national elections as a sham
and a component of a United States-designed counterinsurgency strategy.
These and other factors, including a general disenchantment with the
electoral process based in large part on the failure of the government
to end the insurgency and improve economic conditions, contributed to a
gradual decline in voter turnout during the 1982-88 period. Whereas some
80 percent of the electorate turned out for the Constituent Assembly
balloting in 1982, only an estimated 65 percent voted in the first round
of presidential balloting in March 1984. This was followed by turnouts
of approximately 66 and 60 percent in the 1985 and 1988 legislative and
municipal elections, respectively.
The Central Electoral Council, in coordination with its departmental
and municipal electoral boards, determines the number and location of
polling places. This process is to be completed at least fifteen days
prior to balloting. Although the Electoral Register and final vote
tallies are processed at least partially by computer, paper ballots are
utilized at the polling places. Ballots are deposited in clear plastic
receptacles to reduce the possibility of fraud. All political parties
are entitled to station a poll watcher at each balloting site to reduce
further the opportunity for vote manipulation.
Polling places are open from 7:00 A.M. until 5:00 P.M., at which time
the officials at each site begin the preparation of an official record
of the results. This record includes a preliminary vote count by party,
an inventory of ballots issued to the polling place (the discrepancy
between ballots issued and ballots used is not to exceed 300), and
accounts of challenges received and any unusual incidents or occurrences
during the course of the voting. Poll watchers scrutinize the record's
preparation and are entitled to a copy of the final product. As a
result, political parties frequently are able to issue preliminary
electoral results well in advance of the official tally.
These records from the polling places are forwarded to the local
municipal electoral board, where a record for the entire municipio
is prepared. The municipal voting records are conveyed to the Central
Electoral Council by way of the departmental electoral boards. The
council conducts the final scrutiny of the records; this process must be
undertaken no later than forty-eight hours after the closing of the
polls. Copies of voting records are also provided to the office of the
attorney general as a further safeguard against tampering.
In the case of presidential elections, the Central Electoral Council
can declare a winner only if one ticket receives an absolute majority of
all votes cast. If no one party or coalition receives such a majority,
as happened in the March 1984 elections, the council is required to
schedule within thirty days a runoff election between the two leading
vote-getters. The declaration of winners in legislative balloting is
less direct; here, voters cast their ballots for parties more than for
individuals, since seats in the Legislative Assembly are allotted to
registered candidates roughly on a proportional basis according to the
departmental vote totals of their party or coalition. Municipal
elections are more straightforward, with the winners decided according
to their showing in the municipal vote tallies.
The protracted insurgent war exerted pressure on the government to
adjust its electoral procedures. In areas where guerrilla control
prevented the establishment of polling places, voters were urged to cast
their ballots at the nearest secure location. Some polling places in
departmental capitals were required to have on hand electoral records
for rural voters who had relocated from war zones. In some towns,
so-called national polling stations were set up to accommodate displaced
voters from other departments. These stations were required to have on
hand electoral registration data for the entire country.
Guerrillaengineered transportation stoppages, attacks on public
buildings, and sabotage of the electrical system impeded voting as well,
especially in rural areas. Indeed, many of these actions were undertaken
with the specific intention of deterring voters from participation.
In addition to overseeing elections, the Central Electoral Council is
also charged with the official recognition of political parties. Initial
petitions to the council for the formation of a party require the
support of at least 100 citizens. This group then is granted sixty days
to secure the signatures of at least 3,000 citizens and submit them to
the council. If all the signatures are verified, the party is then
granted legal recognition, referred to as inscription (inscripcion).
The party's inscription can be revoked if it fails to receive at least
0.5 percent of the total national vote cast in a presidential or
legislative election, or if the party fails to participate in two
consecutive elections. Parties are allowed to form coalitions at the
national, departmental, or municipal levels without forfeiting their
separate inscriptions.
Political campaigns are underwritten to some extent by the state
through the provision for "political debt." The Electoral Code
stipulates that each party can expect to receive reimbursement according
to the following formula: C10 for each valid vote cast for the party in
the first round of a presidential election, C6 for each vote in
legislative elections, and C4 for each vote in municipal elections. All
parties are eligible for payment, regardless of their showing at the
polls.
El Salvador - The Electoral Process
From March 1982 to March 1988, Salvadorans went to the polls five
times to cast their ballots for members of the Constituent Assembly
(later converted to the Legislative Assembly), the president, deputies
of the Legislative Assembly, and municipal officials. This flurry of
electoral activity was occasioned by the transition to a functional
representative system of government, a decidedly new experience for
Salvadorans.
The first round of the 1984 presidential election was held on March
25. Some 1.4 million Salvadorans went to the polls. Although eight
candidates competed, most voters cast their ballots for the
representative of one of the three leading parties, the PDC's Duarte,
Arena's D'Aubuisson, or the PCN's Francisco Jose Guerrero Cienfuegos.
The results were not immediately decisive. Duarte received 43 percent of
the vote, D'Aubuisson 30 percent, and Guerrero 19. This necessitated a
runoff election on May 6 between Duarte and D'Aubuisson. Despite
entreaties from Arena, Guerrero declined to endorse either candidate. It
is doubtful that his endorsement would have made much difference in the
balloting, given Duarte's relative popularity and D'Aubuisson's reputed
connections with right-wing violence and the disapproval of his
candidacy by the United States government. It was reported in the United
States press after the election that the United States Central
Intelligence Agency had funneled some US$2 million in covert campaign
aid to the PDC. Nevertheless, the results of the runoff were
surprisingly close, with Duarte garnering 54 percent to D'Aubuisson's 46
percent. Some observers criticized the presidential election on the
grounds that it excluded parties of the left, such as those represented
by the FDR. Political conditions at that time, however, were not
favorable to participation by such groups. If nothing else, the
inability of the government to provide for the physical security of
leftist candidates militated against their inclusion in the electoral
process.
The 1985 legislative and municipal elections were carried
overwhelmingly by the PDC. The party achieved an outright majority in
the Legislative Assembly, increasing its representation from twenty-four
to thirty-three seats, and carried over 200 of the country's municipal
councils. Arena and the PCN joined as a two-party coalition for these
elections in an effort to secure a conservative majority in the
assembly. The terms of the coalition, whereby Arena agreed to split
evenly the total number of seats won, resulted in a political
embarrassment for D'Aubuisson's party, which took 29 percent of the
total vote but was awarded only one more seat (thirteen to twelve) than
the PCN, which had drawn only 8 percent of the vote. PAISA and AD also
won one seat apiece.
The style of Salvadoran political campaigning bore little resemblance
to that of the United States and other institutionalized democracies.
Personal verbal attacks between competing candidates and parties
predominated in the media, campaign literature, and at public rallies.
Debate on specific issues was largely eschewed in favor of emotional
appeals to the electorate. It was therefore not uncommon to hear
candidates and leaders of the PDC refer to Arena as a "Nazi-fascist
party," whereas areneros openly denounced Christian
Democrats as "communists." One of Arena leader D'Aubuisson's
favorite campaign embellishments was to slash open a watermelon with a
machete; the watermelon, he told the crowds, was like the PDC--green
(the party color) on the outside but red on the inside. This dramatic,
personalistic type of appeal highlighted the lack of
institutionalization of the Salvadoran democratic system, the intensity
of emotion elicited by the political process, and the polarizing effect
of the ongoing struggle between the government and leftist insurgent
forces. Observers reported, however, that Arena spokesmen toned down
their appeals during the 1988 legislative and municipal elections in an
effort to project a moderate, responsible image.
El Salvador - Political Parties
By 1988 El Salvador had a number of inscribed political parties
participating in the democratic process. Only three, however, had
significant followings: the PDC, Arena, and the PCN.
Christian Democratic Party
The ideological position of the Christian Democratic Party (Partido
Democrata Cristiano--PDC) was more liberal than that of most Christian
democratic parties elsewhere in Latin America or in Western Europe. In
the Salvadoran context, taking into account the existence of radical
leftist groups such as those constituting the FMLN-FDR, the PDC could be
characterized as a party of the center-left. The party was born out of
the frustration of urban middle-class professionals who felt themselves
excluded from the political process in El Salvador. From its
founding in 1960 until the early 1980s, the party and its leaders showed
considerable tenacity and staying power in the face of right-wing
repression, the adamant refusal of the economic and political elite
(with the backing of the military) to allow broad-based popular
participation in government, and the eventual defection of some of its
members to the radical left, in the form of the FDR. The year 1979 was a
turning point for the Christian Democrats, as it was for the country as
a whole. Party leaders' participation in the junta governments
established after the reformist coup gave them an opportunity to
organize and prepare to participate in the democratic process initiated
in 1982. Their involvement also attracted the support of the United
States. Despite its failure to win a majority of the seats in the 1982
balloting for the Constituent Assembly, the PDC nonetheless emerged from
that election as the leading political party in the country, a position
it went on to demonstrate in the 1984 and 1985 elections.
The PDC reached the peak of its power after the 1985 elections. At
that point, Duarte was still a popular figure. The party's absolute
majority in the legislature was seen by him and his fellow Christian
Democrats as a mandate for the continuation and extension of reforms.
The opposition was weakened and divided. Resentment among the areneros
over their unsuccessful coalition with the PCN provoked a rupture
between the two conservative parties. Subsequently, the PCN became more
supportive of the PDC and its political program.
Duarte and his party used their control of the executive and
legislative branches to further the agrarian reform program first
established by decree in 1980, to draft a new Electoral Code, to approve
an amnesty for political prisoners, and to pass additional economic
reform measures. The momentum that had seemed so compelling in the wake
of the March elections, however, was eroded by events and was eventually
lost in the tumult of politics and insurgency. Perhaps the first of the
blows to the PDC's position was the kidnapping of the president's
daughter, Ines Guadalupe Duarte Duran, in September 1985. This incident
preoccupied Duarte personally, so that his support within the armed
forces weakened, and a leadership vacuum developed in both the
government and the PDC.
Another major dilemma for the PDC government was the direction of a
war-ravaged economy. Although it could be justified on an economic
basis, Duarte's 1986 package of austerity measures drew political fire
from most major interest groups. The associated currency devaluation, always
a controversial step, was especially unpopular. The impression that the
president implemented the austerity measures largely in response to
pressure from the United States also did little to enhance his prestige
or that of the party.
For most Salvadorans, the civil conflict and its attendant violence
were the problems of uppermost concern, especially insofar as pocketbook
issues such as inflation, standard of living, and employment were seen
as closely related to the war against the leftist guerrillas. Duarte's
personal popularity was boosted after the October 1984 meeting in La
Palma with representatives of the FMLN-FDR; a war-weary population began
to believe that a resolution to the conflict might be in sight. These
optimistic expectations, however, were dampened considerably as the
negotiating process bogged down and stalled. The kidnapping of Duarte's
daughter further hardened the president's attitude and rendered the
prospect of a negotiated settlement during his administration highly
unlikely. Although the majority of Salvadorans had little sympathy for
the FMLN, Duarte's failure to achieve peace nonetheless undermined his
popularity and diminished the public perception of the PDC as a viable
mediator between the extremes of left and right.
Another issue that tarnished the reputation of the PDC was
corruption. Rumors and allegations that had become common in El Salvador
came to a head in March 1988 with the publication of an article in the New
York Times indicating that as much as US$2 million in United States
economic aid might have been embezzled. One of the individuals named in
the article was an associate of Alejandro Duarte, the president's son.
Although the president himself was never linked with corrupt practices
of any kind, the apparent failure of other members of the PDC to resist
the temptations of office was a blow to the image of a party that had
throughout its history protested and decried the abuses of power
perpetrated under previous governments.
The post-1985 decline in the fortunes of the PDC government closely
paralleled a general popular disillusionment with the democratic
process. By 1987 polls conducted by the Central American University Jose
Simeon Canas showed that slightly over three-quarters of the electorate
felt that no existing political party represented their interests. Of
those respondents who did express a party preference, only 6 percent
identified with the PDC and 10 percent with Arena.
Given the lack of clearly demonstrable progress in the economic,
political, and security spheres, most observers correctly predicted that
the PDC would lose its legislative majority in the March 1988 elections.
The scale of that loss, however, was greater than most had anticipated.
The final official vote count yielded thirty Legislative Assembly seats
for Arena, twenty-three for the PDC, and seven for the PCN. Arena's
leaders initially protested the results, claiming that they had captured
at least thirty-one seats and thus a majority in the legislature. The
protest was rendered academic in May 1988, when a PCN deputy switched
his party allegiance to Arena. A September 1988 ruling by the Supreme
Court awarded the contested seat to Arena, raising its majority to
thirty-two. In a stunning turnaround, the Christian Democrats had
dropped eleven seats in the assembly and lost more than 200 municipal
races to Arena. A particularly sharp blow to PDC pride was the loss of
the mayoralty of San Salvador, a post the party had held continuously
since Duarte's election as mayor in 1964. Ironically, Duarte's son
Alejandro was the PDC candidate who was forced to concede defeat to the
Arena candidate, Armando Calderon Sol.
The internal cohesion of the party had begun to erode well before the
1988 elections. While Duarte was struggling to deal with affairs of
state, his own party was polarizing into two personalistic, competitive
factions. One of these factions was led by Julio Adolfo Rey Prendes, a
longtime party member and associate of Duarte's. The other faction
supported Fidel Chavez Mena, a younger technocrat who had disrupted a
seemingly harmonious and supportive relationship with Duarte by opposing
him for the 1984 presidential nomination. Rey Prendes's faction was
commonly known as "the Ring" (La Argolla) or "the
Mafia." The latter designation, used by members of the faction
themselves, perhaps reflected Rey Prendes's reputation as a backroom
political wheeler-dealer. Chavez's followers were referred to as institucionalistas
or simply as chavistas.
Through his accumulated power within the party, Rey Prendes was able
to influence the nomination of PDC legislative candidates in the 1988
elections. These deputies served as his political power base. The chavistas,
although frozen out of the nominations to the Legislative Assembly,
rallied to have their man nominated for president at a party convention
in June 1988, but only after an earlier convention dominated by members
of the Rey Prendes faction was ruled invalid by the Central Electoral
Council. Not surprisingly, the earlier convention had nominated Rey
Prendes as the party's standard bearer.
Judging by his public inaction in the matter, Duarte awoke fairly
late to the trouble in his own party. In an effort to settle the
conflict between the two contentious factions, the president proposed in
April 1988 that both Rey Prendes and Chavez renounce their campaigns for
the presidency in favor of a unity candidate, Abraham Rodriguez.
Rodriguez was a founding member of the PDC who had run unsuccessfully
for president in 1967. The fact that Duarte's attempt at reconciliation
was rejected immediately by both factional leaders demonstrated the
president's diminished status and authority among the party's ranks.
The decline in the fortunes of the PDC was tragically and almost
symbolically accentuated by the announcement in June 1988 that President
Duarte was suffering from terminal liver cancer. The illness might have
explained to some extent Duarte's faltering leadership of both the
government and his party. In any case, the announcement seemed to
punctuate the end of an era in Salvadoran politics.
El Salvador - Nationalist Republican Alliance
The nature of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (Alianza
Republicana Nacionalista--Arena) as a political force in El Salvador was
the object of some debate as it moved toward becoming a ruling party
with its 1988 electoral victory. Some observers characterized Arena as
the institutional representative of the "disloyal right,"
meaning those conservative forces that played the game of democracy
while privately harboring preferences for authoritarian or even
dictatorial rule and a restoration of the absolute political preeminence
of the elite. Others felt that after a rocky beginning, Arena had
moderated and extended its ideology beyond simplistic, reflexive
anticommunism and was ready to assume the role of a conservative party
that would support private enterprise and be willing to accept some
economic reforms in response to popular demands.
The fortunes of Arena, like those of the PDC, were cyclical in
nature. Although the 1982 Constituent Assembly elections yielded the
party a leading role in that body, subsequent elections appeared to
reflect a growing public rejection of the extremist image of Arena and
its leader, D'Aubuisson. The nadir of the party's influence was reached
after the 1985 elections and the unsuccessful coalition with the PCN.
Much of the blame for the party's electoral defeats fell on the
shoulders of D'Aubuisson. In an effort to moderate the party's image,
D'Aubuisson was persuaded to step down as party president in October
1985. He was replaced by Alfredo Cristiani Buckhard, a member of a
prominent coffee-growing family. Although Cristiani, who in May 1988 was
designated the party's 1989 presidential nominee, subsequently went on
to project a less hyperbolic public image for the party, D'Aubuisson was
nevertheless retained as an "honorary president for life," and
he continued to serve as a charismatic drawing card at public rallies
and as a party spokesman in the media. San Salvador mayor Calderon Sol
also emerged from the 1988 elections as a leading figure in the party.
Arena's journey from obstructionist opposition to apparent majority
status was attributable to a number of factors. With its support from
private enterprise and large agricultural interests, Arena enjoyed a
distinct advantage in funding over its rivals. Along with superior
liquidity came superior organizational and propaganda capabilities.
Although its elitist supporters were the most influential, Arena's base
of support also incorporated significant numbers of rural peasants and,
particularly in the March 1988 elections, the urban poor. The party
consistently drew some 40 percent of the peasant vote, reflecting the
basic conservatism of this voting bloc as well as the ingrained appeal
of strong caudillo leadership and a visceral response to the party's
promises to prosecute more forcefully the war against the guerrillas.
Arena also benefited from the intractable nature of the country's
problems and the PDC's apparent inability to cope successfully with the
challenge of governing a country torn by violence and instability.
Arena also reportedly counted a significant percentage of the
military officer corps as sympathizers with its views, particularly the
party's call for a more vigorous prosecution of the counterinsurgent
war. D'Aubuisson, a 1963 graduate of the Captain General Gerardo Barrios
Military Academy, apparently maintained contacts not only with members
of his graduating class (tanda) but also with conservative
junior officers. It was reported by some observers that D'Aubuisson's
behind-the-scenes appeals from 1984 to 1988 were intended to foment a
rightist coup d'etat against the PDC government. After the party's March
1988 electoral victory, such a drastic method of taking power appeared
to be ruled out by Arena's seemingly bright prospects in the 1989
presidential race.
Although Arena's surprisingly strong showing in the 1988 elections
was to a great extent a rejection of the PDC, it also seemed to reflect
a hardening of public attitudes, particularly with regard to the
conflict between the government and the leftist guerrillas. Whereas
Duarte and his party had drawn support among the electorate at least in
part by promising to end the fighting through negotiations, Arena
suggested that the more effective approach was to step up military
efforts in the field. This approach seemed to have the greatest appeal
among the residents of conflict zones in the north and east of the
country, where resentment of the protracted fighting ran high. Some
urban middle-class voters, once strong supporters of the PDC, also
reportedly responded favorably to this hard-line position.
Another aspect of Arena's appeal revolved around nationalism and
rejection of foreign interference in Salvadoran affairs. Some areneros
bitterly resented the perceived favoritism shown the PDC by the United
States and blamed much of their party's misfortune from 1984 through
1988 on manipulation by the norteamericanos. Some party
spokesmen such as Sigifredo Ochoa Perez, a flamboyant retired army
colonel elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1988, extended their
criticism beyond the political sphere into the arena of military
tactics, publicly criticizing the role of United States military
advisers in formulating counterinsurgent strategy. Cristiani also spoke
out against such United States-backed innovations as the switch to
small-unit tactics and suggested that an Arena government would move to
abandon them. The seeming inability of the armed forces to resolve the
insurgency by military means appeared to sharpen the public's
receptiveness to these criticisms.
The most immediate advantage gained by Arena through its control of
the Legislative Assembly was its ability to dictate the appointment of
candidates to important government posts, such as magistrates of the
Supreme Court and the attorney general of the republic. The party's
legislative agenda was uncertain in mid-1988, but it seemed to entail
some tinkering with land reform provisions, such as changing the titling
procedure for cooperatives; easing the tax and regulatory burden on the
private sector, especially the coffee industry; restoring private
banking; and, perhaps, reprivatizing the foreign trade procedures.
El Salvador - National Conciliation Party
Private Enterprise
Members of the private business sector relied on a number of
organizations to articulate their positions on economic and political
issues. These organizations served as pressure groups, injecting
themselves regularly into the political arena through criticism of
government policies, the actual or threatened shutdown of business and
industry, and behind-the-scenes lobbying with politicians. The leading
private enterprise organizations were the National Association of
Private Enterprise (Asociacion Nacional de la Empresa Privada--ANEP),
the Association of Salvadoran Industrialists (Asociacion Salvadorena de
Industriales--ASI), the Salvadoran Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(Camara de Comercio e Industria de El Salvador), the Salvadoran Coffee
Growers Association (Asociacion Cafetalera de El Salvador--ACES), and
the Association of Coffee Processors and Exporters (Asociacion de
Beneficiadores y Exportadores de Cafe-- Abecafe). Their membership was
drawn from the economic elite, and their leadership consistently
advocated a reduction in government involvement in industry, the
reprivatization of coffee exports and foreign trade in general, no
increase in taxes on business (usually referred to as "the
productive sector"), no extension of the agrarian reform, and
reductions in government spending.
