El Salvador 1989: Elections Under State Terror by Terry Allen and Edward S. Herman*
Winter 1990
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On March 19, 1989, in an election in which two thirds of the eligible voters did not vote, the ARENA party won full control of the government of El Salvador. Chile's General Augusto Pinochet was the first to congratulate the President-elect, Alfredo Cristiani. It was a fitting conclusion to a U.S. investment of $4 billion, in the interest of "democracy," that power should fall into the hands of a party founded and still strongly influenced by the death squad organizer and "pathological killer" Roberto D' Aubuisson. [1] It was also predictable that the U.S. mass media and leading liberal Democrats would still find this election, as they had its predecessors, a legitimating exercise in democracy.
We will review here the background of the March 1989 election and the reasons why it was democratic in form but not in substance.
The 1982 and 1984 Elections The 1982 and 1984 elections in El Salvador were classic examples of "demonstration elections" and effectively served their purpose: they induced the U.S. mass media and the Congress to find El Salvador a "democracy" worthy of material and moral support, and money flowed there to sustain administration policy. That policy was exclusively military, aiming at the defeat of the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) by a counterinsurgency (CI) war of attrition; the elections were simply a public relations (PR) arm of this military effort.
The U.S. mass media helped make the 1982 and 1984 demonstration elections successful by failing to acknowledge and discuss the primacy of the CI war and the role of elections in clearing the ground for intensified warfare. Reporters at the 1982 election almost universally observed that "peace" was the first objective of the voters. The electoral slogan formulated in the United States to encourage voting by the war-weary people of El Salvador was "Ballots versus Bullets," suggesting that the election was a route to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. But neither the Salvadoran army, the Reagan administration, nor any party represented in the elections favored a negotiated settlement of the war. When the 1984 elections approached, the media avoided discussing the anomaly of the public having desired peace above all in 1982, and the obvious failure of the earlier allegedly democratic election to bring about - or even to elicit attempts to negotiate - peace.
In order to perpetuate the myth that democracy was a goal of the Salvadoran elites, the army, and the U.S. government, it was also incumbent on the mass media covering the 1982 and 1984 elections to avert their eyes from history. The Salvadoran elite had been fighting furiously against political, social and economic democracy for decades before 1982. So had the army, which was its ally and instrument. The U.S. government showed no concern over the lack of democracy in El Salvador until rebellion threatened the status quo. Could these parties be taken seriously as sponsors of democracy? The question doesn't arise for a patriotic media. Client state leaders who have murdered thousands are assumed to have "changed course" and must be "given a chance." By contrast, spokespersons for states being destabilized "cannot be trusted," and their word is not accepted on their claimed beneficent plans.
Above all, the mass media do not discuss the fundamental conditions of a free election. Is there freedom of speech and assembly? Is there a free press? Are organizations like unions, peasant leagues, and student groups allowed to organize and operate openly? Can parties and candidates qualify and campaign without fear, irrespective of their political position? Is the public subject to any threats of violence? None of these conditions was met in El Salvador in 1982 and 1984. [2]
The 1982 election was held in the midst of an ongoing reign of terror in which 700-800 unarmed civilians were murdered per month during the preceding 30 months by official and officially sponsored paramilitary forces. Many of the victims were raped, tortured, and mutilated; their bodies often left on public display. More than two dozen journalists were murdered in El Salvador between 1979 and 1984 and the two independent newspapers were eliminated by violence in 1980 and 1981. A large number of organizations were destroyed and their leaders killed or driven underground.
The "main opposition," the guerrilla movement and the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FOR), could not participate in any election for fear of assassination. Their five top leaders had been tortured and murdered in November 1980, and the remaining leadership was on army death lists. Furthermore, they were not intended to run. The U.S. plan was to clear the ground by systematic terror, then to pretend that the guerrillas wouldn't join in the election because they feared losing in a fair contest! The guerrillas were also portrayed as trying to disrupt the election, and voter turnout was used as a measure of support for the army - which was "protecting the election" - and by implication, U.S. policy and the CI war.
The mass media also failed to report in 1982 that voting was required by law, ID cards had to be stamped, and the head of the army had warned the public that a failure to vote was treasonous. In an environment of mass killing, these characteristics of the voting process were clearly relevant to explaining voter turnout.
In the 1984 election, the presence and victory of Jose Napoleon Duarte gave the election credibility as a genuine exercise in democracy. As an alleged reformer, running against D' Aubuisson, he provided an appearance of choice. Duarte was also a charismatic man, spoke excellent English, and was able to convince many members of Congress that he was really going to improve human rights and bring peace to El Salvador. The reality, however, is that Duarte joined the Salvadoran junta in March 1980, just as the real reformers resigned in recognition of their inability to stop an army reign of terror. Duarte then served as a fig leaf for the organized violence that followed, engaging in steady apologetics for the army's mass murder. [3]
Most important, in order to be able to take power, survive in office, and maintain the vital flow of U.S. aid, Duarte had to accept the army's and Reagan administration's pursuit of a war to the finish, and engage in no compromise with "the subversives" (a phrase used regularly by the army and by Duarte himself). At no time, therefore, did Duarte offer the peace option of a negotiated settlement, although he was vague and duplicitous enough to convince some that he was a peacemaker. [4] During his tenure in office no state or para-military murderer was prosecuted for killing or torturing Salvadorans, despite the huge civilian toll and the fact that in many cases eyewitnesses presented official depositions identifying the perpetrators and presenting ironclad evidence of their guilt. Duarte was the perfect front man for a regime of terror.
