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YALE-UN ORAL HISTORY 
Alfredo Cristiani 
James Sutterlin, Interviewer 
July 25, 1997 
San Salvador, El Salvador 
James Sutterlin: This is a Yale Program interview with former President Alfredo 
Cristiani in San Salvador, E l Salvador, on July 25 t h, 1997, the interviewer is Sutterlin. 
Dr. Cristiani, in beginning this interview I will just mention that, as far as I 
understand it, the United Nations role in E l Salvador, in particular, was concentrated in 
four different areas. (1) in mediation, (2) in verification including peacekeeping, (3) in 
democratization, and finally (4) in economic development. The questions that I will be 
posing, the focus of our discussion, I think, will be on those four subjects. I wanted to 
mention, at the beginning, back in 1994 you had a very extensive interview with Tommy 
Sue Montgomery. I don't know if you remember that or not, a woman. 
Alfredo Cristiani: In '94? 
JS: In '94. Very extensive. An excellent interview. So, in some cases, we may be 
repeating things that you dealt with at that point. I will try not to. I have the interview 
and it's very interesting. The other thing I wanted to mention at the beginning, is that 
Perez de Cuellar has just completed his memoirs. They will be published next month. I 
helped to write them. Going through some of these questions, I may quote to you 
occasionally from what Perez de Cuellar had to say on the same subject, to stimulate your 
- perhaps, your differences. I would like to say that Mr. Perez de Cuellar speaks very 
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highly of your role. In fact he says that the peace process could not have succeeded in E l 
Salvador without Cristiani. So, with that in the background let me begin by posing a kind 
of historical question. That is, as you think of the peace process, the negotiating process 
that you were so deeply involved in, do you see that historically as a continuation of the 
earlier contacts that were initiated when Mr. Duarte was president with the F M L N or do 
you see it as stemming primarily from the Contadora initiative and the Arias plan? How 
do you see the genesis, so to speak, of the negotiations here? 
A C : I think everything has a little bearing, at least, in the negotiating process. 
However, my feeling is that the F M L N never had a sincere intention of negotiating 
politically until after the 1989 offensive. Prior to that it was simply playing politics. 
President Duarte never offered a process in itself. He simply called for direct contacts in 
a more or less - it really wasn't even a planned process - it was just whenever he thought 
that he could meet with them to try to talk for a one day period that he would do so. This 
is not trying to curtail his willingness to reach a political agreement. It was simply a way 
that he went about trying to get the F M L N involved in political negotiations. When 
offered the negotiating process as a way out, we had, prior to that, while we were 
president-elect, had discussed, I would say in quite detail with Father Ellacuria the idea 
about this process we would offer. Just for the sake of trying to be able to grasp a -1 
would say a sense of where the F M L N would be in their answer to such an offer - Father 
Ellacuria made one or two trips to Nicaragua and met with the Commandante, the five 
leaders of the different groups involved in the F M L N . He came back both times very 
frustrated with the result of those meetings, saying that he did not see a real willingness of 
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the F M L N . Obviously, politically they couldn't back out of it. But they were still betting 
on popular insurrection, at that time. This must have been between March and June of 
1989. Nevertheless, we offered the peace process and as everybody thought, the F M L N 
said yes. There were two meetings. One in September in Mexico, which was the first, 
and the second in October in Costa Rica. Two weeks later they were launching the 
biggest offensive of the twelve-year war and it was very obvious that they really had no 
intention of reaching any agreement. What they were looking for was a military takeover 
of power. So, I think that even though there maybe was a link in our negotiations and the 
Arias Plan, it wasn't until after that offensive that the F M L N , I think, really gave it a 
thought about being serious in looking for political agreement. I would think Contadora 
had a lot of bearing, but I think that Contadora was the starting point of Esquipulas, in a 
sense. Making Esquipulas a more autonomous effort when speaking about the Central 
American region. Contadora had countries outside of the region of involved. I think that 
Esquipulas II created a political pressure for democratization, for the end of armed 
conflict. As you probably know, the F M L N wanted to stay away from Esquipulas II as 
much as possible, saying that it was not a sincere and worthy effort. They always try to 
discredit the Esquipulas II effort. But I think that it did generate, regionally speaking, 
enough pressure for the negotiations to be successful. Especially after the offensive, 
Ortega could no longer deny his involvement with the Salvadorian war and him backing 
out of it within the Esquipulas II framework put more pressure on the F M L N . 
JS: Yes. That was my next question. What was the extent of influence you feel that 
external actors had, that is, in particular, the events in Nicaragua but also the almost 
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simultaneous events in Eastern Europe, the Berlin Wall coming down? Do you feel that 
these had an effect in terms of the negotiations? And i f so, how much? 
A C : Obviously, they did have - when the Communist ideology crumbled - they were 
left without an offer, because that is exactly what they were offering, the Salvadorians. 