Most economic issues usually found the private enterprise
organizations aligned on one side and labor and peasant organizations on
the other, with the Duarte government somewhere in between, attempting
to mediate between the two blocs. This was especially true with regard
to agrarian reform. The private enterprise organizations, particularly
the coffee growers' associations, opposed agrarian reform from its
inception in 1980. They were unable to prevent implementation, however,
because of a shift in the political climate that brought too many other
actors, including the PDC, the reformist military, and the United
States, down on the side of some measure of reform. Denied their first
preference in the matter, the private sector groups went on to advocate
limitations on the terms of the reforms. These were enacted by the
Constituent Assembly and incorporated into the 1983 Constitution. By the
late 1980s, the line taken by the private sector reflected that espoused
by Arena, namely, that the reforms should not be rescinded but should be
made more efficient.
Private-enterprise organizations provided the most significant
opposition to the Duarte government's 1986 economic austerity package.
From the businessmen's point of view, the most offensive aspect of the
package was the so-called "war tax" on all income above
US$20,000 with revenues derived from the tax to be applied directly to
the war effort against the leftist guerrillas. In this as in other
matters, the private sector groups worked in concert with Arena. While arenero
legislators boycotted sessions of the Legislative Assembly in an effort
to deny the PDC a quorum, the private-enterprise organizations called
for a shutdown of business and industry on January 22, 1987. The
business strike was quite effective, closing a reported 80 percent of
Salvadoran stores, factories, and professional and nonprofessional
services. Although impressive, this demonstration of economic power by
the private sector had no immediate effect on government policy. The
issue eventually was rendered moot, however, in February 1987 when the
war tax was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The January 1987 strike was but another chapter in a long history of
confrontation between the private sector and the PDC. Bitterly opposed
to Duarte's election in 1984, the ASI publicly denounced Duarte and his
party as adherents to the same ideology as that of the FMLN. The PDC,
according to the industrialists, differed only in its "method and
strategies" for achieving socialism. Although he responded to the
attacks in kind during the campaign, Duarte attempted after his election
to reassure business leaders that he was not antagonistic to private
enterprise. The agendas of the PDC and the private sector were too
divergent, however, and attitudes generally were hardened between the
two as economic conditions failed to improve and the insurgency ground
on interminably.
El Salvador - Labor and Campesino Groups
Although labor confederations have existed for decades in El
Salvador, their political input has been limited by their small
membership--officially, only nonagricultural workers have been allowed
to organize--and by the exclusionary nature of the political system.
Under military rule, the only unions with influence were those with ties
to the armed forces or its associated ruling party. The political
ferment that began to make itself felt in the late 1970s, however, was
reflected in the labor movement. The real and pressing grievances of
workers and peasants, who began to organize into unsanctioned interest
groups of their own, led them to enlist in the growing number of unions
affiliated with the so-called mass organizations or popular
organizations. These organizations took a much more militant,
antigovernment line than did the old, established labor unions.
Ultimately, the leaders of the mass organizations, supportive of the
revolutionary goals of the FMLN, were more concerned with the promotion
of their political agenda than with the attainment of better wages and
working conditions for the rank and file. By the early 1980s, strikes,
demonstrations, and protests by these groups had contributed to an
atmosphere of uncertainty, instability, and political polarization in El
Salvador. In the violent right-wing backlash that followed, members of
moderate, prodemocratic, nonconfrontational unions were murdered along
with the militant supporters of the mass organizations. This
repression--both official and unofficial--temporarily removed labor
groups as participants in the political arena. The situation began to
change as democratic institutions evolved in the wake of the 1982
Constituent Assembly elections.
Duarte won the presidency with the support of a number of groups in
Salvadoran society who felt that their interests could best be served by
the extension of economic reform. Most of these groups--middle-class
professionals, small business people, labor unions, and peasants--also
believed that a just resolution to the civil conflict was a necessary
prerequisite to economic reactivation. In terms of numbers, the most
important of these sectors were the labor and peasant organizations. In
February 1984, Duarte signed a "social pact" with the major
centrist grouping, the Popular Democratic Unity (Unidad Popular
Democratica--UPD). This agreement called for the full implementation of
agrarian reform, government support for union rights, incorporation of
union and peasant leaders into the government, and continued efforts to
curtail human rights violations and to end the civil conflict.
From the point of view of labor and peasant groups, the Duarte
government failed to follow through on the pledges made under the social
pact, and, as a result, the UPD began to unravel. In early 1984, the UPD
had been the leading labor and peasant grouping in both numbers and
influence. It was an umbrella group made up of the country's leading
labor federation- -the Federation of Unions of the Construction Industry
and Kindred Activities, Transportation, and Other Activities (Federacion
de Sindicatos de la Industria de la Construccion, Similares, Transporte
y de Otras Actividades--Fesinconstrans); its largest peasant group, the
Salvadoran Communal Union (Union Comunal Salvadorena--UCS); and three
smaller groups. In August 1984, some three months after Duarte's
election, the leadership of the three smallest UPD affiliates called a
press conference to denounce Duarte for his lack of compliance with the
social pact. Leaders of Fesinconstrans and the UCS, who were not
consulted before or included in the press conference, publicly
dissociated themselves from the statements made there. This incident
precipitated a political and ideological split within the labor movement
that showed little sign of abating by the late 1980s.
Documents seized by government forces after a shootout with a rebel
group in April 1985 shed some light on the leadership crisis within the
UPD. According to the documents, three union leaders (although not
named, they were presumed by most analysts to be the leaders who called
the 1984 press conference) were collaborating clandestinely with the
FMLN and were receiving bribes to assume a confrontational stance with
the government. The coordination of actions among the FMLN, leftist
unions, and certain militant human rights and refugee groups seemed to
be confirmed by another cache of rebel documents seized in April 1987.
Whatever the motivation, the split in the UPD leadership prompted the
more moderate leadership of Fesinconstrans and the UCS to explore the
possibility of establishing a new labor confederation. This
organization, christened the Democratic Workers' Confederation
(Confederacion de Trabajadores Democraticos--CTD), was founded in
December 1984. In March 1986, the CTD and the UCS joined with a number
of other labor and peasant groups to form the National Union of Workers
and Peasants (Union Nacional de Obreros y Campesinos--UNOC). UNOC
characterized itself as a labor organization supportive of the moderate
political left; it advocated the continuation of the democratic process
in El Salvador as well as the political incorporation of workers and the
making of improvements in their quality of life.
The leaders of the more militant and radical labor and peasant groups
almost simultaneously established a parallel umbrella group to UNOC,
dubbing it the National Union of Salvadoran Workers (Union Nacional de
Trabajadores Salvadorenos-- UNTS). It included the remaining members of
the UPD, several established leftist labor groups, some of which
maintained ties to the World Federation of Trade Unions, a front group
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; a peasant organization known
as the National Association of Peasants (Asociacion Nacional de
Campesinos--ANC); and a leftist student group, the General Association
of Salvadoran University Students (Asociacion General de Estudiantes
Universitarios Salvadorenos--AGEUS). Although it claimed that its
membership rivaled that of the 350,000-strong UNOC, most observers
agreed that the UNTS represented only 40,000 to 50,000 members at most.
President Duarte, the armed forces, and representatives of the United
States maintained that the UNTS was penetrated and controlled by the
FMLN. This allegation was not universally accepted, however. Whether
coordinated with FMLN strategy or not, the actions of the UNTS appeared
calculated to undermine the legitimacy of the Duarte government and to
promote unrest and instability in urban areas, particularly San
Salvador. UNTS affiliates staged numerous strikes, mainly in the
capital, most of which were declared illegal by the government because
the demands of the union leadership were judged to be more political
than economic in nature. Some unions demanded the president's
resignation as a condition of settlement. Many of the strikes were
endorsed by the FMLN over the clandestine radio station Radio Venceremos
operated by the guerrilla group known as the People's Revolutionary Army
(Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo-- ERP). The largest mass
antigovernment demonstration organized by the UNTS took place in
February 1986; estimates of the number of participants ranged from 7,000
to 12,000. A generally progovernment rally organized by UNOC the
following month drew a considerably larger turnout, estimated at up to
65,000.
Although it opposed the militant strategy of the UNTS and supported
the reforms decreed by the junta governments and maintained under the
PDC, UNOC also displayed disillusionment with Duarte and his seeming
inability to improve workers' standard of living or to wind down the
insurgency. UNOC's influence, however, began to wane by 1985. This
development was attributable mainly to internal leadership struggles
within Fesinconstrans and the UCS. Ironically, the catalyst for these
conflicts was found not in the failure of the social pact with the PDC
but in its partial fulfillment. Labor and peasant leaders who had been
appointed to government posts, mainly in the institutions administering
agrarian reform and credit facilities, were exploiting the patronage
potential of their positions to expand their personal following among
the rank and file. Resentment over this tactic prompted challenges from
union leaders and members who either felt excluded from the patronage
process or who objected to the practice on ethical grounds. UNOC's lack
of concerted involvement in the PDC legislative victory of 1985 lessened
its influence with the government and perhaps made it easier for Duarte
to follow the course of economic austerity that eventually drew fire
from both the private sector and labor groups from across the political
spectrum.
Just as the UNTS represented the militant leftist position among
Salvadoran labor and peasant groups and UNOC affected a more moderate,
center-left stance, there were also conservative labor groups still
functioning in the late 1980s. The two leading organizations in this
category were the General Confederation of Unions (Confederacion General
de Sindicatos--CGS) and the National Confederation of Workers
(Confederacion Nacional de Trabajadores--CNT). Their numbers were
small--CGS membership was estimated at 7,000 in 1986--and their
political influence correspondingly low. By 1988, however, as Arena took
control of the legislative branch and seemed poised to win the
presidency, the position of these conservative labor groups may well
have been enhanced, if only because moderate organizations such as UNOC
were all but certain to see their leverage with the government diminish
considerably. The radical UNTS, which was condemned as a rebel front
group even by the Duarte administration (although it seemed clear that
the majority of rank-and-file UNTS members were not FMLN sympathizers),
could look forward to little or no sympathy from an Arena government.
El Salvador - The Roman Catholic Church
The Salvadoran Roman Catholic Church has been affected by the
country's political and social turmoil. During the tenure of Monsignor
Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez as archbishop of San Salvador (1977-80),
the positions of the church, as expressed by Romero, drifted in favor of
those activist Roman Catholics who advocated liberation
theology. By the time of his assassination in March
1980, Romero had become the leading critic of official and unofficial
repression in El Salvador. Judging by the content of his weekly
homilies, some observers felt that his moral outrage over abuses
committed by armed forces personnel and death squad forces was drawing
him closer to a public recognition of the legitimacy of armed struggle
against the government.
Romero, however, never spoke for a majority of the Salvadoran
bishops. The only other member of the hierarchy at the time who was
known to harbor some sympathy for Romero's proliberationist views was
Arturo Rivera y Damas. Rivera, who had been a leading candidate for the
archbishop's position in 1977 but was passed over in favor of the
reputedly more conservative Romero, was a critic of government and
military human rights abuses, especially when they involved the
persecution or murder of Roman Catholic clergy or lay workers. Under
Romero, he occupied a swing position between the activist stance of the
archbishop and the more conservative attitudes of the country's three
remaining bishops. Although they readily endorsed condemnations of
military repression, the three bishops differed sharply with the thrust
of liberation theology, which they saw as excessively politicized. Their
concerns for the role of the church under a leftist government were
strengthened by the example of postrevolutionary Nicaragua, where the
traditional church was viewed by the ruling party as a rival and was
harassed by the state security and propaganda apparatus.
Rivera succeeded Romero as archbishop in April 1980. He began to take
the sort of moderate political stance that most observers had expected
of Romero. Rivera spoke out against abuses by all parties and refused to
take sides in the civil conflict. He initially advocated the cessation
of foreign military aid to both sides. By the late 1980s, however, the
church's position on this point had softened somewhat, owing to the
ideological intransigence of the FMLN and the seemingly indiscriminate
deployment of antipersonnel mines by its forces. In line with the
position of the Vatican, Rivera sought to eschew political advocacy in
favor of moral suasion so as to render the church a viable mediator in
the conflict.
Rivera and other representatives of the church, particularly San
Salvador auxiliary bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez, have served as mediators
in situations ranging from labor disputes to negotiations between the
government and the FMLN-FDR. At President Duarte's request and with the
acquiescence of the rebel leadership, Archbishop Rivera served as an
intermediary throughout the fitful process of dialogue that began with
the October 1984 meeting in La Palma. When that process broke down, the archbishop
maintained contacts with both sides in an effort to keep tenuous lines
of communication open.
By the late 1980s, the attitude of the Salvadoran hierarchy toward
the guerrillas had hardened considerably. Public statements by Rivera
and others condemned the insurgents' tactics in the field, their
ideology, their political intransigence, and their efforts to disrupt
the electoral process. The FMLN, in turn, denounced the bishops as tools
of the "Duarte dictatorship" and questioned their fitness as
objective mediators. Although they hinted that they might reject the
church's participation in future negotiations, the leadership of the
FMLN suggested in May 1988 that contacts between it and the Legislative
Assembly be channeled through Rivera.
The church publicly supported the electoral process begun in 1982 and
urged citizens to participate in it. At the same time, church spokesmen
were quick to criticize the mudslinging nature of Salvadoran campaigning
and urged politicians to stress substantive issues over personal
attacks. Although they did not interject themselves as advocates or
lobbyists, the bishops generally supported the reform programs initiated
and maintained by the PDC government and opposed on moral grounds any
effort by the elite to restrict or eliminate those reforms. In the
tradition established by Romero, Rivera continued to condemn in his
weekly homilies reported excesses by the military or security forces.
El Salvador - Mass Communications
By Central American standards, the Salvadoran media enjoyed a
moderate freedom of expression and ability to present competing
political points of view. They were not as restricted as the media in
Nicaragua, but neither were they as diverse, pluralistic, and
unrestricted as those of Costa Rica. Although the government did not
exercise direct prior censorship, the owners of most publications and
some broadcast media outlets exercised a form of self-censorship based
either on their personal political conservatism, fear of violent
retaliation by right- or left-wing groups, or possible adverse action by
the government, such as refusal to renew a broadcast license.
Article 6 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of expression that
does not "subvert the public order, nor injure the morals, honor,
or private life of others." This language, taken directly from the
1962 constitution, was rendered meaningless by official and unofficial
repression and left-wing terrorist action against the media and its
practitioners in the early 1980s. With the post-1982 advent of a freely
elected democratic system of government, however, and the accompanying
decline in politically motivated violence, the climate under which the
press and broadcast media operated began to improve.
This expansion in freedom of expression was not as evident in the
print medium as it was in the broadcast media. Most newspapers were
owned by conservative business people, and their editorial policies
tended to reflect the views of their publishers rather than to adhere to
the standards of objectivity normally expected in the North American or
West European press. This did not mean, however, that the Salvadoran
press was monolithically conservative. The weekly publication of the
archdiocese of San Salvador, Orientacion, presented critical
analysis of the political scene. Readily available publications
emanating from the Central American University presented a generally
leftist, antigovernment perspective on events. Small private presses
also produced pamphlets, bulletins, and flyers expressing opinions
across the political spectrum. The leading daily newspapers in the late
1980s were El Diario de Hoy, with a circulation of
approximately 75,000; El Mundo, with approximately 60,000; and La
Prensa Grafica, with approximately 100,000, all published in San
Salvador.
Freedom of expression in print was best exemplified by the common
practice of taking out paid political advertisements, or campos
pagados. Most newspapers accepted such advertisements from all
sources. Campos pagados were one of the few means of access to
the print medium available to leftist groups such as the FMLN-FDR and
other like-minded organizations. Campos pagados also were
frequently employed by political parties, private sector groups, unions,
government agencies, and other groups to express their opinions. The
content of the advertisements was unregulated and uncensored. Their cost
effectively limited their use to groups and organizations rather than to
individuals.
The influence of the press was limited by illiteracy and the
concentration of publishing in the capital. Radio did not suffer from
these handicaps and consequently was the most widely utilized medium in
the country. In 1985 Salvadorans owned an estimated 2 million radio
receivers. Although the majority of the seventy-six stations on the air
broadcast from San Salvador, the country's small size and the use of
repeater stations meant that virtually all of the national territory was
within broadcast range. There was only one government-owned radio
station. Although the commercial stations tended to emphasize music over
news programming, the representation of competing political viewpoints
in news segments was becoming a common practice by the mid-1980s. In
addition to the ERP's Radio Venceremos, the Farabundo Marti Popular
Liberation Forces (Fuerzas Populares de Liberacion Farabundo Marti--FPL)
operated a second clandestine station, Radio Farabundo Marti. Both
stations served as propaganda organs of the FMLN.
According to many observers, television was the medium where
increased political latitude was most evident. Television news crews
covered press conferences held by diverse political groups, interviewed
opposition politicians such as the FDR's Ungo and Zamora, and
investigated allegations of human rights abuses by the military and
security forces. Like radio stations, television stations enjoyed
virtually complete coverage of the country. Television did not have the
market penetration exhibited by radio, however, because of the higher
cost of television receivers. A 1985 estimate placed the number of
receivers at 350,000. There were six television channels operating in
the late 1980s. Of these, two were government-owned educational channels
with limited air time. The remaining four were commercial channels.
El Salvador - Relations with the United States
As the civil conflict intensified after 1981 and its effects rippled
through the economic and political life of the nation, El Salvador
turned toward the United States in an effort to stave off a potential
guerrilla victory. The administrations of presidents Jimmy Carter and
Ronald Reagan responded to the Salvadorans' appeals, and by the
mid-1980s government forces appeared to have the upper hand in the field.
Total United States aid to El Salvador rose from US$264.2 million in
fiscal year (FY) 1982 to an estimated US$557.8 million in FY 1987. On average
over this period, economic aid exceeded military aid by more than a
two-to-one ratio. Economic aid was provided in the form of Economic
Support Funds (ESF), food aid under Public Law 480 (P.L. 480), and
development aid administered by the United States Agency for
International Development (AID). ESF was intended to provide balance of
payments support to finance essential non food imports. Assistance with
food imports as well as the direct donation of foodstuffs was
accomplished through the P.L. 480 program. Development aid covered a
broad spectrum of projects in such fields as agriculture, population
planning, health, education, and training. For FY 1987, regular non
supplemental ESF appropriations totaled US$181.7 million, and combined
food and development aid amounted to US$122.7 million. The regular FY
1987 appropriation for military aid was US$116.5 million.
This aid was crucial to the survival of the Salvadoran government and
the ability of the armed forces to contain the insurgency. The situation
amplified the personal importance of Duarte after his 1984 election to
the presidency. Well known and respected in Washington, Duarte was able
to foster a consensus within the United States Congress for high levels
of aid as a show of support for the incipient democratic process in his
country. These large aid allocations, in turn, promoted stability by
deterring possible coup attempts by conservative factions of the
military and other opponents of PDC rule. At the same time, the lifeline
of aid also rendered El Salvador dependent to a large degree on the
United States. A certain amount of popular resentment over this
dependence was reflected in adverse reaction from some Salvadoran
politicians, journalists, and other opinion makers to Duarte's October
1987 gesture of kissing the United States flag while on a visit to
Washington. Some analysts also identified an element of anti-United
States sentiment in Arena's March 1988 electoral victory.
El Salvador's dependence on United States support sometimes led to
policy moves or public pronouncements that were perceived as responses
to pressure from Washington. The 1986 economic austerity measures were
one example. Another was Duarte's repeated call for the Nicaraguan
government to negotiate with its armed opposition--the so-called contras--in
spite of the president's public refusal to endorse the United States
policy of aid to the contras. El Salvador also was quick to
condemn Panamanian strongman General Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno for
his February 1988 ouster of President Eric Arturo Delvalle; most Latin
American countries were somewhat circumspect with regard to the
Panamanian situation, not wishing to be seen as favoring United States
intervention in that country. Some actions by the Salvadoran government
were clearly and unequivocally influenced by direct United States
pressure, such as Duarte's April 1987 decision to deny political amnesty
to the convicted killers of six United States citizens and others in a
June 1985 terrorist attack in San Salvador. By taking this action,
Duarte averted the loss of US$18.5 million in economic aid.
Although the United States exerted significant influence over
government policy in El Salvador, it did not enjoy the absolute control
ascribed to it by leftist propaganda. In some areas, Washington's policy
goals were frustrated by the intransigence of certain political actors.
The obstruction of full implementation of agrarian reform by
conservative legislators was one example; another was resistance among
the officer corps to the introduction of counterinsurgency tactics.
Perhaps the most vexing issue for United States policymakers was human
rights. Despite an impressive statistical decline in the mid-1980s,
political killings continued. These acts, perpetrated by both right-wing
and left-wing groups, helped to feed the climate of violence that
inhibited the institutionalization of the democratic process.
United States influence in El Salvador was also diminished
temporarily by the 1986-87 revelations surrounding the so-called
Iran-Contra Affair. The Reagan administration's preoccupation with these
revelations, its loss of international prestige in connection with them,
and the embarrassing disclosure of covert Salvadoran military
involvement in the contra supply network all combined to lessen
United States involvement in and influence over Salvadoran affairs. Many
observers have seen evidence of waning United States influence in
Central America in the Duarte administration's decision to sign the
Central American Peace Agreement in August 1987 at Esquipulas,
Guatemala, despite the last-minute announcement of an alternative peace
plan by Reagan and United States speaker of the House of
Representatives, James Wright.