The Rise of ARENA The decline of the Christian Democrats was inevitable. Their base of popular support gradually eroded as a result of regressive economic policies, failure to make progress toward ending the war, exposure of their massive corruption, increasing party divisions, and resentment at their subservience to U.S. interests. The Christian Democrats had split apart in 1980, when Duarte and his faction decided to align itself with the army against the guerrillas (who Duarte admitted at the time had the support of the general populace ). [5] It split apart again in 1988, partially over the choice of Duarte's successor, but also because of attempts by the faction led by Rey Prendes to distance itself from the increasingly obvious corruption, ineptitude and dwindling support of the ruling group.
ARENA, on the other hand, prospered under the conditions created by the U.S.-sponsored CI war, which fostered the growth of the army and anticommunist ideology, and concentrated on weakening and destroying the left and its popular support base. There was little "center" to begin with, and the luke-warm liberal-left support of Duarte and the Christian Democrats eroded as they revealed themselves to be corrupt, powerless, and agents of the army and a foreign government.
ARENA almost won the 1982 election. It lost in 1984 only because of a massive foreign (i.e., U.S.) intervention in support of Duarte and a last gasp of electoral hope by an important segment of the public that Duarte and the Christian Democratic Party might do something constructive. Following the 1984 election, ARENA embarked on a systematic organizational effort that positioned it well for future politicking. [6] By the end of 1988, ARENA had gained control of the legislature, the judiciary, and a good portion of the electoral apparatus. In 1989, with its new organizational structures in place, and backed by the wealth of the army and oligarchy, it presented itself as a unified party standing for peace, prosperity, and incorruptible patriotism.
Organized by Roberto D' Aubuisson, ARENA is the party of the oligarchy, the army officer corps, and the death squads. D' Aubuisson is the best known leader of the Salvadoran death squads? Trained in Taiwan and the United States, and a close ally of Guatemalan leader and death squad organizer Mario Sandoval Alarcon, D' Aubuisson was a participant in the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero, and has close links to the fascist international. [8] In 1982, he told several Western European correspondents that Hitler had treated the Jews appropriately. [9]
D' Aubuisson and ARENA were always acceptable to the Reaganites - they were merely less desirable than Duarte and the Christian Democrats. The latter provided a better facade for the alleged democracy, and had the additional advantage of being more subservient to U.S. demands than ARENA. Historically, the Salvadoran oligarchy has been relatively independent and not eager to share its power and profits with foreign capital. As the party of the oligarchy, ARENA represents a rightwing nationalist movement that resents U.S. intervention, even while accepting it out of necessity. Its leaders do not kiss the American flag and do not accept orders as readily as the "reformers."
But ARENA is anticommunist and hostile to radical change in El Salvador, and it is therefore ''within the ballpark" for U.S. leaders and bureaucrats, just as Stroessner, Pinochet, and Somoza were quite acceptable for most of their lengthy tenures in power. When ARENA came close to full power in 1982, the U.S. Embassy quietly began to rationalize D'Aubuisson, [10] setting the stage for his becoming a Free World leader. The press did likewise, suppressing his statement on Hitler and the Jews and treating him in a tone quite different from that accorded enemy terrorists like Abu Nidal or Carlos. [11]
Table 1. Human Rights Violations Against Civilians in El Salvador in 1988*
Number of Incidents
Captures of Civilians by Uniformed Soldiers or "Heavily Armed Men in Civilian Clothes": 1,556
Assassinations: 412
Attempted Assassinations: 30
Reported Disappearances: 36
Members of Cooperatives Killed or Disappeared: 20
Civilians and Unidentified Persons Killed During Military Operations: 167
Incidents of Violence Against Internationals (Captures, Deportations, Injuries, Assassinations): 87
Violations Attributable to FMLN:
Kidnappings: 56
Executions: 21
* Source: El Rescate Human Rights Department, Chronology of Human Rights, Violations in El Salvador, January-December 1988, pp. vi-vii.
Despite these sanitation efforts, ARENA remains the party of terrorism. D'Aubuisson, its founder and continuing leader, is a "terrorist" by any western definition of the word. Voted ARENA's Honorary President for Life in 1988, he retains his power in the party and still gets the loudest applause at ARENA gatherings. Before the 1989 election it was widely known in El Salvador that D' Aubuisson dominated the party, set policy, and did most of the talking at planning meetings. Cristiani contributed little and nodded often, according to a source who was present. [12] D' Aubuisson also maintains his charismatic influence with a portion of the middle class, small business people and peasants who are fiercely nationalistic. These groups see ARENA as the only party capable of standing up to the United States. They are tired of war, but believe the rightwing line that the FMLN is part of an international communist conspiracy, and that it can be defeated by a burst of intensified warfare.
The ARENA support base overlaps with the membership of the earlier terrorist organization ORDEN, a paramilitary structure from which the death squads were partly drawn (along with the army and police). With D'Aubuisson a death squad organizer, many other death squads supported by oligarchs who joined ARENA, and the remnants of ORDEN supplying many death squad cadres, the death squads may be said to be institutional affiliates of the ARENA party.
ARENA has long had strong representation in the El Salvador judiciary, and its entrenched position has been a major factor rendering the law inoperative as regards state and rightwing terror. A steady stream of Supreme Court decisions in 1988 and 1989 exonerated the murderers of Archbishop Romero, the assassins of two American labor advisers, the mass killers at La Hoya and San Sebastian, and others. It is evident that ARENA's taking control of the executive, as well as the legislative and judicial apparatus of the state, will eliminate all internal legal protections against unrestrained state terrorism.13 This series of court decisions received little coverage in the U.S. media, and their implications for the meaning of the election have also been ignored.
The Brief Opening - And Then Escalated Terror Following the 1984 election, a small amount of space opened up in El Salvador. [14] The press and TV stations were able to criticize, and unions and other groups could organize and engage in protest without assured violent retribution. The media were still under conservative ownership and control, and outright espousal of the guerrilla cause was not possible above ground. A newspaper with a level of dissent equal to that of La Prensa in Nicaragua would not have been able to operate, even in the "thaw" years. Leaders of the FDR, Reuben Zamora and Guillermo Ungo, returned to El Salvador and initiated a campaign, thus reintroducing a left presence into the electoral process.