So without being able to say "We are fighting for you because we want to give you this 
way of living in El Salvador," they had no way to get support from the Salvadorian 
people because everybody was aware that it had failed all over the world and that 
communism was crumbling down. So that does have an effect in making them look for a 
political solution. The events in Nicaragua - yes and no. I still believe that even if the 
war would have continued into Mrs. Chamorro's term, which fortunately it didn't, 
because she came into power when the F M L N was already willing to negotiate, but at the 
beginning, I think that she had no real control over the Sandinista army and it was 
through the Sandinista army that they were sending the weapons and receiving logistical 
support. So I don't think that that had much bearing but if we look at it from the 
perspective: "Well, i f we are trying to emulate the Sandinista revolution in E l Salvador, 
then how come the people of Nicaragua have just voted for the first time and voted 
against that Sandinista revolution? What are we really offering the Salvadorians?" So in 
some respects it did have a bearing, but I think that the strongest influence had to do with 
their realizing that they didn't have the support of the Salvadorian people, at least up to a 
popular insurrection level. Secondly, militarily they didn't have enough strength to take 
over the government. Now, in realizing this latter fact, with the Sandinistas and the 
Russians out of the picture, it obviously reinforced their acceptance of the fact that 
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militarily it was a lost cause. Unless they wanted to remain, as in Guatemala after the 
worst part of their war, and sort of linger into smaller groups and just stay as a sometimes 
active guerilla force. I don't think that this is what they really wanted. 
JS: The other external actor that you didn't mention is Cuba. How important was 
Cuba? 
A C : Cuba is the model. Obviously Russia couldn't be because we are more like 
Cubans than Russians. So Cuba had an effect. Castro is, within the Communist and 
Socialist groups of Latin America, a sort of "big boss." It was Castro who brought them 
together saying, "We are not going to support five isolated efforts, you have to come 
together and fight as one group." So he had a lot of bearing which was not very helpful. 
I believe that Castro was never really behind the negotiation efforts. 
JS: Which leads me to the next question because Perez de Cuellar always felt that it 
was desirable to bring Cuba, the United States and the Soviet Union directly into the 
negotiating picture. And in fact, he proposed that. And I believe the F M L N also 
considers that important. Then wanted to get Cuba involved. I don't know what your 
position was on that. Whether you were also pushing the Secretary-General to get 
directly involved or . . . 
A C : I didn't really feel that it would be necessary for the process to move forward. I 
obviously felt very strongly that agreements between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. - the 
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Soviet Union - would have a strong bearing as it did. But I think that, in a way, Castro, 
although he is not proving to be more independent than everyone thought before the fall 
of the Soviet Union, I still believe that he would not go against the Soviet Union, at least 
outwardly. So I didn't really feel that it was necessary. Besides, his involvement would 
have probably complicated things, because he would have tried to interfere with the 
negotiating process directly. The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. said "We support the process and 
will do everything for this process to continue, but we don't want to get involved in what 
to negotiate and what not." Castro is the type of person that would have probably sent 
people trying to get into the negotiation, which I believe was not the role that was needed. 
I think that the Five Friends, or Four Friends Plus One, as they called them, had a stronger 
impact because of their indirect involvement in it, just support of the process doing what 
was needed for the process to continue as swiftly as possible. So I didn't really feel that 
Fidel would have been that much help. 
JS: The Secretary-General and de Soto also felt that it would be desirable for the 
United States to have direct contact with the F M L N and Perez de Cuellar proposed that to 
Baker and actually to Bush. They said, "No, not until Cristiani agrees." As far as I know, 
you never agreed. But what was your thinking on that? 
A C : It really wasn't that I never agreed. It's what the contact should have as an 
objective was what we talked about. If it would have been a direct contact in such a way 
where it would be a bypass over the Salvadorian government, as to what the negotiations 
would deal with, we did not agree. Unfortunately, the F M L N would have taken that as a 
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sort of open door to do it or to try to do it. I think that the U.S., not as a government and 
not as a country, maybe would have gone into it - but people get involved and think that 
they can help and I think that they would have finally engaged in that. What I thought, 
and what I agreed to, was that there should be gestures; that the United States should give 
the F M L N confidence that even though the U.S. had been a supporter of a government 
and therefore an enemy of the F M L N , that if the negotiating process would come to an 
end, that the United States would be a guarantor of the agreement. That the United States 
would not be against such an agreement. So, to have a contact that would build up 
confidence. The first such contact which was visible was when we OK'd Ambassador 
Walker's trip to a settlement, a guerilla settlement, in the Northeast part of the country. 
So it wasn't that we disagreed totally, it was how these contacts - where should they 
move - that we were careful about. I think that the U.S. did exactly that. Tried to have 
contacts that would build confidence in the F M L N . 
JS: I think that one of the reasons that Perez de Cuellar wanted the U.S. to have direct 
contact was because of the rather intense criticism that the United States made of de Soto, 
Alvaro de Soto as not being impartial - of being partial towards the F M L N . The 
Secretary-General had the impression that was also your view. 
A C : He had the right impression. 
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JS: His idea was that if the Americans could talk directly, they would see what de 
Soto was doing was simply representing, in the course of the negotiations, what the 
F M L N was saying, not necessarily supporting them. What was your view on this? 
