Civil Conflicts And The Role Of The International Community

Civil Conflicts And The Role Of The International Community:
The Cases Of Guatemala and El Salvador

The Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations
Occasional Papers Series ^**
Number XXIII
October 1994

The cases of both El Salvador and Guatemala first began to attract the attention of the United Nations in the late 1970s-early 1980s, as the upheavals in the region intensified and army counterinsurgency campaigns resulted in thousands of victims. Financing and support for these campalgns was also overwhelmingly foreign in origin, another factor that prompted the concern of United Nations bodies. This report examines the role of the United Nations and other multilateral organizations in ameliorating or halting civil/ethnic conflicts in Guatemala and El Salvador. Background to the conflicts and current developments within the countries are presented schematically, and the emphasis is placed upon the political process in the international arena that resulted in intervention by international actors.

Both cases were first viewed within the United Nations as human rights problems, and dealt with in the UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and in condemnatory General Assembly (GA) resolutions. In the mid- 1 980s, regional governments began to take action as the conflicts escalated and U.S. intervention became greater. Then the UN began to formally interpret these conflicts as threats to international peace and security. Subsequently, the UN became involved in resolution of the disputes themselves, via the good offices of the Secretary General (SG), mediation of peace negotiations, verification missions, and other mechanisms.

Root Causes of the Conflicts

1. Domestic economic, political, and social structures
The region of Central America (with the exception of Costa Rica today) reflects the legacies of the colonial era in terms of its economic and social structures, such as its small powerful land-owning classes, praetorian militaries, and large peasant populations. Central America has also been integrated into the U.S. political economy since the last century, mainly supplying primary products such as coffee, bananas, sugar and cotton to U.S. companies and markets. The first challenge to the old oligarchic order in the region was the 1944 revolution in Guatemala; Costa Rica soon followed, with a revolution in 1948 that ended with the abolition of the armed forces. In Nicaragua, Somoza (whose father was originally installed as head of the National Guard by the U.S.) was firmly established until 1979, when a popular revolution united an armed movement with middle classes and workers to oust Somoza from power. In 1980, El Salvador erupted into open warfare between government/military forces and the revolutionary movement; Guatemala's internal armed conflict (which had begun in the 1960s) intensified in the early 1980s.

Both El Salvador and Guatemala share similar characteristics and some important differences. In terms of similarities, both exhibit sharp inequalities and social stratification; in both, economic and political power is monopolized by a small business and land-owning elite and allied military. In both countries, the question of land tenure and ownership has been key to social conflict: the good land is owned by the wealthy elite, while the vast majority of the population—peasants (campesinos) and rural workers—have little or none. The elite has controlled the economy and amassed great personal wealth while the majority of the population lives in conditions of destitution. As two close observers of the Salvadoran scene remark:

"It is no exaggeration to say that the problem of land was as much a root cause of the armed conflict which raged throughout the 1980s as was the overbearing power of the armed forces. The two problems are not unrelated since scholars of El Salvador point to the armed forces as an instrument created and nurtured by the landed class to preserve its privilege" (de Soto and Castillo 1994:12).

In this sense, the conflicts in both countries arose from the excessive concentration of political and economic power rather than etlinicity per se, although in Guatemala particularly it is difficult to separate these factors.

Until recently, both countries' economies were precapitalist and almost feudal in nature, based on agro-export (mainly centered on coffee). The "Fourteen Families" in El Salvador, which for decades controlled the vast coffee plantations and coffee processing, kept military dictatorships in power; a reformist president elected in 1931 was overthrown in 1932 by the army, which in turn sparked the peasant uprising of 1932. In that year campesinos led by Agustin Farabundo Marti rebelled and some 30,000 were massacred (Blachman et al 1986:51; Molina Mejia 1991:2). A succession of military rulers followed over the next decades.

In El Salvador reform movements based on the Christian Democratic (CD) and Social Democratic (SD) parties arose during the 1960s and political protest grew among popular sectors. The government responded by creating security forces such as ORDEN, which was organized to counter the political organizing of the CD Party in the rural areas (Diskin and Sharpe 1986:54). ORDEN, founded by the feared chief of the national guard, used repressive methods against the opposition and received direct and indirect assistance from the U.S. Green Berets, the CIA and the U.S. military (Diskin and Sharpe 1986:54). Nevertheless, the opposition forces won the election in 1972. They were not allowed to take office; they also faced a campaign of assassination and terror by the armed forces and right-wing death squads (Blachman et al: 15; Diskin and Sharpe 1986:56 in Blachman et al). A moderate coalition came to power briefly in 1979, but it was undermined by an alliance of recalcitrant members of the oligarchy unwilling to give up their privileges and right-wing sectors of the armed forces. After this, full-scale war broke out when the left and many other sectors of society saw no alternative to armed struggle to crack the hold of the oligarchy. In 1980, the five revolutionary organizations in El Salvador united to form the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) and resorted to full-scale insurrection, which was met with massive repression by the army. The FMLN gained broad support from the peasant population and significant sectors of the middle classes (and was seen by the Reagan administration as a direct national-security threat to the United States and a symptom of Soviet encroachment in the U.S. "backyard") (see below).

In Guatemala, the civil conflict has an added ethnic dimension since the majority of the campesino population (some 90% of the campesinos by most accounts) is Maya. Since colonial times, the large indigenous population has been regarded as a pool of labor for the SpanishAescended oligarchy and treated inhumanly. The indigenous people have had little involvement in the political governance of Guatemala and little representation. This began to change with the "democratic revolution" of 1944-1954. In 1944, a long-reigning Guatemalan dictator was deposed by a movement of students, workers, professionals and reformist military men in a democratic revolution. The two successive presidents, Juan Jose Arevalo and Jacobo Arbenz, introduced reforms to politically incorporate the workers and peasants, break the power of the oligarchy, modernize the economy, establish labor laws and various civil and political rights, and democratize the political system.

However, Arbenz's economic reforms and his nationalist politics challenged perceived U.S. interests and aroused the fears of the Eisenhower administration in the heat of the Cold War. Washington saw its geopolitical as well as economic interests threatened (the United Fruit Company, a major power in Guatemala, had some of its unused lands taken over—and paid for—by the government for redistribution to landless peasants). Through its Cold War prism, the U.S. government saw Arbenz as a communist (or functional equivalent). In 1954, the U.S. organized and supported an invasion from Honduras, which successfully overthrew Arbenz. A pro-U.S. officer was installed as president, who overturned all the reforms of the democratic era and ushered in a succession of military rulers (Immerman 1982; Schlesinger and Kinzer 1983).

Guatemala has one of the lowest levels of social development in the hemisphere. Fully 87.2 percent of Guatemalans were "pauperized" and living in a state of extreme poverty, according to a January 1992 UN report. Two-thirds of the population "go to sleep each night without having eaten." A 1991 UNICEF report noted that nearly half the population of 9.3 million lacked health services, 32 children died every day from diarrhea and intestinal diseases, 76% of all children under five suffered from malnutrition, and the mortality rate for children under five was "the world's highest." About half of all national income in Guatemala is concentrated in the upper 10% of the population (Enfoprensa 1991:5).

In Guatemala, social protest emerged in the 1960s and a guerrilla movement became active by 1962. Like in El Salvador, economic modernization and capitalist restructuring in the 1960s led to a rapid expansion of the economy, with diversification of agricultural products, some light industrialization, and massive shifts in the labor market as peasants were forced off their land (Molina Mejia 1991:3). However, the growing production of wealth did not benefit the majority of the population. Essentially, economic development occurred, without corresponding social development nor any attempt at redistribution, while exclusionary political structures kept the majority of the population marginalized from political participation and subject to violent repression by the state. These conditions gave rise to popular protest, strikes, demonstrations, and student militancy in the 60s. The guerrilla movement first emerged from rebellious and nationalist factions of the army (who were angered by U.S. use of Guatemala as a training area for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba), some Communist Party members, and the peasantry. Later, other sectors of the population became incorporated.

In 1982, the four insurgent organizations active in Guatemala unified, forming the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG). Warfare with the army escalated, especially in the rural areas. In Guatemala, the rural Maya communities—seen as inherently subversive by the army—suffered the brunt of the repression. Tens of thousands of civilians were massacred in the early 80s through military use of scorched-earth campaigns, torture, and genocide.

To summarize, most scholars of Latin America conclude that the roots of the conflicts in both El Salvador and Guatemala lie in the exclusionary, unequal, and antidemocratic structures-social, political, and economic—which have dominated both countries, supported by the oligarchy, the military, and almost always, by U.S. policy. As Barrington Moore Jr. pointed out in the 1960s, the domination of landed classes dependent on low-wage labor, labor-repressive practices, and concentration of land in plantation economies has been a significant obstacle to democratization (Moore 1966). As Paige notes, a recent cross-national study empirically confirmed this analysis (Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992). ₁ This political-economic model has denied the most basic rights to the population, sparking struggles from below by groups fighting for more equitable systems.

Of course, contrasting analyses of these crises exist. For example, members of El Salvador's coffee oligarchy believe that the coffee economy which has dominated El Salvador since the 19th century is the best possible economic model, that their economic leadership is the best route to economic growth and development, and that the civil conflict and revolution in recent years are the work of a band of terrorists (Paige 1993 :25-29). ₂ Members of the right in the United States and the Reagan administration added the overlay of the East-West, Cold War struggle, leading to an interpretation of revolutionary and reformist forces as Soviet agents or communists.

2. The impact of international actors: the United States
The Cold War played an important role in shaping the perceptions of U.S. policy-makers after World War II, and these perceptions became a significant determinant of U.S. policy in Central America. The internal armed struggles that developed in the region, as well as democratizing movements, labor mobilization, peasant militancy, student activism and so forth, were generally perceived by U.S. policy- makers as part of an international Soviet conspiracy rather than as indigenous movements fighting to transform unjust structures. ₃ Moreover, as noted by historian Walter LaFeber and others, the U.S. government has regarded the Central American isthmus as an extension of its own territory and an integral part of its political economy since the last century (LaFeber 1993; Blachman, LeoGrande and Sharpe 1986:14-15). A number of analysts have shown that U.S. policy has been traditionally geared toward preventing "instability," preserving economic interests, and controlling political and social change in the region through political and military intervention (Coleman and Herring 1984; LaFeber 1993; Rabe 1988). With the onset of the Cold War, U.S. policies gained an ideological dimension, described above. As a result, U.S. policy has often been counterproductive in terms of democratization in Latin America, when fear of social and structural change impacting upon its interests led the United States to build up repressive security forces and support local conservative groups that systematically excluded reformist individuals and organizations from power. This had the effect of solidifying the hegemony of antidemocratic groups such as the military and oligarchies in many cases (Coleman and Herring 1984; Blachanan, LeoGrande, and Sharpe 1986; McSherry 1990).

