El Salvador's Fragile Peace
El Salvador's Fragile Peace
Interview with Kurt Berggren
Kurt Berggren, an Ann Arbor attorney and activist, was part of a National Lawyers Guild delegation which visited El Salvador the last two weeks in October. The visit coincide with the time for the final measures called for in peace accords, but the deadline for implementation was extended to Dec. 15. Peace talks began in April, 1990. The agreement ending El Salvador's 12-year long civil war was signed on Jan. 1 of this year. What follows is taken from an interview of Berggren by AGENDA editor Phillis Engelbert.
What did you do when you were in El Salvador and with whom did you meet?
We were there to see whether or not the peace accords were being followed and if not, why not. We were also taking a close look at the judicial system. Interestingly enough, we were able to see practically anybody we wanted to.
We met with the leader of the ARENA party [the right-wing ruling party], Calderon Sol, the mayor of San Salvador. He will probably be the ARENA presidential candidate in 1994.
We met with Ruben Zamora the leader of the opposition, who had come back from exile in Mexico. And we met with the five FMLN [rebel army] comandantes and spent the night at an FMLN camp where people were waiting to be demobilized.
We met with members of the Supreme Court and judges across the country. We went to the prison and talked with political prisoners, and we talked with a number of lawyers about the judicial system.
We talked with a number of people from human rights organizations, including the people responsible for bringing attention to the massacre at El Mozote [in which the army murdered some 1,000 peasants]. We talked with people who were there at El Mezzote, who were unearthing the remains. We also talked to the human rights ombudsman, whose office was created pursuant to the peace accords.
We met with politicians, the chief of military intelligence and several military people. We met with people from the UNited Nations, people at the U.S. Embassy, and people at the university. We met with several people who were researching huma rights violations, including former Ann Arbor resident Patrick Ball.
To what extent had the peace accords been implemented during your visit to El Salvador?
The deadline had to be extended because the requirements of the agreements had not been met on both sides. The FMLN was supposed to have demobilized 100% as of Oct. 31. As it turned out, they were only 60% demobilized and had not re-integrated the other 40% of their forces into the population. This is because the government had not done the things it was supposed to do. Through the U.N., the deadline was extended from Oct. 31 to Dec. 15. The various actions that had to be accomplished were given new deadlines wihting that time frame.
For the government's part, the most brutal of the armed forces battalions were to be disbanded and completely demobilized prior to Oct. 31. That had not been done. Four or five such battalions had not been demobilized, the worst of which was the Atlacatl Battalion. This is the battalion that killed the six Jesuit priests and the two women at the University of Central America. It is the same battalion that in Dec. 1981 committed the massacre at El Mozote, which is now being excavated.
There's a commission of three people called the Ad Hoc Commission. Their job was to go through the dossiers of all the top military people and make recommendations by mid-September to Salvadoran President Cristiani and U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. They identified those suspected of human rights violations and recommended they be purged from the army. It was a private report that was made to just those two people, but the word in El Salvador, on the street, is that there are a lot of prominent people in the military on that list. For example, Ponce, the chief defence minister and top general, is on that list. Seven of the Salvadoran army's eight generals are also on that list, as are about 100 colonels.
Cristiani was supposed to have implemented the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Commission, which he hasn't done. There was something in the paper the other day saying he will do it be mid-December. It's going to be a very difficult thing because he's being pushed by the right and threatened with a military coup. He's in a very precarious position. This means that the peace accords may never get implemented. Those battalions are now supposed to be disbanded by the Dec. 15 deadline. But there's a lot of talk and there's a lot of fear among the people in El Salvador that the military will not tolerate this and are prepared to take over.
There is also a lot of distrust, particularly by the FMLN. The FMLN is in a very difficult position because they're being told by Cristiani and the government: "you, the FMLN, are not biding by the Peace Accords because you haven't turned in all your arms. And because you haven't done that, we, the government, aren't going to do what we're supposed to do." The FMLN knows that if they turn in all their arms, and then the government doesn't do what it's supposed to do, they're in a pretty precarious position--particularly when you look at the recent history in El Salvador. The political environment is permeated by militarism and death squads. With that kind of atmosphere, it's hard to just turn in all your arms and trust that these people who have a history of killing people, are going to treat you nicely.
In the peace accords there's also a general provision for the reformation of the judicial system, which is a notoriously corrupt system. The president of the Supreme Court in El Salcador, Mauricio Gutierrez Castro, is that country's most powerful person. He appoints and control ever judge in the country, which means that there is a political litmus test. Every judge in the country is an ARENA judge. Whatever the political agenda of the president of the Supreme Court, it will be imposed. As a result, soldiers are almost never brought to trial. The only trial the military has ever had was the trial over the murder of the six Jesuits, and that was only because of pressure from the United States. All of those folks got off, with the exception of the colonel, even though they had all made confessions.
I understand that in addition to the Ad Hoc Commission, the Truth Commission was also created out of the Peace Accords. WIll you talk about the Truth Commission?
The Trusth Commission is made up of three people: Belisario Betancur, former president of Colombia; Reynaldo Figuereido, former Foreign Minister of Venezuela; and Thomas Buergenthal, international jurist and professor at Georgetown University. Their job was to investigate all the allegations of terrible things that have happened--the massacres, the disappearences, the death squads--over the 12-year civil war. The had a deadline of Oct. 31 to gather material. They now have until mid-January to write their report.
Their report will be a telling of the truth. For example, the El Mozote massacre will be a prominent part of their report. The killing of the Jesuits will as well, with many other things. They have no power to bring people to trial. They have no power even to recommend actions. They have no power other than to state what took place. I the underlying rationale is that it will cause a catharsis, and hopefully with this on the table, Salvadoran society will be able to do a primal scream and maybe go on to something positive, having this behind them.
What are your general impressions of Salvadoran society?
On Oct. 31, the day before I left El Salvador, there was a huge FMLN-sponsored march and rally in San Salvador. There were probably as many as 100,000 people. It was an all-day event with speeches and dancing. In the days preceding, Cristiani had made some statements that indicated that he was being pushed pretty hard from the right and the peace accords might break down entirely. The purpose of this rally and march was to tell Cristiani that the government had to abide by the peace accords. The Salvadoran people have been at war for so long and they just want peace so much that they're willing to make any kind of sacrifice to get it.
El Salvador is totally socialized in terms of the death squad, military mentality. It's not a society where political compromise is part of the mentality. As Ruben Zamora put it, probably the most difficult thing for the Salvadoran society to accept is that one side that's in power doesn't use its power to be totally in control and crush its opponents. The goal is to be able to move from that position, which is the history of El Slavador, to a participatory democracy where there is compromise. There is no historical background for that way of approaching problems. Sharing power is going to be the most difficult thing, particularly in the military. The military runs El Salvador and always has.
What do you feel are the prospects for peace and justice in El Salvador?
When I look at the military and realize the way those people think, I'm scared to death that they will never allow the completion of the peace process. They feel that the government and Cristiani sold out the military by even agreeing to the peace accords.
Salvadorans have had peace since the beginning of this year--almost a full year now. People are beginning to see what it's like. They're cautiously optimistic. I'm cautiously optimistic too.