From 1987 on, however, as the army made little progress in the CI war, and elections loomed on the horizon, the space opened up in 1984 began to shrink. Death squad activity increased, army violence against ordinary citizens escalated, and systematic attacks on dissident unions and other revived groups and their leaders rose sharply. Death squad killings increased 138 percent between 1987 and 1988, Tutela Legal, with four new groups coming into existence and threatening "subversives."
Table 1 shows the number and type of attacks on civilians for the year 1988, derived from the El Rescate Chronology and list of abuses for that year. The vast majority of these incidents were carried out by members of the army and security forces. It should be noted that the largest item, 1,556 "Captures of Civilians by Uniformed Soldiers or 'Heavily Armed Men in Civilian Clothes'," is almost entirely the result of operations of state agents, to whom we may also allocate virtually all of the large total for "Assassinations." The flavor of the reality that lies behind these numbers is hinted at in the tiny sample of El Rescate entries given in Box 1, taken from their Chronology which is 291 pages for 1988 alone.
One of the most notable features of the growing state terror in El Salvador has been the return to systematic attacks on popular organizations and the arrest, torture, disappearance and murder of their leaders. Americas Watch published two volumes which described in detail the recent onslaught against organized labor in El Salvador: Labor Rights in El Salvador (March 1988) and Petition Before the U.S. Trade Representative on Labor Rights in El Salvador (March 1989). In the former document, which notes 13 murders and disappearances of labor activists in a 12 month period, it is stressed that the security forces have been systematically attacking organized labor as an important part of their overall service; that "recurrent military involvement in detentions of, and attacks against, union and peasant cooperative activists suggests that such measures remain a component of government policy" (p. 14). The Petition submitted in 1989 summarizes case after case of police and army intervention in labor disputes, with frequent arrests, torture, sexual abuse, and sometimes murder. These two documents by Americas Watch were not reported on in the New York Times and mass media in general.
Box 2 shows a small sample of the record of increasing and systematic attacks on organizations, which encompassed virtually all the major trade union groups, peasant organizations, the University of San Salvador, refugee groups, and even day care centers. The murders and raids are not on the scale of 1980-1981, but they are numerous, destructive, and traumatizing.
Freedom of the Press and the Murder of Journalists As in the earlier period, open media support for the guerrillas is impossible in El Salvador. Broadcast stations interviewing guerrilla leaders were sent a "quiet message" of warning by the army. [15] The two largest newspapers in El Salvador not only supported ARENA, they blacked out news of the activities and statements of moderate and left opposition groups and even refused to take their paid advertisements. [16]
Box 1. How Security Forces Treat Civilians in "Free" El Salvador, 1988*
January 6: Jose Victor Manuel Gomez de Leon, 25 years old, a member of ANT A (the National Association of Agricultural Workers), in Las Marias, Chinameca, San Miguel, is captured by soldiers from the ARCE Battalion on the Las Zelayas Farm, Plan Grande. Days later, his body is found with the feet and legs burned, and the head and left arm missing. (Tutela Legal)
January 11: Jose Angel Alas Gomez, 27 years old, is captured by the Treasury Police. The Police announce that Alas dies from a "cardiac arrest" in a Treasury Police vehicle. According to investigations by the CDHES (Non-Governmental), the body shows lacerations, swelling, burns on one shoulder and on the legs, and blows and pokes on the testicles. (CDHES)
January 25: Nelson Rivas, 16, is abducted from his house in Cuesta Blanca by men in civilian clothes at 9:00 p.m. According to neighbors from the area, there were many soldiers on the highway that day. The next day Rivas's body is found with his hands tied, his shirt in his mouth, his throat slashed, and with signs of torture. (IDHUCA and North American churchworkers)
January 29: Bodies of eight persons are found in La Libertad, six in Sacoyo and two in San Pablo Tacachico: all tortured including two young women found hanging from a tree, breasts cut off, faces painted red. (El Mundo, January 30, 1988)
January 31: Six uniformed soldiers abduct Juan Alberto Guevara Monge and his son Jose Adelmo Deras Guevara, 9 years old, who is mentally handicapped, from Platanillo, La Libertad. Guevara Monge's body is found in the Agua Caliente River, with the legs broken, the head mutilated, the shirt and pants burned, an ear split, and a bullet in one cheek. (Tutela Legal)
*Source: A tiny sample taken from the almost 5,000 incidents reported in the El Rescate, Human Rights Department, Chronology Of Human Rights Violations in El Salvador, January-December 1988.
In the pre-election period, also, the Salvadoran Attorney General officially warned the press against allowing any statements "inciting" the public not to vote. [17] This was not mentioned in the U.S. mass media, to our knowledge.
Box 2. Attacks on Organizations by the Armed Forces*
December 28, 1988: A bomb explodes in the Lutheran Church, causing extensive damage to the sanctuary and the pastor's office. A group of men entered the church at 3 a.m. and after throwing religious ornaments on the floor, placed an explosive. Bishop Medardo Gomez had received death threats in recent weeks. (El Mundo December 28, 1988)
December 29: ANTA offices in Santa Ana are searched and ransacked by soldiers of the Second Brigade; two workers are captured and almost $6,000 in equipment stolen. Later the two workers are released. (San Salvador Television, Channel 12, December 30, 1988)
June 1, 1989: The Bracamonte Battalion enters San Jose Las Flores, Chalatenango, destroys the day care center and holds people captive in the church for more than two hours; gunfire damages a home, the clinic and the convent, and soldiers threaten to rape the nuos. (El Mundo, June 19, 1989)
June 6: Soldiers of the Atlacatl Battalion raid and rob the SOICES union offices in San Jose Las Fiores, Chalatenango. (El Mundo, June 17, 1989)
July 17: Twenty thousand rounds of ammunition fired by soldiers and security forces into the National University campus in San Salvador, injuring 11 people. Fourteen students and professors have been captured by authorities in the past two weeks; two from Santa Ana campus are thought to be "disappeared."
