|
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was a precursor of the process that in early 1987 superseded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"
(see The 1969 War with Honduras
, ch. 1). 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
(see Migration
, ch. 2). 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.
Data as of November 1988
|
