Central America: UN to verify 1994 elections in El Salvador; Truth Commission report issued.

The Security Council on 9 February welcomed with satisfaction El Salvador's request that the UN verify the general elections in that country in March 1994.

However, in a statement issued following consultations (S/25257), it expressed concern that the Government of El Salvador had yet to comply fully with recommendations concerning the purification of its armed forces and that the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) had not completed the destruction of its weapons by the agreed deadline and was therefore not yet in full compliance with the peace agreements.

Stressing the solemn nature of the undertakings made by the parties, the Council strongly urged them to persist in their determination to complete the process of bringing peace and national reconciliation to El Salvador and continue cooperating with the Secretary-General's efforts to ensure full implementation of those agreements.

The Council also welcomed the important progress made thus far in the implementation of the peace process in El Salvador, emphasizing the formal end to the 12-year armed conflict on 15 December 1992.

In a 26 January letter, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali informed the Council of El Salvador's request for verification of elections which, he believed, would be the "first to take place after the end of the conflict" and should constitute the "logical culmination of the entire peace process."

Personnel needed for the verification exercise, the Secretary-General added, would "be phased in as required by the electoral process and their assignment would end immediately after the elections".

Purification of armed forces

Details on the implementation of the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Commission on purification of the Armed Forces in El Salvador, which concerned 103 officers, were reported to the Security Council by the Secretary-General on 7 January (S/25078).

One officer, Mr. Boutros-Ghali stated, was "no longer a serving member of the Armed Forces". Of the remaining 102, it had been recommended that 26 should be transferred to other functions and 76 be discharged.

Measures taken with regard to 87 officers either complied fully with Commission recommendations or were "satisfactory in the circumstances". However, Mr. Boutros-Ghali concluded that the decisions to appoint seven officers as military attaches and defer action on eight others were "not in compliance with the Commission's recommendations".

Since his mandate was to "seek full compliance by each side with all the commitments" under the peace accords, the Secretary-General said he had asked El Salvador President Alfredo Cristiani to "take early action to regularize the position of the 15 officers".

Commission on the Truth report

On 15 March, a 210-page report on the worst and most widespread human rights violations in El Salvador between 1980 and July 1991 was made public at UN Headquarters by the three-member Commission on the Truth. That body was officially installed in July 1992 to investigate acts of violence committed by both sides during the conflict, which claimed an estimated 75,000 lives and resulted in more than a million refugees.

Introducing the report, Commission Chairman Belisario Betancur, former President of Colombia, told correspondents that "violence was a flame which had ravaged the roots of El Salvador" and "turned everything into destruction and death". The Commission hoped, however, that the lessons of the past would help Salvadorians to "build a new country and society", he added.

The other Commission members are Reinaldo Figueredo Planchart, former Venezuelan Foreign Minister, and Thomas Buergenthal, an American law professor.

Produced in Spanish, the report names the institutions and individuals responsible for serious human rights abuses. It calls for their immediate removal from their present posts and recommends that they be "barred from holding public office for 10 years

Individuals referred to include former Minister of Defence, General Rene Emilio Ponce (who resigned on 12 March), Vice-Minister General Orlando Zepeda, and other prominent members of the Salvadorian Army.

The report states that in November 1989 the above mentioned officers ordered the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her young daughter.

Some former FMLN leaders were deemed responsible for the assassination of more than 11 civilian mayors and should not be allowed to hold public office for a decade, the Commission recommended.

The document also contains wide-ranging recommendations aimed at reforming the justice system and the Armed Forces, as well as promoting human rights, democracy, the rule of law and national reconciliation.

Facing the truth

To overcome the "trauma of the war", the Salvadorians had to go through the "catharsis of facing the truth", Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali stated on 15 March at the report presentation ceremony. That had been the philosophy underlying the decision to establish the Commission and its mandate.

"There can be no reconciliation without the public knowledge of the truth", Mr. Boutros-Ghali stressed. "Let us not forget that catharsis, in its original meaning in the Greek, contains the idea of purification, and is associated with spiritual renewal and release of tension."