July 18: Treasury Police invade UNADES office (Office of Earthquake Victims) to search. They rip the office apart. According to Carmen Rivera, at midnight they took ten workers to the police headquarters. "There the interrogator pulled my hair and chased me around the cell .... More than anything else they asked me about my children. Then they asked me about my husband. This was the hardest thing for me. Every time I would answer he would say I was lying, and that the next interrogator would kill me. The entire time I was not allowed to use the bathroom, given no food or water. I was denied sleep and forced to stand for 72 hours. They kept touching my breasts; I feared they would rape me. I had been told that they would put me in the electric chair." [She was transferred to the women's prison on July 21].
*Sources: El Rescate, Human Rights Department, Chronology for 1988; updates for June and July 1989.
During the 1989 election the Salvadoran state continued its practice of murdering journalists, and the U.S. mass media continued their role of protecting a client state election by looking the other way. On election day, two reporters from Reuters were shot by Air Force personnel, one of whom died, the other severely wounded. A Dutch journalist was shot in a cross-fire, and died while his fellow reporters were unable to get him to a hospital because military helicopters kept firing at their trucks, plainly marked with press insignia. Another reporter, from the local San Salvador TV Channel 12, was shot dead by military personnel. The western reporters assembled in El Salvador were perturbed at these murders, and asked sharp questions of Defense Minister Vides Casanova at a press conference. He claimed these were regrettable accidents, that he would investigate, and that anyone guilty of misbehavior would surely be punished. [18]
But once again, the U.S. mass media down-played these murders. None of them featured this story, and few provided the background information that there had been several dozen prior journalist killings. None of them called attention to the fact that Channel 12 had angered the security establishment by its reporting on human rights abuses and that other staff from the station had been captured, tortured and released the previous year as a warning. They did not mention that the two Reuters reporters had been shot in the back after having been allowed to pass through a check point. None of the papers followed up the press conference with a report on whether or not guilty parties were found and punished.
The Democratic Convergence and Its Role Among the factors differentiating the 1989 election from those held in 1982 and 1984, the most striking was the presence of the Democratic Convergence, a coalition of three left parties which was openly aligned with the FMLN.
According to its officials, the Convergence chose to participate in order to create political space, widen the frame of debate, obtain a seat on the Central Election Council (CCE), [19] and serve as a bridge between the FMLN and the government and United States in future negotiations. It remains to be seen whether this strategy was effective. What is certain, however, is that the participation of a leftist group gave the U.S. press another reason for declaring the 1989 election open (although the absence of such an electoral option in earlier years hadn't prevented the media from finding those also triumphs of democracy). The press failed, however, to provide the context that would explain why the Convergence was not able to mount a serious electoral bid.
In 1980, opposition parties had been forced underground by systematic murder. It was not until 1987 that Zamora and Ungo felt able to return from exile abroad. However, they had neither the necessary time nor the money to develop an organization that could span the country. With a budget of only $200,000 - compared with an estimated $6 million and $8 million for the Christian Democrats and ARENA, respectively. [20] The Convergence was not able to hire U.S. public relations firms, organize many rallies or pay for extensive advertising. [21]
These "legal" disadvantages were exacerbated by a pattern of illegal tactics used against the leftist party. In violation of the electoral code, a propaganda campaign was mounted against the Convergence by the army and others. In Santa Ana, army personnel passed out leaflets proclaiming that Zamora and Ungo were traitors. At one rally, the army distributed leaflets featuring Zamora enveloped in a hammer and sickle. Posters also appeared throughout the country with "enemies of the people" superimposed over photos of Zamora and his running mate Reni Roldan. So many violations were recorded that the president of the Central Election Committee (CCE) told a delegation from the International Human Rights Law Group (IHRLG) that he had "formally requested the armed forces to cease interfering with the Convergencia's campaign." [22] This request, and the numerous incidents of army partisanship in the election, were not reported in the mainstream U.S. press.
Because of the personal risks and lack of money, the Convergence's campaign was limited largely to San Salvador. Only once did Zamora travel outside the city to campaign. Even within the capital the danger was substantial. Their major rally, held in front of the National Cathedral on the last campaign day before the election, was broken up as it started to grow dark by the approaching sound of machine gun and heavy weapons fire. The candidates were rushed to cars and the crowd melted away. [23]
Another source of problems for the Convergence was the opposition of the FMLN to their participation in the electoral process. The FMLN claimed that "elections at the point of a gun" could not lead to a democratic outcome, and it called for a boycott. This split over tactics on the left cost the Convergence a great many votes.
As noted, the U.S. media cited the Convergence's participation as evidence of the openness of the election. In this connection, Lindsey Gruson observed in the New York Times that "In 1981... the armed forces put a bounty on the heads of 138 leftists by publishing a list of their names and describing them as wanted traitors." [24] This important fact, which tells us so much about the integrity of the 1982 election, was not reported by the New York Times in 1982. Now, with this fact mere "history," with the social democrats running in 1989, it can be mentioned! The suppressions now move to the factors that make the left appearance merely nominal and that worked in favor of ARENA, sometimes outside the law.