After the Carter interlude, the Reagan administration reintroduced Cold War categories and a hostile and coercive policy toward the upheavals in Central America. The administration devoted millions of dollars in resources to finance the counterinsurgency armies in El Salvador and Guatemala and the contras in Nicaragua, utilizing a "low-intensity conflict" strategy which maximized destruction while avoiding direct use of U.S. troops. In diplomatic arenas, the Reagan administration rejected strategies of negotiation or compromise with revolutionary forces in Central America and viewed the conflicts in strictly East-West terms. In the UN, the U.S. consistently worked to prevent or weaken resolutions denouncing human rights atrocities by its client armies.

By the early 80s, the conflicts in Central America were threatening to spread as the U.S. intensified its offensive against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, with ramifications for all the other countries. The U.S. government built Honduras into a virtual military garrison and pressured Costa Rica to rebuild an army to become involved in the anticommunist struggle. Two fronts of the contras were based in Honduras and Costa Rica. The Reagan administration's obsession with defeating the Nicaraguan revolution had repercussions worldwide (in the Middle East via the Iran-contra affair, in Europe via pressures upon allies to stop aiding Nicaragua, and within the U.S. itself, as the crisis produced the most serious domestic political divisions since the Vietnam war).

The Bush administration sought to reduce the level of public controversy regarding Central America and adopt a more pragmatic and less ideological attitude toward the civil conflicts in the region. However, the administration still pursued a "hard-line" policy in its first years. The Bush administration continued to support the contras in Nicaragua and the armies in El Salvador and Guatemala, and launched a major invasion of Panama in 1989. By the early 1990s, however, with the fading of the Cold War and the Sandinistas' loss in the 1990 elections, the fears of U.S. policy-makers regarding the threat of revolutionary change in Central America seemingly began to recede. In 1990 and 1991, the Bush administration began to back peace negotiations between the FMLN and the government/army in El Salvador, exerting considerable pressure upon army officers to compromise and end the war. Less attention was paid to Guatemala's developing peace process (McSherry and Molina Mejia 1992). The Clinton administration has moved more firmly to support Guatemala's peace negotiations process between the URNG and the government/army; furthermore, during President Jorge Serrano's "auto-coup" in May 1993, the Clinton administration immediately took a strong position against the military-executive coup and sent an unmistakable message that it would not be tolerated. This was a striking departure for the United States, and the auto-coup ended in failure.

The Clinton administration has also made statements acknowledging the fact that the causes of the conflicts are domestic and that structural change is necessary in the region, including land reform measures, just treatment of the indigenous population and the popular sectors, reform of regressive tax structures, respect for human rights, demilitarization, and poverty alleviation (Molina interview 1994). However, with the series of crises in other areas of the world, the Clinton administration has not made Central America a high foreign-policy priority.

3. Other International Forces
While the United States has long been the major international actor in Central America, other states have played a role, especially in the 1980s. Here we briefly outline the impact of these other players.

Mexico. Mexico has a long-standing policy of opposing foreign intervention and supporting revolutionary movements, in accordance with its own history as a nation born in revolution based on land reform for the peasantry. Mexico strongly supported the Sandinista government, and in 1981, the Lopez Portillo administration in Mexico, along with France, issued a statement in support of the Salvadoran revolution. This statement called the FMLN and Frente Democratico Revolucionario, (FDR) ₄ "representative political forces," and called for non-intervention in the.region, implicitly criticizing the United States (Karl 1986:276). Mexico continued to be a strong advocate of the claims of the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran revolutions during the 1980s (more on this below). Mexico assumed the role of mediator among the U.S., Cuba and Nicaragua in 1981, although the U.S. broke off talks soon after, and vocally opposed U.S. military strategies in El Salvador (Karl 1986: 276). Mexico also allowed the commanders of the guerrilla fronts in El Salvador and Guatemala to establish political-diplomatic bases in Mexico. Mexico was an important member of the Contadora Group (see below).
Mexico, however, provided little open diplomatic support to the Guatemalan opposition in the United Nations. This was because Guatemala and Mexico share a border and have had a somewhat uneasy relationship in recent decades. Mexico was reluctant to antagonize the Guatemalan government and army by openly supporting the revolutionary and oppositional forces in Guatemala. (In fact, after the election of the civilian goverment in 1986, most Latin American countries stayed neutral or took the side of the government in terms of the diplomatic battles in the UN between the government and the oppositional/revolutionary forces of Guatemala, unlike in the case of El Salvador.)
Cuba. Cuba was consistently blamed in the U.S. for meddling in Central America and instigating the unrest and conflict in the countries of the region. Clearly, Cuba had ideological reasons for supporting revolutions in Central America, and evidence exists that Cuba sought to militarily assist other revolutionary movements in the Latin American region (e.g. in Colombia and Venezuela in the 1960s and 70s). However, by the 1980s, Cuba had become more cautious in this sphere. Cuba sent aid to Nicaragua in the form of doctors, engineers, teachers and other support personnel. There is also evidence that Cuba sent military aid and arms to Nicaragua, sometimes as a proxy for the USSR. However, this has not been proven in the cases of the revolutionary movements in El Salvador and Guatemala. In the UN, Cuba co-sponsored critical resolutions on the human rights situation in El Salvador, and endorsed critical resolutions on Guatemala; Cuba also made strong statements criticizing violations of human rights in both countries. However, Cuba did not initiate resolutions nor act as their main sponsor, thus demonstrating a certain degree of caution.
Contadora Group (Colombia, Panama, Mexico, Venezuela). This group of states formed the Contadora Group in 1983 in order try to defuse the escalating crisis in Central America, especially Nicaragua, prevent the spread of regional war, and reduce U.S. meddling in the region. The countries offered their good offices to help bring peace to Central America, reduce militarization, and improve dialogue. Contadora's fears of wider war and direct U.S. military intervention increased with the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983, the mining of Nicaragua's harbors in 1984, and subsequent U.S. rejection of the World Court decision (Karl 1986:285). At the time, the possibility of a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua seemed distinctly plausible.
Contadora's peace proposals were met with hostility by the Reagan administration. Mexico was threatened with economic aid cut-offs and the U.S. actively sought to subvert the regional peace process (Karl: 186). In fall 1983, the Group presented a report on its work to the 38th Session of the UN GA. The most important achievement was the signature by all five Central American presidents to a document listing 21 points to resolve the region's conflicts, including democratization, removal of foreign military forces, and other points (Molina Mejfa 1991:7). Despite the Reagan administration's animosity toward Contadora, the U.S. representative did not veto a Security Council Resolution (530) supporting Contadora's efforts in May 1983. This resolution requested the SG to keep the SC informed on developments in the peace process (Baranyi and North 1992:43). The Contadora Group signified a new form of Latin American collective action independent of the United States, and succeeded in placing the issue of Central America permanently on the agenda of the GA.
The Esquipulas Group (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador). In 1987, the five presidents of Central America met to discuss ways of ending the conflicts in the region, ending foreign interference, and undertaking efforts to advance democratization in their countries. The agreement also offered a strategy for national reconciliation by proposing the establishment of National Reconciliation Commissions in each country with civil conflicts (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala), opening "national dialogues," and facilitating negotiations between the warring parties. This regional peace plan was signed despite strong opposition by the Reagan administration, which had designed its own plan for the region (Baranyi and North 1992:5).
The Esquipulas II Agreement (also called the Guatemala Accord or the Arias Plan) called upon the Central American governments:

"To urgently carry out, in those cases where deep divisions have resulted within society, steps for national reconciliation which would allow for popular participation with full guarantees in authentic political processes of a democratic nature based on justice, freedom, and democracy" (NYT August 1987).
The Agreement also called for negotiated ceasefires to take place in countries with insurgent forces; democratization; cessation of hostilities; and termination of foreign aid to insurgent forces. It required each government to "establish a National Reconciliation Commission . . . to verify the actual carrying out in practice of the national reconciliation process, as well as the full exercise of all civil and political rights of Central American citizens guaranteed in this document."
As was widely reported at the time, the original intent of the document was manipulated by the Reagan administration so that it came to be applied exclusively to Nicaragua (NYT Jan 1988). The administration's double standard resulted in the eventual abandonment of requiring compliance by the other four countries involved. In Guatemala, for example, the Minister of Defense, General Hector Gramajo, said in August, 1987, "The document signed by the governments does not apply to Guatemala . . . Congress is the place for dialogue" (Prensa Libre 1987). (Shortly after the Agreement was signed, the Guatemalan army launched a massive military campaign, with aerial bombings and search and destroy missions in the countryside.) In order to fulfill the Agreement's tenets regarding political freedoms, democratization, and human rights, the militaries of Guatemala and El Salvador would have had to abandon their counterinsurgency strategies and practices, including the use of torture, terror, and assassination as key components, and guarantee peaceful opposition in the country free from the threat of murder; neither the militaries nor the Reagan administration was willing to do this.
The Esquipulas II Accord set up an International Verification and Follow-up Commission (CIVS) which was composed of Foreign Ministers of the Contadora and Support Group of Contadora (Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Uruguay), the Central American countries, and the SGs of the UN and the OAS. The CIVS was short-lived, however; it was dissolved in early 1988 (Baryani and North 1992:43). Both the Guatemalan and Salvadoran governments pushed for its termination largely because of the human rights criticisms the body made of both governments (Baryani and North 1992:23; Molina interview 1994). Nevertheless, CIVS achieved successes in terms of supporting the opening of negotiation processes in Central America.
The Group of Friends. Both El Salvador and Guatemala have had the assistance in their respective peace negotiations by governments called "friends." In the case of Guatemala, these include today Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, United States, Spain and Norway, who are known as "Friends of the Process " (a term conoting the neutrality of the countries vis-a-vis the parties in the conflict). In the case of El Salvador, Spain, Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico were "Friends of the Secretary-General;" the U.S. was an unofficial member, attended all the meetings, and fully participated in the group as well. These governments have played an important role in terms of pressuring the governments of both countries to negotiate and encouraging the processes during difficult moments. Clearly, the fact that these countries were important internationally, were influential in the UN, and were key for the provision of aid, ₅ made their influence upon the warring parties in both cases highly significant and showed that the two cases were considered a matter of international peace and security.
USSR. The Soviet Union did seek influence in the region, but not to the extent portrayed by alarmist Reagan administration warnings about Soviet military threats. In fact, the USSR tacitly accepted the fact that the Western hemisphere was a sphere of U.S. influence, with the obvious exception of its strong support for Cuba. It did little, for example, to aid nationalist-leftist forces in Guatemala during the 1954 coup or in the Dominican Republic during the 1965 U.S. invasion, nor to assist the democratic-socialist Allende government during the 1973 U.S.-backed coup in Chile. (The U.S. also tacitly accepted the hegemony of the USSR over Eastern Europe, as witnessed by its unwillingness to openly to aid the revolts in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.)

