The celebration of 15 years since the signing of the Peace Accords in El Salvador has been officially announced for January 16. This event is promoted by the Salvadoran government with the participation of the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) – now a political party –;the attendance of the General Secretary of the United Nations is expected.

Various social sectors, amongst them, disabled veterans, ex-soldiers and ex-combatants, have expressed their disagreement with a political and historical act of this nature deserving any celebration, given the stalling or even reversals observed in important achievements of the Accords, as well as the continuation of the structural conditions that led to the armed conflict.

Likewise, in spite of the United Nations having registered the Peace Accords as concluded in El Salvador in 1997, in fact some aspects of the Accords were never completed, while important recommendations of bodies derived from the negotiations have not been respected. The General Secretary of the UN at the time, Boutros Ghali himself, in his final verification report of the year 1997, highlighted significant instances of failure to fulfill, not just in the aspect of public security, but also in human rights and the administration of justice, with special emphasis on the failure to fulfill the recommendations of the Truth Commission.

The most notable achievements of the Accords were, without doubt, the end of the armed confrontation, the demobilization of the apparatus of state violence which had operated for decades, and the conversion of the guerrilla military force of the FMLN into a legally recognized political party. Nevertheless, it is considered that rather than a celebration of the signature of a political agreement between the warring parties which put an end to the armed conflict, it is an opportunity to analyze the Peace Accords, their fulfillment and lack of fulfillment, and their real contribution in the current national scenario.

The period of 15 years is long enough to make a more adequate evaluation of the process, the actors and the possible evolutions, starting from the hopes which the signing of the Accords generated in Salvadoran society for creating the necessary conditions for advances toward a profound transformation of the State, looking toward “democratization, unrestricted respect of human rights and the reunification of Salvadoran society”, as was established as the ultimate objective of the process by the negotiating parties in the so-called Geneva Accord, in April 1990.

With the Peace Accords the idea arose of building a democratic, Salvadoran State and a new period was opened, creating expectations that it would contribute to progressive transformation of the condition of political exclusion of various sectors and, starting from their insertion, to promote changes for the socio-economic welfare of the population. And with that it was considered that the Accords constitute the beginning of a new political system, which gave footing to the “expression of the new consensus of the nation, which implies a new social pact, a kind of re-foundation of the State and the Salvadoran nation."

One of the most complete formulations of these achievements, was that produced by professor Pedro Nikken, Independent Expert for El Salvador at the UN Commission on Human Rights, who expressed that: “The Peace Accords . . . were not limited to resolving the military issues but also constituted a dense program of reforms destined to attack some of the deep causes of the conflict, to guarantee respect for human rights and to push forward the democratization of the country . . . “

Nevertheless, the vision of the Peace Accords, beyond ending the armed confrontation and the dismantling of the conflict, did not really achieve the democratic transformation of the Salvadoran State. The changes oriented to forging new democratic institutions, contemplated in the Accords, have been the most unattended and unfulfilled.

Regression has been observed in the structures of the National Civil Police (PNC), the Office for the Defence of Human Rights (PDDH), the office of the Attorney General of the Republic, the courts, the fiscal tribunal, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and the Legislative Assembly. Also, a tendency has been revealed toward authoritarian practices and violation of human rights, in the recently approved “National Defense Law”, the “Special Law Against Acts of Terrorism” and the “Law Against Organized Crime and Infractions of Complex Execution”.

Moreover, the Accords further deteriorated with the involvement of the military, from 1993, in public security functions, and the flat rejection by the military of the report of the Truth Commission. This process has continued to the point where, at present, the Armed Forces have taken greater control of the PNC.

Another aspect with undisputable consequences for the country is the fact that El Salvador is the only Latin American nation that persists in maintaining military troops in Iraq.

The Salvadoran government explains that the country's military presence in Iraq is in response to the call of the United Nations, implying that the military aggression against that sovereign country has the legal backing of the Security Council of the international body. Nevertheless, in his very recent departure speech, in the headquarters of the UN in Geneva, Kofi Annan admitted that: “ . . . the war in Iraq was the saddest event of his 10 years in office, amongst other things because the United Nations was not able to prevent it . . . “.

