Word: salvadors
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...F.M.L.N.'s skills on the battlefield have been overshadowed by the deterioration of El Salvador's army. Perpetually plagued by inept commanders and a "9t05" fighting mentality, the military improved over the summer but faltered once the rebel offensive began. The poor performance has prompted Defense Minister Carlos Eugenic Vides Casanova to shuffle his corps of colonels, but the troops suffer from battle fatigue as much as bad orders. Says a State Department analyst: "The army did not so much go back to their barracks as just run out of steam...
...admitting that the flow had slowed to a "trickle." Nonetheless, the Administration has justified its support of rebels fighting Nicaragua's Marxist-led government largely on the ground that their actions are necessary to stop the stream of arms and the "export of revolution" from Nicaragua to El Salvador...
Despite their recent progress, the rebels do not control any of the country's 14 provincial capitals and retain little sway around San Salvador or the western half of the nation. Like most tropical wars, the conflict is cyclical. During the fall harvest, guerrillas make gains while the army pulls back to guard the cotton and coffee crops. By the end of January, the rebels retreat as the military swings to the offensive. Says a Western diplomat in San Salvador: "Washington's summer euphoria fades each November and returns around Christmas...
Meanwhile, the Administration is voicing increasing alarm about El Salvador's notorious death squads, which, according to El Salvador's Human Rights Commission, have killed an estimated 40,000 people during the past four years. In a speech to a group of Salvadoran business leaders two weeks ago, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering warned bluntly that U.S. aid would be halted if the Salvadoran government did not make a greater effort to stop the killing. When Pickering's predecessor in San Salvador, Deane Hinton, delivered a similar speech in October 1982, he was reprimanded by the White House...
Caught between a violent left and a violent right, the U.S. might wonder anew about the prospects for El Salvador. The presidential elections scheduled for next March already have been touched by the bloody conflict. The guerrillas have seized the voter registration lists in hundreds of towns, making an orderly election very difficult. Four years after the civil war began, democracy in El Salvador seems as elusive as ever. -By James Kelly. Reported by David DeVoss/San Salvador and Johanna McGeary/Washington