From Mandatory to Restricted Voting Another major difference between the elections of the early 1980s and that of March 1989 was the government's policy on obligatory voting. In the elections of 1982 and 1984 voting was mandatory and citizens without a stamp on their national identity card (ID, cedula) certifying that they had voted risked fines, accusations of FMLN collaboration, harassment and even death. After their legislative victories in 1988, ARENA introduced a series of electoral "reforms." Among these, the legal requirement to vote was eliminated. Instead of having his/her voting record on the ID, which citizens are required to carry at all times, a new card (carnet) was issued specifically for voting.
At the same time, however, confusing and often arbitrary and costly restrictions were placed on obtaining these cards. The ID was required for obtaining a voting carnet, and this could only be gotten in one's home town or by paying more than $60 (approximately half the annual income of a rural worker) for alternative documentation. This discriminated heavily against refugees, migrant workers, and the poor. According to the IHRLG, "Fully 20 percent of those applying for a new carnet were rejected by the computer" because of technical "discrepancies," leading the IHRLG to conclude that the "procedure may eliminate more eligible voters than ineligible ones." [25] Local boards, often controlled by ARENA, also had discretionary authority to rule on the validity of documentation presented to obtain a carnet. In addition, the registration period was shortened.
Many Salvadorans did not even try to get the new cards. Publicity about the changes in the law was poor and travel in El Salvador is dangerous, especially without proper papers. As of 1985, over half the 285 municipalities in the country reported that their town halls (where birth certificates and records are kept) had been destroyed. The number is undoubtedly higher today.
Between 20 and 30 percent of the Salvadoran population is either internal or external refugees. The IHRLG estimated that there were 450,000-700,000 internal refugees and displaced persons, who had great difficulty voting under the new restrictions. A large fraction of these were effectively disqualified from voting. All of the estimated 600,000-1,000,000 external refugees were ineligible to vote by law. This adds up to between 1-1.7 million Salvadorans excluded from the vote (a million actually voted in the election). The excluded Salvadorans were mainly rural and urban peasants and workers, many of whom had been victimized by the army and paramilitary forces, and would tend to oppose ARENA.
Not all the exclusions were legal, even by Salvadoran standards. "[Jose Ricardo] Perdomo [president of the CCE] announced that the records of an estimated 290,000 voters in the election registry have been tampered with." [26] Charges of double and even triple voting were made in some districts. "It's like sneaking into a fair," joked one multiple voter to an international observer (who told this story to Terry Allen). The Convergence charged that fraud had robbed them of the third place standing which would have given them a place on the election review board.
By eliminating mandatory voting and instituting restrictive registration requirements and control over documentation, ARENA gained not only a public relations victory, but also a tactical advantage over both the Convergence and the Christian Democrats. With its large campaign fund and extensive organization, ARENA was able to ensure that its supporters registered and turned out. The Christian Democrats went into the election disorganized, dispirited, and outvoted on the electoral boards. The Convergence was unable to compete in organizational reach and communications effort.
Credit: Terry Allen
Figure 1: Clear plastic balloting boxes used in Salvadoran elections. The extremely effective transportation strike called by the FMLN, which brought most traffic to a halt throughout the country on election day, undoubtedly helped ARENA. It had planned for an Operacion Rescale, and mobilized thousands of private vehicles that brought its supporters to voting stations. 27 The army also helped bring voters to the voting stations in trucks, bedecked with banners "In the service of the public." Ordinary citizens might not be keen on riding to vote in army trucks. For the Convergence, the strike emphasized the split with the FMLN over participation in the tainted electoral process, and like the Christian Democrats it was unable to provide private transportation to get its supporters to the polls.
Of 3.1 million eligible voters (i.e., excluding external refugees), only 2.2 million actually registered; and of these only 1.8 million eventually received cards allowing them to vote. Of those, 1 million actually voted. Another 56,000 ballots were unmarked or annulled [28] (a strategy supported by the FMLN for those who were afraid to stay away from the polls, but did not wish to support the electoral process). Thus while almost 54 percent of those who voted cast their ballots for ARENA, this represented only 16.5 percent of the number of eligible voters and under 14 percent of the potential electorate (including external refugees). Thus while ARENA may be said to have won by a "landslide," [29] it was of a shrunken and minority electorate. The number of eligible voters participating in the election fell from 68.5 percent in 1984 to 32.5 percent in March 1989.
Although the low turnout was partially the result of the elimination of compulsory voting, the transportation strike, and the exclusion of many potential voters by the new registration procedures, another important factor was the loss of credibility of elections as a means of achieving any useful ends. This attitude also biased the election in favor of the right. Its constituency could hope to achieve power and implement their preferred agenda. Those who had thought that elections might bring peace, human rights improvements, and progressive reform, had reason for disillusionment and justification for the search for other tactics.
The Non-Privacy of the Vote If an election is held in an environment of potential coercion, it is important to examine possible abuses in the basic mechanics of voting. Despite the Salvadoran constitutional guarantee of voter privacy, the ballot boxes used in the 1982, 1984 and 1989 elections were made of clear plastic. Figure 1 is a photograph taken by one of the authors (Allen) at the March 19 election. The ballots, which are numbered, are printed on translucent paper and can easily be seen after they are deposited by the voter in the plastic bags. The brightly colored party logos and the voters mark (an official felt tip pen is provided) bleed through and are readable on the reverse side of the paper, even when the ballot is carefully folded.
Figure 2 shows numerous members of the armed forces standing near the polling stations. The government announced in early March that 75 per cent of its 56,000 man force would be deployed on election day to ensure "security." ARENA poll watchers were also present at every one of the 7,000 voting booths in the country, sometimes in numbers greater than the single watcher permissible by law (ARENA mobilized an army of 23,000 poll watchers, 30 who were provided with fancy box lunches, decorated with the party logo).