A C : I wouldn't say that de Soto would misrepresent the government's view or the 
F M L N ' s view in his pendular negotiation. But, in our view, he always sought for the 
government to give in more so than the F M L N . This was because of the way he would 
normally come up and wanted always us to, you know, a little bit more here, a little bit 
more there. Now, maybe this was not so obvious within the negotiating process itself. It 
became more obvious to me in the phase of complying with the agreements. As you 
probably know, between '92 and '94 -- we had three different representatives of the U N 
in E l Salvador. That's less than a year per representative that is normally longer - at least 
they go into a one-year contract. Invariably, the reason why these people did not want to 
continue their role is that their reports were always misrepresented by de Soto. So during 
that stage, it was obvious that he would always favor the F M L N , saying that things were 
wrong with the government and the F M L N was complying. With respect to the weapons 
of the F M L N , he was always saying that "No, he had the word of the F M L N , he counted 
on the F M L N ' s word with respect to the amount of weapons that they had turned in." 
JS: I want to ask you about your relations with Washington in this connection. And if 
I may, I will read you just a brief excerpt from Perez de Cuellar where he says that " A 
fairly complicating factor was the continuing distrust of the U N officers' team by 
President Cristiani and the more rightist element in his party and by influential officials in 
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the U.S. government. At the beginning of October, Bernard Aronson and Tom Pickering 
had a three-hour meeting with de Soto, during which Aronson laid out in detail U.S. 
complaints about the way the United Nations was handling the negotiations. Mr. 
Aronson said that as the Secretary-General had suggested, the U.S. government had given 
signals to the Cubans that it was willing to cooperate with them for the purpose of the 
peace. It had now given visas to the F M L N , but it was frustrated that the Secretary-
General was not playing the role of mediator for which he had been empowered by the 
Geneva Agreement. The Secretary-General or de Soto should put forward proposals and 
force the parties to accept or reject them. Mr. Aronson summarized the U.S. position in 
five points. The Secretary-General should play a more visible role stressing the urgency 
of the situation, a strict calendar for non-stop negotiations should be put into effect, as de 
Soto had suggested. With the participation on the F M L N side of what Joaquin Villalobos 
a multi-party negotiation commission, again as de Soto had suggested, should be 
established if the end-game scenario was in place and enhancement of de Soto's role as a 
mediator capable of threatening the parties that they would pay a price for not accepting 
his efforts, and five, supporting the Security Council." That was the U.S. position as he 
expressed it to de Soto. The same day, Perez de Cuellar met with Secretary Baker and 
President Bush and discussed this same subject. Perez de Cuellar noted that, "I had 
discussed the problem recently with President Cristiani who I felt was a good and honest 
man. He was making every possible effort, despite his difficulty with the army and the 
right wing. I had suggested to him the idea of including some of the opposition parties in 
the government delegation in order to lend credibility to the government's position." The 
question is, in all of this, to what extent were you working with the U.S. Administration, 
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with the State Department and White House in these positions that Aronson . . . Also, 
what was your attitude towards the multi-party delegation? 
A C : No. I would never have accepted the idea that the U N should make suggestions -
and it was an either/or thing - unless it would have been in the mechanics of the process, 
but not on - the issues within the negotiations. We never accepted, in that respect, the 
true meaning of mediator where the mediator would finally put forth the agreement and 
both sides would accept. It was more of an intermediation effort. 
JS: I wanted to ask you about that. 
A C : We thought that the U N should make suggestions as to how to get the two 
positions as close as possible and acceptable for both parties. Which is different than 
putting, "Okay, this is my solution" to the idea. With respect to that, I imagine it was in 
September of '91. I would agree in that sense with respect to the mechanics, it was 
necessary for the U N to say, "Wait a minute, let's make a halt," which is what happened 
in New York in September. We cannot go on and on and on bringing new issues to the 
table. Because once you solve one issue i f somebody else brings a new issue then there is 
a never ending sort of a process. The idea of having the U N saying, "We want you to 
meet, we want to discuss whatever is left of the agenda and make a clear statement of 
what the negotiations should entail from now on and nobody can add anything else to it," 
that was the only reason I accepted to go to the U N for ten days to try to reach such an 
agreement. Because that would really make the negotiating process much shorter. The 
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F M L N kept on bringing issues and wanted to discuss new issues every time. When we 
reached an agreement on one a new thing popped up. I think, unfortunately, in that 
respect, the U N did not put a stop to that. He kept bringing in and accepting these new 
issues on the table. I think that if that was the intention of the U.S. to put forward a 
proposal on how to speed up the negotiations even though I always, in my conversations 
with Aronson or Baker or with President Bush, I always said that this thing seems to be a 
never ending process and I always told him that we felt that the F M L N would keep on 
including new issues. 
With respect to a multi-party, I would not have accepted either. I think that the 
parties played a role, a very important role, with respect to the constitutional reform but 
going beyond that in other issues it would probably have delayed the process. Because 
we have so many parties everyone would like to be a hero saying that their proposal was 
the one that got us to the final stage that it would have been very complicated to deal 
with. Besides, the political parties turned down that offer. It was the first offer I made in 
trying to form the negotiating committee. I remember the Christian Democrats coming 
up to me and saying that they would not participate because it was an idea that was "born 
dead." So we had offered the political parties and they did not accept. I think it was for 
the best. Maybe I was wrong in trying to reach such a deal. The F M L N did not like the 
political parties. As you might know, even the U N - well, Alvaro de Soto - got 
extremely mad because the inter-party committee - they had a name, Interpartidaria -
went up to Mexico in April of '91 and they told the F M L N : "Wait a minute, we have 
discussed among us, and i f it's drafting the constitution or reforming the constitution, 
you've got to accept our role because we are in the National Assembly and we are the 
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ones approving these reforms so you might as well take this into consideration." De Soto 
was mad because the political parties showed up. I think that the most important, the 
most difficult, of the agreements was reached in April of '91. That was the Constitutional 
agreement. The rest is what we call "carpinteria," I don't know how to say it in English. 
