el salvador weakness..

A B B R E V I AT I O N S
AND
ACRONYMS
AIFLD American Institute for Free Labor Development. Ostensibly
an independent labor organization, has long been an instrument for
U.S. foreign policy, with links to the CIA.
ANEP National Association of Private Enterprise. Powerful Salvadoran business organization.
ARENA Nationalist Republican Alliance. Ultraright-wing political
party founded by D'Aubuisson in 1981.
FDR Democratic Revolutionary Front. Political wing of the revolu
tion; coalition of dissident Christian Democrats, Marxists, priests,
professionals, and the popular organizations; aligned with the
F M L N .
FMLN Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front. Coalition of Jive
guerrilla groups.
ERP People's Revolutionary Army. Founded in 1972. In 1984 one of
the two strongest guerrilla organizations.
FPL Popular Forces of Liberation. Founded by Carpio in early
1970's. In 1984 one of the two strongest guerrilla groups.
FARN Armed Forces of National Resistance. Third largest of the five
guerrilla groups; considered the most moderate.
ISTA Salvadoran Institute for Agrarian Transformation.
ORDEN Rural paramilitary organization set up by the government
in the 1960's; officially abolished after the coup in October 1979, but
its members continued to operate.
P D C C h r i s t i a n D e m o c r a t i c p a r t y.
PCN National Conciliation party. Official government/military
party, which ruled the country from 1961 to 1979.
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C H R O N O L O G Y
l a s e
The matanza. Peasant uprising inspired by Agustin Farabundo Marti
crushed by General Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez. His soldiers
kill up to 30,000 peasants, and he rules the country until 1944.
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Military steals election from Jose Napoleon Duarte and Guillermo
Manuel Ungo.
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January Jimmy Carter becomes President of the United States, vow
ing to make human rights "the soul of our foreign policy."
February Another fraudulent presidential election in El Salvador;
General Carlos Humberto Romero becomes president.
March U.S. congressional hearings into the Salvadoran election,
probably the first ever devoted exclusively to El Salvador. Father
R u t i l i o G r a n d e a s s a s s i n a t e d i n E l S a l v a d o r.
June Carter sends Frank J. Devine as ambassador to El Salvador,
replacing Ignacio E. Lozano, Jr.
July U.S. congressional hearings into religious persecution in El Sal
vador.
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July 19 Sandinistas topple General Anastasio Somoza Debayle in
Nicaragua.
October 15 General Romero deposed by a coup in El Salvador. Junta
formed with Colonel Jaime Abdul Gutierrez and Adolfo Arnoldo
Majano, Guillermo Manuel Ungo, Ram6n Mayorga Quiros, and Mario
Antonio Andino. Within the next few weeks Carter administration
announces its intention to provide "nonlethal" military aid, the first
since 1977, and a team of U.S. military advisers arrives.
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CHRONOLOCBY
1 S 8 0
January 3-5 Government collapses when Ungo, Mayorga, and Andino resign, along with nearly every minister and deputy minister,
because of the army's unwillingness to submit to civilian control and
because of the increasing repression. Defense Minister Colonel Jose
Guillermo Garcia refuses to resign. Christian Democrats join the gov
ernment. New civilians on the junta are two Christian Democrats,
Jose Antonio Morales Ehrlich and Hector Dada Hirezi, and Jose
Ramon Avalos Navarrete.
January 22 Unity of the popular organizations. An estimated 100,000
march through the capital streets.
March 3 Dada resigns from junta because "We have not been able to
stop the repression."
March 6-7 Government announces land reform and nationalization
of banks and export trade.
March 9 Duarte joins junta.
March 10 Seven leaders of Christian Democrats leave the party, de
claring that "a program of reforms with repression runs contrary to
the fundamentals of the Christian Democrats."
M a r c h 11 R o b e r t E . W h i t e p r e s e n t s h i s c r e d e n t i a l s a s a m b a s s a d o r.
March 24 Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero assassinated while
saying mass.
March 25 House committee holds hearing on Carter administra
tion's request for $5.7 million in "nonlethal" military aid for El Salva
dor. The aid request is a marked departure in policy for the United
States, which provided El Salvador with a total of $16.8 million during
the entire period from 1946 through 1979.
March 26 Three more high-level Salvadoran government officials
resign.
May 7 Roberto d'Aubuisson arrested for plotting a coup. Supporters
surround White's residence, chanting, "Get out of El Salvador, Com
munist. Go to Cuba." D'Aubuisson released several days later.
