UN observers, police team monitors Peace Accords.

A continued UN presence in El Salvador to ensure the successful implementation of the 1992 Peace Accords was instituted on 1 May, a day after the four-year UN Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL) had formally fulfilled its mandate.

An 18-member team of observers and civilian police consultants - the UN Mission in El Salvador (MINUSAL) - was to verify compliance with pending aspects of the Peace Accords, signed by the Government of El Salvador and the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) in January 1992 in Mexico City.

In those comprehensive agreements, which formally ended a 12-year civil war that had claimed some 75,000 lives and resulted in more than a million refugees, the parties pledged a new era of cooperation, democracy and prosperity.

ONUSAL was established by the Security Council on 20 May 1991 to monitor compliance with the 1990 San Jose Agreement on Human Rights between the Government and the FMLN. Subsequently, its mandate was substantially enlarged and its strength increased to enable it to verify the 1992 Peace Accords and later to observe El Salvador's elections in March and April 1994.

Resolution 991:

Irreversibility urged

The Security Council on 28 April, recognizing with satisfaction that El Salvador had "evolved from a country riven by conflict into a democratic and peaceful nation", urged the country's Government, the FMLN and all concerned to "ensure the irreversibility of the peace process".

By unanimously adopting resolution 991 (1995), it also urged them to accelerate the implementation of the Peace Accords and "work together to achieve fulfilment of outstanding commitments".

In welcoming the continued commitment of the Government and people of El Salvador to "reconciliation, stabilization and development of political life", the Council called on States and international institutions to continue providing them assistance "as they consolidate the gains made in the peace process".

A programme of work to complete the implementation of the Peace Accords - covering public security, land transfer, human settlements, reintegration, protection of the war-wounded and war-disabled, and legislative reforms - was signed by the Salvadorian parties on 27 April.

According to the Secretary-general (S/1995/407), the parties had agreed that the programme would be "evaluated periodically" by the UN, which would "attempt to differentiate between obstacles beyond the parties' control and negligence, distortions and omissions in fulfilling their commitments".

Significant improvement'

"Looking back, as ONUSAL comes to an end, it can be said that, together with the democratization of the country and the gradual institution-building which supports it, the human rights situation in El Salvador has, despite its vicissitudes and fragility, improved significantly", Reed Brody of the United States, Director of the ONUSAL Human Rights Division, reported on 18 April.

That was mainly to the credit of the Salvadorian people, who had opted for building the "rule of law by means of dialogue and understanding", he said. But the change in the human rights situation must be "consolidated and sustained over time".

On 30 March, the Legislative Assembly, on the Government's initiative and in compliance with the March 1993 recommendations of the Commission on the Truth, had ratified "two international instruments of paramount importance": the 1976 Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.