Captured Peace. Christine J. Wade
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United States, the Salvadoran military could not defeat the FMLN. Both sides recognized that a military victory was no longer a possibility and agreed to pursue a negotiated settlement to end the war.120
Preserving Power: The Foundations and Legacy of a Century of Capture
El Salvador’s history has been defined by exclusionary politics, inequities, and military rule. To some extent, the phenomenon of capture has been omnipresent in El Salvador’s history as the country’s elites routinely combined the rhetoric of liberal democracy with distinctly illiberal practices to advance their own interests. The expansion of the coffee sector in the mid to late nineteenth century resulted in a series of policies that concentrated wealth in the hands of an increasingly powerful coffee oligarchy in which the economic and political liberties of elites were often guaranteed by force. When those interests were challenged, as in the case of the 1932 uprising, elites supported highly repressive measures to curtail popular mobilization. As we have seen, the narrative to explain La Matanza was key to shaping how elites interpreted subsequent events and justified their responses to those events. The subsequent alliance between landed elites and the military defined the Salvadoran state for decades. Even when elites did not formally hold power, they were able to advance their interests through the creation and control of various financial institutions.
Political participation was allowed, even encouraged, so long as it did not threaten elite interests. When political reforms in the 1960s resulted in the rising popularity of parties beyond the control of the oligarchy, most notably the PDC, elites and their partners in the military responded by closing avenues for mass participation and enforcing those closures through unrelenting violence. The 1979 reformist coup sought to forestall a bloody civil war by implementing social and economic programs to alleviate socioeconomic inequality and undercut support for guerrilla forces, but elites opposed those programs and continued to support repression by the military and by paramilitary death squads. The country soon descended into a civil war that would take the lives of more than seventy-five thousand Salvadorans, force 1 million (20 percent of the population) to flee the country, and displace an additional three-quarter million. While elites found a willing partner in the United States, assistance from the superpower was conditioned upon stemming abuses and the development of a democratic process. As they had done before, elites created a political party in the 1980s to serve as a vehicle for protecting their interests. Borne of an alliance between the oligarchy and the death squads, ARENA demonstrated itself to be particularly adept at evolving throughout the decade. The replacement of highly controversial D’Aubuisson with Cristiani reflected not only a growing rift within the Right but also signaled a changing philosophy within the Right and positioned ARENA to dominate the electoral system. With the continuation of the war at odds with ARENA’s new economic agenda, Cristiani proceeded with talks with the FMLN to end the war. As demonstrated in the next chapter, the historical patterns, networks, and institutions established by Salvadoran elites enabled them to exercise significant control over the peace negotiations and peacebuilding outcomes.
Chapter 2
Making the Captured Peace
People go [to the table] to negotiate, not to sacrifice themselves.
—Rubén Zamora, 19991
BY LATE 1989 it appeared that El Salvador’s decade-long civil war was ripe for negotiations. A mutually hurting stalemate coincided with the end of the Cold War, which contributed to an environment conducive for negotiations. For two years, the Cristiani administration and the FMLN hammered out the details on a plan to end the war and bring peace to El Salvador. The outcome of those negotiations, the Chapúltepec Accords, provided the foundation to dramatically transform the political landscape of the country while also preserving the interests of elites. As one of the United Nations’ first forays into postwar peacebuilding, the Salvadoran peace process was unprecedented in scope. Not only did the accords dismantle and redefine the country’s most notorious security organizations, but they also addressed electoral and judicial reforms, guarantees for human rights, and some socioeconomic issues. They also provided the basis for the FMLN’s incorporation into the country’s political life, which was realized in the 1994 elections. While the peace process in El Salvador is widely considered a success, it was certainly not without its problems. As detailed below, elite control over content and implementation of the peace accords facilitated a captured peace by undermining reforms set forth in the accords. Moreover, the lack of transitional justice and a controversial amnesty law, which was designed to protect elites, undermined prospects for reconciliation and sustained a war narrative that would come to define postwar society.
The Broker of Peace: The Participation of the United Nations
The peace process in El Salvador represents one of the United Nations’ first peacebuilding missions. While the UN had little prior experience in the region, changing international conditions and a renewed regional commitment to peace made an entrée into the region more feasible. The United Nations first became involved in El Salvador in 1981 to report on the human rights situation. The installation of the UN’s first Latin American secretary general, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar in the same year brought a slow but increasing attention to the region. In 1983 the UN formally supported the actions of the Contadora Group, consisting of Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela, in its efforts to promote peace in the region. However, it was 1989 before the UN became involved in more than a supporting role. At a summit of Central American presidents in February 1989, leaders of the five Central American countries called on the United Nations to take a more active role in the verification of the security aspects of the Esquipulas agreements.2 In essence, they invited the participation of the United Nations in the region, and the UN responded favorably. In July 1989 the United Nations Security Council published Resolution 637, commending the Central American leaders for their continued commitment to the Esquipulas agreements and pledging to take any steps necessary to support the secretary general in promoting peace in the region.3 Resolution 637 opened the door for unprecedented UN involvement in Central America.
In an effort to salvage the peace process and the reputation of his administration—both of which were badly damaged following the October 1989 FENESTRAS bombings and the November 16, 1989, Jesuit murders—Cristiani personally solicited Secretary General Pérez de Cuéllar to mediate peace talks between the government of El Salvador and the FMLN following a similar request by the FMLN in late 1989.4 In an unprecedented decision, the secretary general agreed to aid in peace negotiations between the two parties.5 The Salvadoran peace process was the first in which the United Nations had acted as mediator in a civil war.
As other works have described in great detail, the United Nations played an indispensible role as mediator during the negotiations.6 The use of good offices and the personal commitment of Pérez de Cuéllar demonstrated the importance of third parties in resolving this seemingly intractable conflict. By most accounts, the government of El Salvador (GOES), the FMLN, and the UN worked together to resolve most disputes. That said, the UN and the United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL) occasionally experienced great difficulty in overcoming ARENA’s resistance to the implementation of various elements of the accords. This was particularly true with regard to police and judicial reform.
The Contents of the Negotiations and the Accords
As with most other UN-mediated settlements, the content of the peace accords focused on conflict resolution (moving the conflict from the battlefield to the ballot box) as opposed to conflict transformation (addressing the underlying causes of the conflict as well as changing the relationships between and attitudes of the parties).7 As such, negotiations focused on structural changes to formal institutions. The framework for the peace accords developed through a series of six agreements over a two-year period. The Geneva Agreement (April 1990) established the parties’ commitment to negotiations, as well as an agreement for secret, continuous negotiations with the support of the secretary general’s office. As stated in the Geneva Agreement, the purpose of the peace negotiations was “to end armed conflict by political means as speedily as possible, promote the democratization of the country, guarantee unrestricted respect for human rights and reunify Salvadoran