Another point of contention between the two governments was United
States immigration reform. By most estimates, there were some 500,000
Salvadorans residing illegally in the United States in the late 1980s.
Modifications of the United States immigration law enacted in 1987
technically mandated the expulsion of illegals who had entered the
country after 1982. Since the bulk of Salvadoran illegal immigration
took place after that date, the new law threatened the majority of this
population with repatriation. This prospect was worrisome to the Duarte
government for two major reasons: such a large influx was certain to
place added strain on employment and public services, already areas of
serious concern for the government; and the return of Salvadorans
resident in the United States meant the loss of dollar-denominated
remittances regularly transmitted to family members who had remained
behind in El Salvador. Estimates of the total amount of remittance
income--a valuable source of foreign exchange for the economy--ranged as
high as US$1.4 billion a year. Duarte's pleas for a Salvadoran exemption
from the immigration reform were denied by the White House. Action to
deport Salvadoran illegals, however, was held up pending consideration
in the United States Congress of bills granting exemptions to Salvadoran
and Nicaraguan immigrants.
Relations between the United States and El Salvador appeared to be
entering a period of transition after the March 1988 elections. Under
both the Carter and the Reagan administrations, United States policy had
supported the centrist PDC as the surest path to the development of a
functional democratic system. The decline of the PDC and the ascendancy
of Arena called for some adjustment in that policy. Despite some marked
anti-United States sentiment among the areneros, there were no
early indications of potential friction between the United States and an
Arena government. The nomination of Cristiani as the party's 1989
presidential candidate instead of the more controversial D'Aubuisson was
seen by some observers as a conciliatory gesture toward Washington.
El Salvador - The Contadora Process
The Contadora negotiating process was initiated in January 1983 at a
meeting of the foreign ministers of Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and
Panama on Contadora Island in the Gulf of Panama. The idea of a purely
Latin American diplomatic effort to stabilize the Central American
situation and prevent either military confrontation between neighboring
states or direct military intervention by the United States was
attributed to then-president of Colombia Belisario Betancur Cuartas.
These "Core Four" countries served as mediators in subsequent
negotiating sessions among the five Central American states.
By September 1983, the negotiations had arrived at a consensus on
twenty-one points or objectives. These included democratization and
internal reconciliation, an end to external support for paramilitary
forces, reductions in weaponry and foreign military advisers,
prohibition of foreign military bases, and reactivation of regional
economic mechanisms such as the Central American Common Market. The
twenty-one points were incorporated into a draft treaty, or acta,
one year later.
In September 1984, the Nicaraguan government took the other four
government delegations by surprise with its call for the immediate
signing of the acta as a final treaty. The governments of El
Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Costa Rica had been suspicious of
Nicaraguan intentions throughout the negotiating process. This
precipitous rush to finalize the process forced the four to reassess
their positions and to examine more closely a document that they
previously might have viewed as little more than a diplomatic exercise.
The United States government, which had been advising the Salvadorans
informally with regard to the negotiations, strongly recommended against
signing the acta, citing its lack of adequate verification and
enforcement provisions, its deferral of the issues of reductions in arms
and foreign advisers, the freezing of United States military aid to El
Salvador and Honduras, and the vagueness of the sections on
democratization and internal reconciliation. Although Nicaragua's action
had the effect of embarrassing the governments of the other four states
and portraying Nicaragua before world public opinion as the only serious
negotiator in the Contadora process, it ultimately succeeded in drawing
the remaining four Central American states into closer consultation.
This collaboration led to the October 1984 Act of Tegucigalpa in which
the governments of El Salvador, Honduras, and Costa Rica emphasized
their commitment to the establishment of pluralistic democratic systems
and their belief that simultaneous and verifiable arms reductions were a
necessary component of this process. The Guatemalan government was
represented in the discussions in the Honduran capital but declined to
sign the resultant document.
Although improved verification procedures were negotiated, the talks
bogged down by mid-1985. The Nicaraguan delegates rejected discussion of
democratization and internal reconciliation as an unwarranted
intervention in their country's internal affairs. The other four states
maintained that these provisions were necessary to ensure a lasting
settlement. Another major sticking point was the cessation of aid to
insurgent groups, particularly United States aid to the contras.
Although the United States government was not a party to the Contadora
negotiations, it was understood that the United States would sign a
separate protocol agreeing to the terms of a final treaty in such areas
as aid to insurgents, military aid and assistance to Central American
governments, and joint military exercises in the region. The Nicaraguans
demanded that any Contadora treaty call for an immediate end to contra
aid, whereas the core four countries and the remaining Central American
states, with the exception of Mexico, downplayed the importance of such
a provision. In addition, the Nicaraguan government raised objections to
specific cuts in its military force levels, citing the imperatives of
the counterinsurgency campaign and defense against a potential United
States invasion. In an effort to break this impasse, the governments of
Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Uruguay announced in July 1985 that they
were joining the Contadora process as a "support group" in an
effort to resolve the remaining points of contention and achieve a
comprehensive agreement.
Despite the combined efforts of the core four and the "support
group," the Contadora process unofficially came to a halt in June
1986, when the Central American countries still could not resolve their
differences sufficiently to permit the signing of a final treaty draft.
Later that month, the United States Congress approved US$100 million in
aid to the contras in spite of numerous requests from the
Contadora group to refrain from such unilateral action. Although the
core four and support group countries vowed to continue their diplomatic
efforts and did convene negotiating sessions subsequent to the
unsuccessful June 6 meeting in Panama City, the Contadora process was
clearly moribund. The Central American states, with the exception of
Nicaragua, resolved to continue the negotiating process on their own
without the benefit of outside mediation.
El Salvador - The Arias Plan
Throughout the Contadora negotiations, El Salvador's objectives
included the preservation of its military aid and assistance
relationship with the United States; the resolution of the civil
conflict on terms consistent with the 1983 Constitution--that is,
through incorporation of the rebels into the established system rather
than through a power-sharing arrangement; and a verifiable termination
of Nicaraguan military and logistical aid to the FMLN insurgents. On the
final point, the Salvadorans felt, along with the Hondurans and Costa
Ricans, that the liberalization of the Sandinista-dominated government
in Nicaragua was the surest guarantor of success. Given the unanimity of
opinion among these three governments and the less emphatic but still
supportive response of the government of Guatemalan president Marco
Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo, the regional consenus of opinion seemed to be
that a streamlined, strictly Central American peace initiative stood a
better chance of success than the by then unwieldy Contadora process.
The five Central American presidents had held a meeting in May 1986
in Esquipulas, Guatemala, in an effort to work out their differences
over the revised Contadora draft treaty. This meeting was a precursor of
the process that in early 1987 superseded Contadora. The leading
proponent and architect of this process was the president of Costa Rica,
Oscar Arias Sanchez. After consultations with representatives of El
Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and the United States, Arias announced on
February 15, 1987, that he had presented a peace proposal to
representatives of the other Central American states, with the exception
of Nicaragua. The plan called for dialogue between governments and
opposition groups, amnesty for political prisoners, cease-fires in
ongoing insurgent conflicts, democratization, and free elections in all
five regional states. The plan also called for renewed negotiations on
arms reductions and an end to outside aid to insurgent forces.
The first formal negotiating session to include representatives of
the Nicaraguan government was held in Tegucigalpa on July 31, 1987. At
that meeting of foreign ministers, the Salvadoran delegation pressed the
concept of simultaneous implementation of provisions such as the
declaration of cease-fires and amnesties and the denial of support or
safehaven for insurgent forces. This approach reportedly softened the
attitude of the Nicaraguans, who had come to the meeting declaring
opposition to any agreement that did not require a prior cutoff of
foreign support to the contras.
The Tegucigalpa meeting paved the way for an August 6, 1987,
gathering of the five Central American presidents in Esquipulas. The
negotiations among the presidents reportedly were marked by blunt
accusations and sharp exchanges, particularly between Duarte and
Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega Saavedra. Duarte's primary concern
was Nicaraguan aid to the Salvadoran guerrillas, and he was reported to
have pressed Ortega repeatedly on this issue. The Nicaraguan president's
responses apparently reassured Duarte, who consented to sign the
agreement. His decision to do so despite signals of disapproval from
Washington reflected only in part the diminished influence of the Reagan
administration in light of the Iran-Contra Affair; it was also a
calculated move based on the Salvadoran president's belief that a more
favorable treaty was not achievable. The final agreement, signed on
August 7, called for the cessation of outside aid and support to
insurgent forces but did not require the elimination or reduction of
such aid to government forces. If they proved to be enforceable, these
provisions would work to the benefit of the Salvadoran government and to
the detriment of the FMLN, since the insurgents would be expected to
forgo outside assistance while the government could continue to receive
military aid from the United States. The agreement also urged dialogue
with opposition groups "in accordance with the law" and was
therefore compatible with the Duarte government's efforts and
preconditions for negotiations with rebel forces. The Salvadorans were
already in compliance with the sections calling for press freedom,
political pluralism, and abolition of state-of-siege restrictions.
The Central American Peace Agreement, variously referred to as the
"Guatemala Plan," "Esquipulas II," or the
"Arias Plan," initially required the implementation by
November 5, 1987, of certain conditions, including decrees of amnesty in
those countries involved in insurgent conflicts; the initiation of
dialogue between governments and unarmed political opposition groups or
groups that had taken advantage of amnesty; the undertaking of efforts
to negotiate cease-fires between governments and insurgent groups; the
cessation of outside aid to insurgent forces as well as denying the use
of each country's national territory to "groups trying to
destabilize the governments of the countries of Central America;"
and the assurance of conditions conducive to the development of a
"pluralistic and participatory democratic process" in all the
signatory states.
A meeting of the Central American foreign ministers held one week
prior to November 5 effectively extended the deadline by interpreting
that date as the requirement for initiation, not completion, of the
agreement's provisions. The Salvadoran government, however, had already
taken several steps by that time to comply with the agreement. Direct
talks between the government and representatives of the FMLN-FDR held in
October failed to reach agreement on terms for a cease-fire. The talks
were broken off by the rebels, ostensibly in protest over the death
squad- style murder of a Salvadoran human rights investigator. Duarte
proceeded to declare a unilateral fifteen-day cease-fire to enable
guerrilla combatants to take advantage of an amnesty program approved by
the Legislative Assembly on October 27.
Overall compliance with the Arias Plan was uneven by late 1988, and
the process appeared to be losing momentum. One round of talks took
place between the Cerezo administration and representatives of the
Guatemalan guerrilla front in Madrid, Spain, on October 6-7, 1987.
President Cerezo discontinued this effort, however, claiming that the
guerrilla representatives had taken an unrealistic and unreasonable
bargaining position. The Nicaraguan government took a number of initial
steps to comply with the treaty, such as allowing the independent daily La
Prensa to reopen and the radio station of the Roman Catholic Church
to resume broadcasting, establishing a national reconciliation committee
that incorporated representatives of the unarmed opposition, and
eventually undertaking cease-fire negotiations with representatives of
the contras. The optimism engendered by the signature of a
provisional cease-fire accord on March 23, 1988, at Sapoa, Nicaragua,
however, had largely dissipated by July, when the government broke up a
protest demonstration in the southern city of Nandaime, expelled the
United States ambassador and seven other diplomats for alleged
collaboration with the demonstrators, and again shut down La Prensa
and the Catholic radio station. In El Salvador, although the FMLN-FDR
had been persuaded by President Arias to accept the plan as the basis
for negotiations with the Salvadoran government, neither side made any
immediate effort to resume the direct talks broken off in October 1987.
A definitive cease-fire, therefore, remained elusive. The Salvadoran
government also maintained that the Sandinistas continued to provide aid
and support to the FMLN. In January 1988, the Salvadorans protested
before an international commission monitoring compliance with the treaty
that the headquarters of the FMLN general command continued to function
from a location near Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, that FMLN training
and propaganda facilities continued to operate in Nicaragua, and that
arms deliveries from Nicaragua to El Salvador persisted after the
signing of the peace treaty on August 7. The effect of the PDC's
political decline and Arena's higher government profile on the future
course of the Arias Plan was unclear as the country approached the 1989
presidential elections.
El Salvador maintained normal bilateral diplomatic relations with the
countries of Central America despite the strains of regional unrest,
uncertainty over the intentions of the Sandinistas, and lingering
disputes with Honduras. In the late 1980s, relations with Guatemala,
governed by an ideologically compatible Christian democratic government,
and with Costa Rica were stable. Differences with Nicaragua were rooted
in basic ideological conflict, however, and appeared likely to persist.
Although neighboring Honduras was experiencing a democratic transition
not unlike that taking place in El Salvador, several points of
contention prevented the full establishment of close and cooperative
ties. The most intangible of these frictions was lingering ill will,
especially between the two countries' respective military
establishments, over the 1969 "Football War". Another dispute revolved around the
future disposition of Salvadoran refugees residing in Honduras. In early
1988, there were an estimated 20,000 such refugees housed in a number of
camps in Honduras, some of which were administered by the office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Despite ongoing security problems posed by the insurgency, a
resettlement program initiated in 1986 by the Salvadoran government in
cooperation with domestic and international relief agencies had assisted
in the return of some 10,000 Salvadoran refugees. Complete repatriation
from the camps, as advocated by the Honduran government, seemed to be
contingent on a further winding down of the insurgency.
The main stumbling block in Salvadoran-Honduran relations, however,
was the failure of the two countries to agree to a demarcation of their
border. This dispute was another legacy of the 1969 war, although it
also had deeper historical roots. Several agreements negotiated during
the nineteenth century attempted to define the boundaries between the
two states, but periodic disputes persisted. The 1969 war further
complicated this situation, as Salvadoran troops pushed over a border
that had never been firmly demarcated and briefly occupied Honduran
territory. So contentious was the territorial dispute that a final peace
treaty between the two countries was not signed until October 1980, and
even then only 225 of the border's 343 kilometers were definitively
delimited. The remaining disputed "pockets" (bolsones)
along the border, along with island and maritime areas, were submitted
to a joint border commission for resolution. At the end of its five-year
mandate, the commission had not achieved agreement. Direct
government-to- government talks also failed to resolve the issue. The
dispute, therefore, was submitted to the International Court of Justice
at The Hague, Netherlands, for adjudication. A decision was not expected
until the late 1980s.
El Salvador - Bibliography
Anderson, Charles W. "El Salvador: The Army as Reformer." Pages
70-91 in Martin C. Needler (ed.), Political Systems of
Latin America. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1970.
Anderson, Thomas P. Matanza: El Salvador's Communist Revolt
of 1932. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971.
Baloyra, Enrique A. El Salvador in Transition. Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.
Caldera T., Hilda. Historia del Partido Democrata
Cristiano. Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Instituto
Centroamericano de Estudios Politicos, 1983.
Christian, Shirley. "The Other Side: El Salvador's Fractious,
Frenzied Left," New Republic, 189, No. 3, October
24, 1983, 13-15, 18-19.
Dickey, Christopher. "Expected Certification for El Salvador
Based on Mixed Record," Washington Post, January
21, 1983, A19.
Duarte, Jose Napoleon. Duarte: My Story. New York: G.P.
Putnam's Sons, 1986.
Feinberg, Richard E. "Central America: No Easy Answers,"
Foreign Affairs, 59, No. 5, Summer 1981, 1121-46.
Findling, John E. Close Neighbors, Distant Friends.
(Contributions in American History, No. 122.) New York:
Greenwood Press, 1987.
Flemion, Philip F. Historical Dictionary of El Salvador.
(Latin American Historical Dictionaries, No. 5.) Metuchen,
New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1972.
Harris, Kevin, and Mario Espinosa. "Reform, Repression, and
Revolution in El Salvador," Fletcher Forum, 5, No.
2, Summer 1981, 295-319.
Karnes, Thomas L. The Failure of Union: Central America,
1824-1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1961.
Kincaid, A. Douglas. "Peasants into Rebels: Community and Class
in Rural El Salvador," Comparative Studies in Society
and History, 29, No. 3, July 1987, 466-94.
Leiken, Robert S. "The Salvadoran Left." Pages 111-30 in Robert
S. Leiken (ed.), Central America: Anatomy of
Conflict. New York: Pergamon Press, 1984.
Leiken, Robert S., and Barry Rubin (eds.). The Central
American Crisis Reader. New York: Summit Books, 1987.
LeoGrande, William M., and Carla Anne Robbins. "Oligarchs and
Officers: The Crisis in El Salvador," Foreign
Affairs, 58, No. 5, Summer 1980, 1084-1103.
McColm, R. Bruce. "El Salvador's Guerrillas: Structure, Strategy,
and . . . Success?" Freedom at Issue, No. 74,
September-October 1983, 3-16.
McDonald, Ronald H. "El Salvador: The Politics of Revolution."
Pages 528-44 in Howard J. Wiarda and Harvey F. Kline (eds.),
Latin American Politics and Development. (2nd ed.)
Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1985.
Montgomery, Tommie Sue. Revolution in El Salvador: Origins
and Evolution. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1982.
North, Liisa. Bitter Grounds: Roots of Revolt in El
Salvador. Westport, Connecticut: Lawrence Hill, 1985.
Rodriguez, Mario. Central America. Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965.
Schmidt, Steffen. El Salvador: America's Next Vietnam?
Salisbury, North Carolina: Documentary, 1983.
Schulz, Donald E. "El Salvador: Revolution and Counterrevolution
in the Living Museum." Pages 189-268 in Donald E. Schulz and
Douglas H. Graham (eds.), Revolution and
Counterrevolution in Central America and the Caribbean.
Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1984.
Simpson, Lesley Bird. The Encomienda in New Spain.
(University of California Publications in History Series.)
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1929.
United States. Congress. 97th, 2d Session. Senate. Committee on
Foreign Relations. Report of the U.S. Official Observer
Mission to the El Salvador Constituent Assembly Elections of
March 28, 1982. Washington: GPO, 1982.
------. Department of State. Communist Interference in El
Salvador: Documents Demonstrating Communist Support of the
Salvadoran Insurgency. Washington: February 23, 1981.
Webre, Stephen. Jose Napoleon Duarte and the Christian
Democratic Party in Salvadoran Politics, 1960-1972.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.
White, Alastair. El Salvador. (Nations of the Modern
World Series.) Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1982.
Woodward, Ralph Lee, Jr. Central America: A Nation
Divided. (Latin American Histories Series.) New York:
Oxford University Press, 1985.
El Salvador - The Economy
UNTIL THE GOVERNMENT IMPLEMENTED a major land reform in 1980, the
most notable characteristic of El Salvador's economic structure was the
unequal distribution of landownership. The economy was dominated by a
few large plantations that produced cash crops, especially coffee, for
export. The slow and difficult implementation of a sweeping three-phase
land reform begun in 1980, however, considerably altered the pattern of
unequal landownership.
El Salvador's economic development in the 1980s was hindered by a
resource drain caused by the country's civil conflict, natural
disasters, a lack of economic expertise, and adverse changes in the terms
of trade. Consequently, by 1987 El Salvador's
economic output barely equaled 80 percent of its 1978 level, and exports
were only the third most important source of foreign exchange after
foreign aid and remittances from Salvadorans living abroad. The most
damaging of these factors was the civil conflict, particularly its
impact on the country's infrastructure. By mid-1987 observers estimated
that the total cost to the economy based on lost agricultural
production, damaged infrastructure, and funds diverted from economic to
military purposes was about US$1.5 billion.
El Salvador entered the 1970s as a relatively poor middleincome
country with per capita income greater than that of Thailand and
slightly less than that of the Republic of Korea (South Korea), Malaysia
and Costa Rica. Its overall level of development was roughly comparable
to these countries as well, judging by such indicators as industrial
contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP), life expectancy, the cost of labor, and per capita income. El
Salvador had one other important characteristic in common with these
other four countries--a hard-working, productive, and motivated labor
force. El Salvador's annual rate of investment growth (3.5 percent),
however, lagged substantially behind the other four during the 1960s.
During this decade, gross investment grew annually by 24 percent in
South Korea, 16 percent in Thailand, 7.5 percent in Malaysia, and 7.1
percent in Costa Rica. El Salvador's inferior rate of investment growth
continued and in some cases widened during the 1970s.
By 1982 Salvadoran development had fallen far behind that of South
Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, and even Costa Rica. Industrial production
hovered around 20 percent of GDP, whereas in the other countries it
accounted for between 27 percent (Costa Rica) and 40 percent (South
Korea). Salvadoran per capita income fell to about a third of South
Korea's and Malaysia's, half of Costa Rica's, and 15 percent below that
of Thailand. Making matters worse, El Salvador's terms of trade had
deteriorated much more rapidly than had that of the other countries.
Between 1982 and 1986, El Salvador fell even further behind as it
failed to diversify its exports away from agricultural commodities and
into manufactured goods. In 1986 per capita GDP was almost half its
level of 1977, and the country entered a period of disinvestment. As
other middle-income countries appeared to be taking off, El Salvador was
regressing.
El Salvador - GROWTH AND STRUCTURE OF THE ECONOMY
El Salvador's economy has always been highly dependent on a single
agricultural export commodity. Following independence, indigo was the
most important commodity to the Salvadoran economy and represented most
of the country's exports. In the midnineteenth century, however, indigo
was replaced in the European and North American markets by artificial
dyes. Consequently, indigo producers were forced to seek alternative
commodities that would permit them to maintain their level of earnings.