El Salvador had made "great strides" and its President deserved the "encouragement of the international community in his efforts", the Secretary-General continued. But he was also proud of the UN role, which epitomized the Organization's activity through an "integrated approach to peacemaking, peace-keeping and post-conflict peace-building".

Although the task of reunification of Salvadorian society was "far from over", the implementation of the peace accords stood out "in many ways as a shining example", Mr. Boutros-Ghali stated. "The historic occasion which brings us together here today is a further giant step towards national reconciliation in El Salvador. Now that the truth has been brought to light, the people of El Salvador can contemplate forgiveness."

To prevent violence

In welcoming the Commission report and its recommendations, the Security Council on 18 March noted that they were intended to "prevent the repetition of the acts of violence", as well as to "create confidence in the positive changes caused by the peace process and stimulate national reconciliation".

In a statement read by Council President Terence Christopher O'Brien of New Zealand, the body acknowledged the "sense of responsibility and cooperation" demonstrated by the Government and the FMLN to apply fully the peace accords.

At the same time, the Council underlined the need for the parties to comply with the Commission's recommendations, "as well as all other obligations which remain to be implemented". It called upon Salvadorian society to continue acting with responsibility, in order to contribute to the consolidation of internal peace and the maintenance of a "genuine and lasting atmosphere of national harmony".

Concern over amnesty law

In a 24 March statement, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali expressed concern over the amnesty law adopted by the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador on 20 March for people implicated in atrocities during the civil war.

Although an internal matter, the amnesty still related to the report of the Commission, which was, and remains, an integral part of El Salvador's peace settlement, Mr. Boutros-Ghali stated.

In his view, it would have been better if the amnesty had been taken "after a broad degree of national consensus had been created in favour of it". Since both parties formally undertook to carry out the Commission's recommendations, it was therefore "incumbent on both of them to use their best endeavours to ensure that no action is taken which is inconsistent" with those recommendations.

The Secretary-General attached importance to the "very early completion of action" to implement the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Commission on the purification of the Armed Forces--a "matter on which he is obliged to report further to the Security Council".

The European Community on 25 March also expressed concern (S/25484) over the amnesty's approval "before the full implementation of the Ad Hoc Commission's recommendations and before putting into effect the conclusions of the Commission on the Truth".

Its member States emphasized that such a step "should not prejudice the full implementation of the recommendations of the Commission on the Truth".

Other developments

The General Assembly on 16 March appropriated $17.2 million for the financing of the UN Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL) for the period from 1 December 1992 to 31 May 1993. Established by the Security Council on 20 May 1991 to monitor all agreements concluded between the Government and the FMLN, ONUSAL is expected to complete its work by mid-1994.

Augusto Ramirez Ocampo, former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Colombia and a former Assistant Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), was appointed as the Secretary-General's Special Representative in El Salvador and Chief of Mission of ONUSAL, effective 1 April.

In another development, some 2,400 Guatemalan refugees ended 12 years of exile in Mexico, as they began on 20 january a 900-kilometre journey home, under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The repatriation was a "giant step towards resolving refugee problems in Central America", said High Commissioner Sadako Ogata.

Integration efforts strengthened

A new mechanism--the Central American Integration System (SICA), established under the Tegucilgalpa Protocol of 13 December 1991--to strengthen integration in the region was launched on 1 February. The Presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama took that decision in adopting the Panama Declaration at the thirteenth summit meeting of Presidents of the Central American isthmus (9-11 December 1992, Panama City).

Attending as observers were the Prime Minister of Belize and the Vice-President of the Dominican Republic.

SICA is to elaborate general guidelines and strategies for regional development and coordinate policies in such fields as economy, external trade, democratization, health and agriculture.

The Declaration, among other things, states that the primary challenges for Central America are the "improvement of democracy, the consolidation of peace, access to international markets on equitable conditions and sustainable development with social justice". To meet those challenges, the region needs a "regional institutional framework and strategies for integrated development, encompassing the agricultural sector as the linchpin of regional economic revitalization", it was stated.

The Presidents also reaffirmed their commitment to make every possible effort to prevent their countries from becoming bases for drug trafficking, "resulting in destabilizing and destructive effects for society and violations of fundamental human rights".