JS: Woodwork. 
A C : Woodwork around the real issue. 
JS: I wanted to pursue this question of the difference between mediator and 
intermediary because the way it is written in this book suggests that in fact de Soto, 
representing the Secretary-General, did in fact present a number of papers that were the 
basis ultimately of a good part of the agreement, particularly on human rights. 
A C : Which was the least ingenious of the agreement. 
JS: I just wanted to ask you about this. Because it is not just an issue in El Salvador 
but elsewhere. 
A C : Let me try, I know that there is a fine line between the roles. I think that even 
though de Soto presented papers, it was not a "take it or leave it" proposal, it was more of 
a working document. That we agreed on. Because that working document could be 
trashed completely or, i f it had good things, worked on. A lot of the ideas that de Soto 
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came up with were finally adopted as part of the agreement. It wasn't that it was a useless 
role, sometimes it became very handy and useful. Where I place the fine line is that when 
you talk about mediation sometimes what the mediator will do is listen to both sides and 
then decide on where the agreement should stand. That's a take it or leave it situation. 
You can agree on that or disagree on that. That would have been a mess. I think that this 
pendular role that he played even within a working session - at night he would try to draft 
things differently or try to pick up ideas that he heard at the table and put it - rephrase 
them in some way or another, but then bringing it as a working document for the next 
meeting. I call that inter-mediation because there is no take it or leave it situation. I'm 
not sure whether I define the terms correctly, but that is how I differentiate. 
JS: I think it's good to make that clear. 
A C : As a matter of fact, when we invited the Secretary-General the word was inter?
mediate not mediate. 
JS: You know the Cyprus negotiations collapsed on this very issue long ago. I wanted 
to take now that question a little further. Again, the United States, with the support, 
eventually, of the Soviet Union, pushed very hard for Perez de Cuellar to assume direct 
leadership of the negotiations and, in fact, replace de Soto. Perez de Cuellar refused. 
Were you urging this also? In other words was your influence being felt in Washington 
or not? 
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A C : I didn't think it was necessary all the time. I think there were specific times where 
he should have appeared personally. I think that in the final round which was December 
of '91 it was very obvious that his role was helpful in bringing an agreement right before 
midnight of December 31 s t. So, i f in other instances, that could have been something that 
could have happened, I think that we would have probably saved some time during the 
other meetings. I'm not sure that in the long run what happened, you know, having 
always something to fall back at the U N level was also helpful. I would not have 
necessarily said that I wanted to push for a . . . 
JS: You might be interested in - actually this was discussed at the White House and 
again Bush was pushing the Secretary-General and the Secretary-General was trying to 
explain why he wouldn't do it. This is just of possible interest to you. Bush said, "I don't 
understand, why these people, the F M L N , should have equal standing, the elections in El 
Salvador were free and fair and Cristiani is doing his best. Why should the F M L N have 
the same standing at the table?" That was Bush's complaint to Perez de Cuellar. Perez 
de Cuellar sought to explain, "Well, we have to be impartial at the U N . We did not make 
a distinction between the F M L N and the government." I am just wondering though if 
these thoughts that Bush expressed here, i f you had similar thoughts. 
A C : Maybe, in a way, we are - this had more to do with de Soto than Perez de Cuellar, 
himself. Let me start by saying this. We were the ones that offered the process to 
negotiate a way out. We were practically sitting with them on the other side of the table 
from us. Nevertheless, the U N , or at least a representative of the U N , should be more 
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favorable in saying "a government cannot even start to talk about this," and not waiting 
for the government to really say, "Wait a minute, I can't do that. I 'll never discuss this 
with the F M L N , this is not possible." Or even explaining to the F M L N , at least trying to 
do something with the F M L N , saying, "Listen, you know, the government simply cannot 
accept this from anybody, you have to understand that." But the problem was that I don't 
think that de Soto ever understood what we were looking for. Because I don't think he 
agreed with us, why or how can you justify this war and I think he never really 
understood why we were willing to sit down with the F M L N . The only reason they had 
was that when they took up arms, they had no political space. But that's it. Once there is 
political space for them, I'm not giving them anything else. Why treat them more 
favorable than any other political party? Not only our own, but the other political parties 
that were working within the democratic framework. In that respect, I think that we 
always had a complaint that it wasn't two sides, it was a government, in representation of 
the rest of the political parties that had been willing to work within the democratic 
framework in E l Salvador, regardless how imperfect or incipient it was, and that they 
treated the F M L N as a counterpart. It really wasn't. The F M L N had to be seen, and was 
not by Alvaro de Soto, as simply - in that case a political group that had weapons and 
what we were trying to do is guaranteeing them that without weapons they now had a 
space within the political framework of the country in which to work. There is a subtle 
difference between how the U N should have seen the government and how they should 
have seen the F M L N . This is a political group and I am trying to bring them into this big 
framework that I am, right now, at the head of for reasons that the people wanted me to 
be. It's not that this government is fighting this group. I wasn't behind that. I never had 
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a fight with anybody. So it wasn't our government that was fighting. We already found 
the thing there. I think that those things were not understood by de Soto and sometimes 
were confused on how they should treat the government and how they should treat the 
F M L N . 