Fortunately for El Salvador's wealthier landowners, the decline of
indigo was concurrent with the rise in world demand for another crop
that thrives in tropical climates--coffee. The coffee export sector
dominated the Salvadoran economy by the 1870s.
During the 1950s and 1960s, coffee export earnings helped fuel the
expansion of cotton and sugar cultivation (which subsequently became the
country's second and third most important export crops, respectively)
and financed the development of light manufacturing. In fact, in the
years immediately following the Revolution of 1948, which reduced the
direct political influence of the coffee interests, the taxes on coffee
exports were increased tenfold in order to finance industrialization.
These funds were used to develop the country's transportation
infrastructure and electricity generation capabilities.
Light manufacturing developed rapidly in El Salvador during the
1960s, largely as a result of the establishment of the Central American
Common Market (CACM). El Salvador's industrial development hitherto had been
hindered by the absence of a domestic market for these goods. The small
class of wealthy landowners generally preferred high-quality imports,
while the large lower class lacked the disposable income to buy most
manufactured goods. The CACM, however, improved this situation by
expanding the market for Salvadoran goods through the elimination of
intraregional trade barriers. As a result, the manufactured goods
produced in El Salvador became more competitive in Honduras than those
from the United States or other non-Central American countries. The
CACM-stimulated industrial growth never threatened the predominance of
coffee production within the Salvadoran economy, however. Moreover, the
stimulus proved to be short lived because the CACM broke down in the
1970s.
The civil conflict and the disincentives inherent in some government
policies disrupted coffee, sugar, and cotton production during the
1980s, resulting in a general lack of dynamism in the Salvadoran economy. GDP increased at a 4.3 percent annual rate between
1965 and 1978 but, reflecting the effects of civil unrest, declined by
23 percent between 1979 and 1982. The economy modestly expanded between
1983 to 1986, with average annual growth rates of about 1.5 percent. The
country's total GDP equaled approximately US$4.6 billion in 1986. Real
per capital GDP was approximately US$938.
During the 1960s and 1970s, gross capital formation increased by an
impressive 6.6 percent annual rate, reflecting investor confidence and
the positive effects of the CACM. Between 1980 and 1986, however, as
investors reacted to the instability caused by the civil conflict,
depreciation outstripped investment at an annual rate of 0.8 percent.
Private outflows of capital slowed in 1987, resulting in a less drastic
capital account deficit of US$34 million, less than a quarter of the
outflow registered in 1986.
El Salvador`s economy expanded an estimated 2.5 percent in 1987,
representing the largest single-year gain since 1978. This moderate
improvement in the country's overall economic activity was primarily the
result of a modest rebound in agricultural output and a substantial
reactivation of construction activity led by the private sector. Gains
in construction investment reflected efforts to replace structures
damaged in the 1986 earthquake, which caused an estimated US$1 billion
in damage to the country's buildings and infrastructure. Two additional
sources of growth were transfer receipts (mostly from Salvadorans
working in the United States) and official grants from the United States
government. In 1987 net private transfers, or transfer receipts,
accounted for over 4 percent of GDP, while grants or official transfers
from the United States government represented 5 percent.
Although 1987 was the Salvadoran economy's most positive year since
the beginning of the civil conflict, attempts to measure and judge the
economy's health should compare the country's economic performance in
1987 with its most recent economic peak in 1978. Using this method to
evaluate El Salvador's economy casts a less favorable light than the
alternative year-to-year measurement. Although El Salvador's economy
grew rapidly in 1987 compared with other years in the 1980s, real income
was still almost 20 percent below its 1978 level.
One important but ominous indicator of future economic health was the
low level of gross fixed capital formation in 1987, which remained
substantially below the levels necessary to expand production capacity
and generate productivity gains. Gross fixed capital formation, 14
percent of GDP in 1987, was at a level significantly below those
experienced in the 1960s and 1970s.
Consumption expenditures increased by less than 1 percent in 1987,
primarily because of an 8.7 percent drop in general government
expenditures. Because the International Monetary Fund (IMF) supervised
the economic stabilization program, the government was obligated to
reduce its budget deficit. Also, because revenue sources consistently
failed to close the gap between expenditures and revenues, the
government was forced to reduce consumption expenditures in 1987.
El Salvador - Income Distribution
An examination of GDP by sector confirmed that, despite a modest
recovery in 1987, El Salvador's economy was still vulnerable. Even
though most sectors showed some growth in 1987, all registered below
their 1978 or 1979 peaks.
Thanks to improved weather conditions, the agricultural sector
recovered in 1987 from its 1986 decline, rising 3.1 percent, which
merely erased the sector's 3.1 percent loss in 1986. The importance of
the agricultural sector, particularly coffee, in the economy cannot be
overemphasized. In 1987, for example, despite a decrease in coffee
production value attributable to lower international coffee prices,
coffee still represented approximately 7 percent of GDP, 30 percent of
agricultural output, and 60 percent of total exports. Coffee production
recovered substantially, about 6 percent, in 1987 as a result of
improved weather conditions and increased use of fertilizers.
Fortunately, because most coffee was grown in the western part of the
country, away from the civil conflict, production was unaffected.
Analysts believed that in the future the fate of El Salvador's coffee
earnings would depend on both producer prices and government-imposed
price or exchange controls. According to some estimates, producer prices
might eventually decline to levels at or below the average cost of
production. Such a decline in prices could have catastrophic
consequences for the country in both the short term and the long term. A
decline in coffee prices would limit the country's ability to earn
foreign exchange, resulting in foreign exchange allocation problems.
Foreign currency shortages would then exert upward pressure on prices.
Unprofitable production could impede further investment in coffee
production and eventually reduce the coffee industry's capacity to
generate export surpluses.
Government policies had a major impact on the profitability of coffee
production. Price controls and exchange rate policies pursued by the
government of Jose Napoleon Duarte Fuentes during the early 1980s led
many coffee growers to claim that coffee growing was unprofitable. Even
in years of strong world prices, coffee growers were adversely affected
by the exchange rate manipulation and price controls effected by the
National Coffee Institute (Instituto Nacional de Cafe--Incafe). It was
unclear, however, whether Incafe would continue to operate under a more
conservative government.
Sugar and cotton, once important agricultural crops, accounted for
less than 10 percent of agricultural value added in 1987 and less than 5
percent of total Salvadoran export earnings. Low world prices adversely
affected sugar production and inhibited investments. Cotton production
declined because of the armed conflict and low international prices. For
example, in 1986 average production costs of cotton exceeded
international prices.
During 1987 manufacturing accounted for about 15 percent of total
value added and continued its consistent recovery. Nevertheless, the
sector's estimated 2.7 percent growth left value added in manufacturing
almost 10 percent below the 1980 level. The gradual recovery in
manufacturing could be attributed to increased demand for food products,
beverages, and nonmetallic products. In 1987 food processing and
beverages represented more than half of the value added in the
manufacturing sector.
The construction industry proved to be the economy's only bright spot
in 1987, registering growth for the third consecutive year with 14
percent growth above 1986. Compared with 1979, however, activity
remained low. Moreover, rapid growth in 1987 reflected efforts to
replace the structures and units damaged in the 1986 earthquake rather
than a general revival of the construction industry.
Services represented almost half of GDP in 1986. Like construction
and manufacturing, service activity continued on an upward trend in 1987
after falling by almost 25 percent between 1978 and 1982. As in other
areas, however, 1986 value added by services remained approximately 17
percent below its 1978 peak. Between 1970 and 1978, service output grew
by 54 percent. With the slowdown in economic activity after 1978,
services declined by 17 percent between 1978 and 1987.
Service activity was tied closely to prevailing trends in the economy
and therefore didn't have the dynamism of agriculture and industry.
Service activity was also oriented exclusively toward domestic markets
and thus did not affect the country's external economic position.
Services included transportation, commerce, insurance, health care,
utilities, and other services provided by public enterprises.
El Salvador - The Labor Force
The Salvadoran labor force has been traditionally characterized as
industrious, motivated, and reliable. Of new entrants to the labor force
in 1986, it was estimated that 4 percent possessed executive, technical,
or professional skills. Some 25 percent of all job seekers were
classified as semiskilled , while 71 percent were unskilled laborers.
The labor force was young, reflecting the demographic profile of the
population; in 1985 more than 52 percent of workers were less than
thirty years of age. The labor force remained largely agrarian and rural in
the late 1980s.
Labor suffered because of a variety of economic and institutional
circumstances: real wages declined, unemployment rose, and efforts to
unify the fragmented labor movement were thwarted by the failure of
President Duarte to implement promised labor reforms and by the
polarization of union leadership. The negative trend for labor continued in 1987. The
legal real minimum wage fell by 28 percent, and average real private
sector and public sector wages dropped by 13.3 percent. Between 1983 and
1987, real wages declined by about one-third.
The Salvadoran Constitution details the right to organize unions and
associations, but the establishment of "closed shops"
(enterprises employing only union workers) was forbidden by law. The law
also required the use of collective bargaining, conciliation, and
arbitration before a strike could be called.
In 1986 there were approximately 150 recognized unions, employee
associations, and peasant organizations, which represented 15 percent of
the total work force. Although union membership stabilized in the 1980s,
union activism fluctuated with prevailing economic and political
conditions. For example, in 1982, while membership remained fairly
constant in relation to past years, the number of workers involved in
strikes fell from 13,904 in 1981 to just 373. In 1984 the number jumped
to 26,111.
In 1987 the labor movement vocalized its frustrations as economic
conditions stagnated and the civil conflict dragged on. Such
frustrations were exacerbated by the perception that Duarte failed to
implement the labor reforms he had promised during the 1984 presidential
campaign. Labor leaders protested Duarte's failure to fulfill his end of
the "social pact" after labor had put its weight behind him in
exchange for pledges of increased inclusion of union members in the
government and greater responsiveness to labor and peasant issues.
Between 1978 and 1984, private employment fell from 147,000 to
122,000, a 17 percent decline. Employment in the construction industry
suffered the most during this period, declining almost 75 percent (see
fig. ). Employment opportunities in 1987 continued the downward trend
that began with the country's civil conflict. Although no official
unemployment rates were available for 1986 or 1987, it is likely that
counterbalancing forces stabilized the rate during these two years at
the 1985 level, or 33 percent. First, the civil conflict continued to
displace many workers and to limit employment growth. Second, the
agricultural sector grew by 3.1 percent, recouping losses experienced in
1986. Finally, an estimated 2.5 percent economic growth rate in 1987 was
insufficient to reduce the unemployment rate.
The impact of El Salvador's civil conflict was demonstrated in the
evolution of the unemployment rate between 1978 and 1985. Over this
period, the rate rose almost tenfold, from 3.1 percent to 33 percent.
Labor's situation would have been even more grave without the emigration
of an estimated 500,000 Salvadorans to the United States between 1978
and 1985. Remittances from workers abroad totaled US$350 million
officially in 1987, although some estimates were as high as US$1 billion
or more.
El Salvador - ECONOMY - ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
Between 1979 and 1982, El Salvador experienced a 23 percent fall in
real per capita GDP, a 35 percent decline in export earnings, and a
sharp rise in its unemployment rate to an estimated 27 percent. External
and internal imbalance convinced the government to stabilize the
situation under the guidance of the IMF. The government targeted
monetary growth and other areas and, according to the IMF, accomplished
most of its goals. In 1986, after a moderate reactivation of the economy
in 1984 and 1985, the government adopted a short-term adjustment program
to correct remaining internal and external imbalances. This program
included the following changes: unification of the exchange rate,
exchange and import restrictions, a more aggressive export promotion
program, new fiscal revenue-generating mechanisms, agrarian reforms, a
macroeconomic and external debt management committee, and strict
monetary policies to curb the country's accelerating inflation rate, a
major goal of government policy.
The rate of inflation in El Salvador was determined largely by the
conduct of monetary policy and by variations in exchange rates and
wages. Because of a net decline in capital formation and a major
devaluation of the colon, inflation doubled during the 1980s relative to
the 1965-80 period. El Salvador maintained an average annual inflation
rate of 14.9 percent between 1980 and 1986, compared with 7 percent per
year between 1965 and 1980.
Throughout the 1980s, the government employed monetary aggregate
targets, price controls, wage controls, and exchange rate freezes as
mechanisms to avoid accelerated price increases. On January 1, 1981,
following a surge in wholesale and consumer price inflation, the
government decreed a price freeze on basic goods and services. Efforts
by the Regulatory Supply Institute (Instituto Regulador de
Abastecimientos--IRA) to control prices through market intervention had
failed to arrest the price rises for certain necessities, and prices
seemed to be out of control. The government's price freeze, in 1981 was
accompanied by an intended six-month wage freeze, which actually lasted
until the end of 1983. Over the 1981-83 period, real wages dropped by 29
percent in the private sector and 26 percent in the public sector.
In response to the increase in the number of transactions occurring
in the parallel market as a result of the unofficial depreciation of the
colon, 1985 price controls were relaxed. The result was a sudden
increase in consumer price inflation from 12 percent to 22 percent,
which by the end of 1985 had accelerated to a 32 percent annual rate.
When El Salvador unified its exchange rate in 1986, the price of some
goods, such as oil derivatives, increased by 50 percent, while others,
such as foodstuffs and clothing, held constant. Since 1986 some price
controls have been lifted, allowing prices to reflect market forces. In
1986 inflation rose to 30 percent by year's end but declined to 27
percent in 1987. Continued wage controls through government intervention
in employer-labor wage negotiations, an officially fixed exchange rate
since 1986, and slow monetary growth ostensibly tamed the country's high
inflation rate. Overall, the major results of the government's
anti-inflation program were slower price inflation and real wage losses
for workers.
The Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador (Banco Central de Reserva de
El Salvador--BCR) set interest rates and rationed credit, generally
targeting available capital for high-priority government projects. The
Central Reserve Bank also regulated--and often executed
directly--transactions involving foreign exchange, under a 1980
regulation to curb capital flight and control monetary supply. Small
businesses, especially export businesses, were granted a majority
portion of the credit, often at preferential low interest rates.
The Salvadoran government pursued restrictive monetary policies
during 1987 to satisfy IMF recommendations for improving the Salvadoran
balance of payments and for controlling inflation. By restricting credit
to the private sector and to public enterprises, the government had
hoped to curb demand, which in turn would have reduced imports and saved
precious foreign exchange. In fact, despite the government's austerity
program, imports increased by 9 percent in 1987. Furthermore, the
government hoped to slow the monetary expansion that had tripled the
money supply between 1979 and 1986 to 15 percent during 1987.
The government provided credit to the industrial sector through the
National Industrial Development Bank (Banco Nacional de Fomento
Industrial--Banafi), which was created in 1981 to replace the former
Salvadoran Institute of Industrial Development (Instituto Salvadoreno de
Fomento Industrial--Insafi). Banafi provided credit to promising new
industries that were not able to obtain credit from other sources.
El Salvador - ECONOMY - The Banking System
Historically, landownership in El Salvador has been highly
concentrated in an elite group of wealthy landowners. Most of the good
arable land in El Salvador was located on large coffee plantations,
while lower quality land was rented to peasants, who grew staple crops. Because these plots often failed to provide even
a subsistence-level existence for them, the tenant farmers often worked
as laborers for the coffee plantations as well.
During the colonial period, a certain tension existed between the
hacendados--the owners of private plantations--and Indian communities
that laid claim to, but did not always make productive use of, communal
lands known as ejidos or tierras comunales. Although
some encroachment by hacendados on Indian lands undoubtedly took place,
this practice was not apparently widespread, mainly because the Spanish
crown had supported the integrity of the Indian lands. After
independence, however, the process of private seizure of communal lands
accelerated, aided by the confusing and incomplete nature of the
inherited colonial statutes dealing with the ownership and transfer of
land. The rapid growth of coffee production in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries led the government to formalize the favored
status of private, export-oriented agriculture over subsistence farming
through the passage of the legislative decree of March 1, 1879. This
decree allowed private individuals to acquire title to ejido
land as long as they planted at least 25 percent of that land with
certain specified crops, most notably coffee and cocoa. Tierras
comunales were formally abolished in February 1881; the abolishment
of ejidos in March 1882 left private property as the only
legally recognized form of land tenure.
During the twentieth century, the conflict over land tenure pitted
commercial export-crop producers against campesinos who sought to raise
subsistence crops--mainly corn--on land to which they rarely held legal
title. Some campesinos worked under various rental and sharecropping
arrangements; however, an increasing number functioned as squatters,
with no claim to their land beyond their mere presence on it. This
occupation of private and public lands was intensified by rapid
population growth, the expansion of cotton production that removed
further acreage from the total available for subsistence agriculture,
and the expulsion of thousands of Salvadorans from Honduras following
the 1969 war between the two countries.
As of 1988, the most recent agricultural census had been conducted in
1971, but data on the 1980 land reform program corroborates that
extremely unequal land distribution patterns persisted throughout the
1970s. According to the 1971 agricultural census, 92 percent of the
farms in El Salvador (some 250,500 in all) together comprised only 27
percent of all farm area. The other 73 percent of farmland was combined
in only 1,951 farms, or 8 percent of all farms; these parcels were all
over 100 hectares. Farms between 100 and 500 hectares represented 15
percent of El Salvador's cultivated area.
The land distributed under Phase I of the land reform program
included the largest plantations--all those larger than 500 hectares.
Phase I divided up 469 individual properties, with a combined area of
219,400 hectares, almost 18 percent of all Salvadoran farmland. Nearly
31,400 Salvadoran heads of household benefited directly from Phase I of
the land reform; if family members are included, the beneficiaries
totaled almost 188,200. Most of these lands were expropriated by the
government and divided among 317 cooperatives. The government hoped that
the economies of scale possible under a cooperative framework would keep
the farms efficient.
The government guaranteed the former landholders that they would be
compensated and had planned to pay them out of the cooperatives'
earnings. However, because the cooperatives experienced major
difficulties during their initial years, much of the compensation had to
be paid by the government. According to a report released by the
inspector general of AID in February 1984, the cooperatives established
under Phase I of the land reform "had massive capital debt, no
working capital, large tracts of nonproductive land, substantially
larger labor forces than needed to operate the units, and weak
management." By the end of 1985, only 5 percent of the 317
cooperatives formed under the land reform were able to pay their debts,
in spite of US$150 million in assistance from AID. Many lacked capital
to buy fertilizer, so yields steadily declined. Nevertheless, by the end
of 1987 almost all Phase I compensation had been paid. The restrictions
placed on Phase II by the Constituent Assembly greatly limited its
effect on land tenure because of the small size of the plots. As of
1987, however, phase II of the agrarian reform program had not been
implemented.
El Salvador - Coffee
Coffee has fueled the Salvadoran economy and shaped its history for
more than a century. It was first cultivated for domestic use early in
the nineteenth century. By mid-century its commercial promise was
evident, and the government began to favor its production through
legislation such as tax breaks for producers, exemption from military
service for coffee workers, and elimination of export duties for new
producers. By 1880 coffee had become virtually the sole export crop.
Compared with indigo, previously the dominant export commodity, coffee
was a more demanding crop. Since coffee bushes required several years to
produce a usable harvest, its production required a greater commitment
of capital, labor, and land than did indigo. Coffee also grew best at a
certain altitude, whereas indigo flourished almost anywhere.
Unlike those of Guatemala and Costa Rica, the Salvadoran coffee
industry developed largely without the benefit of external technical and
financial help. El Salvador nonetheless became one of the most efficient
coffee producers in the world. This was especially true on the large
coffee fincas, where the yield per hectare increased in
proportion to the size of the finca, a rare occurrence in
plantation agriculture. The effect of coffee production on Salvadoran
society has been immeasurable, not only in terms of land tenure but also
because the coffee industry has served as a catalyst for the development
of infrastructure (roads and railroads) and as a mechanism for the
integration of indigenous communities into the national economy.
In the decades prior to the civil conflict of the 1980s, export
earnings from coffee allowed growers to expand production, finance the
development of a cotton industry, and establish a light manufacturing
sector. After 1979, however, government policies, guerrilla attacks, and
natural disasters reduced investment, impeding the coffee industry's
growth. To make matters worse, after a price jump in 1986 world coffee
prices fell by 35 percent in 1987, causing coffee exports to decline in
value from US$539 million to US$347 million.
Government control of coffee marketing and export was regarded as one
of the strongest deterrents to investment in the industry. In the first
year of Incafe's existence, coffee yields dropped by over 20 percent.
During each of the ensuing four years, yields were about 30 percent
lower than those registered during the 1978-80 period. Although the area
in production remained fairly constant at approximately 180,000
hectares, production of green coffee declined in absolute terms from
175,000 tons in 1979 to 141,000 tons in 1986; this 19 percent drop was a
direct result of lower yields, which in turn were attributed to
decreased levels of investment. According to the Salvadoran Coffee
Growers Association (Asociacion Cafetalera de El Salvador--ACES),
besides controlling the sale of coffee, Incafe also charged growers
export taxes and service charges equal to about 50 percent of the sale
price and was often late in paying growers for their coffee.
Coffee growers also suffered from guerrilla attacks, extortion, and
the imposition of so-called "war taxes" during the 1980s.
These difficulties, in addition to their direct impact on production,
also decreased investment. Under normal conditions, coffee growers
replaced at least 5 percent of their coffee plants each year because the
most productive coffee plants are between five and fifteen years old.