We cannot be certain what effect these violations of voter secrecy had on the election result. In the past, however, voting for the ''wrong'' faction was sometimes punished by such sanctions as harassment, loss of employment, beating, rape, imprisonment, and even murder. As these punishments were commonly meted out by death squads closely linked to both ARENA and the army, voters contemplating dissent were not likely to be put at ease when members of these two groups were present and able to observe their votes. Although the U.S. media are very alert to the intimidating threats of security forces in the case of enemy elections, friendly security forces only "protect elections," whatever their actual record. [31] In accord with this patriotic rule, the threats to the most basic requirements of privacy in El Salvador that we have just described were not reported by the mainstream media in 1989, just as they were not in the two prior elections.
After the 1988 elections, a Permanent Committee of the National Debate, a broad-based coalition of 59 social, political and religious institutions and organizations, was formed under the leadership of the centrist Archbishop of San Salvador, to assess electoral politics. Meeting in September 1988, a large majority of the participants agreed that elections under existing conditions, which excluded a large fraction of the population from participation, and were closely tied to the aims of the war party, were neither very helpful in solving the nation's problems nor an expression of democracy. [32]
Although the National Debate was organized under respectable auspices and included a wide range of Salvadoran groups, its activities and findings were blacked out in the U.S. mass media (which did the same to the powerful critique of the Guatemalan elections of 1984-1985 by its Catholic Bishops). [33] The press sticks to sources that will confirm the official view, such as the official observer delegations, which always find client state election turnouts impressive and public enthusiasm for the new army-sponsored "democracies" inspiring. [34]
The FMLN Proposal On January 24, 1989, two months before the election, the FMLN put forward a proposal "To Convert the Election Into a Contribution Toward Peace," which offered FMLN acceptance of and participation in the electoral process in exchange for concessions by the government. The proposal called for postponement of the election from March 19 to September 15; guarantees by the government to end repression of the popular movement; confinement of the army to the barracks on election day (and the substitution of less threatening observers and "protectors"); participation of the Democratic Convergence in the Central Electoral Commission; a revised electoral code; arrangements to allow the huge external refugee population to vote; and U.S. withdrawal from the election process.
Credit: Terry Allen
Figure 2: Soldiers watch over Salvadoran voters. This proposal shocked the Salvadoran establishment and U.S. government, and they spent a month hemming and hawing and working out the best way of rejecting the proposal. There were some elements of the establishment who were interested, and the Church and popular groups urged serious consideration. They pointed out that the FMLN proposals added up to the conditions for making the election democratic. The United States, however, was still committed to winning the war, and the dominant elements of the army and ARENA were adamantly opposed to doing business with "delinquent terrorists." Thus an important peace option was rejected, and a public still claiming peace as a foremost objective was allowed an election that would consolidate the power of the extreme war party. This irony escaped the western media.
Conclusions The March 19, 1989 election in El Salvador was neither free, fair, nor democratic. The level of state-sponsored terror was too high to allow the basic conditions of a free election to be met. Among other limitations, journalists continued to be murdered, unions, peasant groups, and other popular organizations and their leaders were under steady threat and attack by the army and paramilitary groups, and transparent voting boxes that compromised the secrecy of the vote remained in use. We believe that if these electoral characteristics existed in Nicaragua, the U.S. media would find that election a farce. As it is, they remained discreetly silent on the negatives and, as in the past, saw to it that an election sponsored by their government was a triumph of democracy.
The victory of the ARENA party was an ironic but logical consequence of U.S. intervention and policy. The United States supported the systematic attack on and decimation of popular organizations, while trying to shore up Duarte and a largely mythical center. But U.S. policy assured that Duarte could not fulfill any reformist or peace-making campaign promises, and his support base disintegrated. With the collapse of the Christian Democrats, only the nationalist right remained as a viable force in electoral politics. The Convergence Party and other progressive forces could make only a nominal showing in the face of the earlier destruction of its leaders and organizational support base, and the continuing attacks from the army and right. Only the party of D'Aubuisson, the death squads, the army and the oligarchy had the enthusiasm, money, organization and military force to win an election under the conditions of economic crisis and in the midst of an ongoing counterinsurgency war.
Credit: Terry Allen
This banner, displayed in front of bombed-out labor union office, reads "ARENA ASSASSINS." As we stressed earlier, an important feature of the electoral environment of El Salvador has been the shift from mandatory to restricted voting. This reflects the growing legislative muscle of ARENA. In 1982 and 1984, when the United States viewed "turnout" as crucial to the success of the election (reflecting its PR role), voting was legally required in El Salvador. For ARENA, a distinctly minority party, restricted voting was desirable because it would tend to keep off the voting rolls the support base of the left. ARENA would do best with a small but "select" voter turnout. Its legislators used their legislative power to eliminate mandatory voting and put in its place laws which made registration more difficult. A million or more potentially eligible voters therefore did not register. Many more didn't bother to vote, and ARENA won with the vote of only 16.5 percent of the eligible electorate and under 14 percent of potentially eligible voters. But just as the U.S. press failed to report and discuss the significance of mandatory voting in 1982 and 1984, the next phase of undemocratic and manipulative adjustment of the vote - by the deliberate shrinkage of the electorate - also escaped their notice in 1989.
Following the March 1989 election, and helped by the fact that the U.S. mass media simply refused to publish information on the escalating state terror in El Salvador, the Senate Democrats joined forces with the Bush administration and voted $90 million in unconditional military aid to the Salvadoran government on September 20, 1989, to show that "we appreciate and support what he [Cristiani] is doing and we stand behind him" (Christopher Dodd). There are two fallacies in this position. One is that, even on the assumption that Crisitiani is a moderate who means well, and is not merely a powerless front man for D' Aubuisson and the security forces, unconditional aid would weaken his ability to restrain the hardliners. It would signal them that any barriers to kill imposed by the United States are down. Second, apart from the matter of incentives, there is a question of what Cristiani is actually doing? Under considerable pressure, he was talking to the rebels, although no agreement has been reached, and in our view, no useful compromise is likely to come out of negotiations reluctantly engaged in by the Salvadoran extreme right. We believe these talks are necessary to ARENA for political and PR purposes, but that they will only clear the ground for an intensified war, just as demonstration elections did earlier.