JS: Bush expressed it rather directly, in his conversation. 
A C : He can afford to. Third world countries don't have the clout to do so. 
JS: When you did go to New York in September, did you have a sense that there were 
one or two basic issues that needed to be overcome, that things had reached a point where 
there was one or two basic things that needed to be resolved and if resolved would bring 
success? 
A C : Yes. First of all, I think that the clarification of the agenda issues was extremely 
important. To say that, "From now on nobody brings and says anything else but this." 
Even going a little bit further and saying "What we mean by this is that we should work 
in trying to reach this sort of general framework of an agreement." Obviously, within 
those issues left, there were very sticky issues. I think that one that took a lot of time and 
really wasn't that sticky was the national police. What was sticky was the transition. I 
think, after what we experienced in the country, I would say that i f I were to change 
something in the agreements, I would change the transition from the old to the new 
police. The country was left exposed to the delinquency for a while and we had no 
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security forces within the country to work with. Obviously, things like the Ad Hoc 
Committee was another big issue; the cease-fire mechanism, how it would work, but I 
was always very optimistic that after signing the constitutional agreement, the F M L N had 
lost any excuse to continue waging. Because you can recall the F M L N saying why they 
did not accept the democratic process that started in '82 or '84 after the new constitution 
was written. It was because they believed themselves to be a representative of a large 
portion of Salvadorians and they did not participate in the drafting of the constitution. 
That was always their excuse why they could not accept, even though they sometimes 
have to accept because there were free and fair elections because everybody in the world 
was in E l Salvador watching them and everybody said they looked free and fair. After 
April of '91 they lost that excuse. They had now participated in the drafting of the new 
constitutional framework of the country. There were sticky issues but I always felt good 
after April of '91. 
JS: You felt that at that point that the basic question of the reintegration of the F M L N 
into E l Salvadorian society was resolved? 
A C : That they now had the framework that they had worked with the rest of the 
political parties within which to work . . . 
JS: I want to move ahead. I know that you don't have too much time. To move from 
completion of the negotiations with Perez de Cuellar to the next stage which was 
implementation, when there was not just a succession of representatives in E l Salvador 
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but there was a different Secretary-General. I have two questions, there. You dealt with 
them both. Did you find any difference between... 
END OF SIDE ONE OF TAPE 
START OF SIDE TWO OF TAPE 
JS: . . . Perez de Cuellar and Boutros-Ghali in the ways they were dealing with your 
problems? 
A C : There were two totally different stages. Perez de Cuellar did the negotiating part 
and Boutros-Ghali the compliance part, the implementation part. I thought that they both 
had a very positive attitude toward making a successful story out of El Salvador's 
process. They were committed to the peace process in the country. I think that what 
happened was that for Perez de Cuellar it was more of an important issue, in a way. He 
was leaving - he wanted this thing to be successful - he wanted to see it through. 
Whereas Boutros-Ghali - although he always was very positive toward it - I'm pretty 
sure it wasn't really as high on his agenda as it was with Perez de Cuellar, because he 
didn't start the process, he got in there in the middle of it. I think that no matter whether 
there were two different Secretaries-General, the basic representative kept on being the 
same one. 
JS: De Soto? 
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A C : Yes. He was sort of a link between one and the other. 
JS: I was going to ask you that because actually Boutros-Ghali sent Goulding a couple 
of times rather than de Soto. 
A C : Well, at the end, he realized that we would get much further on with Goulding 
than with de Soto. I think Goulding was a lot more clear-cut. 
JS: Even though he was not really familiar with the territory. 
A C : Well, I think he was - let me tell you - there was a big issue with respect to the 
land program. I think Goulding was able to handle an issue that I think de Soto would 
either have taken a lot longer or complicated things a lot more. I think that Marrack 
Goulding was - he sort of understood much better what the reality was. 
JS: Because he did develop the plans for the land transfer and eventually the 
Secretary-General presented it to you and which both sides accepted. Has that proved to 
be a sound plan? 
A C : Yes. When you plan an agreement, such an extensive agreement, without starting 
the implementation of something - once you start implementing things you have to 
change a few things here and there. But I think it went on without having the agreement 
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in itself being the problem - it was the implementation and our laws and other things that 
made it last so long in implementation. So I think it was a good agreement that was 
reached. Now that I see backwards, now the F M L N wants that land for free. They don't 
want to pay for it any more. The government hasn't said, "You have to comply with the 
peace agreement, you have to pay for it, because the agreement was the buying of land 
and not giving away." 
