Abstract
This chapter reconstructs the first calendar year of the UN-brokered negotiations between the Cristiani government and the FMLN. It begins with Cristiani’s election and his initial overtures toward dialogue. It concludes at year’s end with the multi-party pact on the armed forces of El Salvador (ESAF).
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Notes and References
Individuals are identified by the titles they held during negotiations.
This strategy constitutes a novel departure from usual superpower or hegemonic support for third-party conflicts, and one worth examining through the high-powered microscope of decision or strategic analysis. Mason and Fett’s (1996) work clearly supports the reasonable hypothesis that hegemonic support for one side or another in a civil war will decrease the likelihood of a negotiated peace, since it raises the likelihood that one side will achieve its aims through military victory. What has not been considered yet is what happens when the hegemon uses its considerable influence to push not just one but both sides to negotiate a peace.
El Salvador was not the first time that the UN was asked to play the role of interlocuter in an intra-state or inter-state conflict, but it may well have been the most intense role. Given that the UN is under constant pressure to prove its investment worthiness, a micro-examination of its role in brokering peace in El Salvador, especially if such an analysis could chronicle its interactions with United States representatives, would go a long way to starting a record of the potential uses of the UN as a global instrument for peace-building.
See Zartman, 1994, on multilateral negotiations.
Sol was part of the delegation that signed the April 1990 Geneva agreement formalizing the intention of both sides to pursue negotiations. She became ambassador to the United States under Cristiani’s successor, Armando Calderón Sol (1994–1999). Interviewed 7 November 1995.
De Soto is a career diplomat of Peruvian origin, appointed the personal representative of the UN Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuéllar, to the Salvadoran peace talks. De Soto had previously been for eight years the Chair of the Group of 77 Commission on the Law of the Seas.
LAWR (No. 7, 16 February 1989, pp. 6–7) reported that the official US position was to consider the proposal carefully; and that it was nervous about an ARENA victory.
The quote is from Baker, 1995, p. 603. Aronson, who was thereafter confirmed as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, admitted in his 7 November 1995 interview for this project that Baker had gone further than he, Aronson, expected or even was willing to go at that point.
Minister of the Presidency Juan Antonio Martínez Varela and Minister of Justice Oscar Santamaría for the government; Joaquín Villalobos and Shafick Handal for the FMLN.
In 1989, a group of retreating FMLN combatants was compelled to take refuge in the Sheraton Hotel in Escalón. They did not know that the Secretary General of the Organization of American States was a guest; they thought he was at a different hotel. He was immediately released, unharmed.
An unverified memo suggests that the envoy was Abraham Rodríguez, one of the original Christian Democrats.
The Friends of the Secretary-General for El Salvador consisted of Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Spain. Teresa Whitfield writes that ‘[the Friends] responded to a desire on the part of the Secretariat not only to form alliances with interested countries in the region … who could be relied upon to provide a useful counterweight to members of the Security Council (such as the US and USSR) with clearly defined bi-lateral positions on El Salvador, but also to try and harness rival would-be mediators to ensure that their efforts would support, rather than be at cross purposes to, the work of the Secretary-General. Ambassadors of the four countries, whether in New York, El Salvador, or the country in which the negotiations were taking place, were regularly, and usually individually, briefed by de Soto on the status of the negotiations from early 1990 on. It was understood that they were at the disposal of the Secretary-General and, on a number of occasions they, or their countries’ Foreign Ministers or Presidents, provided useful services to the negotiation at his request.’ Fax from T. Whitfield to this author, 21 August 1997.
In retrospect, it was not clear if de Soto meant that the President was absolutely committed to negotiations, or that Cristiani was willing to negotiate but would give no quarter.
In July 1989 Thurman replaced Woerner, who had ‘developed a case of clientitis’. Baker, 1995, p. 184.
De Soto: ‘The term we use is ‘good offices’. The Security Council has given the Secretary General a mandate to use its good offices to help Central America in the search for peace.’ FBIS-LAT-90–049, p. 15.