Many coffee growers in El Salvador, in an effort to avoid further
losses, neglected to replant.
Although most coffee production took place in the western section of
El Salvador, coffee growers who operated in the eastern region were
sometimes compelled to strike a modus vivendi with the guerrillas.
During the 1984-85 harvest, for example, the guerrillas added to their
"war tax" demand a threat to attack any plantation they
thought underpaid workers. They demanded that workers receive the
equivalent of US$4.00 per 100 pounds picked, a US$1.00 increase over
what was then the going rate. The fact that growers negotiated with the
guerrillas--while the government looked the other way--demonstrated the
continuing importance of coffee export revenue to both the growers and
the government.
El Salvador - Sugar
El Salvador's fishing industry, although responsible for only 0.1
percent of GDP, produced the fourth largest source of export revenue for
the country in 1986. In 1987 the fishing industry consisted of two main
sectors, a modern, capital-intensive shrimp fishery, and a small
artisanal fishery. Of the two, the shrimp industry was the big
money-maker, with shrimp exports totaling 3,700 tons in 1986, valued at
US$18.4 million. Shrimp fishermen caught an annual average of about
5,400 tons from 1980 through 1987, up from the 3,000 to 4,000 tons
caught each year during the 1960s and 1970s. The abundant shrimp
resource supported both a modern shrimp fleet and an artisanal shrimp
fishery.
In 1981 the government established the Center for Fisheries
Development (Centro de Desarrollo Pesquero--Cendepesca) to develop the
fishing industry. Cendepesca regulated the industry and promoted its
expansion through such devices as tax credits on the importation of
machinery, fishing boats, and inputs for processing and exemptions of
five or ten years on municipal and income taxes for companies devoted to
fishing. Cendepesca also tried to manage the shrimp fishery (to prevent
overfishing) through required registration and licensing of shrimp
boats. Cendepesca repeatedly sought to impose a closed season during
shrimp reproduction periods, but these efforts were thwarted by powerful
lobbyists in the face of opposition from major shrimp companies.
Consequently, there was a fear that overfishing would deplete stocks, a
development that could reduce the shrimp catch and have a major impact
on the country's export earnings.
El Salvador also had an embryonic shrimp culture industry. According
to an AID feasibility study, El Salvador has 5,000 hectares of land
particularly well suited for shrimp farming. By the end of 1987,
however, only four small shrimp farms were operating in El Salvador.
The government also tried with a US$50 million loan from France to
establish a major tuna fishery. The funds were used to build a large
tuna port, complete with processing facilities, at La Union, already a
major shrimp fishing port. The project was completed in 1981 but was
never initiated because of the government's poor management of the
vessels and the project. The Salvadoran government, which purchased two
large tuna seiners for operation in 1981 and 1982, reported meager
catches because of technical difficulties. By 1985 the facilities at La
Union had languished, and the government was unable to sell the vessels.
The weakness of the Salvadoran tuna industry became clear in September
1986 (and again in August 1988) when the Salvadoran government ignored
the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act, an act that requires
tuna exporters to the United States to report their efforts to reduce
concomitant porpoise mortalities. Consequently, the United States
embargoed Salvadoran tuna in September 1986 and again in 1988.
El Salvador - Forestry
The manufacturing industry developed slowly. In 1950, when
manufacturing accounted for about 7 percent of GDP, it comprised mostly
cottage industries. Of the fourteen larger manufacturing firms (with
more than 100 employees), thirteen were located in San Salvador and
produced mainly textiles, tobacco, and beverages; most of the smaller
firms manufactured clothing, shoes, furniture, and wood or straw
products.
The development and manufacturing industries was slowed by a shortage
of reliable year-round labor--most Salvadorans worked seasonally as
agricultural laborers--and an even more acute lack of skilled workers.
In 1952, however, when the government offered tax breaks to small
businesses, industry grew almost 5 percent a year from 1955 to 1958.
During this period, cement, chemical, and transportation equipment
industries began. The intermediate goods sector was much more dynamic
than the capital goods sector; with the development of modern chemical,
pharmaceutical, and petroleum product industries, it grew rapidly in the
1960s and 1970s. The production of machinery and transport equipment
remained fairly stable in terms of its share of the value added for
total Salvadoran manufactured goods, rising from 3 percent of total
value added in 1970 to 4 percent in 1985.
By 1960 the manufacturing sector represented 14.6 percent of El
Salvador's GDP, the highest percentage of any Central American country
at the time. The creation of the CACM boosted the rapid development of
manufacturing firms in El Salvador throughout the 1960s. By 1965,
following three years of 12 percent average annual growth, manufacturing
represented 17.4 percent of GDP. Between 1961 and 1970, value added in
manufacturing increased (in nominal terms) from US$89.2 million to
US$194.1 million.
The manufacturing sector received a temporary setback because of the
1969 war with Honduras, which disrupted CACM trade. Even the CACM's
share of Salvadoran exports fell from 40 percent in 1968 to 32 percent
in 1970. Nevertheless, manufacturing output increased by a modest 3.9
percent in 1969. Following the war, however, foreign investment replaced
CACM trade as the engine of growth for the Salvadoran manufacturing
industry.
During the 1970s, manufacturing was the most dynamic segment of the
Salvadoran economy, growing by an impressive 16.8 percent yearly between
1971 and 1978. Consumer goods (especially foodstuffs, textiles,
clothing, and shoes) continued to be the most important products.
Because of the CACM's decline, El Salvador was forced to seek new export
markets like the United States, which in the 1970s imported over 20
percent of the country's food exports and almost 35 percent of its
exports of beverages and tobacco products. El Salvador also sought
export markets for textiles and other light manufactures in the United
States and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). The project
was not competitive, however, because of poor product quality and
outmoded manufacturing techniques and expensive foreign materials.
Eventually Japan and West Germany became important export markets for
the bulk of El Salvador's nonedible raw materials, fats, and oils.
Because foreign investors funneled their capital to industries
producing intermediate goods these industries increased in importance
relative to consumer goods during the 1970s. As a result, El Salvador
increased the percentage of its exports of manufactured goods exported
to industrialized countries. In 1965 over 90 percent of Salvadoran
manufactured exports went to other developing countries (primarily CACM
states), but by 1986 about 87 percent were being shipped to
industrialized countries. Overall exports of manufactured goods
increased (in real terms) from US$32 million in 1965 to US$170 million
in 1986.
During the 1980s, the manufacturing sector, buffeted by the chaos of
the civil conflict, labor unrest, declining investor confidence, and
world recession, experienced a major decline. Aside from the generalized
capital flight spurred by political instability, the second most
damaging effect of the conflict, after guerrilla sabotage of the
electrical grid, was attacks on factories.
The industries hit hardest by guerrilla attacks were those producing
nontraditional capital goods such as transportation equipment,
intermediate goods such as metal products and machinery, and
capital-intensive consumer goods such as electric appliances.
Traditional industries (foodstuffs, beverages, tobacco, wood products,
and furniture) were least affected because their factories tended to be
smaller and thus less subject to guerrilla attacks. These industries
also had welldeveloped domestic markets and consequently were less
affected by the 1980-82 world recession. Exports of manufactured goods
declined by 48 percent in value and almost 80 percent in volume between
1979 and 1982, mainly as a result of lower shipments of chemicals,
textiles, clothing, and petroleum products.
Labor unrest became a major contributing factor in declining
manufacturing output. But it is unclear whether or not there is a direct
relationship between guerilla activity and that unrest. There were,
however, eighty-six strikes in 1979, involving almost 23,000 workers,
compared with only one strike, involving 700 workers, in 1975.
El Salvador - Other Leading Industries
The Constitutions of El Salvador, 1824-1962
El Salvador has functioned under fifteen constitutions since it
achieved independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century. The
vast majority of these documents were drafted and promulgated without
the benefit of broad popular input or electoral mandate. The nature of
the country's elite-dominated political system and the personalistic
rule of presidents drawn from either the oligarchy or the military
accounted for the relatively short life span of most of these documents.
Some of them were drafted solely to provide a quasi-legal basis for the
extension of a president's term, whereas others were created to
legitimize seizures of power on an ex post facto basis.
The first Salvadoran constitution was produced in 1824. It declared
El Salvador independent as a member of the United Provinces of Central
America. The
dissolution of the United Provinces necessitated the promulgation of a
new constitution in 1841 as El Salvador emerged as an independent
republic in its own right. The 1841 constitution was a liberal document
that established a bicameral legislature and set a two-year term for the
nation's president with no possibility of reelection. The latter feature
contributed directly to the demise of the document in 1864, when
President Gerardo Barrios dispensed with it and extended his term by
legislative decree.
That same year, Barrios replaced the 1841 constitution with one that,
not surprisingly, increased the presidential term to four years and
allowed for one reelection. This issue of presidential tenure proved to
be a major point of contention for the next two decades. The 1871
constitution, drafted by resurgent liberal forces, restored the two-year
term, prohibited immediate reelection, and strengthened the power of the
legislative branch. This document too, however, fell victim to
individual ambition when President Santiago Gonzalez replaced it with
the constitution of 1872, which restored the four-year term. Similarly,
the constitution of 1880 was used to extend the term of President Rafael
Zaldivar. The four-year term was retained in the constitution of 1883,
but presidential tenure was reduced to three years in the constitution
of 1885. The latter document, although it never formally came into
force, owing to the overthrow of Zaldivar by Francisco Menendez, was
nonetheless an influential piece of work, primarily because it formed
the basis for the constitution of 1886, the most durable in Salvadoran
history.
The constitution of 1886 provided for a four-year presidential term
with no immediate reelection and established a unicameral legislature.
Some limits on presidential power were incorporated, most notably the
stricture that all executive decrees or orders had to comply with the
stated provisions of the constitution. This constitutional litmus test
of executive action was, at least in theory, a significant step toward
an institutionalized governmental system and away from the arbitrary
imposition of power by self-serving caudillos. The constitution of 1886
showed remarkable staying power by Salvadoran standards, remaining in
force in its original form until January 1939. It was reinstated in
amended form after World War II. The 1939 constitution that filled the
wartime gap was designed by President Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez to
ensure his uninterrupted rule; it increased the presidential term from
four to six years. Martinez's effort to extend his rule still further by
inserting a provision for the one-time legislative election of the
president was one of several grievances fueling the public unrest that
drove him from office in 1944.
The wartime constitution was revised in that same year. Although
technically titled the Reforms of 1944, this document is also sometimes
referred to as the Constitution of 1944. It was supplanted in 1945 by
yet another charter, the constitution of 1945, which endured for only
one year. The 1886 constitution, in amended form, was reinstated in
1946. These changes reflected the political uncertainty that prevailed
in El Salvador between the termination of Martinez's long tenure as
president and the advent of the military-led Revolution of 1948.
The constitution that grew out of the Revolution of 1948, under which
Oscar Osorio was elected president, was the constitution of 1950. It
retained a unicameral legislature and changed the name from National
Assembly to Legislative Assembly. The 1950 charter also restored a
six-year presidential term with no immediate reelection and, for the
first time, granted Salvadoran women the right to vote.
A Constituent Assembly appointed by the military-civilian junta and
headed by Colonel Julio Adalberto Rivera drafted a document that was
promulgated as the constitution of 1962 but that was basically quite
similar to the 1950 constitution. Relatively long lived by Salvadoran
standards, it was not superseded until 1983, by which time the personal
and political guarantees of the constitution had been suspended by a
state of emergency.
El Salvador - The Constitution of 1983
The Political Setting
The sixty-member Constituent Assembly elected in March 1982 was
charged with producing a new constitution. This new document was
expected to institutionalize, although perhaps in modified form, the
reform measures taken by the various junta governments after 1979; it
was also to serve as the master plan for a system of representative
democratic government. In addition to crafting the structure of that
government, the Constituent Assembly was responsible for issuing a
schedule for presidential elections.
A majority of the members, known as deputies, of the Constituent
Assembly represented conservative political parties. All told,
conservative parties had drawn approximately 52 percent of the total
popular vote. The moderate Christian Democratic Party (Partido Democrata
Cristiano--PDC) had garnered 35.5 percent. These results equated to
twenty-four seats for the PDC and thirty-six seats for a loose
right-wing coalition made up of the Nationalist Republican Alliance
(Alianza Republicana Nacionalista--Arena), the National Conciliation
Party (Partido de Conciliacion Nacional--PCN), Democratic Action (Accion
Democratica--AD), the Salvadoran Popular Party (Partido Popular
Salvadoreno--PPS), and the Popular Orientation Party (Partido de
Orientacion Popular--POP). Representatives of these five parties issued
a manifesto in March 1982 decrying both communism and Christian
democratic communitarianism and declaring that both ideologies had been
rejected by the people by way of the ballot box. The coalition leaders
suggested that they were preparing to limit Christian democratic
influence on the drafting of the constitution and to exclude the PDC
from participation in the interim government that was to be named by the
Constituent Assembly.
The original exclusionary aims of the rightist coalition, however,
were never completely fulfilled. During its existence, from April 1982
through December 1983, the Constituent Assembly came under pressure from
a number of sources, most significantly from the United States
government and the Salvadoran military. United States envoys from both
the White House and Congress pressed Salvadoran political leaders to
incorporate the PDC into the interim government and to preserve the
reform measures, particularly agrarian reform. At stake was the
continuation of United States aid, both economic and military, without
which El Salvador would have been hard pressed to sustain its democratic
transition in the face of growing military and political pressure from
the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front--Revolutionary Democratic
Front (Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberacion Nacional- Frente Democratico
Revolucionario--FMLN-FDR), the leftist guerrilla (the FMLN) and
political (FDR) opposition groups that unified in 1981 in an effort to
seize power by revolutionary means. El Salvador's military High Command
(Alto Mardo) recognized this reality and lent its considerable influence
to the cause of continued PDC participation in government. The Christian
Democrats had been brought into the junta governments at the urging of
reformist officers; by 1982 the PDC and the military had come to a
practical understanding based on their shared interest in maintaining
good relations with the United States, expanding political
participation, improving economic conditions for the average Salvadoran,
and fending off the challenge from the Marxist left. Realistically, the
last objective was preeminent and encompassed the other three. Lesser
influence was exerted on the deputies by popular opinion and
demonstrations of support for specific reforms. For example, campesino
groups staged rallies outside the Constituent Assembly's chambers to
press their demand for continuation of the agrarian reform decrees.
The actual drafting of the constitution was delegated by the
Constituent Assembly to a special commission composed of representatives
of all the major political parties. The assembly agreed to reinstate the
1962 constitution with only a few exclusions until a constitution was
produced and approved. At the same time, the deputies voted to affirm
the validity of the decrees issued by the junta governments, including
those that enacted agrarian, banking, and foreign commerce reforms.
Having reestablished a working legal framework, the assembly voted
itself the power to act as a legislature through the passage of
constituent decrees.
Since it could not serve as both the legislative and the executive
branch, the Constituent Assembly was required to approve the appointment
of a provisional president. Many observers believed that Arena leader
Roberto D'Aubuisson Arrieta, who was elected president of the assembly
on April 22, 1982, was the most likely candidate. D'Aubuisson's reputed
ties with the violent right wing, however, militated against him. It was
reported that the United States and the Salvadoran High Command lobbied
persuasively against D'Aubuisson's appointment, mainly on the grounds
that his negative image outside El Salvador would complicate, if not
preclude, the provision of substantial aid from Washington. Apparently
swayed by this argument, the members of the Constituent Assembly
appointed Alvaro Magana Borja, a political moderate with ties to the
military, to the post on April 26. In an effort to maintain a political
equilibrium, Magana's cabinet included members of all three major
parties-- Arena, the PDC, and the PCN.
Despite its defeat on the issue of the provisional presidency, Arena
continued to hold the balance of power in El Salvador through its
leadership of the conservative majority in the Constituent Assembly. The
areneros (members or adherents of Arena) vented their
frustration with the political process primarily in the area of agrarian
reform. In May 1982, Magana proposed a partial suspension of Phase III
of the reform, the Land to the Tiller program, for the 1982-83 harvest
season in order to avoid agricultural losses occasioned by the transfer
of land titles. The Arena-led coalition in the assembly seized on
this proposal and expanded it to include some 95 percent of Phase III
landholdings. This action was interpreted by interested parties both in
El Salvador and abroad as a bid by the right to eliminate agrarian
reform and to encourage the eviction of land recipients, a process that
was ongoing at the time, although its extent was difficult to quantify;
it led directly to a limitation by the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee of the United States Congress on military and Economic Support
Funds (ESF) aid to El Salvador. Although Arena's most important domestic
constituency--the economic elite-- continued to advocate the limitation
if not the elimination of agrarian reform, it was clear that such
efforts in the Constituent Assembly would have negative repercussions.
The failure of Arena's leadership to take this fact into account and its
seeming inability--or unwillingness--to seek compromise and
accommodation on this and other issues contributed to its eventual loss
of influence among center-right assembly delegates and the military
leadership.
In August 1982, in an effort to bring the areneros under
control and to prevent them from sabotaging not only the reforms but
perhaps the entire fledgling democratic system, Magana, apparently at
the strong urging of the military chiefs and the United States, brought
together representatives of Arena, the PDC, and the PCN to negotiate a
"basic platform of government." In what became known as the
Pact of Apaneca, the parties agreed on certain broad principles in the
areas of democratization, the protection of human rights, the promotion
of economic development, the preservation of economic and social
reforms, and the protection of the country's security in the face of the
violent conflict with leftist insurgent forces. Organizationally, the
pact established three commissions: the Political Commission to work out
a timetable and guidelines for future elections, the Human Rights
Commission to oversee and promote improvements in that area, and the
Peace Commission to explore possible resolutions of the civil conflict.
The guidelines established by the pact eased the chaotic governmental
situation to some degree; they were also significant in that they
brought Arena into a formal governmental association with more moderate
actors, such as the PDC, and committed the areneros, at least
in principle, to the preservation of some degree of reform.
The pact did not put an end to infighting among the political
parties, however. Magana, lacking a political power base or constituency
beyond the good will of the military, found it frustrating to try to
exert authority over his cabinet ministers, particularly those drawn
from the ranks of Arena. This conflict came to a head in December 1982,
when Magana dismissed his health minister, an arenero, for
refusing to comply with the president's directives. Arena party
leadership advised the minister to reject the president's action and to
retain his post. This proved to be a miscalculation on the part of
Arena, as Magana went on to have the dismissal approved by a majority of
the Constituent Assembly. Again in this instance, the behind-the- scenes
support of the military worked in favor of the provisional president and
against Arena.
The damage done to Arena's prestige by the dismissal of the health
minister was compounded by the party's efforts to influence the
appointment of his successor. Magana proposed a member of the small,
moderate AD for the post. The areneros, particularly
Constituent Assembly president D'Aubuisson, saw this (not without
justification) as an effort to diminish their influence in the
government and sought to defeat the appointment through parliamentary
maneuvering. They succeeded only in delaying approval, however.
Furthermore, after the vote the assembly amended its procedures to limit
the power of the assembly president.
Arena was not the only party to see its standing diminish after the
signing of the Pact of Apaneca. The PCN delegation in the Constituent
Assembly suffered a rupture immediately after the signing of the pact,
as nine conservative deputies split from the party to establish a bloc
they dubbed the Salvadoran Authentic Institutional Party (Partido
Autentico Institucional Salvadoreno- -PAISA). This move left the
assembly more or less evenly split between conservative and centrist
deputies.
The special commission charged with drafting the constitution
finished its work in June 1983. At that time, it reported that it had
reached agreement in almost all respects. Two major exceptions, however,
were agrarian reform and the schedule and procedure for presidential
elections. These issues were left to the Constituent Assembly to
resolve.
Of all the constitutional provisions debated in the Constituent
Assembly, those dealing with agrarian reform were the most contentious.
In light of the decline in the Arena coalition's standing and influence
and the corresponding gains of the PDC and its moderate allies,
eliminating the reforms altogether was ruled out. The conservatives
retained enough clout, however, to limit the provisions of the original
decrees. Their major victory in this regard was the raising of the
maximum allowable landholding under Phase II of the reform from 100 to
245 hectares, an action that addressed the concerns of some well- to-do
landowners but that put a crimp in redistribution efforts by reducing
the amount of land subject to expropriation. After the 1982-83
suspension, the Constituent Assembly twice extended Phase III of the
reform; the government accepted applications for title under this phase
until July 1984.
Aside from the sections dealing with agrarian reform, the draft
constitution was approved by the Constituent Assembly without an excess
of debate. One exception was the article dealing with the death penalty.
The version finally approved by the assembly endorsed capital punishment
only in cases covered by military law when the country was in a state of
declared war. These restrictions effectively eliminated the death
penalty from the Salvadoran criminal justice system. Consideration of
the draft document by the full Constituent Assembly began in August
1983; the final version was approved by that body in December. The
effective date of the Constitution was December 20, 1983. The
Constituent Assembly, having completed its mandate, was dismissed at
that point, only to be reconvened on December 22 as the Legislative
Assembly. The membership of the body remained the same.