On the other hand, Cristiani has escalated state terror against popular groups in El Salvador since he took office. The National Union of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS) reports that in the first three months after ARENA took over executive power, there were 317 civilians assassinated, 62 disappeared, over 400 captured by the security forces, and more than 100 women sexually assaulted while in detention. According to this same group, over 140 of its members were seized by the military and police in the period during and immediately after the September 13-15 peace talks in Mexico City. Eight of the 11 members of the executive board of the National Trade Union Federation of Salvadoran Workers (FENASTRAS) have been arrested under ARENA rule, and their protests and demonstrations have been broken up violently. In a press conference in late September, members of FENASTRAS claimed that of 64 people detained by the National Police during their protest march on September 18, eight were raped while in custody. The National University has been periodically attacked by gunfire which has wounded significant numbers, and over a dozen faculty and students have been arrested, with several murdered or disappeared. The office of the Union of Earthquake Victims (UNADES) has been ransacked and its officials arrested and abused. [35]
These are a sample of Cristiani's material actions, but as the mainstream press is not featuring - or even mentioning them, for the Democrats these events do not occur. Just as the election of Duarte - a front man for the army and the Reagan administration - neutralized the Democrats in 1984; five years later they have embraced Cristiani - a front man for Roberto D' Aubuisson, the death squads, and the oligarchy.
El Salvador 1989: Epilogue on the Collapse of the Democratic Facade Shortly after the completion of our article, on October 31, the San Salvador office of FENASTRAS was bombed, killing nine senior labor leaders and wounding 40 other people. On the same day the office of COMADRES (Committee of Mothers and Relatives of Political Prisoners) was bombed, wounding six. These events were given low-key coverage in the U.S. media, just as the escalating state terrorism of the preceding year (summarized in our text above) was hardly noticed.
Thus, when the FMLN began a major offensive on November 11-12, this was portrayed by the political establishment and in the media as perverse behavior coming out of the blue, not as an almost inevitable result of a growing state violence which showed that the Cristiani/ARENA participation in peace talks was a meaningless gesture. Another fact that would have put the FMLN offensive in meaningful context was the Salvadoran (and U.S.) government's refusal to take seriously the FMLN pre-election proposed accord that would have ended the war, eliminated state terrorism, and provided the basis for genuinely free elections. That refusal, the escalating attacks on popular groups, and the increased and unconditional military aid by the U.S. government, suggested that it was the Salvadoran establishment and U.S. government, not the rebels, who understand only the language of force.
It was the cold-blooded murder and mutilation - following torture - of six distinguished Jesuit clerics and their two housekeepers, on November 16, 1989, that weakened the liberal establishment's post-election complaisance regarding the "new" ARENA. The Salvadoran army and police had been torturing and killing ordinary citizens week after week without being called to task, and were even given accolades for their moderation. Killing and torturing notables, however, resulted in publicity and focused attention, and although nothing changed, suddenly there was the "perception" of a human rights problem! The line that resurfaced in the establishment was that Cristiani might be "unable to control" the army and death squads, just as the junta of 1980-84 and Duarte allegedly couldn't control them. The fact that not one soldier or officer has yet to be punished for murdering any Salvadoran in nine years, and that the party of death squad killer D'Aubuisson now runs the government and judiciary, is still not seen as making the "inability to control" argument a foolish apologetic.
The nature of the Salvadoran regime revealed itself once again during the renewed warfare of November 11 and after. During the stepped up fighting the Air Force used rockets, 500 pound bombs and gatling guns capable of firing 8,000 rounds per minute on heavily populated areas. The army and death squads moved more aggressively against members and leaders of the popular movements, the murder of the six clerics and two women providing only the most dramatic and "newsworthy" episode of a wide-ranging assault. Despite offers from the FMLN, ARENA also refused to negotiate a truce or to respect the neutrality of the Red Cross and the press corps. Civil liberties such as the rights of due process, assembly, and the press were totally suspended. A draconian "anti-terrorism" package is in its last stages of movement through the ARENA-controlled legislature, a bill which even the New York Times describes as involving "sweeping new restrictions on individual freedoms, including virtually unhindered government power to ban dissent and peaceful protest" (November 25). Leaders of the Christian Democratic Party describe this legislation as a "fascist project." This is entirely compatible with the long-standing agenda and aims of the leaders of the ARENA party.
Credit: Terry Allen
Firebombed office of Jesuit priests murdered by Salvadoran Army. In light of the main focus of the present article, on the March 1989 Salvadoran election, it is notable that President Bush himself, questioned on U.S. support of the Salvadoran government, relied heavily on the legitimation by election. And on CNN's "Crossfire" on November 21, Michael Kinsley of the New Republic, relying entirely on the cliches of state propaganda, sharply criticized an FMLN representative for the military offensive against a government duly accredited by an election. As we have described in the main text, however, this was an election held after an extended period of extreme state terror which dismantled the left opposition and its organized base, and under conditions of ongoing state terror. Like its predecessors, the March 1989 election failed to meet the basic conditions of a fair and free election.
It is interesting to note that the United States gave unconditional support to the terror regime of January 1980-March 1982, which was unelected. The elections of 1982 and 1984 then consolidated the power of an army and political establishment that had previously run the killing machine without elections. Nevertheless, these elections legitimized the government according to U.S. official observers and the mass media. Official observers, however, always find U.S.-sponsored elections meritorious, and no matter how biased they may be and how superficial their observations, they are always cited as credible sources by the mainstream media. We believe that the establishment press will find any election carried out under their government's imprimatur to be legitimizing, no matter how distant it may be from fairness and freedom. The legitimized government may also kill its citizens freely, if it avoids murdering and mutilating notables, in which case the press may raise questions about whether the "elected government" real-
[PIECE MISSING?!]