June 26 Soldiers storm the National University, killing at least fifty.
Government closes university, which remains closed today.
October Another team of U.S. military advisers secretly enters El
Salvador. Leftist opposition rejects offer of Salvadoran bishops to me
diate a settlement.
November 4 Ronald Reagan elected President of the United States.
November 27 Enrique Alvarez, four other FDR leaders, and a sixth
person seized from a Catholic high school, tortured, and killed.
CHRONOLOGY
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November 28 Salvadoran business leaders meet with President-elect
Reagan's foreign policy advisers, including Jeane Kirkpatrick, and are
assured of receiving more military aid under the new administration.
December 4 Bodies of four American churchwomen—Maura Clarke,
Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel—found.
December 5 Carter administration suspends aid to El Salvador and
dispatches a high-level team led by former Assistant Secretary of State
William Rogers.
December 7 Junta's most liberal member, Colonel Majano, ousted.
December 13 Duarte named president of the four-man junta.
December 17 Carter administration restores economic aid.
December 26 Guerrilla commander Ferman Cienfuegos declares
that situation in El Salvador will be "red hot" by the time Reagan
arrives in the White House.
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January 4 AIFLD workers Michael Hammer and Mark Pearlman
gunned down in the Sheraton Hotel.
J a n u a r y 1 0 G u e r r i l l a s l a u n c h " fi n a l o f f e n s i v e . "
January 13 Purported landing of boats from Nicaragua.
January 14 Military aid, suspended after killing of the churchwomen, resumed.
January 16 Carter administration announces immediate delivery of
an additional $5 million in military aid.
January 20 Reagan inaugurated.
February 1 White removed as ambassador.
February 23 Reagan administration releases white paper, charging
that the situation in El Salvador is a "textbook case of indirect armed
aggression by Communist powers through Cuba."
March 2 Reagan administration dispatches twenty additional
tary advisers and announces an additional $25 million in military ai .
In public statements and testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee during following weeks, senior administration officials say
aid will not be linked to human rights performance.
April 6 Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas quietly seeks to act as
mediator in a negotiated settlement of Salvadoran conflict; rejected y
Reagan administration in private meeting in Washington.
June 1 Deane Hinton presents his credentials as ambassador.
August 28 Mexico and France, in a joint communique, recognize the
FDR-FMLN as a "representative political force.
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CHRONOLOGY
October 7 In address to the UN General Assembly, senior member of
Nicaragua's Sandinista government, Daniel Ortega, proposes interna
tionally supervised negotiations in El Salvador, without precondi
t i o n s .
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January 10 The first group of young Salvadoran men arrive in the
United States for military training, program will eventually train ap
proximately 1,000 troops at Fort Bragg and 500 officer cadets at Fort
Benning.
J a n u a r y 1 8 C o m m a n d e r s o f fi v e g u e r r i l l a o r g a n i z a t i o n s s i g n a l e t t e r
to President Reagan offering to negotiate without preconditions.
January 27 Reports about government massacre of peasants in
M o z o t e a n d s u r r o u n d i n g v i l l a g e s a p p e a r i n T h e N e w Yo r k Ti m e s a n d
The Washington Post. A guerrilla sabotage raid on Ilopango Air Base
destroys several U.S.-supplied helicopters.
January 28 President Reagan certifies that the Salvadoran govern
ment is making progress in adhering to international human rights
standards, is investigating the murders of the churchwomen and
A I F L D w o r k e r s , a n d i s c o n t i n u i n g t h e l a n d r e f o r m ( c e r t i fi c a t i o n l a w
was passed by Congress in 1981 as a condition for continued military
aid).
January 31 At least twenty persons killed after being dragged out of
their homes by soldiers who stormed the poor capital barrio of San
Antonio Abad. Widely reported in the press.
March 28 Constituent Assembly elections. Christian Democrats
e m e r g e w i t h p l u r a l i t y o f v o t e , b u t n o t a m a j o r i t y. D ' A u b u i s s o n ' s
A R E N A p a r t y a n d t h e P C N , t h e t r a d i t i o n a l m i l i t a r y p a r t y, t o g e t h e r
have enough votes to name D'Aubuisson president. Reagan adminis
tration applies intense pressure to block D'Aubuisson from becoming
president.
April 29 At the behest of the military high command, newly elected
Constituent Assembly names Alvaro Magana the country's provisional
president.
