Word: salvadors
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With a bold offer, Duarte reaches out to El Salvador's rebels...
Duarte set a time and a place for the encounter: Monday, Oct. 15 at 10 a.m., in the town of La Palma (pop. 3,000), 50 miles from San Salvador, the capital. His choice of the site was also courageous: the area around La Palma has long been a guerrilla hotbed. Indeed, in the days following Duarte's proposal, young guerrillas armed with M-16 rifles and hand grenades openly strolled the village streets...
Nonetheless, Duarte intended to drive up the rutted highway to La Palma, accompanied at most by a small contingent of 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...
...propensity of the Salvadoran military to shoot up anyone to the left of Roberto D'Aubisson. Even Duarte's meeting with the rebels at La Palma has been met only with the snarls of the death squads, who vow death to those offering a middle way out of El Salvador's problems...
Contadora holds promise for the United States as well. It beckons us away from our propensity to peddle force--unsuccessfully--as the only solution to the many problems of Central America, security and otherwise. Meanwhile, the United States should stick with Duarte in El Salvador and urge perseverence on him in his effort to restrain the extremists in his military. Moderation is in short supply, and unless we wisely use what little is left, we will help condemn the Central American people to decades more of violence, misery, and poverty...