JS: While we are still on the subject of U N personalities. In COPAZ, the 
representative of the U N was Blanca Antonini. What were the feelings here about the 
U N participation in COPAZ? 
A C : I wasn't involved in COPAZ, but after seeing that everybody in COPAZ liked her, 
I think she was able to work with a very heterogeneous group of politicians. There is a 
bill in Congress, I don't know whether it passed or not yet, honoring her for her role in 
COPAZ. 
JS: Oh, really! She is working on U N reform. Maybe she will do as well with that as 
she did with E l Salvador. 
A C : You know Blanca was with de Soto during the entire negotiating process. I 
always thought more in a note taker role - trying to keep up with what Shafik Handal and 
Oscar Santamaria were saying during the meetings. 
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JS: Incidentally, going back for just a minute. I have to ask you a kind of indiscreet 
question. De Soto certainly and Perez de Cuellar got the impression, you know, that this 
is probably an explanation about the de Soto's and perhaps partiality toward the F M L N . 
The question is you followed the technique of sending a delegation of hard-liners, of 
people who in fact had very little leeway to make any concessions at all and to hold up 
until you, yourself, could become involved and take a reasonable position? What do you 
say to that? 
A C : It is totally incorrect. I'm sure that if you talk to Oscar Santamaria, David Escobar 
Galindo, even General Vargas, you would say that they were more of a moderate group 
than hard-liners. 
JS: I have to say, we did interview Galindo and definitely saw him as serving as the 
moderate not a hard-liner. So that is what I expected your reaction would be. 
A C : Not being personally involved or directly involved with the F M L N was a matter 
of - in a way - saying: "I'm going to send them a team they could work with," but I never 
agreed with Duarte meeting people that were outside of the law - and they were outside 
of the law by every means. 
JS: I'd like to go on now to what is this large area really of democratization of which 
there were various aspects. You had the Truth Commission and the whole human rights 
operation on the part of ONUSAL and I believe that there was a special person designated 
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by the United Nations to work with the government as an expert on human rights. 
ONUSAL also, then, played a rather important role in monitoring the elections in '94 and 
in making some pretty direct suggestions. In other words, coming fairly close to direct 
intervention in the domestic affairs of El Salvador. I wanted to get your reaction to all of 
this. What was the ultimate effect in terms of the prospects of democracy in El Salvador 
of these actions taken by the United Nations? 
A C : Because human rights here had been politicized, somewhat. The left always used 
it to accuse the government. I was in the opposition with respect to President Duarte but I 
am pretty sure that he never ordered anybody shot or his rights violated. That is not to 
say that human rights violations did not go on in the country while he was president. But 
he didn't condone them or he didn't want them to happen. There wasn't a government 
policy to break human rights. Neither was ours. But since the issue of human rights had 
been used for political purposes I think that the role of the U N here was very important to 
overcome all these huge politicized issues going back so many years - so I think that was 
very helpful to have - that group here. 
JS: Did you think that ONUSAL did that part of its j ob well? 
A C : Yes. We had some very difficult issues to deal with. As you remember, there 
were three or four F M L N persons that were assassinated very close after the agreements 
were signed. The first reaction of the F M L N was that the government was annihilating 
the opposition. I think that ONUSAL being here, saying, "Wait a minute, it could be true, 
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but you have to investigate further to see if it is true before you start blaming each other." 
In a way to sort of stop these impulsive reactions every time something happened that 
everybody was a human rights violator here in the country. That allowed for things like 
investigations to go on and in some cases, say, "Well, this guy committed a crime for . . ." 
and in other cases saying, "This had nothing to do with politics. This guy ran into some 
other guy's car and they got into a quarrel and they shot him. It had nothing to do with 
politics." I think it was very, very helpful. I think without a team like that here, those 
issues could have been highly explosive for the starting of the reconciliation process and 
the strengthening of democracy which was really the end objective of the whole effort. I 
think that was very helpful. 
I'm afraid that I can't be as positive as that with the Truth Committee. I think, in 
some ways, they went a little too far, beyond what the process called for. For instance, i f 
the objective of the peace process was to have the F M L N participate in the democratic 
process without weapons, obviously these people wanted to be diputados or presidents of 
the country. For the Truth Committee to have as a punishment, the non-participation in 
politics for a ten-year period of these people really not understanding what the process 
was all about. The inevitable came about. The F M L N and the government got together 
and said, "This is nonsense, what these guys said." We went up to the U N - we didn't go 
to New York - we told the representative here saying "Listen, this is our agreement. We 
both now agree not to comply with this recommendation and we are not going to. Since 
it is our agreement and we can agree to disagree." That is what finally happened. 
Because although it listed only the top names of one of the groups it was obvious that all 
the five groups were involved in human rights violations. How are you going to say to 
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the F M L N leadership "For ten years you are out of politics"? It was simply going the 
wrong way. 
JS: In broader terms, leaving out the U N role, but this question of the Truth 
Commission, do you feel that it is essential to have this type of investigation and 
ultimately publication in order to provide a basis for the reintegration of society within a 
democratic government? 
A C : I don't see it as an imperative. 
JS: You do not. 