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Notes: * Terry Allen, a journalist and writer, was in El Salvador during the March 1989 election. Edward Herman is the author of the forthcoming book, with Gerry O'Sullivan, The "Terrorism" Industry, to be published by Pantheon in January.
1. The quoted phrase was applied to D'Aubuisson by former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Robert White.
2. For a full discussion, see Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, Demonstration Elections: U.S. Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador (Boston: South End Press, 1984), pp. 119-26.
3. Dennis Hans, "Duarte: Man and Myth," CovertAction Information Bulletin, No. 26, Summer 1986.
4. See Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent (New York: Pantheon, 1988), pp. 101-102.
5. See Edward Schumacher, New York Times, February 21, 1981.
6. On this organizational program, see Sara Miles and Bob Ostertag, "The Rise of the Reebok Right," NACLA Report on the Americas, July 1989.
7. Michael McClintock, The American Connection Volume One: State Terror and Popular Resistance in El Salvador (London: Zed, 1985), pp. 260- 74; Craig Pyes, "Dirty War in the Name of Freedom," Albuquerque Journal, December 18, 1983.
8. Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, Inside the League (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986), pp. 136-7, 147-48, 191-213.
9. Op. cit., n. 4, p. 58.
10. Op. cit., n. 2, pp. 140-142.
11. Op. cit., n.4, p.58.
12. This information was given to Terry Allen by an official of the ARENA Party.
13. The constitution and laws of El Salvador do provide the trappings of democratic process and legal guarantees of civil rights. Although these are selectively enforced at best, they provide a basis for public protest and are often cited at demonstrations and in paid public advertisements in El Mundo, the one daily newspaper which occasionally prints them, as evidence of the hypocrisy and lawlessness of the Duarte and ARENA regimes. Rather than bring actual policy in line with the law, ARENA has proposed a draconian "anti-terrorism law" which eliminates most civil rights and would bring the law into line with policy.
14. This was partly a result of the fact that after 30,000 killings and organizational disruption of the popular forces, mass killing was no longer needed. It was also a result of pressures and demands from Duarte's voting constituency, which could be met within limits and for a period without excessive cost to the war project. The U.S. antiwar movement had also been pressuring Congress to cut off funds, so that unrestrained killing threatened the flow of dollars. Until such time as a new wave of mass terror might become politically necessary. assassination and imprisonment could be more selective and the body count kept at a level that could be easily ignored by the U.S. press and Congress and more acceptable to pressure groups.
15. International Human Rights Law Group (IHRLG), Report on the 1989 Salvadoran Electoral Process (Washington, D.C.: March 1989), p. 131.
16. Ibid., p. 125.
17. "Attorney General Restricts Media Activities," U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), March 17, 1989.
18. Michael Massing, "When More Means Less," Columbia Journalism Review, July-August 1989, p. 44.
19. The Democratic Convergence failed to attain this objective, as it came in fourth in the vote, losing third place by a very tiny margin. Only the first three parties in voter popularity obtained a seat on the CEC.
20. Linda Garrett, "Salvadoran Election: A Victory For the Right or For Peace?" El Rescate: E1 Salvador, March 22, 1989, p. 8.
21. Both the Christian Democrats and ARENA hired U.S. PR firms to handle their campaigns. ARENA worked with political consultant Roger Ailes, who was George Bush's media advisor. "With Ailes's help, the party has succeeded in conveying a populist image through television advertisements employing to a great effect humor and upbeat jingles (one of which is strikingly similar to the song used in the 'No' campaign in Chile's plebiscite)," Op. cit., n. 15, p. 85.
22. Op. cit., n. 15, p. 122.
23. This scene was observed by one of the authors, Terry Allen.
24. "A Fingerhold for Dissent in Salvador," March 17, 1989. This statement is in error: many of those on the list were centrists, not leftists.
25. Op. cit., n. 15, p. 52.
26. Washington Center for Central American Studies, El Salvador On Line, July-August 1989.
27. Sara Miles and Bob Ostertag, "Marching Orders," NACLA Report on the Americas, July 1989, p. 25.
28. Arnon Hadar, ed., Central American Bulletin, May 1989, p. 3.
29. Michael Massing was one of many reporters who called the ARENA victory "a landslide." Michael Massing, "Sad New El Salvador," New York Review of Books, May 18, 1989, pp. 53-6).
30. Op. cit., n. 27, p. 25.
31. Op. cit., n. 2, pp. 157, 173-80.
32. Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador, Final Document, National Debate, San Salvador, September 1988, p. 11.
33. Op. cit., n. 4, pp. 113, 116.
34. For a humorous case, see Appendix 1, "The U.S. Official Observers in Guatemala, July 1-2, 1984," op. cit., n. 4. Senator Mitch McConnell, head of the U.S. delegation to El Salvador in March 1989, commented that "Our turnouts aren't this good in the United States." Newly-elected President Cristiani concurred shortly after on the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, "The turnout equaled or surpassed the voter participation rate in the 1988 [U.S.] presidential election."
These remarks are inaccurate, as the U.S. voter participation rate in the 1988 election substantially exceeded 325 percent. Furthermore, as we noted the Salvadoran turnout declined precipitously from that in 1984. It was also drastically below the turnout for the Nicaraguan election of 1984. None of these points was featured, or even mentioned, in the mainstream media.
35. See El Rescate's Human Rights Chronology for June through September; Washington Center on Central American Studies, On Line, October 2, 1989; Kate Thompson, "Repression Targets Popular Movement," Alert', Oct. 1989.