Leftist Victory in El Salvador Closes an Historic Cycle

The apparent victory of leftist candidate Maurico Funes in Sunday's
presidential election in El Salvador finally closes out the Cold War in
Central America and raises some serious questions about the long term
goals of U.S. foreign policy.

With Funes' election, history has come full cycle. Both El Salvador
and neighboring Nicaragua will now be governed by two former guerrilla
fronts against which the Reagan administration spared no efforts in
trying to defeat during the entire course of the 1980's. We will now
coexist with those we once branded as the greatest of threats to our
national security. Those we branded as "international terrorists" now
democratically govern much of Central America.

Funes, once a commentator for CNN's Spanish-language service, comes
to power representing the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front
(FMLN), a Marxist guerrilla group-turned-political -party, an
organization that the U.S. government once described in terms now
reserved for Al Qaeda and Hizbollah.

From the late 1970's until a negotiated peace settlement in 1992,
the FMLN fought a bloody civil war against a series of U.S.-backed
right-wing regimes. Those Salvadoran regimes engaged in horrific
massacres and deployed savage death squads, taking a massive human
toll. While the FMLN also perpetrated atrocities, all independent
analysts agree that the overwhelming majority of the 75,000 who were
killed in the war in El Salvador were victims of government-sponsored
violence.

This same FMLN which now comes to power in El Salvador was once
declared as the primary perpetrator of "international terrorism" by the
Reagan administration who deployed hundreds of U.S. military advisors
to the tiny Central American country and who quadrupled the size of the
Salvadoran Army. In this all-out quest to crush the FLMN, U.S.
authorities, at best, turned a blind eye to the bloody excesses of the
Salvadoran regime. At worst, it encouraged them.

At the same time in history, the U.S. spent billions creating a
"contra" army to destabilize and dislodge the leftist Sandinista
National Liberation Front (FSLN) which had taken power in Nicaragua in
1979, overthrowing the dynastic and dictatorial rule of the Somoza
family - another U.S.-backed ally.

During the entire eight years of the Reagan era, defeating both the
FMLN and the FSLN were the absolute top priorities of U.S. foreign
policy as the administration argued that the Texas border was a short
hop from the fields of Central America and that all must be done to
stop the northward march of hemispheric revolution. The sort of
inflammatory rhetoric used to describe the Central American guerrilla
movements was an eerie precedent for the overheated war of words
against "The Axis of Evil" that would emerge earlier this decade.

The Nicaraguan Sandinistas were eventually defeated by an
American-backed opposition in elections in 1990 and democratically and
peacefully transferred power (something the Reaganites claimed could
never happen). But the Sandinistas returned to power last year
re-electing its historic leader Daniel Ortega as president. Almost
twenty years of rule from the pro-U.S. coalitions that had succeeded
the Sandinistas had failed to implement any meaningful social change.

The Salvadoran FMLN, meanwhile, which has acted as a parliamentary
opposition party since the 1992 Salvadoran peace accords, now comes to
power ending twenty years of uninterrupted rule by the country's
ultra-conservative ARENA party - a political organization born directly
from the death squads of the 1980's and, yes, a close ally of the U.S.

All of this raises the question of why so many lives were spent and
so many billions in U.S. dollars were burned in an attempt to expunge
these leftist forces twenty years ago? Wouldn't it have been possible
in 1989 to find some sort of accommodation with these radical forces
and not postpone the inevitable for twenty years?

In the case of Nicaragua, the year-old reborn and duly elected
Sandinista administration--while far from a model of democratic
ethics-- hardly poses any threat to U.S. interests. Though President
Ortega, saddled with governing one of the poorest countries in the
hemisphere, still clothes his actions in revolutionary rhetoric, he has
headed up what many think is essentially a conservative regime which
recently outlawed all abortion (a move that could warm the deceased
Ronald Reagan's heart). Ortega campaigned successfully for the
presidency last year by quoting from scripture and has not flinched
from pacting with the most conservative of political elements.

In the case of El Salvador, President-elect Funes has pledged to
maintain close and cordial relations with the U.S. And while the
FMLN--like the Sandinistas - clings to some of its Cold War
revolutionary rhetoric, no one expects any radical moves by the
incoming government. Fighting widespread poverty aggravated by the
global slump and a chilling crime wave, the FMLN will have its hands
full just keeping the government on keel. President-elect Funes holds
distinctly moderate views and in an American context would be little
more than a liberal Democrat. In any case, the FMLN can point to its
recent governance of several Salvadoran cities (including until
recently the capital of San Salvador) as its democratic bona fides.

The resurrection of the FMLN and the FSLN at this time in history
raises a troubling irony regarding U.S. foreign policy. Yesterday we
were told they were our greatest enemies. Today, now in power, they
hardly garner any U.S. press coverage, let alone much attention from
Washington. Likewise, the right-wing forces we bankrolled with blood
and treasure and who we were told were a bulwark of Western
Civilization, utterly failed in solving the basic existential questions
that bedeviled their respective countries. Twenty years from now, we
have to ask, what will Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria look like? Might we
find ourselves peacefully co-existing with the same undefeated forces
who today we proclaim our mortal enemies? Might we be better off using
our soft power, our economic and diplomatic clout to force negotiation
and moderation with those we perceive as irrational and radical
enemies? Or do we only reach that conclusion after the dissipation of
prolonged, bloody and ultimately unsuccessful armed intervention and
war?