" . . . except for the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, most U.S. and Latin American government officials have considered the prospect of a Soviet attack on the hemisphere to be remote. Most of the funds appropriated and transferred to protect Latin American countries from external enemies have actually been used for internal security purposes—that is, to maintain order or suppress internal opposition, most of which has been noncommunist. . . . .United States military actions against Latin America have been real, Soviet military actions mostly hypothetical" (emphasis added; Blasier 1988:524, 528).

The small communist party in El Salvador formed part of the FMLN and many of the insurgents were ex-communists or Marxists who considered themselves independent (Blasier 1986:264-265). This was also true of the URNG in Guatemala, with an important difference. A splinter group of the Guatemalan Communist Party joined the URNG, but this was not the group recognized by Moscow. As a result, for many years the URNG failed to obtain any support from the "official" Communist Party in Guatemala, and very little anywhere else (Molina interview 1994). ₆ In the UN, the communist bloc exhibited caution in the cases of Guatemala and El Salvador. The USSR did not initiate or sponsor resolutions critical of either government, although it did make statements consistently critical of human rights violations in the case of El Salvador (and less so in the case of Guatemala) (Molina interview 1994).

While Soviet military aid to the FMLN was suspected, there was little or no empirical evidence. For example, a State Department white paper alleging a Soviet arms pipeline to the FMLN was issued in 1981, but scholars found that the documents upon which it was based showed the opposite: that the FMLN representative was frustrated by Soviet refusal to send weapons (Blasier 1986:264). Soviet military aid to the URNG was never an issue in the UN and the U.S. has never accused the URNG of receiving such aid; members of the extreme right in Guatemala, however, have made this claim (Molina 1994). In 1988, the Soviets cut off arms supplies to Nicaragua unilaterally and in 1990 cooperated in tracing the origins of the SAM missiles sent to the Salvadoran FMLN (Baranyi and North 1992:7).

The Evolving UN Role in the Disputes

After the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution, Central America increasingly became a focus of world attention. The GA began approving resolutions on human rights in El Salvador in 1980, and in Guatemala in 1982. The UNCHR approved key resolutions in 1981, including Resolution 32, which appointed a Special Representative for El Salvador, and Resolution 33, which asked the SG to request the government of Guatemala to stop human rights abuses (Molina Mejia 1991:4). In both cases, the Western bloc (especially the Scandinavian countries, Austria, the European Community, Australia, and Canada in particular)—with the significant exception of the United States—was a driving force behind these resolutions. These measures demonstrated 1) that the majority of countries in both the CHR and the GA were concerned about human rights situations in both countries, 2) that the SG was, early on, authorized and mandated to intervene before the government of Guatemala, and 3) that in El Salvador, the CHR felt the situation was serious enough to send a representative to the country to bring the spotlight of world concern upon the government. While the issue of sovereignty was respected (both governments needed to consent to these two missions), neither government was pleased to be singled out for criticism. Their key ally, the United States, also used various strategies to block or weaken UN resolutions criticizing the militaries in the two countries (described below).

How did the UN become apprised of these situations? In both cases, crucial work was done by representatives of the revolutionary and/or oppositional forces within each country. In the case of El Salvador, the FMLN and the FDR attended the GA in 1980 in order to lobby governments for a resolution. In 1982, a Guatemalan team formed (Representacion Unitaria de la Oposicion Guatemalteca, RUOG) in order to bring to world attention the human rights situation in Guatemala, and successfully lobbied governments at the UNCHR to pass a resolution.

According to a founding member of this latter group, however, the passage of resolutions and the achievement of UN action vis-a-vis massive human rights violations has been a difficult struggle. NGOs have been an important factor in forcing the UN to intervene in the Guatemalan situation. As is commonly noted, the UN is first and foremost an organization of states. Traditionally, states have not wanted to set a precedent on the issue of sovereignty by condemning internal situations in other countries. In the early 1980s, there was a strong debate on whether condemnations of human rights violations within countries was a violation of sovereignty (Molina interview 1994). In the case of Guatemala, the governments—including military governments—have always had to give consent to UN actions in their countries. The Guatemalan government, for example, has consistently tried to impede monitoring of human rights and refused to allow the International Red Cross into the country in the early I 980s (Molina interview 1994).

The principle of state sovereignty, however, began to undergo an erosion process in the 1980s in the face of increasing NGO activity and increasing consciousness in the world about human rights. One expert argues that a global ideology based on human rights is emerging and the old power politics model needs to be replaced with a civil society concept. ₇ Others argue that the increasing influence of NGOs represents the democratization of the UN system and the spreading acceptance of a voice for ordinary people in the international order. ₈ While there is truth to these views, it also remains the case that state sovereignty is a pillar of the international system, and that governments still defend the principle of sovereignty and exhibit reluctance to intervene in domestic disputes. ₉ While the UN has been intervening more often recently (e.g. in Somalia no consent was given by the warring factions), part of the reason for this seems to be due to the new form of the international system, which is no longer bipolar. In the UN arena, this means that the Soviet veto no longer exists to protect its client states.

UN Intervention in the Guatemalan Case

As mentioned previously, the CHR and the GA both considered the case of Guatemala throughout the 1980s. In 1979, the case was considered for the first time after the assassination of Dr. Alberto Fuentes Mohr, a Guatemalan Congressman and former member of the UN Secretariat. The CHR adopted decision 12, in which it authorized the sending of a telegram to the government expressing its concern. In 1980, the CHR adopted resolution 32, "The situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Guatemala," and expressed its profound concern at continued assassinations and other human rights violations. In 1981, the CHR considered a report by the SG (EICN.411438) on the human rights situation in Guatemala, and adopted resolution 13, requesting the SG to continue his efforts to establish direct contacts with the government (ECOSOC 1987).

In 1982, the CHR decided to appoint for the first time a Special Rapporteur to investigate human rights violations in Guatemala. Due to the non-cooperation of the military government in Guatemala (supported by the Reagan administration), however, the Special Rapporteur was never actually appointed (Molina 1994). Resolution 1983/37 of the CHR "expressed its disappointment that the Special Rapporteur had not been in a position to make a thorough study of the human rights situation in Guatemala and it once again requested that the Chairman appoint with the shortest possible delay.. .a Special Rapporteur" (ECOSOC 1987). Between 1982 and 1986, the CHR expressed strong concern and kept the case of Guatemala under Item 12 of the agenda ("Question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in any part of the world, with particular reference to colonial and other dependent countries and territories"), the most serious category for human rights violations. The CHR appointed Special Rapporteurs to make visits to the country in order to investigate human rights violations and report back to the CHR on the situation of human rights. While the government of Guatemala permanently expressed its opposition to being monitored by the UN, it did accept the Commission's Special Rapporteur (and in fact tried to win the support of this representative).

When the Guatemalan military, subject to strong international criticism, relinquished government and allowed the election of a civilian president in 1985-1986, the response of the CHR was to end the appointment of its Special Rapporteur. The GA also discontinued its critical resolutions. The Guatemalan government delegation argued successfully that Guatemala was now a democracy, committed to human rights, and there was no need for UNCHR oversight (more on this below). However, human rights violations continued to occur systematically in the country, as a key component of the military's counterinsurgency war, and the military continued to function as the real ruling power behind the scenes (McSherry 1990). The CHR did appoint a Special Representative in 1986 to replace the Special Rapporteur, but this was widely interpreted as a sign of confidence in the new government. The Special Representative was mandated only to assist the government and "observe" rather than investigate the human rights situation. Resolution 1986/62 of March 1986 stated that the CHR, after

"welcoming with approval the process of democratization and return to constitutionality in Guatemala . . . " decided "to end the mandate of the Special Rapporteur . . . " and appoint a Special Representative "to receive and assess the broad and detailed information which the Government of President Cerezo promised to furnish in regard to the manner in which the new legal organization to protect human rights is being applied, as well as the efforts to ensure the full enjoyment of the fundamental freedorns in Guatemala" (Presidencia 19875.

In 1987, despite intensive lobbying in Geneva by RUOG and human rights groups, supported by the Western bloc (with the exception of the U.S.), the case of Guatemala was moved to Item 21, "Advisory Services in the Field of Human Rights" and the Special Representative was terminated. Instead, an "expert" was appointed to assist the government of Guatemala. However, again reflecting the intensive lobbying activity of Guatemalan groups and human rights organizations, Resolution 1987/53 stated that the CHR:

"7. Expresses the hope that the appropriate authorities will investigate human rights violations reported to them and that they will make all possible efforts to clarify the fate of the disappeared persons;
8. Encourages the Government of Guatemala to continue to take effective measures within the framework of the Constitution to ensure that its authorities and agencies, civilian as well as military, including law enforcement officials, fully respect human rights and fundamental freedoms;"(emphasis added) ((RUOG 1987).

Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances and the Sub-Commission for the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

₁₀

Why did the Latin American bloc act in the late 1980s to stave off UN criticism of human rights violations by the military-security forces in Guatemala, ₁₁ when most of tliose nations were newly governed by democrats? First, in the 1980s, the Latin American governments wanted to encourage the Guatemalan government's support of the Contadora process and its activity in the Esquipulas group. Second, the Latin governments complained privately of being unfairly singled out for criticism of human rights violations vis-a-vis other regions of the world. Third, the civilian presidents in Guatemala, particularly Vinicio Cerezo (1986-1992) and Ramiro de Le6n Carpio (1993-present) had ties with others of the political class in Latin America, many of whom were in their respective governments. (Many of these states behaved very differently in the case of El Salvador, as we show below.) By 1990, however, even those Latin American states that had supported the Guatemalan government co-sponsored a strongly critical resolution on Guatemala.

In terms of the United States, its practice of blocking UN criticism of Guatemala began to change in 1992. That year, the Bush administration began to criticize the violence and abuses in the country, mainly through the U.S. ambassador. The Bush administration even recalled the U.S. ambassador for consultations" after a U.S. citizen was found beheaded in an army-dominated zone; then, it conditioned further military aid on resolution of that case and others (a U.S. nun was also abducted and tortured in Guatemala in 1989).

