El Salvador Revolt Under the Coconut Palms

By Ricardo Chavira

El Salvador's Santa Ana volcano juts majestically over a verdant carpet of coffee bushes, coconut palms and banana trees, and the occasional clump of peasant shacks. Nine years of civil war have racked vast portions of the country, but Santa Ana and the rest of western El Salvador have hardly been touched.

Now all that is changing.

Hidden beneath the foliage, several hundred guerrillas of the People's Revolutionary Army (E.R.P.), the strongest of five factions that make up the 10,000-member Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, have begun battling government forces for control of the economically vital region. "Cirilo," the western regional commander of the E.R.P., explains, "Our interest is to lead the people toward insurrection. They are already clandestinely organized, and now we are moving to arm them."

Cirilo is with a group of some 30 heavily armed fighters camped on a coffee plantation just seven miles from Santa Ana's provincial capital, the site of a major army base. In recent months E.R.P. regulars and dozens of new peasant militias have attacked military outposts, ambushed patrols, and even briefly taken a town near the Guatemalan border.

The guerrillas' bold entry into the region, together with a sudden surge in F.M.L.N. urban violence, is a graphic demonstration of what even the Bush Administration privately acknowledges is the F.M.L.N.'s improved military prowess. Despite the infusion of $3.4 billion in American aid over the past eight years, the Salvadoran government is not even close to winning the civil war. Troops killed most of the guerrilla leaders in the west eight years ago, forcing the F.M.L.N. out of the area. The rebels' return underscores their new strength and the army's inability to vanquish them permanently.

The F.M.L.N.'s military aggressiveness contrasts sharply with the peaceful image the rebels have projected in recent weeks. F.M.L.N. leaders surprised American and Salvadoran officials in January with a dramatic offer to lay down their weapons and participate in national elections. In exchange, the rebels wanted the March presidential vote postponed for six months. That offer set off a flurry of counterproposals and talks between the F.M.L.N. and political- party representatives. State Department officials, who quietly met with a rebel spokesman to discuss the initiative, were so intrigued that they encouraged the Salvadoran government to negotiate with the guerrillas. For a time it seemed as though the rebel plan could provide a way out of the war.

But like past attempts to bargain, the F.M.L.N. proposal fell victim to intransigence and political shortsightedness, as Salvador's civilian and military leaders squabbled over whether, how and when to include the guerrillas in the electoral process. There is little doubt now that the election will be held as scheduled -- March 19 -- without rebel participation.

Stung by their diplomatic setback, the guerrillas are prepared to unleash what even Bush Administration officials believe will be their boldest military assault since the failed 1981 "final offensive." U.S. intelligence officials say the F.M.L.N., in preparation for the push, has recruited several hundred new fighters from among refugees in Honduran camps. The officials expect the offensive within weeks.

The guerrillas sound determined to fight unless a newly elected government proves unexpectedly willing to reopen negotiations. Warns Cirilo: "We have a genuine desire for peace. But that should not be mistaken for weakness." Schafik Jorge Handal, head of the Salvadoran Communist Party and one of the F.M.L.N.'s top five comandantes, agrees. "If the military says no to our plan, then that indicates their intention of defeating us militarily," he says. "That would oblige us to respond, and the product would be a deepening of the war." Roberto, a veteran E.R.P. combatant is more direct: "If the elections are held March 19, our plan is to block them. This is a war to the finish between us and the oligarchs."

Far to the east of Santa Ana, in Usulutan province, the E.R.P. has consolidated its hold on another mountainous corridor, populated by nearly 200,000 peasants. Three years ago, the insurgents there were under frequent military attack. Civilian support was minimal. Today government troops dare only sporadic attacks, and they are frequently beaten back by peasant militias fighting alongside regular combatants. "We have established political control over the area," says "Raul," the rebel commander, "and now we are moving toward military control as well." He and other guerrilla leaders have lately obtained AK-47 assault rifles. They say the guns were bought from the Nicaraguan contras; U.S. and Salvadoran authorities insist that the Sandinistas supplied them. "The fact that we have these weapons is an indication of our development," says Raul.

Peasant support is crucial to the kind of rural-based war the F.M.L.N. is fighting. The impoverished farmers of Usulutan, for example, supply the rebels with food, information and labor. Says a civilian supporter in Santa Ana: "The moment a soldier asks you the whereabouts of the guerrillas, and you lie and say you don't know, from that moment you are collaborating with the guerrillas. And there are thousands of us like that."

The coming guerrilla offensive seems likely to prove a pivotal test of the government's military strength. U.S. officials doubt that the F.M.L.N. can inflict a major defeat. But a senior State Department official adds, "However real or illusory the chances for peace, they are now gone. Now the only alternative for El Salvador is more war." That is the last thing battle-weary Salvadorans want.