A C : I think we would have moved forward as much as we have with or without that 
report. As a matter of fact, that report had in the public image very little bearing. I think 
that some of the recommendations they made with respect to the judicial reform, some 
were very good, some not so good. But, in all, their proposals, I think, were going 
towards strengthening the independence and strengthening the judicial system as a whole. 
But with respect to investigating past crimes and telling people what had happened. I'm 
not sure that that is so necessary - or at least would have been necessary for our case 
because the population was very clear as to what had happened. Maybe I'm going too far 
saying that it would not be helpful in another case. It was probably like a best seller. It's 
in the news for a month and then a new best seller comes out and everybody starts reading 
the new best seller. Publicly speaking, that's what really happened to that report. 
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Nobody really even remembers it. Only the recommendations remained on the table 
during the implementation stage. 
JS: When Boutros-Ghali - what he said, and this is relevant, obviously, to what's 
happening in South Africa and many other places. But he said that, "Now that the truth 
has been brought to light, the people of E l Salvador can contemplate forgiveness." You 
don't think that was . . . 
A C : What I am trying to say is that, with respect to the investigations, I am not sure 
that we didn't know what the Truth Committee came up with. Because we are a very 
small country everybody knows everybody here and everybody here is like my compadre, 
you know, everybody knows what goes on in El Salvador. It's very difficult to hide 
things here. 
JS: The truth was known in other words. 
A C : That aspect I'm not sure that it was really that helpful. Even before the Truth 
Committee came up with a report, I'm pretty sure that the Salvadorian society was ready 
to forgive. They might have not been ready to forget - but I think to forgive. If they were 
willing to forgive - it's everybody - not just this group or that group or whatever. Let's 
forgive everything and let's start a new era in the country. 
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JS: And that has happened? What about the ONUSAL work with the police-the 
transformation of the police? 
A C : Not only ONUSAL, I must say that, in this respect, I think it has been the support 
of a lot of countries. Obviously, the U N was very helpful in getting countries to 
cooperate and the PNC has received a lot of support from a lot of countries. 
JS: USAID, I think, for example, gave money. 
A C : That's their only project. Spain, Chile, Mexico supported in the beginning - the 
Europeans, French, some Italians, some British. I think the best help that the U N made in 
that respect was to get all these countries to work together in a coordinated fashion 
towards setting up, on the one hand, the Academy, and the other hand the police itself. 
It's not been easy to start from scratch and build a new security force for a country. It was 
very complicated. 
JS: This was one of those cases, in fact it was the first case, where the U N sent a 
whole police battalion, so to speak - civilian police to work with a country. 
A C : Obviously, some countries decided to come down independently and others 
decided they would put on the UN's uniform and work with that uniform. But obviously, 
it is the different police forces of these countries that brought their know-how into how to 
help our national police. In a way, i f we did not have the U N , we would not have all the 
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variety of support and - each police has it's good things and its bad things and here we 
were able to bring in a lot of experiences of what the good things were and try to put them 
together. A lot of manpower was necessary - for teachers - who we were going to use 
locally to teach courses in the new Police Academy? 
JS: As you say, there were many countries and many institutions involved in this. I 
wanted to ask you specifically about the U N organizations that were active here, 
including the World Bank. How did you feel that they worked together or did they work 
together at all? How was the coordination - how was the total effect of all of the 
different U N organizations that were here? 
A C : I really don't see the World Bank as involved in the peace process itself. We had 
been working since 1989 with the World Bank in a different area. I think, indirectly 
though, the World Bank, UNDP, the U N in general, were very helpful in gathering 
countries to help financially to have these agreements complied with. The amounts of 
money, especially at the beginning that the U N was able to get for the compliance of the 
agreements was obviously very important. We probably could not have made it without 
all that financial aid coming into the country - in the area of 800 million dollars. 
JS: On the other hand, the U N itself, particularly in the person of Alvaro de Soto, was 
quite critical of the lack of coordination between what the World Bank was doing here 
and what the UNDP was doing particularly in agricultural policy. Did you see such a 
problem? 
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A C : I don't think the World Bank had to do anything. I never heard of the World Bank 
coming in and trying to do something with respect to agricultural policy in a country. 
JS: There was conditionality, I think, in terms of the funds they provided. 
A C : I don't think that in our five years that we ever made use of one cent of the 
standby loan of the World Bank. It was just simply a way of getting recognition that 
macro-economically speaking we were doing things the right way and we would therefore 
be seen as a good recipient of international loans from other sources. But we never used 
the World Bank's loan. I don't know if that has continued that way. 
JS: No, the period I was talking about was, in fact, the earlier period. I think UNDP 
was helping to finance some of the land transfer program. I actually don't know, but de 
Soto wrote a whole article about it that appeared . . . 
A C : As a matter of fact, just to be fair, also with the World Bank and IMF, we received 
a lot of, I would say, not recognition - but in a way understanding that in '92 the peace 
process was more important than macro-economic policy. Even though we had 
negotiated a certain target for an inflation rate and government spending and deficit, 
etceteras, we were going to need more spending to comply with the peace agreements, so 
we went up to both of them and said "Listen, you are going to have to accept that we are 
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not going to comply with our agreement and because this is more important for the 
government." We never were rejected by the IMF, nor the World Bank. 
