Good news from El Salvador.

THE REASON we have heard so little from El Salvador in the recent months is

that things are improving. The Salvadoran army has reined in the death squads, and the Communist guerillas, under pressure, have become more desperate. Although figures from the U.S. Embassy and the archdiocese of San Salvador differ markedly (they accuse each other of slanting the statistics; contradictions stem from differences in defining a particular incident as a human-rights abuse or a result of combat), it is undeniable that the killing of civilians by the "security forces" has declined dramatically.

Alvaro Magana, who was interim president of El Salvador while the present government was being formed, attributes the diminution of the death squads to the advent of democracy. "There have been a lot of forces at play in El Salvador that made [the armed forces] change completely. But the basic change has been in Salvadoran society and in what people expect from the armed forces." Magana added that as far as the United States' role is concerned, it is U.S. support for the Duarte government (including military aid) that has contributed to the change in climate, not the threats of an acid cutoff that the Administration's critics have encouraged.

Anotehr encouragin sign is that Americas Watch, a human-rights group that normally focuses on non-Communist abuses, has begun to notice the guerrillas. Americas Watch vice chairman Aryeh Neier, writing in the New York Times last month, listed as examples of Communist-inspired terrorism assassinations of right-wing politicians, the kidnapping of mayors in rebel-occupied outlands, and the June 19 killing of four Marines and nine civilians in San Salvador. Brutality by the Communist rebels is nothing new. Throughout 1984, they conscripted thousands of young Salvadorans to serve in their army. But now, at least, their pattern of terror is being acknowledged.