Word: salvadoran
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...aides, in his cocoa brown Jeep Cherokee. Even though his meeting might end in complete deadlock, El Salvador's first freely elected civilian President in 50 years was confident, as he told the U.N., that he could present the guerrillas with a "new reality." Said Duarte: "The Salvadoran people now have no doubt that subversive violence has lost its mystique and reason for existence." He backed his assertion with the offer of an amnesty if the guerrillas agreed to lay down their arms and join the democratic process...
Duarte's move was hailed by Bishop Marco René Revalo Contreras, president of the Salvadoran Episcopal Conference, as "a decisive moment that could permit a suspension of the bloodbath in our country." Said Mark Falcoff, a resident fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research: "Duarte is showing a kind of brilliance and political imagination that U.S. Presidents sometimes lack...
...stated insistence that the guerrillas would not be allowed to shoot their way into power. Instead, he said, they would have a chance to compete in nationwide municipal and legislative elections scheduled for March 1985. Nor did the President mention the reorganization of the 41,000-member Salvadoran army that the insurgents have long demanded. By calling for a face-to-face meeting with the guerrilla comandantes rather than with their civilian spokesmen (see chart), Duarte was showing that he truly wanted to get to the heart of the insurgency...
...important payoff for Duarte's meticulous groundwork was the reaction of rightist politicians and conservative businessmen in San Salvador. Declared the powerful National Association of Private Enterprise, a group that had long opposed Duarte's left-of-center economic policies: "If the Salvadoran terrorists lay down their arms and work in peace toward their objectives, they are welcome to work shoulder-to-shoulder in the country's electoral process...
Another factor that undoubtedly tipped the domestic scales in favor of Duarte's offer has been the Salvadoran army's prosecution of the war. Schooled by U.S. military instructors in aggressive patrolling tactics and re-equipped with more than $130 million in U.S. aid approved by Congress after Duarte's election, the military appears to have taken the initiative from the F.M.L.N. So far, a much feared autumn offensive by the rebels has failed to materialize. Almost daily, Salvadoran newspapers carry reports of defections by the insurgents or of arms caches turned up during army sweeps...