While he was visiting El Salvador last year, the ex Secretary for Defense of the United States, Donald Rumsfeld, praised progress in the country, saying, “The movement of humanity is on the road to freedom. We have seen it in El Salvador, we have seen it in Afghanistan and I believe we will see it in Iraq.”

The country emerged from a civil war backed by the United States, and is besides the second largest recipient of military aid and the eleventh in the list of arms buying, acquiring a total of 46.8 million dollars in armament between the years 2000 and 2003. During the civil war, in which 75,000 people were assassinated in the course of 12 years, Washington contributed 1.5 million dollars per day in economic and military aid.

The biggest shortcoming of the Peace Accords has been that related to the protection of the economic and social rights of the population, despite agreement on the creation of the Social Consensus Forum.

The fulfillment of the Peace Accords in economic and social issues is indispensable, particularly with reference to the distribution of land; the granting of credit and technical support to small farm producers, and to small and micro business; the suppression of monopoly practices, social investment, the true functioning of the Forum for Economic and Social Consensus, and programs for disabled war veterans.

To reach that objective it is necessary to increase tax collection, through combating fiscal evasion, practiced mainly by large companies and the total of which is almost equal to the annual amount collected. It is particularly important to reiterate that the current Higher Council of Labour is not a substitute for the Forum for Economic and Social Consensus, since it has no decision-making power, does not address issues singled out in the Peace Accords, and supports the policy of the government.

The end of the war is an invaluable inheritance of the Salvadoran people. But beyond their historical relevance, the Peace Accords aspired to found a State respectful of and guarantor of human rights, based on a new or reformed institutionality, which would give real force to the constitutional framework of the country.

In spite of the effective end to armed confrontation, serious deterioration, regression and intolerance have stalled the Salvadoran democratic process and many state institutions have seen their independence undermined, above all, with respect to the political and economic powers-that-be.

The most sensitive gaps 15 years after the signing of the peace accords have been those related to the failure to observe the recommendations of the key reports from the Truth Commission, the Ad Hoc Group and the Joint Group for the investigation of politically motivated, illegal armed groups.

Those responsible for the Death Squads that operated in the decade of the 1980’s were not investigated; their members were not judged nor were the victims compensated. In that sense, such structures have been maintained potentially active for political violence in later years. In the decade of the 1990’s, both the Secretary General and the Independent Expert of the Human Rights Commission expressed their preoccupation with the persistence of extra-judicial executions in El Salvador.

The State never instigated either serious or effective investigations with respect to this type of homicide and, in general, has suffered a perennial inability to clarify the hundreds of homicides that occur each year in El Salvador, because of which, a scenario of almost absolute impunity has taken shape, that has prevailed since the 1970’s and 1980’s.

The Amnesty law decreed by the Legislative Assembly in 1993 currently constitutes one of the main obstacles to overcoming this problem. The annulling and non-application of this law is imperative and has been recommended by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the UN Committee on Human Rights and even the Constitutional Panel of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador.

In 1994 and 1995, the country reached the alarming rate of 150 and 160 homicides for every 100 thousand inhabitants, becoming the most violent country in Latin America in terms of murders. In 2005, the total figure for homicides was three thousand seven hundred sixty one (54.71 for every 100 thousand inhabitants), due to which, El Salvador again took the lamentable place as the most violent country of the region.

At the heart is the problem of impunity and while there exists a tendency to re-militarize the society and to injustice, those responsible for the institutionality created to fulfill the missions contemplated in the agreements against impunity, corruption and for a State of Law, will continue falling into impotence, frustration, weakness or complicity.

The causes of the war were principally economic. Nevertheless the structural causes that were the unquestionable cause of the armed conflict were not subject to negotiation. The traditional, powerful and exclusive, economic and political interests have imposed their will in the current and novel, “demilitarized” context of El Salvador and it is important, for that reason, to demystify the conception which exalts the Salvadoran peace process as an almost total success and remember the integral character of the Accords.

Fifteen years later, this review allows us to visualize the different achievements and failures, as well as showing the absence of a common agenda of nationhood, a pending element of the democracy which the country still demands.

Translation: Donald Lee and ALAI