Three weeks later, President Cristiani told AFP,’ santamaría is very aware of Point 2 of the Geneva Agreement, which notes that political agreements must be reached in order to put an end to armed confrontation and violence’. FBIS-LAT-90–082, p. 3.
‘Documento No. 13’ (2 pages), 19 May 1990. Also appended to the copy given to this author was a 3-page document, on government letterhead, stating the government rationale behind seven major points of negotiation or non-negotiation, and a two-page memo of the proposed timeline for ceasefire.
‘A Cristiani no se le puede quitar ni con golpe ni con decreto.’ FMLN internal memo, 6 May 1990.
Duarte’s Vice Minister of Public Security (and later Minister of the Presidency, Reynaldo López Nuila) had tried to segregate the two functions. See Galván, 1994.
Technical assistance on the formation of the new civilian police came from a multinational team led by Jesus Rhodes, of the Catalonian police. De Soto interview, 30 October 1995.
There was no graduating class of commissioned officers in 1965.
The speaker continued, ‘Aronson scolded them about [the government] about the Jesuits, but he offered to maintain aid. For $85 million some people are expendable.’
Yuri Pavlov was the Soviet envoy to Central America. He was counterpart to Elliott Abrams and then Bernard Aronson.
Alexander Bessmertnykh would replace Shevardnadze in December 1990.
For more on Bustillo, see Lane, 1990.
On 13 January 1990, Cristiani and Ponce admitted that the Atlacatl Battalion had killed the Jesuits. A week later, Cristiani named those arrested for the murders. At the same time, the government of Guatemala confirmed that Hector Oquelí, the No. 2 man in El Salvador’s Social Democratic party, had been assassinated on the Guatemala side of the border. LAWR 2, 18 January 1990, p. 12; LAWR 3, 25 January 1990, p. 1).
Walker was modest. Two Salvadoran politicians, independently of each other, told this author that if Ponce was a nervous wreck, it was at least in part from Walker’s intense and unrelenting pressure on him. Both told anecdotes of a luncheon in Walker’s house. They arrived at the ambassador’s residence, and Walker was on the phone in another room, yelling at Ponce, ‘You promised me this would not happen. Are you or are you not the commander of the armed forces?’ Walker does not remember the episode.
IP/FMLN aide-memoire, 9 September 1990. But the FMLN was getting strong advice to the contrary. Soviet envoy Yuri Pavlov told Handal, and Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez told Miguel Saénz, that another FMLN offensive could produce a US invasion (UN minutes, 18 September 1990).
Personal notes, Salvadoran negotiator in meetings with FMLN, written some time after 20 October 1990.
In an 8 August 1990 meeting, de Soto commented, ‘I’ll talk to Walker. His big fear is that this could de-stabilize a Cristiani.’ Chávez Mena is on record as having replied, ‘Es mejor ya.’
Cristiani received Soviet envoy Ian Burlay in August. Burlay said the Soviets were willing to establish diplomatic relations. Aronson and Pavlov, who had begun to meet in mid-1989 on the Nicaraguan Contras, continued to talk on El Salvador until the Aronson—Pavlov agreement was ratified in October 1990. LAWR 42, 1 November 1990, pp. 6–7.
The ad hoc commission would be made up of three individuals chosen by the Secretary General from four lists of five names submitted by the GOES, the FMLN, the Archbishopric, and the IP.
From minutes of 9 September 1990: ‘If [ARENA] consolidates in the elections, it’s over for the opposition, and it could be worse if they do it without a ceasefire. And what if the government accepts everything in December?’
Notes, 20 November 1990, 3:30 p.m., Cristiani, Angulo, Calderón Sol, with Chávez, Viéytez, Perdomo, Le Chevallier.
Notes of a negotiator in that meeting, 11 November 1990.
Off the record, Samayoa admitted to a member of the IP that the Sandinista loss really frightened them. He described how they changed their license plates, painted the cars, changed houses, and left Nicaragua quickly.
Calderón Sol, Angulo, D’Aubuisson, Chávez Mena, Le Chevallier, Ungo.
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© 1998 Tricia Juhn
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Juhn, T. (1998). When Peace Becomes Possible. In: Negotiating Peace in El Salvador. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26810-8_3
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