By 1990, signs of increasing concern in the CHR were visible in its resolutions. In 1990 it expressed "serious concern" that "the Government has not been able to control the persistent climate of violence" and was "deeply disturbed also by the activities of the 'death squads"' and "deeply deplored the increase in murders, kidnappings, and attacks and threats against persons involved in political activities . . . " (ECOSOC 1990). The 1991 resolution under "Advisory Services" stated:

"Taking into account the report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (E/CN.4/1991/20) and the reports of the Special Rapporteur on torture (E/CN.411991117) and of the Special Rapporteur on summary or arbitrary executions (E/CN.4/1991/36); . . .
Deeply concerned that the climate of violence in the country has worsened and that serious violations of human rights are still occurring . . .
Disturbed by the grave situation faced since time immemorial by the indigenous populations, who have been subjected to exploitation, as well as serious violations of their human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Deeply disturbed by the act of aggression committed by the army against the indigenous population of Santiago Atitlan on 2 December 1990 . . . " (ECOSOC 1991).

It was significant as well that the CHR began to express appreciation for the talks between the URNG and the government in 1991. The 1994 resolution (E/CN.4/1994/L. 1 1/Add.6) took note of "the Framework Agreement for the resumption of peace negotiations between the Government of Guatemala and Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca . . . " and expressed the hope that the internal armed conflict would soon be settled. However, up to the present, the Guatemalan government has successfully defeated attempts to move the case of Guatemala back to Item 12 of the agenda.

The Political Process in the Commission on Human Rights

The political process of the UNCHR in the case of Guatemala is interesting because in effect, indirect negotiations and bargaining occur between the government and its critics, via third parties (concerned states). Each year, Guaternalan human rights organizations (including the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, the International Maya League, Guatemalan Peace and Justice Committee, GAM [the relatives of the disappeared], CONAVIGUA [the organization of widows], and others) travel to Geneva to present testimony regarding the violation of human rights in Guatemala and lobby state members of the CHR. Mso yearly, the Guatemalan opposition (represented by RUOG) presents a draft resolution to prospective sponsoring states. This resolution contains criticisms of the government for failing to stop repeated instances of disappearances, torture, and assassination of popular leaders and other citizens, as well as criticisms of social and economic discrimination, especially against the indigenous people. Each year, these Guatemalans are supported by a range of NGOs in Geneva, including Amnesty International, the World Council of Churches, the Quakers, the International Indian Treaty Council, the International Commission of Jurists, World University Service, International Federation of Human Rights, International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, Anti-Slavery Society, and many others. These NGOs and the Guatemalan groups lobby sympathetic governments, mainly from the Western group and Third World states, for support for their resolution.

For many years, Sweden or Norway took the lead as sponsors of the resolution on Guatemala, adopting many points of this critical draft resolution and presenting their own drafts to the government delegation for negotiation. The Guatemalan government, meanwhile, wrote its own draft, mainly alleging advances in democracy and human rights since the previous year. Essentially, what occurs is a debate between the Guatemalan government and its opposition via the official state members of the CHR. The final resolution is a consensus document, usually praising the government for actions taken, but pointing to the continuing human rights violations and the persisting climate of fear, uncertainty, and suffering of the population. The level of criticism in the resolution is shaped by recent events that have occurred in the country, such as massacres or waves of assassinations or disappearances.

The NGOs in Geneva, mentioned above, have played a key role in the UNCHR. In terms of general work and support for respect of human rights in the region, other NGOs such as Americas Watch, Washington Office on Latin America, Council on Hemispheric Affairs and several others, have been important. According to Guatemalan participants, however, NGOs have never taken up the cause of the revolutionary movement per se, that is, adopting one or other of the parties as a "cause" (Molina interview 1994). Rather they have adopted the cause of human rights and peace, largely focusing on the situation of civil society. Their criticisms have been largely of the government and the military-security forces for the objective reason that they have committed the overwhelming majority of human rights abuses. In terms of the peace processes in the region, no NGOs have been involved.

Tactics Used by the Government to Weaken UN Intervention

The Guatemalan government has used a variety of tactics to halt UN monitoring, terminate the appointment of Special Rapporteurs or Experts, and defeat critical resolutions in the CHR. Representatives argued that after the election of a civilian government, human rights violations ceased to be a serious problem. They also argued privately that the civilian president and government must be supported or the military might gain the upper hand, or even overthrow the government, implying that the fact of UN monitoring would weaken the civilian government. Representatives of the civilian administration also argued privately that human rights could not be respected in the context of an internal armed conflict.

One representative document, arguing that with the election of Cerezo human rights violations were now solved, was issued by President Cerezo's office in fall of 1987:

"Since he took office as President of the Republic of Guatemala, the civilian and democratic government of President Cerezo has developed actions toward consolidating the democratization process of Guatemalan society, by means of the institutionalization of a state of law and a regime of absolute respect for human rights and the fundamental freedoms of all citizens.. .the Government has fostered the broadest possible exercise of freedom through concert and democratic debate . . . " (Presidencia 1987)

President Jorge Serrano, a conservative president who followed Cerezo, had served in a previous military regime and was close to the army. He attempted to stage an "auto-coup" in May 1993, supported by the military, in order to centralize his power and abolish Congress (as did Fujimori in Peru the previous year). However, this coup attempt was met by determined opposition from all sectors in the country, and by the U.S., as mentioned earlier. The current president, Ramiro de Le6n Carpio, is the former human rights procurator. Since becoming president, however, he has reversed several of his prior positions and increasingly taken the army position on human rights issues. He is seen in Guatemala as even weaker than Cerezo was, and subject to military hegemony.

Other UN Bodies InvoIved in the Guatemalan Crisis
The international community expressed its growing concern with the systematic human rights violations in Guatemala through the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights of the OAS, beginning in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, and also through other UN organs.

The Security Council passed a number of resolutions on the situation in Central America in the 1980s. ₁₂ It was first requested to do so by Nicaragua in 1983. The SC categorized the situation in Central America as a serious threat to peace and security (Molina 1991:8). The U.S. role in the region was never mentioned in the resolutions, for obvious reasons, but the SC did call for the SG to become involved in the search for a solution, an important decision. This mandate for the SG (also ratified by the GA) provided the authorization for the SG to appoint personal representatives to pursue all possible routes in the search for peace in Central America.

The role of the Secretary General has been of great importance. Both Perez de Cuellar and Boutros Ghali have appointed representatives (including Francesc Vendrell, who was instrumental in demobilizing the contras in Nicaragua and who was originally the observer in Guatemala; Alvaro deSoto, a key figure in the Salvadoran peace process; and Jean Arnault, currently the moderator of the Guatemalan peace talks). The SGs have presented reports to the GA regarding the peace process, have intervened in peace negotiations, and have made statements on the importance of democracy and human rights. Both appointed independent experts in response to UNCHR resolutions to monitor the human rights situation in the region.

The General Assembly, mentioned previously, approved resolutions between 1983 and 1986 on the Guatemalan crisis. There were less than 20 countries who voted against these resolutions; they included countries such as the United States, Israel, Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan, and other U.S. allies or clients. After 1987, the U.S. spearheaded a movement whereby resolutions would be approved by consensus rather than vote (Molina interview 1994), presumably to avoid more embarrassing losses. As Finklestein points out, "Resort to consensus is a barrier erected in the struggle over allocative authority" (Finklestein 1988:4) and is often demanded by minorities in the UN system as a means to protect their perceived interests, power, and sovereignty. The U.S. was consistently outvoted by majorities that included its European allies as well as a majority of Third World states and the communist bloc, raising questions regarding U.S. legitimacy, influence, and authority. After 1987, there were no votes on the issue in the GA; the Commission on Human Rights also adopted decision-making by consensus (Molina interview 1994).

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has played an active role in terms of Guatemalan refugees. Many thousands of Guatemalan refugees came into Mexico to escape army scorched-earth campaigns in the early 1980s and settled in southern Mexico. Other refugees came from Nicaragua and El Salvador. The UNCHR officially recognized a high percentage of these people and cared for them in specially-established refugee camps (Molina 1991:8).

Other UN bodies involved in Guatemala have been UNICEF, World Bank, IMF, UNDP, WHO, and UNESCO.

A point about the wording of the UN resolutions (such as the GA and the Sub-Commission) is important: in many resolutions, approved by the majority of states, the description of the conflict in Guatemala has been that it is "an internal armed conflict that stems from social and economic conditions of a structural nature" (GA 1985). This formulation demonstrated an interpretation of the crisis in Guatemala at odds with the Cold War version of the Reagan administration, which saw the conflict as an East-West battle, instigated by international communism. With this wording the GA recognized the social, cultural, economic, and political dimensions to the conflict in Guatemala, outlined in the first part of this report, and the need for structural change and democratization.

vote (Molina interv Similarly, many resolutions stressed the need for social justice and transformation of the region in the search for peace and democracy. Consider "The Situation in Central America: Procedures for the Establishment of a Firm and Lasting Peace and Progress in Fashioning a Region of Peace, Freedom, Democracy and Development" (A/48/L.2 1/Rev. 1) of December 1993. ₁₃

"Convinced of the hopes that inspire the people of Central America to achieve peace, reconciliation, development and social justice . . . fully respecting the principles of self- determination and non-intervention, . . .
Reaffirming the belief that there can be no peace in Central America without development or democracy, which are essential for transforming the region . . .

The Peace Process in Guatemala

The peace process in Guatemala grew out of the Esquipulas agreement. As we have seen, this accord was proposed by the five Central American presidents to counter U.S. intervention and possible direct engagement in Nicaragua. In other words, the peace process in Guatemala was not first initiated by the UN. Another important point is that the peace processes in both Guatemala and El Salvador began before the end of the Cold War. That is, they did not begin as a result of the collapse of the eastern bloc, an interpretation that flows from a Cold War analysis of the conflicts (e.g. as foreign-inspired or instigated).

The National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) setup in Guatemala as a result of the Esquipulas Agreement was headed by an archbishop of the Catholic Church, who attempted to convene a national dialogue and meetings between the government and the URNG. In October 1987, the administration of President Vinicio Cerezo held its first and last direct round of talks with the URNG, in Madrid. The National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) held two more meetings with the URNG, hosted by President Arias May 3 and 4 in Costa Rica, concerning its participation in the national dialogue. Arias himself met with URNG representatives, and offered to mediate between them and Cerezo's government. The army and the right wing in Guatemala regarded this conformity with Esquipulas to be intolerable. One of the 25 demands of a military coup attempt in May, 1988 was that Cerezo terminate plans for another meeting. One week after the coup attempt, the government announced the suspension of talks between the NRC and the URNG (Enfoprensa 1988).

In March 1989, the much-delayed Guatemalan National Dialogue mandated by Esquipulas II began to function. Although it did include some grassroots organizations and opposition figures who returned from exile to participate, including RUOG, it nevertheless did not include three highly significant actors: Asociacion de Camaras del Agro, Comerciales, Industriales y Financieras (CACIF) (the Association of Agro, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Chambers, (CACIF), the association of big capital and private enterprise; the army (both of the former self-excluded); and the URNG (excluded by the government and the army). Even so, this attempt to conform with Esquipulas II met with violent results. After several productive weeks of work, a third coup attempt took place on May 9, 1989 (members of RUOG and other participants were specifically subjected to death threats).