The Document
The Constitution of 1983 is in many ways quite similar to the
constitution of 1962, often incorporating verbatim passages from the
earlier document. Some of the provisions shared by the two charters
include the establishment of a five-year presidential term with no
reelection, the right of the people to resort to
"insurrection" to redress a transgression of the
constitutional order, the affirmation (however neglected in practice) of
the apolitical nature of the Salvadoran armed forces, the support of the
state for the protection and promotion of private enterprise, the
recognition of the right to private property, the right of laborers to a
minimum wage and a six-day work week, the right of workers to strike and
of owners to a lockout, and the traditional commitment to the
reestablishment of the Republic of Central America.
The Constitution consists of 11 titles, subdivided into 274 articles.
Title One enumerates the rights of the individual, among them the right
to free expression that "does not subvert the public order,"
the right of free association and peaceful assembly for any legal
purpose, the legal presumption of innocence, the legal inadmissibility
of forced confession, and the right to the free exercise of
religion--again, with the stipulation that such exercise remain within
the bounds of "morality and public order."
Title One, however, also specifies the conditions under which
constitutional guarantees may be suspended and the procedures for such
suspension. The grounds for such action include war, invasion,
rebellion, sedition, catastrophe (natural disasters), epidemic, or
"grave disturbances of the public order." The declaration of
the requisite circumstances may be issued by either the legislative or
the executive branch of government. The suspension of constitutional
guarantees lasts for a maximum of thirty days, at which point it may be
extended for an additional thirty days by legislative decree. The
declaration of suspension of guarantees grants jurisdiction over cases
involving "crimes against the existence and organization of the
state" to special military courts. The military courts that
functioned from February 1984 until early 1987 under a suspension of
guarantees (or state of siege) were commonly known as Decree 50 courts,
after the legislative decree that established them.
According to the Constitution, all Salvadorans over eighteen years of
age are considered citizens. As such, they have both political rights
and political obligations. The rights of the citizen include the
exercise of suffrage and the formation of political parties "in
accordance with the law" or the right to join an existing party.
The exercise of suffrage is listed as an obligation as well as a right,
making voting mandatory. Failure to vote has technically been subject to
a small fine, a penalty rarely invoked in practice.
Voters are required to have their names entered in the Electoral
Register. Political campaigns are limited to four months preceding
presidential balloting, two months before balloting for legislative
representatives (deputies), and one month before municipal elections.
Members of the clergy and active-duty military personnel are prohibited
from membership in political parties and cannot run for public office.
Moreover, the clergy and the military are enjoined from "carry[ing]
out political propaganda in any form." Although military personnel
are not denied suffrage by the Constitution, the armed forces'
leadership routinely instructed its personnel to refrain from voting in
order to concentrate on providing security for polling places.
Title Five defines the outlines of the country's "Economic
Order." As noted, private enterprise and private property are
guaranteed. The latter is recognized as a "social function," a
phrase that may function as a loophole for the potential expropriation
of unproductive land or other holdings. Individual landowners are
limited to holdings of no more than 245 hectares but may dispose of
their holdings as they see fit. The expropriation of land may be
undertaken for the public benefit in the "social interest"
through legal channels and with fair compensation.
Amendment of the Constitution is not a simple procedure. Initial
approval of an amendment (or "reform") requires only a
majority vote in the Legislative Assembly. Before the amendment can be
incorporated, however, it must be ratified by a two-thirds vote in the
next elected assembly. Since legislative deputies serve three-year
terms, an amendment could take that long or longer to win passage into
law.
El Salvador - GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS
The constitutional role of the Salvadoran armed forces is spelled out
in Title Six, Chapter Eight of the Constitution. The military is charged
with maintaining a representative democratic form of government,
enforcing the no-reelection provision for the country's president,
guaranteeing freedom of suffrage, and respecting human rights. The armed
forces as an institution is defined as "essentially
apolitical" and obedient to established civilian authority.
It should be borne in mind that such documents tend to reflect ideals
and goals for conduct, not the prevailing state of affairs at the time
of their drafting. In the late 1980s, the Salvadoran armed forces was an
evolving institution attempting to deal simultaneously with a left-wing
insurgency and the institutionalization of a democratic form of
government while also seeking to deflect what it perceived as threats to
its internal cohesion. One such threat was the potential investigation
and possible prosecution of officers on human rights charges, many of
them connected with the prosecution of the war against the guerrillas,
although such action was rendered less likely by the amnesty approved by
the Legislative Assembly in 1987 as well as by the political ascendancy
of Arena. Given its history, the heightened
importance of its role in dealing with the insurgents, and its interest
in preserving its institutional integrity, the Salvadoran military
certainly exerted political influence, particularly in areas of policy
directly related to national security. Indeed, the armed forces was
expected by all political actors in the country to play a role in the
country's affairs, and its power and influence were accepted by all
those participating in the democratic system.
Since the political influence of the armed forces, usually exerted
through the High Command, was exercised largely behind the scenes, it
was in many ways difficult to measure. There were indications, however,
that the military was attempting to cooperate with civilian democratic
leaders. The minister of defense and public security, General Carlos
Eugenio Vides Casanova, accompanied President Jose Napoleon Duarte
Fuentes to the October 1984 meeting with representatives of the FMLN-FDR
in La Palma. General Vides also appeared before the
Legislative Assembly a number of times at the request of that body to
testify on military issues. Both the air force, by restricting aerial
bombing, and the security forces, by showing restraint in dealing with
radical demonstrators in San Salvador, followed directives laid down by
the president. Perhaps the best evidence of military restraint under the
emerging democratic system was the fact that, as of late 1988, the High
Command had made no move to overthrow the existing government by force,
despite several reported appeals from Salvadoran political factions to
do so.
Another important development with regard to the military's political
role concerned its relationship with other actors, particularly the
elite and the political parties. By supporting a government headed by a
Christian democratic president and assisting in the implementation of
agrarian reform measures, the armed forces demonstrated in the 1980s
that their previous ties with the elite, particularly the agrarian
elite, no longer compelled them to resist almost every form of social
and political change. The dissociation by the military from direct
institutional support of any political party--in contrast to its virtual
control of the PCN during the 1960s and 1970s--also enhanced the armed
forces' political independence.
El Salvador - Local Government
Electoral Procedures
Electoral procedures in El Salvador are governed by the Electoral
Code, which was updated by the Legislative Assembly in January 1988. The
system it established is in some ways cumbersome and open to abuse but
adheres closely to electoral procedures followed in most Latin American
countries.
The organization in charge of administering electoral procedures is
the Central Electoral Council (Consejo Central de Elecciones), which
consists of three members and three alternates elected for five-year
terms by the Legislative Assembly. Nominees for the council are drawn
from the ranks of the leading political parties or coalitions, as
determined by the vote totals in the most recent presidential elections.
The president of the Central Electoral Council serves as the chief
administrator and the ultimate authority on questions of electoral
procedures.
In order to cast their votes, all citizens are required to obtain
from the Central Electoral Council an electoral identification card (carnet
electoral) certifying their inscription in the national Electoral
Register. The carnet electoral is presented at the individual's
polling place and is the only form of identification accepted for this
purpose. The card must bear the voter's photograph, signature (if
literate), and right thumbprint. The carnet electoral is valid
for five years from the date of issue.
The issuing of carnets electorales and the related
maintenance of the Electoral Register are the most cumbersome aspects of
the electoral system, particularly in rural areas where voters' access
to their municipal electoral boards frequently is impeded by poor
transportation and the effects of the insurgent war. Rural voter
registration has also been hampered by direct and indirect coercion by
the guerrilla forces, who have described national elections as a sham
and a component of a United States-designed counterinsurgency strategy.
These and other factors, including a general disenchantment with the
electoral process based in large part on the failure of the government
to end the insurgency and improve economic conditions, contributed to a
gradual decline in voter turnout during the 1982-88 period. Whereas some
80 percent of the electorate turned out for the Constituent Assembly
balloting in 1982, only an estimated 65 percent voted in the first round
of presidential balloting in March 1984. This was followed by turnouts
of approximately 66 and 60 percent in the 1985 and 1988 legislative and
municipal elections, respectively.
The Central Electoral Council, in coordination with its departmental
and municipal electoral boards, determines the number and location of
polling places. This process is to be completed at least fifteen days
prior to balloting. Although the Electoral Register and final vote
tallies are processed at least partially by computer, paper ballots are
utilized at the polling places. Ballots are deposited in clear plastic
receptacles to reduce the possibility of fraud. All political parties
are entitled to station a poll watcher at each balloting site to reduce
further the opportunity for vote manipulation.
Polling places are open from 7:00 A.M. until 5:00 P.M., at which time
the officials at each site begin the preparation of an official record
of the results. This record includes a preliminary vote count by party,
an inventory of ballots issued to the polling place (the discrepancy
between ballots issued and ballots used is not to exceed 300), and
accounts of challenges received and any unusual incidents or occurrences
during the course of the voting. Poll watchers scrutinize the record's
preparation and are entitled to a copy of the final product. As a
result, political parties frequently are able to issue preliminary
electoral results well in advance of the official tally.
These records from the polling places are forwarded to the local
municipal electoral board, where a record for the entire municipio
is prepared. The municipal voting records are conveyed to the Central
Electoral Council by way of the departmental electoral boards. The
council conducts the final scrutiny of the records; this process must be
undertaken no later than forty-eight hours after the closing of the
polls. Copies of voting records are also provided to the office of the
attorney general as a further safeguard against tampering.
In the case of presidential elections, the Central Electoral Council
can declare a winner only if one ticket receives an absolute majority of
all votes cast. If no one party or coalition receives such a majority,
as happened in the March 1984 elections, the council is required to
schedule within thirty days a runoff election between the two leading
vote-getters. The declaration of winners in legislative balloting is
less direct; here, voters cast their ballots for parties more than for
individuals, since seats in the Legislative Assembly are allotted to
registered candidates roughly on a proportional basis according to the
departmental vote totals of their party or coalition. Municipal
elections are more straightforward, with the winners decided according
to their showing in the municipal vote tallies.
The protracted insurgent war exerted pressure on the government to
adjust its electoral procedures. In areas where guerrilla control
prevented the establishment of polling places, voters were urged to cast
their ballots at the nearest secure location. Some polling places in
departmental capitals were required to have on hand electoral records
for rural voters who had relocated from war zones. In some towns,
so-called national polling stations were set up to accommodate displaced
voters from other departments. These stations were required to have on
hand electoral registration data for the entire country.
Guerrillaengineered transportation stoppages, attacks on public
buildings, and sabotage of the electrical system impeded voting as well,
especially in rural areas. Indeed, many of these actions were undertaken
with the specific intention of deterring voters from participation.
In addition to overseeing elections, the Central Electoral Council is
also charged with the official recognition of political parties. Initial
petitions to the council for the formation of a party require the
support of at least 100 citizens. This group then is granted sixty days
to secure the signatures of at least 3,000 citizens and submit them to
the council. If all the signatures are verified, the party is then
granted legal recognition, referred to as inscription (inscripcion).
The party's inscription can be revoked if it fails to receive at least
0.5 percent of the total national vote cast in a presidential or
legislative election, or if the party fails to participate in two
consecutive elections. Parties are allowed to form coalitions at the
national, departmental, or municipal levels without forfeiting their
separate inscriptions.
Political campaigns are underwritten to some extent by the state
through the provision for "political debt." The Electoral Code
stipulates that each party can expect to receive reimbursement according
to the following formula: C10 for each valid vote cast for the party in
the first round of a presidential election, C6 for each vote in
legislative elections, and C4 for each vote in municipal elections. All
parties are eligible for payment, regardless of their showing at the
polls.
El Salvador - The Electoral Process
From March 1982 to March 1988, Salvadorans went to the polls five
times to cast their ballots for members of the Constituent Assembly
(later converted to the Legislative Assembly), the president, deputies
of the Legislative Assembly, and municipal officials. This flurry of
electoral activity was occasioned by the transition to a functional
representative system of government, a decidedly new experience for
Salvadorans.
The first round of the 1984 presidential election was held on March
25. Some 1.4 million Salvadorans went to the polls. Although eight
candidates competed, most voters cast their ballots for the
representative of one of the three leading parties, the PDC's Duarte,
Arena's D'Aubuisson, or the PCN's Francisco Jose Guerrero Cienfuegos.
The results were not immediately decisive. Duarte received 43 percent of
the vote, D'Aubuisson 30 percent, and Guerrero 19. This necessitated a
runoff election on May 6 between Duarte and D'Aubuisson. Despite
entreaties from Arena, Guerrero declined to endorse either candidate. It
is doubtful that his endorsement would have made much difference in the
balloting, given Duarte's relative popularity and D'Aubuisson's reputed
connections with right-wing violence and the disapproval of his
candidacy by the United States government. It was reported in the United
States press after the election that the United States Central
Intelligence Agency had funneled some US$2 million in covert campaign
aid to the PDC. Nevertheless, the results of the runoff were
surprisingly close, with Duarte garnering 54 percent to D'Aubuisson's 46
percent. Some observers criticized the presidential election on the
grounds that it excluded parties of the left, such as those represented
by the FDR. Political conditions at that time, however, were not
favorable to participation by such groups. If nothing else, the
inability of the government to provide for the physical security of
leftist candidates militated against their inclusion in the electoral
process.
The 1985 legislative and municipal elections were carried
overwhelmingly by the PDC. The party achieved an outright majority in
the Legislative Assembly, increasing its representation from twenty-four
to thirty-three seats, and carried over 200 of the country's municipal
councils. Arena and the PCN joined as a two-party coalition for these
elections in an effort to secure a conservative majority in the
assembly. The terms of the coalition, whereby Arena agreed to split
evenly the total number of seats won, resulted in a political
embarrassment for D'Aubuisson's party, which took 29 percent of the
total vote but was awarded only one more seat (thirteen to twelve) than
the PCN, which had drawn only 8 percent of the vote. PAISA and AD also
won one seat apiece.
The style of Salvadoran political campaigning bore little resemblance
to that of the United States and other institutionalized democracies.
Personal verbal attacks between competing candidates and parties
predominated in the media, campaign literature, and at public rallies.
Debate on specific issues was largely eschewed in favor of emotional
appeals to the electorate. It was therefore not uncommon to hear
candidates and leaders of the PDC refer to Arena as a "Nazi-fascist
party," whereas areneros openly denounced Christian
Democrats as "communists." One of Arena leader D'Aubuisson's
favorite campaign embellishments was to slash open a watermelon with a
machete; the watermelon, he told the crowds, was like the PDC--green
(the party color) on the outside but red on the inside. This dramatic,
personalistic type of appeal highlighted the lack of
institutionalization of the Salvadoran democratic system, the intensity
of emotion elicited by the political process, and the polarizing effect
of the ongoing struggle between the government and leftist insurgent
forces. Observers reported, however, that Arena spokesmen toned down
their appeals during the 1988 legislative and municipal elections in an
effort to project a moderate, responsible image.
El Salvador - Political Parties
By 1988 El Salvador had a number of inscribed political parties
participating in the democratic process. Only three, however, had
significant followings: the PDC, Arena, and the PCN.
Christian Democratic Party
The ideological position of the Christian Democratic Party (Partido
Democrata Cristiano--PDC) was more liberal than that of most Christian
democratic parties elsewhere in Latin America or in Western Europe. In
the Salvadoran context, taking into account the existence of radical
leftist groups such as those constituting the FMLN-FDR, the PDC could be
characterized as a party of the center-left. The party was born out of
the frustration of urban middle-class professionals who felt themselves
excluded from the political process in El Salvador. From its
founding in 1960 until the early 1980s, the party and its leaders showed
considerable tenacity and staying power in the face of right-wing
repression, the adamant refusal of the economic and political elite
(with the backing of the military) to allow broad-based popular
participation in government, and the eventual defection of some of its
members to the radical left, in the form of the FDR. The year 1979 was a
turning point for the Christian Democrats, as it was for the country as
a whole. Party leaders' participation in the junta governments
established after the reformist coup gave them an opportunity to
organize and prepare to participate in the democratic process initiated
in 1982. Their involvement also attracted the support of the United
States. Despite its failure to win a majority of the seats in the 1982
balloting for the Constituent Assembly, the PDC nonetheless emerged from
that election as the leading political party in the country, a position
it went on to demonstrate in the 1984 and 1985 elections.
The PDC reached the peak of its power after the 1985 elections. At
that point, Duarte was still a popular figure. The party's absolute
majority in the legislature was seen by him and his fellow Christian
Democrats as a mandate for the continuation and extension of reforms.
The opposition was weakened and divided. Resentment among the areneros
over their unsuccessful coalition with the PCN provoked a rupture
between the two conservative parties. Subsequently, the PCN became more
supportive of the PDC and its political program.
Duarte and his party used their control of the executive and
legislative branches to further the agrarian reform program first
established by decree in 1980, to draft a new Electoral Code, to approve
an amnesty for political prisoners, and to pass additional economic
reform measures. The momentum that had seemed so compelling in the wake
of the March elections, however, was eroded by events and was eventually
lost in the tumult of politics and insurgency. Perhaps the first of the
blows to the PDC's position was the kidnapping of the president's
daughter, Ines Guadalupe Duarte Duran, in September 1985. This incident
preoccupied Duarte personally, so that his support within the armed
forces weakened, and a leadership vacuum developed in both the
government and the PDC.
Another major dilemma for the PDC government was the direction of a
war-ravaged economy. Although it could be justified on an economic
basis, Duarte's 1986 package of austerity measures drew political fire
from most major interest groups. The associated currency devaluation, always
a controversial step, was especially unpopular. The impression that the
president implemented the austerity measures largely in response to
pressure from the United States also did little to enhance his prestige
or that of the party.
For most Salvadorans, the civil conflict and its attendant violence
were the problems of uppermost concern, especially insofar as pocketbook
issues such as inflation, standard of living, and employment were seen
as closely related to the war against the leftist guerrillas. Duarte's
personal popularity was boosted after the October 1984 meeting in La
Palma with representatives of the FMLN-FDR; a war-weary population began
to believe that a resolution to the conflict might be in sight. These
optimistic expectations, however, were dampened considerably as the
negotiating process bogged down and stalled. The kidnapping of Duarte's
daughter further hardened the president's attitude and rendered the
prospect of a negotiated settlement during his administration highly
unlikely. Although the majority of Salvadorans had little sympathy for
the FMLN, Duarte's failure to achieve peace nonetheless undermined his
popularity and diminished the public perception of the PDC as a viable
mediator between the extremes of left and right.
Another issue that tarnished the reputation of the PDC was
corruption. Rumors and allegations that had become common in El Salvador
came to a head in March 1988 with the publication of an article in the New
York Times indicating that as much as US$2 million in United States
economic aid might have been embezzled. One of the individuals named in
the article was an associate of Alejandro Duarte, the president's son.
Although the president himself was never linked with corrupt practices
of any kind, the apparent failure of other members of the PDC to resist
the temptations of office was a blow to the image of a party that had
throughout its history protested and decried the abuses of power
perpetrated under previous governments.
The post-1985 decline in the fortunes of the PDC government closely
paralleled a general popular disillusionment with the democratic
process. By 1987 polls conducted by the Central American University Jose
Simeon Canas showed that slightly over three-quarters of the electorate
felt that no existing political party represented their interests. Of
those respondents who did express a party preference, only 6 percent
identified with the PDC and 10 percent with Arena.
Given the lack of clearly demonstrable progress in the economic,
political, and security spheres, most observers correctly predicted that
the PDC would lose its legislative majority in the March 1988 elections.
The scale of that loss, however, was greater than most had anticipated.
The final official vote count yielded thirty Legislative Assembly seats
for Arena, twenty-three for the PDC, and seven for the PCN. Arena's
leaders initially protested the results, claiming that they had captured
at least thirty-one seats and thus a majority in the legislature. The
protest was rendered academic in May 1988, when a PCN deputy switched
his party allegiance to Arena. A September 1988 ruling by the Supreme
Court awarded the contested seat to Arena, raising its majority to
thirty-two. In a stunning turnaround, the Christian Democrats had
dropped eleven seats in the assembly and lost more than 200 municipal
races to Arena. A particularly sharp blow to PDC pride was the loss of
the mayoralty of San Salvador, a post the party had held continuously
since Duarte's election as mayor in 1964. Ironically, Duarte's son
Alejandro was the PDC candidate who was forced to concede defeat to the
Arena candidate, Armando Calderon Sol.
The internal cohesion of the party had begun to erode well before the
1988 elections. While Duarte was struggling to deal with affairs of
state, his own party was polarizing into two personalistic, competitive
factions. One of these factions was led by Julio Adolfo Rey Prendes, a
longtime party member and associate of Duarte's. The other faction
supported Fidel Chavez Mena, a younger technocrat who had disrupted a
seemingly harmonious and supportive relationship with Duarte by opposing
him for the 1984 presidential nomination. Rey Prendes's faction was
commonly known as "the Ring" (La Argolla) or "the
Mafia." The latter designation, used by members of the faction
themselves, perhaps reflected Rey Prendes's reputation as a backroom
political wheeler-dealer. Chavez's followers were referred to as institucionalistas
or simply as chavistas.
Through his accumulated power within the party, Rey Prendes was able
to influence the nomination of PDC legislative candidates in the 1988
elections. These deputies served as his political power base. The chavistas,
although frozen out of the nominations to the Legislative Assembly,
rallied to have their man nominated for president at a party convention
in June 1988, but only after an earlier convention dominated by members
of the Rey Prendes faction was ruled invalid by the Central Electoral
Council. Not surprisingly, the earlier convention had nominated Rey
Prendes as the party's standard bearer.