May Constituent Assembly, in one of its first acts, suspends provi
sions of the land reform.
July 27 Reagan administration issues second certification.
October Leaders of FMLN and FDR send a letter to President
Magana offering to negotiate without preconditions. Letter delivered
by Archbishop Rivera y Damas.
October 29 Ambassador Hinton, departing from the Reagan ad
ministration's policy of "quiet diplomacy," tells the U.S.-Salvadoran
Chamber of Commerce that a "Mafia" which carries out the mur
der of innocent civilians and American citizens "must be
stopped."
November 8 In a cover story Newsweek magazine reveals details
about the Reagan administration's so-called secret war against
Nicaragua, being fought from Honduras by "counterrevolutionaries"
trained and supplied by the United States.
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January 21 Reagan administration issues its third certification.
April 12 Guerrilla leader Salvador Cayetano Carpio commits suicide
in Managua, Nicaragua, a few days after one of his top aides, Comandante Ana Maria, is bludgeoned to death, revealing publicly splits
within the Salvadoran guerrilla forces.
April 27 Reagan takes his Central America policy to a joint session
of Congress, one of the few times in history that an American Presi
dent has addressed the joint body on a foreign policy issue.
May 25 Lieutenant Commander Albert A. Schaufelberger III assas
sinated by a guerrilla faction while sitting in his car, waiting for his
girl friend, at the Catholic university in San Salvador.
May 28-29 Reagan shakes up his Central America team, removing
Thomas Enders as assistant secretary of state for Inter-American
affairs and Hinton as ambassador to El Salvador.
June One hundred U.S. military advisers begin training Salvadoran
troops in Honduras.
July 20 Reagan names former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to
head a twelve-man National Bipartisan Commission on Central
America.
July 20 Reagan administration certifies for the fourth time that Sal
vadoran government is making progress on human rights, implemen
tation of land reform, and investigations into the murders of Ameri
can citizens. To date, no one has been brought to trial for the deaths
of the church women or the AIFLD workers.
November 30 President Reagan vetoes a bill that would have con
tinued the certification requirements.
December 30 Guerrilla forces, in their largest and most successful
action of the war, attack military base at El Paraiso, killing at least 100
government soldiers, who are buried in a mass grave.
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January 1 Guerrillas destrov Cuscatlan susoension bridce.
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CHRONOLOGY
J a n u a r y 11 K i s s i n g e r c o m m i s s i o n r e l e a s e s i t s r e p o r t .
February Reagan administration announces that it will seek a sup
p l e m e n t a l $ 1 7 8 . 7 m i l l i o n i n m i l i t a r y a i d f o r E l S a l v a d o r f o r fi s c a l y e a r
1984 and $132.5 million for 1985.
March 25 Scheduled date for Salvadoran presidential elections.
I N T R O D U C T I O N
THIS book is about turmoil and revolution and the United States re
sponse. Though the focus is on the caldron in a country called El
Salvador, the issues are broad, with parallels from the past and lessons
it is hoped—for the future.
"We are going to have more revolutions, but we still haven't learned
how to deal with them," observed one of President Jimmy Carter's
senior foreign policy advisers during an interview for this book
Today it is El Salvador. The question is not if but how soon it will
be Guatemala where the poverty and repression that spawned the
revolution in El Salvador are rephcated-and the U.S. interests far
greater. After that it may be the Philippines, Chile, South Korea Tur
key, or any one of dozens of other nations around the world-just about
anywhere but Europe and North America. about
In the late summer of 1980 I was talking with the person in ci,
of editorials at one of the country's major dailies. Peering over J^he
of his glasses, he asked, "What should the United States policy be in
El Salvador?" I had spent several months in Bolivia and Guatetnlla
in addition » two short visits to El Salvador, and I replied, "Ask tne
about Bolivia, or Guatemala, or any country, I'l probably have an
opn
io
i n. But Kl Savl ador, boy,I u
j st dont' know. I guess wer'e don
i g the
right thing."
During the next two years 1 returned to El Salvador ITiaiiy tlllies, as
a reporter for The New York Times. My experiences there are the
foundation for this book. But it was after returning to the United States
that I began to probe—a quest to understand what has led to the exten
sive U.S. involvement in such a tiny country. What I gleaned, what
appears in these pages, is the culmination of interviews—principally
M / i t h c p n i o r U . S . F o r e i g n S e r v i c e o f fi c e r s w h o w e r e o o s t e d i n E l S a l v a -