In March 1990, new talks took place in Oslo between the URNG and the National Reconciliation Commission of Guatemala. These were hosted officially by the Norwegian government and sponsored by the World Lutheran Federation and the Norwegian Church. This meeting had the authorization of the Cerezo government and the Guatemalan army (Molina interview). This represented the change in the attitude of the latter parties, and the Bush administration, mentioned earlier, influenced by the end of the Cold War and the loss of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua's February 1990 election. Twenty-four proposals by the URNG for dialogue between 1987 and 1990 had been rejected by the government previously (Molina interview).

The two delegations in Oslo signed a Basic Agreement which appointed the president of the NRC, Monsignor Rodolfo Quezada Toruno, as head mediator among the parties and specified the following steps to be taken (under the "Oslo process"). A series of meetings was to take place between the URNG and all Guatemalan political parties, then with key sectors of society, namely: representatives of grassroots organizations; religious; the private sector; and finally, with the government and the army, to search for solutions for national problems and a solution to the armed conflict. UN SG Javier Perez de Cuellar was requested to observe these activities, and he appointed Francesc Vendrell as his personal observer to the talks.

At the end of 1990 elections were held and Jorge Serrano was elected president. He promised to advance the peace talks, and followed through by accepting to meet with the URNG in 1991 in Mexico. In April 1991, a peace agreement was signed in Mexico, with United Nations participation, between the government/army and the URNG. The agreement set up a procedure and agenda for a peace-seeking negotiations process. The agenda contained eleven items, the first being democratization and human rights.

In July 1991, another agreement was signed, again witnessed by the UN observer, called the Queretaro Agreement. ₁₄ This agreement envisioned a participatory model of democracy with a strong foundation of human rights. The fact that members of the government and army signed this agreement, given past history, represented a rather surprising step forward, which was followed by several steps backward. Evidence of the Guatemalan army's opposition to the substance of the Queretaro Agreement surfaced in fall 1991. The second part of item 1— human rights—proved to be a difficult obstacle, stalling the process for over two years. After meetings in July, September and October 1991 on the issue of human rights, no agreement was reached. In October, the URNG presented to the government an 11-point proposal on human rights which included principles such as the dismantling of the national security structures (model villages, civil patrols), the repeal of military amnesty, and creation of a Truth and Justice Cormmission. In January 1992, the Guatemalan government rejected an offer by the Mexican government to mediate the peace talks and involve the Group of Friends of the Secretary-General (Mexico, Venezuela, Spain and Colombia) in the search for peace. The Group had actively supported the Salvadoran peace process through to the final peace agreement (Enfoprensa/USA January 1992).

After a hiatus of two years, the peace negotiations began again in January 1994. The negotiations have moved rapidly this year, suggesting that pressures from Guatemalan civil society as well as third parties such as the Clinton administration, European states, and Latin American states have encouraged the two parties to arrive at serious agreements. One plausible theory among Guatemala observers was that the Clinton administration (and Mexico) needed peace in Guatemala in order to provide conditions of security for NAF'TA and eventually incorporate Central America into the NAF'TA framework (NAFTA went into effect with Mexico on January 1, 1994).

A new Framework Agreement was signed in January 1994 which included a number of highly significant clauses. First, the document specified that a moderator of the peace negotiations was to be appointed by the SG, thus upgrading the level of UN involvement. In February the SG appointed Jean Arnault, previously his personal representative and observer, to fill this position under the supervision of Marrack Goulding, Under-Secretary General. In the document, the Group of Friends (Colombia, Mexico, Norway, Spain, USA, Venezuela) was asked to facilitate the negotiations. The parties agreed further on the following: 1) all previous agreements were in force (the de Le6n Carpio government, under army pressure, had tried to renege on the Queretaro and other earlier agreements and substitute a new plan in late 1993), b) all items of the 1991 agenda would still be discussed, c) a final peace agreement would be signed in 1994, d) there would be national and international mechanisms of verification for all accords, e) an Assembly of Civil Society would be created, in order to incorporate the participation of popular groups and citizens in the peace process (RUOG April 1994).

In March 1994 a Global Agreement on Human Rights was signed by both parties as well as Jean Arnault and Marrack Goulding. In this agreement, international verification by the UN was authorized by both the government/army and the URNG and spelled out. This UN mission was scheduled to have a one-year timeline and to monitor observation of the human rights agreement. The parties requested that the SG organize the verification mission. It had the following functions: a) to receive, assess, and follow up on denunciations of human rights violations; b) to verify that investigations by Guatemalan bodies were efficient and independent; c) to make public statements about human rights violations. The UN mission was also authorized to move freely about the country, hold free and private interviews, make unannounced visits to any state installation or URNG camp, and gather information. Finally, the mission was authorized to deal only with human rights abuses after its arrival and not for the period before. The mission was to operate for one year, with the possibility of a renewal, and the SG was given the authority to appoint the director of the mission (RUOG April 1994). A calendar for the process of negotiations on each item of the agenda was also signed in March.

In June, an agreement was signed by the government and the URNG on the sensitive issue of creation of a Commission of Truth, to establish the history of human rights violations in the country (although those responsible were not to be revealed). The army was extremely reluctant to agree to this even after the URNG made the major concession of agreeing to remove the concept of "Justice" from the function of the commission (recall that the URNG had originally demanded a Commission on Truth and Justice, and many organizations of society demanded this as well). The agreement called for three Commission members, one of whom was to be the present UN moderator, Jean Arnault. The SG was requested to appoint him. If this occurs, it would imply an unprecedented, and direct, UN presence in the search for truth and accountability in Guatemala. Like all other agreements, this was to be verified by the United Nations (RUOG June 1994).

In sum, the peace process in Guatemala has increasingly involved the UN, and preparations are now being made for a significant UN presence in the country, first via the Mission of Verification. Eventually, peace-keeping troops may be deployed there as well (Molina interview 1994). However, it should be clear that government/army agreement has been required for all forms of UN intervention. That is, the issue of sovereignty is still a crucial factor constraining UN intervention. A second point is that pressure from third parties has been crucial for moving the process forward. Overall, as in El Salvador, the UN has taken on an expanded role in Guatemala, incorporating not only peace-keeping, but also negotiating civil conflicts, uncovering the truth of past acts of violence and abuse, and eventually, assisting in demilitarization, and investigation and monitoring of human rights. The UN has gone beyond peace-keeping to peace-creation, "peace-building " (the term was used by Boutros Ghali in his 1992 report An Agenda for Peace ,) and peace-enforcement.

El Salvador: Opening the Case at the United Nations

The case of El Salvador at the UN was strikingly different than the case of Guatemala. First, the case first came to the attention of the GA in fall of 1980, after several dramatic incidents in the country: the assassinations of Archbishop Romero, FDR leaders, and the four U.S. churchwomen. Given the urgency of the situation, the international community took up the case in the GA despite the fact that it had not come by way of the "normal" route through the UN (Sub-Commission to Commission on Human Rights to GA). Second, the correlation of international forces supporting the FMLN-FDR was vastly different than that supporting the revolutionary forces in Guatemala. Mexico played a strong role in the case of El Salvador, and was able to rally the support of the other Latin American states. After the Mexico-France declaration of 1981, France became more involved and brought in its European allies. The Socialist International—which included important European leaders—strongly supported the FDR, whose key leaders were members; also, the PRI in Mexico has close ties with the Socialist International. The communist bloc was also more willing to support the FMLN-FDR, as was the Movement of Non- Aligned Countries. As we have seen, international support for the Guatemalan oppositional forces was not as strong.

Finally, the third key reason for the difference in the two cases was the military capability and strength of the FMLN on the ground. The FMLN was able to establish "liberated zones " in large parts df the country, setting up de facto governance of the inhabitants there, and militarily defeat the army on some occasions. Further, the Salvadoran army, while brutal, only resorted to scorched-earth campaigns and widespread massacres in the first year or two; they did not use "the Guatemalan solution," as it was known in the region. In contrast, the Guatemalan army was highly trained and armed, sophisticated, and absolutely ruthless in its counterinsurgncy campaigns.

FDR representatives including well-known figures such as Guillermo Ungo, Ruben Zamora, and Hector Oqueli—all members of or close to the Socialist International—traveled to the GA in order to press for international action in fall of 1980. The case was opened in the Third Committee, under the item of threats to human rights and flindamental freedoms. The GA issued its first condemnation of the atrocities in El Salvador that fall in a resolution co-sponsored by Mexico, Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, Algeria, Democratic Yemen, Angola, Benin, Iraq, Mozambique, Sao Tome, and Vietnam. The foilowing year, in the 1981 session of the CHR, Europeans joined as co-sponsors (Denmark, Ireland, Yugoslavia, Netherlands; France and Greece joined in 1982). Up until 1984, the United States voted against the resolutions on El Salvador, as did allied military-run governments in Latin America (Argentina, Guatemala, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Honduras, Paraguay, Uruguay), Israel, Indonesia, and several others (Martinez interview 1994).

The CHR resolution characterized the situation in El Salvador as "an internal armed conflict." Beginning in 1981, the GA resolutions mentioned the structural causes of the conflict, calling for economic and social reforms (Martinez interview 1994). The resolutions also called for all states to stop intervening and providing military arms to warring parties (a major reason for U.S. opposition). In the GA, a controversy arose regarding whether to mention the FMLN-FDR or not in resolutions. After 1984, the resolutions explicitly mentioned the need for a negotiated, political solution between the FMLN FDR and the government (Martinez interview 1994). This was a reflection of the fact that in 1984, dialogue began between the FMLN and the Duarte government.

As mentioned earlier, the role of Mexico was key. Mexico, as we have seen, never played a protagonist role in the case of Guatemala due to its "geopolitical relations with Guatemala. The two countries share a border, and have had uneasy relations (including several border clashes) during previous years. Mexico, in short, interpreted its national interests differently in the two cases, a factor that had major ramifications.

In 1985, the United States began to abstain rather than vote against the resolutions on El Salvador. The reason for this seemed to be that dissension in the Latin American bloc resulted in weaker resolutions. Venezuela became involved in the negotiations over the resolutions in 1985, and took a position of support toward the Salvadoran government; the Venezuelan government worked to weaken the resolutions. Mexico continued with its strong position in support for the revolutionary forces (the FMLN-FDR was able to influence the content of the resolutions largely through Mexico, and some others); Peru at times also played a strong role (Alan Garcia, then-president, was also a member of the Socialist International). The result of the inner conflict was that the content of the resolutions was diluted, thus allowing the U.S. to moderate its position (Martinez 1994). After 1987, the resolutions were adopted by consensus, as discussed earlier.

