I attended the opening ceremonies of From War to Politics: An International Conference on El Salvador’s Peace Process in New York City this evening. Columbia University Provost John Coatsworth introduced the three day conference while Alvaro de Soto, former UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, had the privilege of giving the keynote address.
De Soto was the UN’s lead negotiator who helped bring an end to the civil war. I can’t say that he said anything profound during his address but he could tell some good stories with regards to the pace and content of the peace negotiations. I hadn’t known but at one point during the negotiations in Mexico City representatives of the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly traveled to the hotel where the negotiations were taking place in order to inject their thoughts into the process. The arrival was a surprise and their presence a threat to the peace process.
Fortunately, both government and FMLN negotiators rejected the legislators’ presence. Even better, the legislators’ efforts to throw their weight around brought the government and the FMLN closer together. There were individuals in the government, congress, guerrillas, and military who would not have been displeased had the negotiations failed. However, the official negotiators were intent on resolving the war through some sort of political settlement.
After his address, Julia Preston of the New York Times asked Mr. de Soto how influential the deaths of the Jesuits were to ending the war. He had said that the outcome of the November 1989 final offensive had convinced the government and guerrillas that neither side was going to win the war anytime soon and that negotiations were preferable. However, he answered that the Jesuits’ deaths mobilized the US Congress more than anyone else. He didn’t really answer whether their deaths affected the calculations of the Salvadoran government or guerrillas.
I think that it is difficult to disentangle the multiple causes of the end of the war and say that a single one was the most important. The Berlin Wall begin to fall on November 9, 1989. The FMLN launched its final offensive two days later on November 11th. The grandness of the FMLN offensive surprised the government and undermined its legitimacy as a result of its bombing of civilian areas and killing of the Jesuits. However, the FMLN suffered significant military casualties and realized that Salvadorans were not going to spontaneously rise up in support of their revolutionary dreams. That ship had sailed. Neighboring Sandinistas in Nicaragua agreed to peace accords with the Contras and agreed to accept the outcome of the February 1990 elections.
I have always wondered what would have happened had the military not launched the attack against the Jesuits (and other moderates) in the midst of the offensive. The FMLN launched its offensive partly because they were dissatisfied with the pace of negotiations with Alfredo Cristiani in 1989. They demonstrated their significant strength but they also suffered significant casualties. Would the offensive have backfired politically and militarily against the FMLN?