Judging by his public inaction in the matter, Duarte awoke fairly
late to the trouble in his own party. In an effort to settle the
conflict between the two contentious factions, the president proposed in
April 1988 that both Rey Prendes and Chavez renounce their campaigns for
the presidency in favor of a unity candidate, Abraham Rodriguez.
Rodriguez was a founding member of the PDC who had run unsuccessfully
for president in 1967. The fact that Duarte's attempt at reconciliation
was rejected immediately by both factional leaders demonstrated the
president's diminished status and authority among the party's ranks.
The decline in the fortunes of the PDC was tragically and almost
symbolically accentuated by the announcement in June 1988 that President
Duarte was suffering from terminal liver cancer. The illness might have
explained to some extent Duarte's faltering leadership of both the
government and his party. In any case, the announcement seemed to
punctuate the end of an era in Salvadoran politics.
El Salvador - Nationalist Republican Alliance
The nature of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (Alianza
Republicana Nacionalista--Arena) as a political force in El Salvador was
the object of some debate as it moved toward becoming a ruling party
with its 1988 electoral victory. Some observers characterized Arena as
the institutional representative of the "disloyal right,"
meaning those conservative forces that played the game of democracy
while privately harboring preferences for authoritarian or even
dictatorial rule and a restoration of the absolute political preeminence
of the elite. Others felt that after a rocky beginning, Arena had
moderated and extended its ideology beyond simplistic, reflexive
anticommunism and was ready to assume the role of a conservative party
that would support private enterprise and be willing to accept some
economic reforms in response to popular demands.
The fortunes of Arena, like those of the PDC, were cyclical in
nature. Although the 1982 Constituent Assembly elections yielded the
party a leading role in that body, subsequent elections appeared to
reflect a growing public rejection of the extremist image of Arena and
its leader, D'Aubuisson. The nadir of the party's influence was reached
after the 1985 elections and the unsuccessful coalition with the PCN.
Much of the blame for the party's electoral defeats fell on the
shoulders of D'Aubuisson. In an effort to moderate the party's image,
D'Aubuisson was persuaded to step down as party president in October
1985. He was replaced by Alfredo Cristiani Buckhard, a member of a
prominent coffee-growing family. Although Cristiani, who in May 1988 was
designated the party's 1989 presidential nominee, subsequently went on
to project a less hyperbolic public image for the party, D'Aubuisson was
nevertheless retained as an "honorary president for life," and
he continued to serve as a charismatic drawing card at public rallies
and as a party spokesman in the media. San Salvador mayor Calderon Sol
also emerged from the 1988 elections as a leading figure in the party.
Arena's journey from obstructionist opposition to apparent majority
status was attributable to a number of factors. With its support from
private enterprise and large agricultural interests, Arena enjoyed a
distinct advantage in funding over its rivals. Along with superior
liquidity came superior organizational and propaganda capabilities.
Although its elitist supporters were the most influential, Arena's base
of support also incorporated significant numbers of rural peasants and,
particularly in the March 1988 elections, the urban poor. The party
consistently drew some 40 percent of the peasant vote, reflecting the
basic conservatism of this voting bloc as well as the ingrained appeal
of strong caudillo leadership and a visceral response to the party's
promises to prosecute more forcefully the war against the guerrillas.
Arena also benefited from the intractable nature of the country's
problems and the PDC's apparent inability to cope successfully with the
challenge of governing a country torn by violence and instability.
Arena also reportedly counted a significant percentage of the
military officer corps as sympathizers with its views, particularly the
party's call for a more vigorous prosecution of the counterinsurgent
war. D'Aubuisson, a 1963 graduate of the Captain General Gerardo Barrios
Military Academy, apparently maintained contacts not only with members
of his graduating class (tanda) but also with conservative
junior officers. It was reported by some observers that D'Aubuisson's
behind-the-scenes appeals from 1984 to 1988 were intended to foment a
rightist coup d'etat against the PDC government. After the party's March
1988 electoral victory, such a drastic method of taking power appeared
to be ruled out by Arena's seemingly bright prospects in the 1989
presidential race.
Although Arena's surprisingly strong showing in the 1988 elections
was to a great extent a rejection of the PDC, it also seemed to reflect
a hardening of public attitudes, particularly with regard to the
conflict between the government and the leftist guerrillas. Whereas
Duarte and his party had drawn support among the electorate at least in
part by promising to end the fighting through negotiations, Arena
suggested that the more effective approach was to step up military
efforts in the field. This approach seemed to have the greatest appeal
among the residents of conflict zones in the north and east of the
country, where resentment of the protracted fighting ran high. Some
urban middle-class voters, once strong supporters of the PDC, also
reportedly responded favorably to this hard-line position.
Another aspect of Arena's appeal revolved around nationalism and
rejection of foreign interference in Salvadoran affairs. Some areneros
bitterly resented the perceived favoritism shown the PDC by the United
States and blamed much of their party's misfortune from 1984 through
1988 on manipulation by the norteamericanos. Some party
spokesmen such as Sigifredo Ochoa Perez, a flamboyant retired army
colonel elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1988, extended their
criticism beyond the political sphere into the arena of military
tactics, publicly criticizing the role of United States military
advisers in formulating counterinsurgent strategy. Cristiani also spoke
out against such United States-backed innovations as the switch to
small-unit tactics and suggested that an Arena government would move to
abandon them. The seeming inability of the armed forces to resolve the
insurgency by military means appeared to sharpen the public's
receptiveness to these criticisms.
The most immediate advantage gained by Arena through its control of
the Legislative Assembly was its ability to dictate the appointment of
candidates to important government posts, such as magistrates of the
Supreme Court and the attorney general of the republic. The party's
legislative agenda was uncertain in mid-1988, but it seemed to entail
some tinkering with land reform provisions, such as changing the titling
procedure for cooperatives; easing the tax and regulatory burden on the
private sector, especially the coffee industry; restoring private
banking; and, perhaps, reprivatizing the foreign trade procedures.
El Salvador - National Conciliation Party
Private Enterprise
Members of the private business sector relied on a number of
organizations to articulate their positions on economic and political
issues. These organizations served as pressure groups, injecting
themselves regularly into the political arena through criticism of
government policies, the actual or threatened shutdown of business and
industry, and behind-the-scenes lobbying with politicians. The leading
private enterprise organizations were the National Association of
Private Enterprise (Asociacion Nacional de la Empresa Privada--ANEP),
the Association of Salvadoran Industrialists (Asociacion Salvadorena de
Industriales--ASI), the Salvadoran Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(Camara de Comercio e Industria de El Salvador), the Salvadoran Coffee
Growers Association (Asociacion Cafetalera de El Salvador--ACES), and
the Association of Coffee Processors and Exporters (Asociacion de
Beneficiadores y Exportadores de Cafe-- Abecafe). Their membership was
drawn from the economic elite, and their leadership consistently
advocated a reduction in government involvement in industry, the
reprivatization of coffee exports and foreign trade in general, no
increase in taxes on business (usually referred to as "the
productive sector"), no extension of the agrarian reform, and
reductions in government spending.
Most economic issues usually found the private enterprise
organizations aligned on one side and labor and peasant organizations on
the other, with the Duarte government somewhere in between, attempting
to mediate between the two blocs. This was especially true with regard
to agrarian reform. The private enterprise organizations, particularly
the coffee growers' associations, opposed agrarian reform from its
inception in 1980. They were unable to prevent implementation, however,
because of a shift in the political climate that brought too many other
actors, including the PDC, the reformist military, and the United
States, down on the side of some measure of reform. Denied their first
preference in the matter, the private sector groups went on to advocate
limitations on the terms of the reforms. These were enacted by the
Constituent Assembly and incorporated into the 1983 Constitution. By the
late 1980s, the line taken by the private sector reflected that espoused
by Arena, namely, that the reforms should not be rescinded but should be
made more efficient.
Private-enterprise organizations provided the most significant
opposition to the Duarte government's 1986 economic austerity package.
From the businessmen's point of view, the most offensive aspect of the
package was the so-called "war tax" on all income above
US$20,000 with revenues derived from the tax to be applied directly to
the war effort against the leftist guerrillas. In this as in other
matters, the private sector groups worked in concert with Arena. While arenero
legislators boycotted sessions of the Legislative Assembly in an effort
to deny the PDC a quorum, the private-enterprise organizations called
for a shutdown of business and industry on January 22, 1987. The
business strike was quite effective, closing a reported 80 percent of
Salvadoran stores, factories, and professional and nonprofessional
services. Although impressive, this demonstration of economic power by
the private sector had no immediate effect on government policy. The
issue eventually was rendered moot, however, in February 1987 when the
war tax was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The January 1987 strike was but another chapter in a long history of
confrontation between the private sector and the PDC. Bitterly opposed
to Duarte's election in 1984, the ASI publicly denounced Duarte and his
party as adherents to the same ideology as that of the FMLN. The PDC,
according to the industrialists, differed only in its "method and
strategies" for achieving socialism. Although he responded to the
attacks in kind during the campaign, Duarte attempted after his election
to reassure business leaders that he was not antagonistic to private
enterprise. The agendas of the PDC and the private sector were too
divergent, however, and attitudes generally were hardened between the
two as economic conditions failed to improve and the insurgency ground
on interminably.
El Salvador - Labor and Campesino Groups
Although labor confederations have existed for decades in El
Salvador, their political input has been limited by their small
membership--officially, only nonagricultural workers have been allowed
to organize--and by the exclusionary nature of the political system.
Under military rule, the only unions with influence were those with ties
to the armed forces or its associated ruling party. The political
ferment that began to make itself felt in the late 1970s, however, was
reflected in the labor movement. The real and pressing grievances of
workers and peasants, who began to organize into unsanctioned interest
groups of their own, led them to enlist in the growing number of unions
affiliated with the so-called mass organizations or popular
organizations. These organizations took a much more militant,
antigovernment line than did the old, established labor unions.
Ultimately, the leaders of the mass organizations, supportive of the
revolutionary goals of the FMLN, were more concerned with the promotion
of their political agenda than with the attainment of better wages and
working conditions for the rank and file. By the early 1980s, strikes,
demonstrations, and protests by these groups had contributed to an
atmosphere of uncertainty, instability, and political polarization in El
Salvador. In the violent right-wing backlash that followed, members of
moderate, prodemocratic, nonconfrontational unions were murdered along
with the militant supporters of the mass organizations. This
repression--both official and unofficial--temporarily removed labor
groups as participants in the political arena. The situation began to
change as democratic institutions evolved in the wake of the 1982
Constituent Assembly elections.
Duarte won the presidency with the support of a number of groups in
Salvadoran society who felt that their interests could best be served by
the extension of economic reform. Most of these groups--middle-class
professionals, small business people, labor unions, and peasants--also
believed that a just resolution to the civil conflict was a necessary
prerequisite to economic reactivation. In terms of numbers, the most
important of these sectors were the labor and peasant organizations. In
February 1984, Duarte signed a "social pact" with the major
centrist grouping, the Popular Democratic Unity (Unidad Popular
Democratica--UPD). This agreement called for the full implementation of
agrarian reform, government support for union rights, incorporation of
union and peasant leaders into the government, and continued efforts to
curtail human rights violations and to end the civil conflict.
From the point of view of labor and peasant groups, the Duarte
government failed to follow through on the pledges made under the social
pact, and, as a result, the UPD began to unravel. In early 1984, the UPD
had been the leading labor and peasant grouping in both numbers and
influence. It was an umbrella group made up of the country's leading
labor federation- -the Federation of Unions of the Construction Industry
and Kindred Activities, Transportation, and Other Activities (Federacion
de Sindicatos de la Industria de la Construccion, Similares, Transporte
y de Otras Actividades--Fesinconstrans); its largest peasant group, the
Salvadoran Communal Union (Union Comunal Salvadorena--UCS); and three
smaller groups. In August 1984, some three months after Duarte's
election, the leadership of the three smallest UPD affiliates called a
press conference to denounce Duarte for his lack of compliance with the
social pact. Leaders of Fesinconstrans and the UCS, who were not
consulted before or included in the press conference, publicly
dissociated themselves from the statements made there. This incident
precipitated a political and ideological split within the labor movement
that showed little sign of abating by the late 1980s.
Documents seized by government forces after a shootout with a rebel
group in April 1985 shed some light on the leadership crisis within the
UPD. According to the documents, three union leaders (although not
named, they were presumed by most analysts to be the leaders who called
the 1984 press conference) were collaborating clandestinely with the
FMLN and were receiving bribes to assume a confrontational stance with
the government. The coordination of actions among the FMLN, leftist
unions, and certain militant human rights and refugee groups seemed to
be confirmed by another cache of rebel documents seized in April 1987.
Whatever the motivation, the split in the UPD leadership prompted the
more moderate leadership of Fesinconstrans and the UCS to explore the
possibility of establishing a new labor confederation. This
organization, christened the Democratic Workers' Confederation
(Confederacion de Trabajadores Democraticos--CTD), was founded in
December 1984. In March 1986, the CTD and the UCS joined with a number
of other labor and peasant groups to form the National Union of Workers
and Peasants (Union Nacional de Obreros y Campesinos--UNOC). UNOC
characterized itself as a labor organization supportive of the moderate
political left; it advocated the continuation of the democratic process
in El Salvador as well as the political incorporation of workers and the
making of improvements in their quality of life.
The leaders of the more militant and radical labor and peasant groups
almost simultaneously established a parallel umbrella group to UNOC,
dubbing it the National Union of Salvadoran Workers (Union Nacional de
Trabajadores Salvadorenos-- UNTS). It included the remaining members of
the UPD, several established leftist labor groups, some of which
maintained ties to the World Federation of Trade Unions, a front group
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; a peasant organization known
as the National Association of Peasants (Asociacion Nacional de
Campesinos--ANC); and a leftist student group, the General Association
of Salvadoran University Students (Asociacion General de Estudiantes
Universitarios Salvadorenos--AGEUS). Although it claimed that its
membership rivaled that of the 350,000-strong UNOC, most observers
agreed that the UNTS represented only 40,000 to 50,000 members at most.
President Duarte, the armed forces, and representatives of the United
States maintained that the UNTS was penetrated and controlled by the
FMLN. This allegation was not universally accepted, however. Whether
coordinated with FMLN strategy or not, the actions of the UNTS appeared
calculated to undermine the legitimacy of the Duarte government and to
promote unrest and instability in urban areas, particularly San
Salvador. UNTS affiliates staged numerous strikes, mainly in the
capital, most of which were declared illegal by the government because
the demands of the union leadership were judged to be more political
than economic in nature. Some unions demanded the president's
resignation as a condition of settlement. Many of the strikes were
endorsed by the FMLN over the clandestine radio station Radio Venceremos
operated by the guerrilla group known as the People's Revolutionary Army
(Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo-- ERP). The largest mass
antigovernment demonstration organized by the UNTS took place in
February 1986; estimates of the number of participants ranged from 7,000
to 12,000. A generally progovernment rally organized by UNOC the
following month drew a considerably larger turnout, estimated at up to
65,000.
Although it opposed the militant strategy of the UNTS and supported
the reforms decreed by the junta governments and maintained under the
PDC, UNOC also displayed disillusionment with Duarte and his seeming
inability to improve workers' standard of living or to wind down the
insurgency. UNOC's influence, however, began to wane by 1985. This
development was attributable mainly to internal leadership struggles
within Fesinconstrans and the UCS. Ironically, the catalyst for these
conflicts was found not in the failure of the social pact with the PDC
but in its partial fulfillment. Labor and peasant leaders who had been
appointed to government posts, mainly in the institutions administering
agrarian reform and credit facilities, were exploiting the patronage
potential of their positions to expand their personal following among
the rank and file. Resentment over this tactic prompted challenges from
union leaders and members who either felt excluded from the patronage
process or who objected to the practice on ethical grounds. UNOC's lack
of concerted involvement in the PDC legislative victory of 1985 lessened
its influence with the government and perhaps made it easier for Duarte
to follow the course of economic austerity that eventually drew fire
from both the private sector and labor groups from across the political
spectrum.
Just as the UNTS represented the militant leftist position among
Salvadoran labor and peasant groups and UNOC affected a more moderate,
center-left stance, there were also conservative labor groups still
functioning in the late 1980s. The two leading organizations in this
category were the General Confederation of Unions (Confederacion General
de Sindicatos--CGS) and the National Confederation of Workers
(Confederacion Nacional de Trabajadores--CNT). Their numbers were
small--CGS membership was estimated at 7,000 in 1986--and their
political influence correspondingly low. By 1988, however, as Arena took
control of the legislative branch and seemed poised to win the
presidency, the position of these conservative labor groups may well
have been enhanced, if only because moderate organizations such as UNOC
were all but certain to see their leverage with the government diminish
considerably. The radical UNTS, which was condemned as a rebel front
group even by the Duarte administration (although it seemed clear that
the majority of rank-and-file UNTS members were not FMLN sympathizers),
could look forward to little or no sympathy from an Arena government.
El Salvador - The Roman Catholic Church
The Salvadoran Roman Catholic Church has been affected by the
country's political and social turmoil. During the tenure of Monsignor
Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez as archbishop of San Salvador (1977-80),
the positions of the church, as expressed by Romero, drifted in favor of
those activist Roman Catholics who advocated liberation
theology. By the time of his assassination in March
1980, Romero had become the leading critic of official and unofficial
repression in El Salvador. Judging by the content of his weekly
homilies, some observers felt that his moral outrage over abuses
committed by armed forces personnel and death squad forces was drawing
him closer to a public recognition of the legitimacy of armed struggle
against the government.
Romero, however, never spoke for a majority of the Salvadoran
bishops. The only other member of the hierarchy at the time who was
known to harbor some sympathy for Romero's proliberationist views was
Arturo Rivera y Damas. Rivera, who had been a leading candidate for the
archbishop's position in 1977 but was passed over in favor of the
reputedly more conservative Romero, was a critic of government and
military human rights abuses, especially when they involved the
persecution or murder of Roman Catholic clergy or lay workers. Under
Romero, he occupied a swing position between the activist stance of the
archbishop and the more conservative attitudes of the country's three
remaining bishops. Although they readily endorsed condemnations of
military repression, the three bishops differed sharply with the thrust
of liberation theology, which they saw as excessively politicized. Their
concerns for the role of the church under a leftist government were
strengthened by the example of postrevolutionary Nicaragua, where the
traditional church was viewed by the ruling party as a rival and was
harassed by the state security and propaganda apparatus.
Rivera succeeded Romero as archbishop in April 1980. He began to take
the sort of moderate political stance that most observers had expected
of Romero. Rivera spoke out against abuses by all parties and refused to
take sides in the civil conflict. He initially advocated the cessation
of foreign military aid to both sides. By the late 1980s, however, the
church's position on this point had softened somewhat, owing to the
ideological intransigence of the FMLN and the seemingly indiscriminate
deployment of antipersonnel mines by its forces. In line with the
position of the Vatican, Rivera sought to eschew political advocacy in
favor of moral suasion so as to render the church a viable mediator in
the conflict.
Rivera and other representatives of the church, particularly San
Salvador auxiliary bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez, have served as mediators
in situations ranging from labor disputes to negotiations between the
government and the FMLN-FDR. At President Duarte's request and with the
acquiescence of the rebel leadership, Archbishop Rivera served as an
intermediary throughout the fitful process of dialogue that began with
the October 1984 meeting in La Palma. When that process broke down, the archbishop
maintained contacts with both sides in an effort to keep tenuous lines
of communication open.
By the late 1980s, the attitude of the Salvadoran hierarchy toward
the guerrillas had hardened considerably. Public statements by Rivera
and others condemned the insurgents' tactics in the field, their
ideology, their political intransigence, and their efforts to disrupt
the electoral process. The FMLN, in turn, denounced the bishops as tools
of the "Duarte dictatorship" and questioned their fitness as
objective mediators. Although they hinted that they might reject the
church's participation in future negotiations, the leadership of the
FMLN suggested in May 1988 that contacts between it and the Legislative
Assembly be channeled through Rivera.
The church publicly supported the electoral process begun in 1982 and
urged citizens to participate in it. At the same time, church spokesmen
were quick to criticize the mudslinging nature of Salvadoran campaigning
and urged politicians to stress substantive issues over personal
attacks. Although they did not interject themselves as advocates or
lobbyists, the bishops generally supported the reform programs initiated
and maintained by the PDC government and opposed on moral grounds any
effort by the elite to restrict or eliminate those reforms. In the
tradition established by Romero, Rivera continued to condemn in his
weekly homilies reported excesses by the military or security forces.
El Salvador - Mass Communications
By Central American standards, the Salvadoran media enjoyed a
moderate freedom of expression and ability to present competing
political points of view. They were not as restricted as the media in
Nicaragua, but neither were they as diverse, pluralistic, and
unrestricted as those of Costa Rica. Although the government did not
exercise direct prior censorship, the owners of most publications and
some broadcast media outlets exercised a form of self-censorship based
either on their personal political conservatism, fear of violent
retaliation by right- or left-wing groups, or possible adverse action by
the government, such as refusal to renew a broadcast license.