In sum, the GA took a stronger position regarding El Salvador than it did vis-a-vis Guatemala largely because of the different array of international forces and alliances. Major transnational political groups such as the Socialist International were able to advocate for the cause of the revolutionary forces and keep up the pressure on the Salvadoran government. Moreover, there was less conflict between the European countries and Latin American states, as there was in the case of Guatemala (even though the Europeans tended to demand stronger criticisms of human rights in El Salvador than the Latin Americans wanted to see). Finally, the FMLN was stronger in military terms than was the URNG in Guatemala; it was harder to ignore the situation in the country. Moreover, the intensity of the war led to increasing internal divisions between the Salvadoran military (which sought a military solution) and the big business and land-owning sectors (which began to call for a political solution and peace). President Cristiani—from a family of the oligarchy—was personally in favor of a negotiated solution, and his influence was important in the internal dynamics of the negotiations.

Other UN bodies were also crucial in the case of El Salvador, especially the SG (discussed below). NGOs played an important role in terms of supplying information and analysis regarding the situation of human rights and providing documents to the CHR and the Center for Human Rights in Geneva.

The Peace Process in El Salvador

El Salvador's peace process began with the dialogue between the FMLN and the Duarte government in 1984. The Esquipulas accord gave additional impetus to the process. In September 1989, the government and the FMLN reached an agreement to begin a dialogue aimed at resolving the armed conflict. Both parties approached the SG with requests for assistance in resolving the conflict (UNDPI/ONUSAL 1992: ii). The goals of the peace negotiations, expressed in the Geneva Agreement of April 1990, were to end the armed conflict by political means, promote democratization, guarantee unrestricted respect for human rights, and reunify Salvadoran society (UNDPI/ONUSAL 1992:ii). One of the key underlying goals was to fundamentally transform the Salvadoran armed forces (Williams 1994:1).

The UN sponsored the peace negotiations in 1990 and 1991 under the auspices of the SG, specifically via Security Council resolution 637 of July 1989, which mandated the SG to use his good offices to resolve the conflict in El Salvador (UNDPI/ONUSAL 1992:1). A number of factors converged to spur the peace talks forward in 1990. First, the FMLN offensive of fall 1989 demonstrated its military capability; fighting raged in the capital for the first time. The former "Washington consensus "-that the armed forces could militarily defeat the FMLN—fell apart. Second, the subsequent military bombing of civilian areas, and the murder of six Jesuit priests, raised worldwide condemnation of the Salvadoran military. Army officers and hard-liners in the government became more open to talks when the U.S. Congress threatened to cut military aid by 50% (Baranyi and North 1992:24). Finally, the FMLN became more willing to negotiate as it became clear a military solution was not feasible. The population was growing tired of war; the Nicaraguan revolution was suffering problems and attacks from outside; the fading of the Cold War gave hope that foreign intervention of the past might ease and a peaceful path toward social and economic change become possible.

The SG appointed Alvaro deSoto as his Personal Representative for Central America (DPI/ONUSAL 1992:ii) and a number of agreements between the government/army and the FMLN followed in succession. The Caracas Agreement established an agenda for discussion between the parties, including the armed forces, human rights, judicial system, electoral system, constitutional reform, economic and social issues, verification by the UN, and cessation of the armed conflict (Caracas Agreement 1990). The first substantive agreement, signed in San Jose, Costa Rica in 1990, was on human rights, and provided for a UN verification mission with 100 UN specialists in all parts of the country. The Security Council, via Resolution 693 (1991), established the United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador, ONUSAL. ONUSAL was mandated to monitor all political agreements between the government and the FMLN under the San Jose agreement (DPI/ONUSAL 1992:iii). It was initially given a mandate of one year as an integrated peace-keeping operation (Baranyi and North 1992:23).

As emphasized by ONUSAL, the UN was undertaking an unprecedented mission with ONUSAL. The mission had three components: a Human Rights Division, a Military Division, and a Police Division. These bodies were to verify political agreements reached by the two parties in an internal conflict, Second, the subsequeunder the auspices of the SG. While some elements of this UN mission were drawn from the UN's experience in Namibia, the situation there was very different (DPI/ONUSAL 1992:iii); Namibia had been a semi- colony of a foreign state, South Africa. Former ONUCA chief Brigadier-General Suanzes Pardo (from Spain) was placed in command of the Military Division, and Canadian Colonel Ian McNabb became Deputy Chief Military Observer. Spain and Canada contributed the largest number of troops (Baranyi and North 1992:29).

In April 1991, the Mexico Agreement was signed by the two parties, and included reforms of the armed forces, the judicial system, and the electoral system. Civilian authority was strengthened. The state intelligence service was to be disbanded, and a new, apolitical State Intelligence Agency to be created, independent of armed forces control. Forcible recruitment into the military was to be ended and the jurisdiction of military courts reduced (Mexico Agreement 1991). The Commission on the Truth was established, with three members to be appointed by the SG in consultation with the parties. The Commission on the Truth was to investigate the human rights abuses that had occurred since 1980.

After this agreement was signed, the SC authorized the dispatch of a 1000-strong UN peace keeping force to monitor the accord (NYT January 15, 1992). While welcomed by the Cristiani government, the FMLN, and Congress, ONUSAL members received death threats from extreme-right organizations associated with death squads, such as the Salvadoran Anticommunist Front, and ONUSAL was criticized by prominent members of the ruling ARENA party (Baranyi and North 1992:28).

According to close observers, the expertise and diplomacy of the SG were crucial in the actual implementation of the agreements. Perez de Cuellar sent experts in to El Salvador to help create the new civilian police force; he provided legal experts to help design the constitutional reforms. His diplomatic skills were critical in resolving bottlenecks; he was able to appeal to the interests of both sides and third parties in order to move the process forward (Martinez interview 1994). In this, it appears that the SG played the role of mediator and neutral third party par excelance; his role was literally as catalyst of the peace process (Baranyi and North 1992:39).

The negotiations between the government and the FMLN became stalled when discussion of a ceasefire began. The FMLN demanded that as a precondition for laying down its arms, its members be given all necessary guarantees to be safely and legally integrated into civilian society. At this point, the end of the Cold War was an important factor, for both the U.S. Secretary of State and the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs asked the SG to step in to break the deadlock. The SG, Perez de Cuellar, believed that the problem was not simply procedural, but rather was structural (DPI/ONUSAL 1992:v). He involved the president of the GA in order to address this issue in New York in late 1991.

At this point, the National Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (COPAZ) was formed via the New York Agreement between the Salvadoran government/army and the FMLN. COPAZ was composed of representatives from all the political tendencies in the National Assembly and the FMLN, and was to monitor verification of the agreements, parallel with ONUSAL. The parties also agreed in the New York Agreement to "the establishment of the necessary guarantees and conditions for reintegrating the members of the FMLN. ii into the civil, institutional, and political life of the country." This was to be done via the redistribution of land through a land reform, creation of a new National Civil Police free from the legacy of human rights abuse, and open access to political organizing and activity (New York Agreement, 25 September 1991).

The New York document established extensive reforms regarding the military and security apparatus. First, it called for a "purification" of the military so that the most notorious individuals and units would be dismissed or dismantled, respectively. It included a clause stating that impunity for abuses would be ended. An Ad Hoc Commission was to be formed of three prominent Salvadorans who were to be responsible for evaluating the entire officer corps vis-a-vis human rights violations, and recommending who should be dismissed. The military was to be reduced, and was to undergo a thorough reform of its mission, essentially to be restricted to a mission of national defense rather than internal security. A land reform was specified in order to give landless campesinos and ex-combatants a stake in the new system. Along with the reduction of the military, the FMLN was to demobilize and dismantle its armed forces. Some observers called these dramatic transformations "a negotiated revolution" (DeSoto and del Castillo, quoting Terry Karl 1992).

The SG appointed the members of the Commission on the Truth in December 1991, naming three prominent international figures (Belisario Betancur, former President of Colombia, Reinaldo Figueredo, former Foreign Minister of Venezuela, and Thomas Buergenthal, former President of the Inter-American Court for Human Rights) (UNDPI December 1991). The Commission's powerful report was issued March 1993, and documented in meticulous detail the role of the military-security forces in the counterinsurgency campaigns and human rights abuses of the war in El Salvador. It named and documented in great detail the heinous human rights violations of some 40 military officers, including the current Minister and Vice-Minister of Defense (Williams 1994:4), and recommended that they be dismissed and barred from public office. (The previous Ad Hoc Commission set up in the agreements had called for the removal of 102 officers: most of the generals and many of the colonels, as well as the Minister and Vice-Minister of Defense.) (Williams 1994:4). The Commission on the Truth also documented abuses by the FMLN (UN Commission on the Truth 1992). In its conclusions, the Commission pointed to the structural causes of the conflict, placing responsibility on the state for failure to establish the rule of law and respect for human rights. It also criticized lawless and brutal elements of the military, and the wide network of illegal armed groups and death squads which used methods of terror against perceived enemies (Commission on the Truth 1993:185). (The Defense Minister, General Ponce—who, along with the Vice-Minister of Defense, was revealed to have planned the murders of the six Jesuit priests—called the Truth and Ad Hoc Commissions "prejudicial, unjust, and partial") (Williams 1994:16).

The Cristiani government resisted fulfilling all the recommendations of the two commissions. For example, under heavy pressure from the military, the president postponed dismissal of 15 officers, including the Minister and Vice-Minister of Defense, and said he would not carry this out until the end of his presidential term (Williams 1994:4). Pressure was applied by both the UN, through Marrack Goulding and Alvaro deSoto, and the Clinton administration. The two UN officials mediated an agreement in which the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Commission would be incorporated within the regular yearly general orders on military promotions and retirements. The SG, Boutros Ghali, also informed the Security Council that Cristiani had violated the Commission's recommendations (Williams 1994:4). The Clinton administration conditioned $11 million in military aid on full compliance with the Ad Hoc Commission's recommendations. All the officers finally stepped down, although this occurred much later than scheduled, and they remained on leave and were not retired.