JS: You found understanding, then? 
A C : Yes, and you see our inflation rate from '89 to '91 coming down - then you see 
the '92 going up - we never had a problem with either of the two institutions. Because 
they understood that there was something more important for that particular year that 
macro-economic policy. So, I'm not sure what de Soto meant. 
JS: I'm glad to hear your comments on that. I am just going to ask one more 
question. This is a very specific question. I don't know whether you are familiar with it 
or not. E l Salvador has achieved one thing that I think no other country has achieved 
that's had an internal war. You have more or less solved the problem of land mines. 
Again, UNICEF, I believe, helped with that, to a certain extent among the U N family. 
How did you do this, how did you go about the approach to land mines? 
A C : We put out a bid for experts in de-mining zones in the country. When we finally 
chose one, the problem was getting the funds for it - which we didn't have at that time. 
We talked to the F M L N and the armed forces and said "If you guys help, we will go 
ahead with it and we will see how we pay for it later." We told UNICEF, "We are going 
to do this, but you will have to go around the world with your agencies trying to look for 
the moneys to pay for this." Both the F M L N and the armed forces - this was the first task 
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force working together after the peace agreements with this Belgian company. I think 
that, probably, doing it as early as possible made it possible for everybody to remember 
where they had mined. If you would allow time to pass, locations would be forgotten. 
JS: Returning to the agreement you reached here in New York, the one in September. 
It was difficult for you to accept that in some ways, you were subject to a lot of criticism 
when you came back to San Salvador. The question is, "How were you able to keep your 
party together at that time?" 
A C : I'm going to go beyond the specific question of September because everybody 
seems to think that I had a "lesion," had pain with the party. This is not so. I'm sure a lot 
of people won't believe now, but I'm glad that people like Bernie Aronson believe it now 
- Major d'Aubisson who everybody thought was a real hard-liner and the head of the 
party, was against the peace process and against the negotiations. It is totally incorrect. 
The guy was all for it. I know it is hard for some people to believe that that is true but 
that is exactly true and I never had any problem with the party. I'm sure that there are 
people who vote for A R E N A , or i f you ask them what party they belong to they would 
say A R E N A , I have had a group of women who called me a traitor for negotiating. But 
the party itself, as an institution, as a whole, with d'Aubisson being for the peace process 
there was no way I had any problem with the party. He would take care of all the 
problems. I never really had much of a worry with trying to keep the party together. I 
always kept the party very involved and informed. One of the techniques that we used 
was - for instance, in the Judicial issue -1 had people from the Supreme Court, from the 
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lawyer's associations, you know, "This is what's at stake here, why don't you give me 
recommendations." We had seven groups within the armed forces. Each group had one 
member from every rank, one being a sub-lieutenant, a lieutenant, a major, a lieutenant 
colonel, a colonel, discussing each of the issues that had to do with the armed forces 
chapter. "What are your recommendations?" I would try to get everybody to sort of 
"give me their ideas on this." And I would go back to them - you know, "Your idea was 
a good one, I will accept it," "This one wasn't we have to change it." I never felt that we 
had problems with people here. People imagined more of a problem than was really 
there. 
JS: In that connection, did you have a sense that some people in your military had 
direct contact with some people in Washington on the military side or the CIA? 
A C : In those days, every barrack here had quite a few US personnel. 
JS: But you didn't have difficulty bringing in and maintaining unity, so to speak? 
A C : Not within the party. Obviously, it was a lot more difficult with the armed forces, 
because the armed forces - although there is a leadership, that leadership is always 
questioned. Because it is hand picked by the President and not sort of elected by them. I 
am talking about the Minister, the Vice Minister, and two chiefs of staff. After every 
meeting between the F M L N and our negotiating team, I had a meeting with all the 
commanders. This is what happened - this is why - this is how this went. "What do you 
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think?" We got their feedback. I'm sure that some of them didn't agree with what we 
were doing but they - as all army officers should be where obedient to their higher-
ranking officers. 
JS: That's very interesting. Again, that is quite different from the impression that 
existed. 
A C : Maybe we gave the wrong impression. 
JS: Maybe it was helpful negotiating tactics. 
A C : Well, that certainly was. The only instance I can think of that had to do with 
trying to influence us in accepting something within the Constitutional Reform 
Agreement. It had to do with Article 248 that deals with how the Constitution can be 
reformed. After I explained why I could not accept what the F M L N was proposing, there 
were no more calls. Everybody thinks that the U.S. sort of put the agenda forward -
accept this, accept this, accept that. No, it was totally wrong. Very wrong impression. 
I'm not sure whether that was more of a local impression than outside. But locally, 
everybody thought that the U.S. was forcing the government to accept what they felt 
should be acceptable. But we never had any pressure from anybody in the U.S. 
government nor Congress. 
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JS: That's interesting, because in the U N again, the impression was rather the 
opposite, namely, that the U.S. government was under some pressure from your 
government to press the Secretary-General to take over. 
A C : Not really take over. But, I think, we agreed with the U.S. government, that 
Alvaro de Soto was sometimes a problem and not a solution. In some instances, the 
direct presence of the Secretary-General could be helpful. 
END OF SIDE TWO OF TAPE 
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