Central American Leaders Condemn Salvador Rebels

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica —  In a diplomatic coup for El Salvador’s President Alfredo Cristiani, the five Central American leaders emerged from a tense, two-day summit early Tuesday with their strongest condemnation of Salvadoran guerrillas and an appeal for a cease-fire in the rebels’ monthlong military offensive.

The leaders, including Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, gave their “decided support” to the right-wing Cristiani, who they said represents “governments that are the product of democratic, pluralist and participatory democracies.” They called for the two sides in El Salvador to resume negotiations to end their decade-old civil war.

The declaration also gave Ortega something: The presidents called for U.S. aid to the Contras fighting his government to be turned over to a commission of the United Nations and the Organization of American States and used to demobilize the rebels.

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said the Bush Administration was “skeptical” about the agreement.

“We would be concerned if repatriation and demobilization was not accompanied by democracy, changes in Nicaragua, and some political freedom to integrate back into the process,” he said.

Fitzwater did say that the Nicaraguan agreement to the harsh terms for the Marxist rebels in El Salvador was “encouraging.”

The weary presidents issued their 13-point communique at a 3 a.m. press conference after several hours of sticky negotiations to persuade Honduran President Jose Azcona Hoyo to sign the document.

Earlier, Azcona had stormed out of the summit over Nicaragua’s insistence on pressing a World Court suit against Honduras for aiding the Contras.

In their declaration, the presidents made no mention of the Sandinistas’ reported shipments of anti-aircraft missiles to the Salvadoran rebels, which prompted Cristiani to suspend diplomatic relations with Nicaragua last month. Ortega has denied supplying the weapons.

The declaration also omits any reference to the deteriorating human rights situation in El Salvador.

Rather, it adopted Cristiani’s appeal to the rebels to halt all military attacks that “directly and indirectly” affect the civilian population. The agreement condemns all armed actions by irregular or guerrilla forces.

Under the 1987 regional peace accord that has been used to steadily weaken the Contras, the presidents called for the immediate demobilization of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas in El Salvador by the United Nations.

In practice, it would be almost impossible for the United Nations to demobilize the Salvadoran guerrillas against their will, but the appeal is a political coup for Cristiani. In previous agreements, the presidents had refrained from applying symmetry to the two very different conflicts in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

“Circumstances changed,” said a Costa Rican diplomat. He said that Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his authorship of the regional plan, was angered by the fact that guerrillas launched their military offensive in the middle of negotiations with the government.

The five commanders of the Farabundo Marti Front issued an irate response to the declaration, saying that their rebel army “cannot be demobilized by virtue of agreements among governments, since it constitutes a legitimate force with popular roots throughout Salvadoran territory.”

The rebel commanders did not mention the cease-fire appeal, but they said they would welcome mediation by U.N. General Secretary Javier Perez de Cuellar.

The agreement is confusing in that it appears to be calling at the same time for a negotiated settlement of the war and for the unilateral disarming of the FMLN.

At a press conference in San Salvador, a triumphant Cristiani explained that “logically, total demobilization, with the guarantees that must be offered to the FMLN, has to be a product of a process of dialogue. That is how we understand it.”

Despite this, the two sides do not appear any closer to negotiations that will lead to a political solution. The rebels are demanding major changes in the military and justice system before they will put down their guns. A guerrilla cease-fire proposal calling for the resignation of seven top military officers reportedly was not even discussed in the meeting.

The guerrillas and the Cristiani government held two rounds of talks in September and October. The rebels broke off the negotiations after a bomb exploded at the headquarters of a leftist labor union in El Salvador, killing 10 people.

In turn, the rebels’ massive offensive, launched Nov. 11, brought the war from the countryside into San Salvador and other cities. The army responded with a fierce aerial attack. Thousands of civilians have been killed or wounded in the combat.

During the offensive, six Jesuit priests were murdered along with their cook and her daughter. The killings were carried out during a nighttime curfew in a militarized zone, which, with other evidence, has prompted church officials to blame the armed forces.

Also during the offensive, hard-liners in Cristiani’s Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena party, pushed a controversial anti-terrorist law restricting civil liberties through the Legislative Assembly.

Diplomats said Arias pushed to mention Cristiani by name in the declaration to shore up Cristiani’s position against the right and the military as well as the rebels.

Nicaraguan President Ortega reportedly went along with the others on El Salvador in exchange for the concessions on the Contras.

The U.S. Congress cut military aid to the Contras in 1988, but still provides non-lethal support. The presidents agreed at a meeting in Tela, Honduras, last August to demobilize the Contras by Dec. 5, but they have not been able to do so, largely because of the U.S. insistence on keeping them intact until Nicaragua’s presidential elections scheduled for Feb. 25.

Nicaragua renewed its longstanding court suit against the Honduran government when it became clear they were not moving to disband Contra base camps in Honduras. After Honduran President Azcona walked out of the meeting here, Nicaragua agreed to postpone the suit for six months while the two countries negotiate.

As in past agreements, the presidents’ latest accord has no mechanism for forcing the United States to disband the Contras, and Sandinista officials admit they hold little hope that the rebels will be disarmed before the elections.

But the presidents’ declaration also turns attention from Nicaragua’s internal political situation to El Salvador. The presidents did not discuss the fairness or legitimacy of Nicaragua’s upcoming elections.