Democratic elections were held for the first time in decades during peacetime in March 1994. Alvaro deSoto, former Personal Representative of the SG in Central America, argues, however, that unlike the case of Cambodia, where the UN's peace-keeping role ended with elections and the establishment of a new government, in El Salvador the UN presence is still required to be sure the reforms agreed to continue (DeSoto and del Castillo: 1994:2). Observers have cautioned that key elements of tbe new system have been obstructed or not complied with by the government (DeSoto and del Castillo: 1994; Stanley 1994). For example, the new police force, which was to be free of military domination and the taint of past human rights abuses, has been integrated with individuals and/or whole units from the old National Police, anti-narcotics force, and the army, all ill-regarded for their politicized ideologies and contempt for human rights (DeSoto and del Castillo: 1994:9; Stanley 1994:3). The government has also deployed the military to combat common crime, a decision which violates the letter and spirit of the agreements restricting the military to defense of national sovereignty and removing it from policing and internal security functions. The land reform program has bogged down and little land has been transferred to the peasant population (DeSoto and del Castillo: 1994:15). The government stalled in the "purification" of the armed forces, and a large arms cache belonging to the FMLN was discovered after it was supposed to have disarmed (DeSoto and del Castillo: 1994:25). In the pre-election months from late 1993 to March 1994, death squad murders reappeared. Most of the victims were FMLN personnel, leaders, or candidates.

DeSoto writes of his deep concern that the international community is losing interest in El Salvador and even considering the early removal of ONUSAL. He argues strongly agalnst this, saying the criteria for UN withdrawal

"in cases such as that of El Salvador, where the UN kas a clear mandate to verify compliance with peace agreements and to exercise good offices to promote compliance, should not be whether things seem quiet or elections have taken place, but whether peace- related reforms have advanced enough to make the process durable, indeed irreversible" (DeSoto and del Castillo: 1994:28).

"Indeed, the grim possibility cannot be ignored that ONUSAL might leave after the 1994 elections, having disarmed the FMLN but not the core of the Salvadoran armed forces, its intelligence system, or the death squads, and that conflicts over land and labor issues could lead to a new 'dirty war' against popular organizations and reformist politicians" (Baranyi and North 1992:33).

In June 1994, the Security Council decided to keep its observer mission in place until November 30 after considering a report by the SG, which stated that major points of the peace accord remained unfulfilled (Latinamerica Press 1994:5).

Assessment and Conclusions

The cases of El Salvador and Guatemala yield interesting lessons about the role of the international community, and the UN in particular, in ameliorating armed civil conflicts. First, as noted by Rivlin and Finklestein among others (Rivlin 1994; Finkelstein 1988), the UN both operates within a political environment-4he international system—and reflects that environment in its internal political process. As we have seen, states attempted to fight for their perceived political interests within bodies of the UN, and often outcomes were the result not of loyalty to UN principles but rather the give-and-take of political horse-trading, the impact on national interests, or the ideological battles and alliances of the Cold War. In the case of El Salvador, the role of the Socialist International was crucial. The language of UN documents reflected this political push-and-pull, as we saw in the case of Guatemala in the Cormmission on Human Rights.

One important lesson seems to be that the UN furnished an international arena where parties excluded from the political process at home—such as the FM LN, the URNG, and numerous organizations of civil society and political opposition to the governments/armies—managed to secure a voice. Governments were enticed, induced, and pushed to talk to their adversaries via the intervention of other concerned states and of the SG. The UN not only provided an aura of credibility, importance, and legitimacy to these civil conflicts and the peace negotiations that grew out of them. It also offered a unique setting in which a process of political bargaining impossible to achieve within the country could take place. The respective governments of El Salvador and Guatemala were impelled to bargain with the revolutionary movements through the intervention of the UN and the international community; they were also, reluctantly, engaged in bargaining processes over policy with other groups they refused to talk to at home, such as the human rights organizations and the political opposition (such as the FDR and RUOG). In short, the UN environment did pave the way for a democratization process in both El Salvador and Guatemala, by pressuring the governments to listen to criticisms, change certain resolutions and policies (the latter in the peace negotiations), and agree to open up their closed political systems.

However, it was also clear that this diplomatic arena was not the only, nor even necessarily the most important battleground. The governments of both Central American nations continued to confront their adversaries militarily and politically in the domestic arena, and use the shield of state sovereignty to fend off radical changes. Moreover, since the UN respected the principle of sovereignty, it could not force the governments to make certain changes, even though these had been "recommended" by the UN and agreed to by both parties during peace agreements. Indirect methods such as aid reduction by the U.S. seemed more effective than resolutions and condemnations by bodies of the UN.

It should be noted, however, that the withdrawal of both militaries from government in the 1980s was partly a result of growing international criticism and rejection of military rule and counterinsurgency campaigns in these countries. NGOs played a critical role here, as did organizations like the Socialist International, bodies of the United Nations such as the CHR, several of the Working Groups, and the GA. This suggests that resolutions and condemnations by the UN—while perhaps not determinative—are definitely a major source of pressure and embarrassment for governments that violate human rights, and may eventually produce important results. In other words, the realist view (that such expressions of opprobrium by international organizations are irrelevant or useless) is challenged by the Central American cases.

Unlike the case of Morocco, however, which Benjamin Rivlin argues has not seen its conflict ameliorated by the UN and OAU, the conflicts in Guatemala and El Salvador were moved forward as a result of action by the international community. A key difference seems to be that the weight of U.S. power and pressure, and that of key European governments, and regional powers like Mexico, were brought to bear to "encourage" governments/armies to negotiate and compromise. The threat of an aid cut-off by the U.S. in both cases helped to persuade recalcitrant government/military sectors to advance the negotiations processes. Thus, the impact of third parties, particularly that of great powers, has been key in Central America.

As we have seen, the role of the Secretary General has also been crucial, particularly in the case of El Salvador, where personal intervention and prodding by Perez de Cuellar helped resolve bottlenecks at several points along the way. As a Latin American, Perez de Cuellar was uniquely suited to a "good offices" role in these conflicts. His understanding of the conditions in Central America, his initiative and creativity took the UN in new directions in terms of the concept of peace-keeping; his pressure upon the SC also kept the issue of peace in Central America on the agenda. He arranged for critical technical expertise and capability to be provided at key moments in the case of El Salvador. He spent the last moments of his term hammering out the peace agreement between the FMLN and the government in late 1991. Thus, while it is true in some cases that "the United Nations structurally [cannot] offer adequate inducements or apply sufficient pressure" (Rivlin 1994:23) to ameliorate conflicts, the case of Central America suggests a caveat to this generalization. The SG did apply sufficient pressure and provide the machinery necessary to generate action at critical junctures when the peace process in El Salvador had bogged down. That is, he helped spark action from states which was crucial for moving forward the process; he supplied material assistance needed to realize the agreements on the ground. Unfortunately, the SG has not taken such an activist role in the case of Guatemala.

In sum, the UN helped to move the civil conflicts in these two countries onto the road toward resolution (although both cases are far from this point today). One important aspect of this is the small, but crucial, opening the UN makes available for the citizens of nations to participate. This opening is most pronounced in the Commission on Human Rights, which provides the political space for NOOs to fully participate, at almost an equal level with states in terms of statements and interventions (although, of course, without a vote). Without the UN, and this admittedly small opening it supplies for a democratic voice for people as well as for states—opposition groups, human rights organizations, government critics, and other organizations of civil society repressed or excluded within their countries— these conflicts might have continued for many years more. The voice of these sectors was heard in the UNCHR, as we have seen, and taken seriously by states which acted as intermediaries between governments and opposition forces.

On the other hand, this small democratic opening was no match for the economic, political, and military power and interests of involved states. The interests of states still take precedence over the interests of citizens in the United Nations. Actually, the military threat posed by the revolutionary movements in both countries was probably more decisive than the intervention of the above civil society groups in terms of influencing decisions by states. This situation does reflect the "power politics" assumptions of the realist view. Furthermore, the UN's pressures have receded when governments have passed from military to civilian hands—as in Guatemala—despite the continuity of military hegemony and widespread violations of human rights. The definition of "democracy"in these cases has been overly narrow. Finally, as we saw in terms of El Salvador, government/army non-compliance with the peace agreements was not met with decisive action by the UN or any state. One is left with the question of whether the crucial structural changes necessary for resolving the root causes of the conflicts will in fact occur in either country.

However, the presence of the peace-keeping troops in El Salvador has "improved conditions for the contestation of p9wer by popular forces through elections . . . [and] enhanced Salvadorans' human rights, security, and even their working and living conditions" (Baranyi and North 1992:33). ONUSAL, as noted by Baranyi and North, has operated nearly at the level of a co-governing body, charged with overseeing the "creation of institutional conditions for the creation of a new and more democratic political order" (Baranyi and North 1992:33). Perhaps this is the most striking lesson that may be drawn from the cases of Guatemala and El Salvador: the international community may be needed to help create and protect democratic institutions when the peoples who are victims of autocratic states are insufficiently powerful to create such institutions themselves (or have been blocked in such attempts by foreign powers). This democratic mission will only come about, however, when powerful states see their own interests served by such international action.

Selected Bibliography

Books and Papers
Aguilera Peralta, Gabriel and Karen Ponciano. El espejo sin reflejo: La negociacion de paz en 1993. Guatemala: FLACSO, 1994.

Baranyi, Stephen and Liisa North. "Stretching the Limits of the Possible: United Nations Peacekeeping in Central America." Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Global Security. Aurora Papers 15, 1992.

Blachman, Morris J., William M. Leogrande and Kenneth Sharpe. Confronting Revolution: Security Through Diplomacy in Central America. New York: Pantheon, 1986.

Blasier, Cole. "Security: The Extracontinental Dimension." In Kevin J. Middlebrook and Carlos Rico, eds. The United States and Latin America in the 1980s. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1988.

________. "The Soviet Union." In Blachman, Morris J., William M. Leogrande and Kenneth Sharpe, Confronting Revolution: Security Through Diplomacy in Central America. New York: Pantheon, 1986.

Brown, Bernard. "Ethnic Conflict in Yugoslavia: The EC and the UN as Mediators." New York: Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations, Occasional Papers Series, Number XVI, April 1994.

Coleman, Kenneth M. and George C. Herring. The Central American Crisis: Sources of Conflict and the Failure of U.S. Policy. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1984.

Comandancia General de la Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG). Valoracion del Proceso de Paz: Consulta ecumenica por Ia paz y la democracia en Guatemala de los sectores civiles guatemaltecos. 1994.

DeSoto, Alvaro and Graciela del Castillo. "El Salvador: Still Not a Success Story." New York, 1994.

Finklestein, Lawrence S., ed. Politics in the United Nations System. Durham: Duke University Press, 1988.

Gwaradzimba, Fadzai. "The Struggle over Apartheid in South Africa: The UN Involvement." New York: Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations, Occasional Papers Series, Number XVIII, April 1994.

Immerman, Richard H. The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982.

Karl, Terry. "Mexico, Venezuela and the Contadora Initiative," in Blachman, Morris J., William M. Leogrande and Kenneth Sharpe, Confronting Revolution: Security Through Diplomacy in Central America. New York: Pantheon, 1986.

