The failure of peace talks to produce any agreement over changes in the Salvadoran military has left open the threat of a new rebel offensive sometime this fall.
A San Jose-based diplomat told United Press International that preparations are already under way, with Salvadorans trained in Cuba and Nicaragua gradually filtering back into the mountains of El Salvador.Ana Guadalupe Martinez, a leader of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, left no doubt that the rebels are gearing up for another offensive.
Their last major offensive in November of last year left more than 2,000 people dead over a two-week period of heavy fighting.
"For various months now, we have been preparing for an offensive," Martinez told UPI in an interview, adding that the peace talks appeared to be heading nowhere. "It is our only recourse now to advance our position in the talks."
The recent round of peace talks, held Aug. 18-22 at a resort hotel outside of San Jose failed to produce a single agreement. The talks concentrated on rebel demands for changes in the size and structure of the armed forces, but the military's reluctance to budge and the rebels' insistence on sweeping reforms prevented consensus on anything.
Observers and diplomats in Central America agree a rebel offensive is in the offing. It is not known when it could be launched.
But with the Salvadoran government and army coming under considerable international criticism over the military's alleged involvement in the slayings last November of six Jesuit priests, there is reason for the rebels to hold off on launching an offensive that could generate sympathy for the government.
In addition, the U.S. Congress is still debating an $85 million military aid bill for El Salvador that would be guaranteed to pass if the rebels launched a new strike.
A U.S. embassy source in San Jose warned: "A new offensive would trigger the release of any funds that were held back."
In San Salvador, U.S. embassy spokesman Jefferson Brown said, "They've been threatening an offensive for a long time . . . but we don't know if they have made that political decision at this point. It would seem to make no sense at this time."
In preparing for an offensive, the rebels are at an obvious disadvantage this year without the support of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, which lost elections in February.
Martinez said the rebels continue to receive support from Cuban leader Fidel Castro and from various socialist movements around the globe.
"But Cuba is far away," she said. "Our international support is much worse than it was a year ago, and we are losing more."
She said the FMLN's relations with the Sandinistas are still strong.
"The relations are less tense . . . now that we are both opposition organizations, but we are not talking very often because they are busy with their reformation," she said.
U.S. officials, who back the new Nicaraguan government of President Violeta Chamorro, have accused the Sandinista army of secretly continuing to aid the FMLN, citing as an example two FMLN members arrested earlier this summer in Managua with a truckload of guns and missiles.
Martinez admits to conducting "clandestine operations" in Nicaragua, but said they are done without the knowledge or help of the Sandinistas.
"The fact that Sandinista police arrested those two men shows that they are not helping us," she said. "All the government bodies in Nicaragua have instructions to prosecute us if we are caught."
Despite their lack of international support, Martinez said the leftist rebels do not have the obvious weaknesses and disadvantages that the Salvadoran and U.S. governments seem to think they have.
"They do not understand our country," she said of the U.S. government. "The struggle of the FMLN was not initiated with international support. It was initiated because of the internal situation, by the people. Now more than ever, the people think of the army as assassins and that the army has to change.
After the talks, the rebels said they would now concentrate on their own methods of persuasion: political, social and military.
The Salvadoran military, which exercises considerable control over the U.S.-backed civilian government of President Alfredo Cristiani, has been accused of committing thousands of murders, either openly or by death squads, over the past 10 years. The frequency of the killings has decreased markedly since the early 1980s, but Amnesty International said last month that 17 people had been killed by death squads this year.
*****
(Additional information)
Americans traveling to Salvador told to be cautious
The U.S. State Department on Saturday urged Americans traveling to El Salvador to exercise caution and to refrain from trips to the eastern and northern parts of the country.
The department noted the insurgency by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front is "particularly active" in those areas. And even in San Salvador, where the FMLN mounted an offensive which lasted several weeks late last year, "random guerrilla attacks still occur."
The department recommended that air travelers pick arrival flights that will enable them to clear customs and depart San Salvador's airport by 5:30 p.m.
The safest land route, it said, is via southern entries along the Guatemalan border. But the department recommended that all overland travel be avoided after dusk.
The warning also recommended that Americans remain indoors after 1 a.m., and register upon arrival with the consular section of the U.S. Embassy.