Article 6 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of expression that
does not "subvert the public order, nor injure the morals, honor,
or private life of others." This language, taken directly from the
1962 constitution, was rendered meaningless by official and unofficial
repression and left-wing terrorist action against the media and its
practitioners in the early 1980s. With the post-1982 advent of a freely
elected democratic system of government, however, and the accompanying
decline in politically motivated violence, the climate under which the
press and broadcast media operated began to improve.
This expansion in freedom of expression was not as evident in the
print medium as it was in the broadcast media. Most newspapers were
owned by conservative business people, and their editorial policies
tended to reflect the views of their publishers rather than to adhere to
the standards of objectivity normally expected in the North American or
West European press. This did not mean, however, that the Salvadoran
press was monolithically conservative. The weekly publication of the
archdiocese of San Salvador, Orientacion, presented critical
analysis of the political scene. Readily available publications
emanating from the Central American University presented a generally
leftist, antigovernment perspective on events. Small private presses
also produced pamphlets, bulletins, and flyers expressing opinions
across the political spectrum. The leading daily newspapers in the late
1980s were El Diario de Hoy, with a circulation of
approximately 75,000; El Mundo, with approximately 60,000; and La
Prensa Grafica, with approximately 100,000, all published in San
Salvador.
Freedom of expression in print was best exemplified by the common
practice of taking out paid political advertisements, or campos
pagados. Most newspapers accepted such advertisements from all
sources. Campos pagados were one of the few means of access to
the print medium available to leftist groups such as the FMLN-FDR and
other like-minded organizations. Campos pagados also were
frequently employed by political parties, private sector groups, unions,
government agencies, and other groups to express their opinions. The
content of the advertisements was unregulated and uncensored. Their cost
effectively limited their use to groups and organizations rather than to
individuals.
The influence of the press was limited by illiteracy and the
concentration of publishing in the capital. Radio did not suffer from
these handicaps and consequently was the most widely utilized medium in
the country. In 1985 Salvadorans owned an estimated 2 million radio
receivers. Although the majority of the seventy-six stations on the air
broadcast from San Salvador, the country's small size and the use of
repeater stations meant that virtually all of the national territory was
within broadcast range. There was only one government-owned radio
station. Although the commercial stations tended to emphasize music over
news programming, the representation of competing political viewpoints
in news segments was becoming a common practice by the mid-1980s. In
addition to the ERP's Radio Venceremos, the Farabundo Marti Popular
Liberation Forces (Fuerzas Populares de Liberacion Farabundo Marti--FPL)
operated a second clandestine station, Radio Farabundo Marti. Both
stations served as propaganda organs of the FMLN.
According to many observers, television was the medium where
increased political latitude was most evident. Television news crews
covered press conferences held by diverse political groups, interviewed
opposition politicians such as the FDR's Ungo and Zamora, and
investigated allegations of human rights abuses by the military and
security forces. Like radio stations, television stations enjoyed
virtually complete coverage of the country. Television did not have the
market penetration exhibited by radio, however, because of the higher
cost of television receivers. A 1985 estimate placed the number of
receivers at 350,000. There were six television channels operating in
the late 1980s. Of these, two were government-owned educational channels
with limited air time. The remaining four were commercial channels.
El Salvador - Relations with the United States
As the civil conflict intensified after 1981 and its effects rippled
through the economic and political life of the nation, El Salvador
turned toward the United States in an effort to stave off a potential
guerrilla victory. The administrations of presidents Jimmy Carter and
Ronald Reagan responded to the Salvadorans' appeals, and by the
mid-1980s government forces appeared to have the upper hand in the field.
Total United States aid to El Salvador rose from US$264.2 million in
fiscal year (FY) 1982 to an estimated US$557.8 million in FY 1987. On average
over this period, economic aid exceeded military aid by more than a
two-to-one ratio. Economic aid was provided in the form of Economic
Support Funds (ESF), food aid under Public Law 480 (P.L. 480), and
development aid administered by the United States Agency for
International Development (AID). ESF was intended to provide balance of
payments support to finance essential non food imports. Assistance with
food imports as well as the direct donation of foodstuffs was
accomplished through the P.L. 480 program. Development aid covered a
broad spectrum of projects in such fields as agriculture, population
planning, health, education, and training. For FY 1987, regular non
supplemental ESF appropriations totaled US$181.7 million, and combined
food and development aid amounted to US$122.7 million. The regular FY
1987 appropriation for military aid was US$116.5 million.
This aid was crucial to the survival of the Salvadoran government and
the ability of the armed forces to contain the insurgency. The situation
amplified the personal importance of Duarte after his 1984 election to
the presidency. Well known and respected in Washington, Duarte was able
to foster a consensus within the United States Congress for high levels
of aid as a show of support for the incipient democratic process in his
country. These large aid allocations, in turn, promoted stability by
deterring possible coup attempts by conservative factions of the
military and other opponents of PDC rule. At the same time, the lifeline
of aid also rendered El Salvador dependent to a large degree on the
United States. A certain amount of popular resentment over this
dependence was reflected in adverse reaction from some Salvadoran
politicians, journalists, and other opinion makers to Duarte's October
1987 gesture of kissing the United States flag while on a visit to
Washington. Some analysts also identified an element of anti-United
States sentiment in Arena's March 1988 electoral victory.
El Salvador's dependence on United States support sometimes led to
policy moves or public pronouncements that were perceived as responses
to pressure from Washington. The 1986 economic austerity measures were
one example. Another was Duarte's repeated call for the Nicaraguan
government to negotiate with its armed opposition--the so-called contras--in
spite of the president's public refusal to endorse the United States
policy of aid to the contras. El Salvador also was quick to
condemn Panamanian strongman General Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno for
his February 1988 ouster of President Eric Arturo Delvalle; most Latin
American countries were somewhat circumspect with regard to the
Panamanian situation, not wishing to be seen as favoring United States
intervention in that country. Some actions by the Salvadoran government
were clearly and unequivocally influenced by direct United States
pressure, such as Duarte's April 1987 decision to deny political amnesty
to the convicted killers of six United States citizens and others in a
June 1985 terrorist attack in San Salvador. By taking this action,
Duarte averted the loss of US$18.5 million in economic aid.
Although the United States exerted significant influence over
government policy in El Salvador, it did not enjoy the absolute control
ascribed to it by leftist propaganda. In some areas, Washington's policy
goals were frustrated by the intransigence of certain political actors.
The obstruction of full implementation of agrarian reform by
conservative legislators was one example; another was resistance among
the officer corps to the introduction of counterinsurgency tactics.
Perhaps the most vexing issue for United States policymakers was human
rights. Despite an impressive statistical decline in the mid-1980s,
political killings continued. These acts, perpetrated by both right-wing
and left-wing groups, helped to feed the climate of violence that
inhibited the institutionalization of the democratic process.
United States influence in El Salvador was also diminished
temporarily by the 1986-87 revelations surrounding the so-called
Iran-Contra Affair. The Reagan administration's preoccupation with these
revelations, its loss of international prestige in connection with them,
and the embarrassing disclosure of covert Salvadoran military
involvement in the contra supply network all combined to lessen
United States involvement in and influence over Salvadoran affairs. Many
observers have seen evidence of waning United States influence in
Central America in the Duarte administration's decision to sign the
Central American Peace Agreement in August 1987 at Esquipulas,
Guatemala, despite the last-minute announcement of an alternative peace
plan by Reagan and United States speaker of the House of
Representatives, James Wright.
Another point of contention between the two governments was United
States immigration reform. By most estimates, there were some 500,000
Salvadorans residing illegally in the United States in the late 1980s.
Modifications of the United States immigration law enacted in 1987
technically mandated the expulsion of illegals who had entered the
country after 1982. Since the bulk of Salvadoran illegal immigration
took place after that date, the new law threatened the majority of this
population with repatriation. This prospect was worrisome to the Duarte
government for two major reasons: such a large influx was certain to
place added strain on employment and public services, already areas of
serious concern for the government; and the return of Salvadorans
resident in the United States meant the loss of dollar-denominated
remittances regularly transmitted to family members who had remained
behind in El Salvador. Estimates of the total amount of remittance
income--a valuable source of foreign exchange for the economy--ranged as
high as US$1.4 billion a year. Duarte's pleas for a Salvadoran exemption
from the immigration reform were denied by the White House. Action to
deport Salvadoran illegals, however, was held up pending consideration
in the United States Congress of bills granting exemptions to Salvadoran
and Nicaraguan immigrants.
Relations between the United States and El Salvador appeared to be
entering a period of transition after the March 1988 elections. Under
both the Carter and the Reagan administrations, United States policy had
supported the centrist PDC as the surest path to the development of a
functional democratic system. The decline of the PDC and the ascendancy
of Arena called for some adjustment in that policy. Despite some marked
anti-United States sentiment among the areneros, there were no
early indications of potential friction between the United States and an
Arena government. The nomination of Cristiani as the party's 1989
presidential candidate instead of the more controversial D'Aubuisson was
seen by some observers as a conciliatory gesture toward Washington.
El Salvador - The Contadora Process
The Contadora negotiating process was initiated in January 1983 at a
meeting of the foreign ministers of Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and
Panama on Contadora Island in the Gulf of Panama. The idea of a purely
Latin American diplomatic effort to stabilize the Central American
situation and prevent either military confrontation between neighboring
states or direct military intervention by the United States was
attributed to then-president of Colombia Belisario Betancur Cuartas.
These "Core Four" countries served as mediators in subsequent
negotiating sessions among the five Central American states.
By September 1983, the negotiations had arrived at a consensus on
twenty-one points or objectives. These included democratization and
internal reconciliation, an end to external support for paramilitary
forces, reductions in weaponry and foreign military advisers,
prohibition of foreign military bases, and reactivation of regional
economic mechanisms such as the Central American Common Market. The
twenty-one points were incorporated into a draft treaty, or acta,
one year later.
In September 1984, the Nicaraguan government took the other four
government delegations by surprise with its call for the immediate
signing of the acta as a final treaty. The governments of El
Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Costa Rica had been suspicious of
Nicaraguan intentions throughout the negotiating process. This
precipitous rush to finalize the process forced the four to reassess
their positions and to examine more closely a document that they
previously might have viewed as little more than a diplomatic exercise.
The United States government, which had been advising the Salvadorans
informally with regard to the negotiations, strongly recommended against
signing the acta, citing its lack of adequate verification and
enforcement provisions, its deferral of the issues of reductions in arms
and foreign advisers, the freezing of United States military aid to El
Salvador and Honduras, and the vagueness of the sections on
democratization and internal reconciliation. Although Nicaragua's action
had the effect of embarrassing the governments of the other four states
and portraying Nicaragua before world public opinion as the only serious
negotiator in the Contadora process, it ultimately succeeded in drawing
the remaining four Central American states into closer consultation.
This collaboration led to the October 1984 Act of Tegucigalpa in which
the governments of El Salvador, Honduras, and Costa Rica emphasized
their commitment to the establishment of pluralistic democratic systems
and their belief that simultaneous and verifiable arms reductions were a
necessary component of this process. The Guatemalan government was
represented in the discussions in the Honduran capital but declined to
sign the resultant document.
Although improved verification procedures were negotiated, the talks
bogged down by mid-1985. The Nicaraguan delegates rejected discussion of
democratization and internal reconciliation as an unwarranted
intervention in their country's internal affairs. The other four states
maintained that these provisions were necessary to ensure a lasting
settlement. Another major sticking point was the cessation of aid to
insurgent groups, particularly United States aid to the contras.
Although the United States government was not a party to the Contadora
negotiations, it was understood that the United States would sign a
separate protocol agreeing to the terms of a final treaty in such areas
as aid to insurgents, military aid and assistance to Central American
governments, and joint military exercises in the region. The Nicaraguans
demanded that any Contadora treaty call for an immediate end to contra
aid, whereas the core four countries and the remaining Central American
states, with the exception of Mexico, downplayed the importance of such
a provision. In addition, the Nicaraguan government raised objections to
specific cuts in its military force levels, citing the imperatives of
the counterinsurgency campaign and defense against a potential United
States invasion. In an effort to break this impasse, the governments of
Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Uruguay announced in July 1985 that they
were joining the Contadora process as a "support group" in an
effort to resolve the remaining points of contention and achieve a
comprehensive agreement.
Despite the combined efforts of the core four and the "support
group," the Contadora process unofficially came to a halt in June
1986, when the Central American countries still could not resolve their
differences sufficiently to permit the signing of a final treaty draft.
Later that month, the United States Congress approved US$100 million in
aid to the contras in spite of numerous requests from the
Contadora group to refrain from such unilateral action. Although the
core four and support group countries vowed to continue their diplomatic
efforts and did convene negotiating sessions subsequent to the
unsuccessful June 6 meeting in Panama City, the Contadora process was
clearly moribund. The Central American states, with the exception of
Nicaragua, resolved to continue the negotiating process on their own
without the benefit of outside mediation.
El Salvador - The Arias Plan
Throughout the Contadora negotiations, El Salvador's objectives
included the preservation of its military aid and assistance
relationship with the United States; the resolution of the civil
conflict on terms consistent with the 1983 Constitution--that is,
through incorporation of the rebels into the established system rather
than through a power-sharing arrangement; and a verifiable termination
of Nicaraguan military and logistical aid to the FMLN insurgents. On the
final point, the Salvadorans felt, along with the Hondurans and Costa
Ricans, that the liberalization of the Sandinista-dominated government
in Nicaragua was the surest guarantor of success. Given the unanimity of
opinion among these three governments and the less emphatic but still
supportive response of the government of Guatemalan president Marco
Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo, the regional consenus of opinion seemed to be
that a streamlined, strictly Central American peace initiative stood a
better chance of success than the by then unwieldy Contadora process.
The five Central American presidents had held a meeting in May 1986
in Esquipulas, Guatemala, in an effort to work out their differences
over the revised Contadora draft treaty. This meeting was a precursor of
the process that in early 1987 superseded Contadora. The leading
proponent and architect of this process was the president of Costa Rica,
Oscar Arias Sanchez. After consultations with representatives of El
Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and the United States, Arias announced on
February 15, 1987, that he had presented a peace proposal to
representatives of the other Central American states, with the exception
of Nicaragua. The plan called for dialogue between governments and
opposition groups, amnesty for political prisoners, cease-fires in
ongoing insurgent conflicts, democratization, and free elections in all
five regional states. The plan also called for renewed negotiations on
arms reductions and an end to outside aid to insurgent forces.
The first formal negotiating session to include representatives of
the Nicaraguan government was held in Tegucigalpa on July 31, 1987. At
that meeting of foreign ministers, the Salvadoran delegation pressed the
concept of simultaneous implementation of provisions such as the
declaration of cease-fires and amnesties and the denial of support or
safehaven for insurgent forces. This approach reportedly softened the
attitude of the Nicaraguans, who had come to the meeting declaring
opposition to any agreement that did not require a prior cutoff of
foreign support to the contras.
The Tegucigalpa meeting paved the way for an August 6, 1987,
gathering of the five Central American presidents in Esquipulas. The
negotiations among the presidents reportedly were marked by blunt
accusations and sharp exchanges, particularly between Duarte and
Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega Saavedra. Duarte's primary concern
was Nicaraguan aid to the Salvadoran guerrillas, and he was reported to
have pressed Ortega repeatedly on this issue. The Nicaraguan president's
responses apparently reassured Duarte, who consented to sign the
agreement. His decision to do so despite signals of disapproval from
Washington reflected only in part the diminished influence of the Reagan
administration in light of the Iran-Contra Affair; it was also a
calculated move based on the Salvadoran president's belief that a more
favorable treaty was not achievable. The final agreement, signed on
August 7, called for the cessation of outside aid and support to
insurgent forces but did not require the elimination or reduction of
such aid to government forces. If they proved to be enforceable, these
provisions would work to the benefit of the Salvadoran government and to
the detriment of the FMLN, since the insurgents would be expected to
forgo outside assistance while the government could continue to receive
military aid from the United States. The agreement also urged dialogue
with opposition groups "in accordance with the law" and was
therefore compatible with the Duarte government's efforts and
preconditions for negotiations with rebel forces. The Salvadorans were
already in compliance with the sections calling for press freedom,
political pluralism, and abolition of state-of-siege restrictions.
The Central American Peace Agreement, variously referred to as the
"Guatemala Plan," "Esquipulas II," or the
"Arias Plan," initially required the implementation by
November 5, 1987, of certain conditions, including decrees of amnesty in
those countries involved in insurgent conflicts; the initiation of
dialogue between governments and unarmed political opposition groups or
groups that had taken advantage of amnesty; the undertaking of efforts
to negotiate cease-fires between governments and insurgent groups; the
cessation of outside aid to insurgent forces as well as denying the use
of each country's national territory to "groups trying to
destabilize the governments of the countries of Central America;"
and the assurance of conditions conducive to the development of a
"pluralistic and participatory democratic process" in all the
signatory states.
A meeting of the Central American foreign ministers held one week
prior to November 5 effectively extended the deadline by interpreting
that date as the requirement for initiation, not completion, of the
agreement's provisions. The Salvadoran government, however, had already
taken several steps by that time to comply with the agreement. Direct
talks between the government and representatives of the FMLN-FDR held in
October failed to reach agreement on terms for a cease-fire. The talks
were broken off by the rebels, ostensibly in protest over the death
squad- style murder of a Salvadoran human rights investigator. Duarte
proceeded to declare a unilateral fifteen-day cease-fire to enable
guerrilla combatants to take advantage of an amnesty program approved by
the Legislative Assembly on October 27.
Overall compliance with the Arias Plan was uneven by late 1988, and
the process appeared to be losing momentum. One round of talks took
place between the Cerezo administration and representatives of the
Guatemalan guerrilla front in Madrid, Spain, on October 6-7, 1987.
President Cerezo discontinued this effort, however, claiming that the
guerrilla representatives had taken an unrealistic and unreasonable
bargaining position. The Nicaraguan government took a number of initial
steps to comply with the treaty, such as allowing the independent daily La
Prensa to reopen and the radio station of the Roman Catholic Church
to resume broadcasting, establishing a national reconciliation committee
that incorporated representatives of the unarmed opposition, and
eventually undertaking cease-fire negotiations with representatives of
the contras. The optimism engendered by the signature of a
provisional cease-fire accord on March 23, 1988, at Sapoa, Nicaragua,
however, had largely dissipated by July, when the government broke up a
protest demonstration in the southern city of Nandaime, expelled the
United States ambassador and seven other diplomats for alleged
collaboration with the demonstrators, and again shut down La Prensa
and the Catholic radio station. In El Salvador, although the FMLN-FDR
had been persuaded by President Arias to accept the plan as the basis
for negotiations with the Salvadoran government, neither side made any
immediate effort to resume the direct talks broken off in October 1987.
A definitive cease-fire, therefore, remained elusive. The Salvadoran
government also maintained that the Sandinistas continued to provide aid
and support to the FMLN. In January 1988, the Salvadorans protested
before an international commission monitoring compliance with the treaty
that the headquarters of the FMLN general command continued to function
from a location near Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, that FMLN training
and propaganda facilities continued to operate in Nicaragua, and that
arms deliveries from Nicaragua to El Salvador persisted after the
signing of the peace treaty on August 7. The effect of the PDC's
political decline and Arena's higher government profile on the future
course of the Arias Plan was unclear as the country approached the 1989
presidential elections.
El Salvador maintained normal bilateral diplomatic relations with the
countries of Central America despite the strains of regional unrest,
uncertainty over the intentions of the Sandinistas, and lingering
disputes with Honduras. In the late 1980s, relations with Guatemala,
governed by an ideologically compatible Christian democratic government,
and with Costa Rica were stable. Differences with Nicaragua were rooted
in basic ideological conflict, however, and appeared likely to persist.
Although neighboring Honduras was experiencing a democratic transition
not unlike that taking place in El Salvador, several points of
contention prevented the full establishment of close and cooperative
ties. The most intangible of these frictions was lingering ill will,
especially between the two countries' respective military
establishments, over the 1969 "Football War". Another dispute revolved around the
future disposition of Salvadoran refugees residing in Honduras. In early
1988, there were an estimated 20,000 such refugees housed in a number of
camps in Honduras, some of which were administered by the office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Despite ongoing security problems posed by the insurgency, a
resettlement program initiated in 1986 by the Salvadoran government in
cooperation with domestic and international relief agencies had assisted
in the return of some 10,000 Salvadoran refugees. Complete repatriation
from the camps, as advocated by the Honduran government, seemed to be
contingent on a further winding down of the insurgency.
The main stumbling block in Salvadoran-Honduran relations, however,
was the failure of the two countries to agree to a demarcation of their
border. This dispute was another legacy of the 1969 war, although it
also had deeper historical roots. Several agreements negotiated during
the nineteenth century attempted to define the boundaries between the
two states, but periodic disputes persisted. The 1969 war further
complicated this situation, as Salvadoran troops pushed over a border
that had never been firmly demarcated and briefly occupied Honduran
territory. So contentious was the territorial dispute that a final peace
treaty between the two countries was not signed until October 1980, and
even then only 225 of the border's 343 kilometers were definitively
delimited. The remaining disputed "pockets" (bolsones)
along the border, along with island and maritime areas, were submitted
to a joint border commission for resolution. At the end of its five-year
mandate, the commission had not achieved agreement. Direct
government-to- government talks also failed to resolve the issue. The
dispute, therefore, was submitted to the International Court of Justice
at The Hague, Netherlands, for adjudication. A decision was not expected
until the late 1980s.