LeFeber, Walter. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America, second ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993.

McSherry, J. Patrice. "The Evolution of the National Security State: The Case of Guatemala," Socialism and Democracy, Issue 10, (Spring/Summer 1990): 121-153.

________and Raul Molina Mejia, "Confronting the Question of Justice in Guatemala," Social Justice, V.19 No.3 (Issue 49, Fall 1992): 1-28.

Molina Mejia, Raul. "The Role of the United Nations in the Political Crisis in Central America, 1979 to the Present." New York: Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations, Occasional Papers Series, Number VI, May 1991.

Moore, Jr., Barrington. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966.

Murthy, C.S.R. "The Third World in the Post Cold War United Nations." New York: Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations, Occasional Papers Series, Number XV, March 1994.

Ofuatey-Kodjoe, W. "The ECOWAS Intervention in Liberia: Regional Organization and the Resolution of Internal Conflicts." New York: Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations, Occasional Papers Series, Number XVII, April 1994.

Paige, Jeffery M. "Coffee and Power in El Salvador." Latin America Research Review, V.28 No.3 (1993): 740.

Presidencia de la Repubica, Guatemala, untitled document issued by the office of President Vinicio Cerezo, Fall 1987.

Gwaradzimba, Fadzai. "The S Rabe, Stephen. Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anticommunism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

Rivlin, Benjamin. "The Western Sahara: Towards a Referendum? The UN Political Process at Work." New York: Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations, Occasional Papers Series, Number XIX, April 1994.

Representacion Unitaria de la Oposicion Guatemalteca (RUOG), "Documents Regarding the Guatemalan Peace Process," (unofficial translations from the Spanish) April 1994.

________. "Agreements between the Government of Guatemala and the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) Signed in Oslo, Norway, in June 1994," (unofficial translations from the Spanish), June 1994.

________. "The Guatemalan Case at the 43rd Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights," February-March 1987.

Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens. Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Scott, Andrew M. The Functioning of the International Political System. New York: Macmillan Co., 1967.

Schlesinger, Stephen and Stephen Kinzer. Bitter Fruit. New York: Doubleday, 1983.

Stanley, William. "Police and Political Change: Lessons from the Demilitarization of Internal Security in El Salvador." Paper prepared for XVIII International Congress, Latin American Studies Association, March 10-12, 1994.

United Nations, Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, "De la Locura a la Esperanza," ["From Madness to Hope"], Spanish version, 1993.

United Nations Department of Public Information (in cooperation with UN Observer Mission in El Salvador [ONUSAL]). El Salvador Agreements: The Path to Peace. New York: DPI, 1992.

________. Regional Conflicts: Threats to World Peace and Progress (DPI/NGO Annual Conference, 9-11 September 1992). New York: DPI, 1992.

_________. Press release: "Secretary-General Appoints Three-Member Commission on Truth to Investigate Acts of Violence in El Salvador," SG/A/474, CA/57, 10 December 1991.

United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, 44th Session, "Report by the Expert, Mr. Hector Gros Espiell, on Guatemala, prepared in accordance with paragraph 11 of Commission resolution 1987/53," E/CN.4/1988/42, 10 December 1987.

________. "Assistance to Guatemala in the field of human rights," E/CN.4/1990/80, 6 March 1990.

_________. "Draft Report of the Commission: Resolution 1991/51, Assistance to Guatemala in the field of human rights," E/CN.4/1991/L.1l/Add.4, 6 March 1991.

_________. "Resolution 1994/58: Assistance to Guatemala in the field of human rights," E/CN.4/1994/L.11/Add.6, 4 March 1994.

United Nations General Assembly, "The Situation in Central America: Procedures for the Establishment of a Firm and Lasting Peace and Progress in Fashioning a Region of Peace, Freedom, Democracy and Development," A/48/L. 21/Rev. 1, December 1993.

________. "The Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Guatemala," A/res./40/140, December 1985.

Urquhart, Brian. "Who Can Police the World?" Publishing information missing on xerox.

Williams, Philip J. "The Salvadoran Military Confronts the Peace Accords." Paper prepared for XVIII International Congress, Latin American Studies Association, March 10-12, 1994.

Newspaper Articles
Enfoprensa, Mexico (May 1988).

________. No.448 (October 22-28, 1991).

_________ No.459 (January 13, 1992).

"UN Observers to Stay in El Salvador," Latinamerica Press, June 16, 1994.

"Text of Agreement by 5 Central American Leaders on Peace in the Region", New York Times, Page A8, August 12, 1987.

James LeMoyne, "Central American Agreement: Nicaragua as Target", New York Times, January 20, 1988.

Salvadoran Foes Conclude Accord," New York Times, January 15, 1992.

Prensa Libre, Guatemala City, August 8, 1987 and August 27, 1987.

URNG Guatemala, Bulletin numero 1, noviembre de 1991, iv.

Interviews

Personal interview with Raul Molina Mejia, member of Representacion Unitaria de la Oposicion Guatemalteca (RUOG), New York, June 26, 1994.

Personal interview with Celia Martinez, Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) Office at the United Nations, New York, July 14, 1994.

Note *: Dr. J. Patrice McSherry is Research Associate, Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations and Assistant Professor, Political Science and Latin American Studies SUNY-New Paltz. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, she received her Ph.D. in Political Science at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. Dr. McSherry has carried out extensive research in Central and South America. In 1992 she was a Fulbright Scholar in Buenos Aires, Argentine and she has served as a consultant on human rights and education for the World University Service-US. Back.

Note **: The Occasional Paper Series issued by the Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations is intended to disseminate more widely papers originally presented at the Institute's regular seminar series or on other occasions. The Occasional Papers present analyses from diverse perspectives on significant issues in the field of international cooperation and multilateralism. The views expressed in each paper are those of the author. Occasional Paper XXIII, "Civil Conflicts and the Role of the International Community: The Cases of Guatemala and El Salvador" was prepared by J. Patrice McSherry as part of the Ralph Bunche Institute's project "The Role of Multilateral Organizations in Ameliorating Ethnic Conflict."

The Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations was founded in 1973 and named in honor of the distinguished American Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1950). Dedicated to serving as a center for objective study and critical inquiry into the United Nations system and world inter dependence, the Institute's purposes are to: (1) develop scholarship focused on international institutions, problems and issues; (2) provide a center for intellectual exploration of a wide range of international affairs issues among academics, practitioners and concerned citizenry; (3) serve at The City University as an instrumentality to stimulate interest in, and facilitate the study of, world affairs among faculty and students; and (4) provide opportunities for minority students to pursue advanced training in international studies. Benjamin Rivlin, Director

Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations
The Graduate School and University Center
The City University of New York
33 West 42 Street
New York, New York 10036

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Note 1: This study, cited by Paige, concluded that "large landlords, particularly those who depended on a large supply of cheap labor, consistently emerged as the most antidemocratic force . . . . This key element of Moore's pioneering study bore the test of repeated examination across the countries studied." Quoted in Paige, 8, n.5. Paige notes as well that in Central America, the landed class has been intertwined with the capitalist class, thus concentrating political and economic power even more securely; the capitalist class has not moved to oust the older agrarian class, as Moore showed was the case in the United States, France, and elsewhere. Back.

Note 2: As Paige summaried the coffee elite's views: " . . . .structural reforms were generally viewed as a disaster by most members of the elite. None saw any further need for fundamental change in the distribution of income, property, or the organization of the agro-export based economy. When asked about rural living standards and poverty (another extremely sensitive subject in the interviews), they usually argued that a healthy coffee economy was the best guarantee of rural social welfare . . . . None saw any need to change the agrarian export model that has dominated El Salvador for a century and a half without leading to any significant industrial development." Paige, 28, 14. Back.

Note 3: This was less the case during the early years of the Alliance for Progress, inthe early 1960s. However, after the assassination of Kennedy, Johnson cut back the developmental aspects of the Alliance program and reinforced the counterinsurgency aspects. See Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America, second ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1993)158-159. Back.

Note 4: The Frente Democratico Revolucionario, (FDR), or Democratic Revolutionary Front, was an alliance of progressive patties, prominent civilian intellectuals, labor unions, and other democratic organizations and institutions. Back.

Note 5: The U.S. was a major provider of economic and military aid; the other countries of various forms of economic aid. Back.

Note 6: The "official" wing of the Communist Party finally joined the URNG, and the splinter group left, but immediately afterward the communist bloc crumbled. The Communist Parties of Italy and France continued to extend political support to the URNG. Back.

Note 7: Excerpt of presentation by Joseph Montville, Senior Consultant on Conflict Resolution, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State, in conference summary by United Nations Department of Public Information, Regional Conflicts: Threats to World Peace and Progress (DPI/NGO Annual Conference, 9-11 September 1992), New York: DPI, 1992. Back.

Note 8: See, for example, introduction to the DPIINGO conference by Farouk Mawlawi, Regional Conflicts, ibid. Back.

Note 9: This may be changing regarding the violation of human rights. The language of the final declaration of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna suggested that states had accepted the fact that international involvement in situations of human rights was not a violation of state sovereignty. Back.

Note 10: In recent years, the Guatemalan delegation in Geneva has included a number of high-ranking military and intelligence officers, indicating their lack of confidence in civilian diplomats. Back.

Note 11: Human rights organizations and UN bodies agree that the overwhelming majority of human rights abuses in the country are committed by the military-security forces. The URNG has been accused of such violations by the army, but the UN never criticized the URNG for such acts because no credible evidence was presented. In fact, the guerrillas have consistently called for observation of the Geneva Conventions and international monitoring. Back.

Note 12: These included 530(1983), 562(1985), 637(1989), 644(1989), 650(1990), 654(1990), and 656(1990). Back.

Note 13: This resolution was drafted and submittedby Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru. Russian Federation, Spain, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, UK, U.S., Uruguay, and Venezuela. Back.

Note 14: The Agreement included the following points:

"We agree:

That the strengthening of a flinctional and participatory democracy requires:

The preeminence of civil society;
The development of a democratic institutional life;
The effective operation of a state of law;
The elimination, once and for all, of political repression, electoral fraud and imposition, military threats and pressures, and destabilizing, antidemocratic actions;
Unrestricted respect for human rights;
The subordination of the functioning of the armed forces to civilian power;
Recognition and respect for the identity and rights of the indigenous peoples;
The access to and enjoyment of all Guatemalans to the benefits of national production and the resources of nature, based on the principles of social justice;
The effective reinsertion of populations displaced by the internal armed conflict;

That democratization requires guarantees of direct or indirect participation by civil society in general in the formulation, execution and evaluation of government policies . . . " From URNG Guatemala, Bulletin numero 1, noviembre de 1991, iv (my translation).

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