Salvador Rebels Offer to Suspend Sabotage in Bid for Talks

El Salvador’s leftist guerrillas announced Thursday that they will suspend the use of land mines and sabotage against the nation’s telephone and electricity systems in an effort to bring the U.S.-backed government of President Alfredo Cristiani to the negotiating table.

Although the announcement represents a significant concession by the rebels, it also clearly is a bid to gain the political initiative in the peace talks. Mines and economic sabotage are key weapons in the decade-long guerrilla war.

At a news conference here, rebel leaders read a communique from the five commanders of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front stating that the suspension will go into effect at midnight Saturday for “a sufficiently prudent period of time” to allow the government and armed forces to respond with measures of their own.

They said, however, that they will continue to attack buses until the government agrees to lower fares.

The rebels called for the Salvadoran armed forces to suspend aerial bombings, the use of mines and “assassinations, arrests, the use of torture against political prisoners, police actions against demonstrations and strikes . . .,” among other steps.

“We are taking steps to end the war, not to give the other side an advantage in the war,” said Mercedes del Carmen Letona, who is known by her nom de guerre , “Comandante Luisa.”

She added, “We are talking about negotiating an end to the hostilities. Until now, we have had a dialogue of the deaf. We cannot delay any longer.”

The guerrillas and the rightist government each have said they are willing to hold talks in Mexico next week. On Thursday, Cristiani named his commission for the talks, including two Cabinet members. He proposed that the two sides meet on Tuesday and Wednesday.

But the government has rejected a guerrilla demand that the conversations be mediated by the archbishop of San Salvador, Arturo Rivera y Damas, or his auxiliary bishop, Gregorio Rosa Chavez.

Earlier Church Role

The archbishop moderated three rounds of talks between the rebels and the Christian Democratic government of former President Jose Napoleon Duarte. He also acted as a go-between in other negotiations, such as those for the release of Duarte’s daughter, whom the guerrillas kidnaped in 1985, and for the evacuation of wounded combatants.

Cristiani has said that Archbishop Rivera does not represent a political party and therefore has no role in the dialogue, a position he reiterated Thursday. During a press conference in San Salvador, he also said: “We believe that a problem that has existed for 10 years will not be resolved in a short time. The purpose of this meeting is to set up future meetings. We are only going to discuss procedural matters.”

The guerrillas respond that retired Maj. Roberto D’Aubuisson, leader of Cristiani’s Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena party, is blocking the archbishop’s participation. D’Aubuisson has been accused of masterminding the 1980 assassination of Rivera’s predecessor, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero.

“There must be a mediator. You have to remember, it’s Arena and the FMLN (rebels) sitting down at the same table--the two most contrary forces in the country,” Letona said.

The guerrillas also are calling for representatives of the United Nations and the Organization of American States to sit in as observers to the peace talks, along with members of opposition political parties. They have dropped an earlier demand that the government commission include a representative of the armed forces.

But rebel spokesman Mario Lopez said he was uncertain that a meeting could be arranged for next week because the rebels and government have had no direct communication and no one is acting as an intermediary.

Ana Guadalupe Martinez, another guerrilla leader, said that the rebels spoke by telephone Wednesday night with Rivera, who is in Europe, and that the archbishop said he would return home as soon as possible to help arrange the dialogue.

If the talks do take place, they would be the first between the rebels and the Cristiani government, which took office June 1. The Duarte government held two rounds of talks with the guerrillas in 1984 and another in 1987, but none of them brought the two sides any closer to ending nearly 10 years of war.

Offer in January

Last January the guerrillas offered for the first time to take part in national presidential elections if the March 19 vote were postponed for several months and the guerrillas were given security guarantees to campaign.

In February the rebels met in Oaxtepec, Mexico, with representatives of 13 opposition political parties, which then included the Arena party, and added that they would drop a previous demand to integrate the guerrilla forces with the Salvadoran army if the government agreed to reduce the size of the army and prosecute some of its members for for human rights abuses.

The Duarte government rejected that proposal, and Cristiani easily won the presidential election.

Since then, the guerrillas have stepped up economic sabotage and military attacks. The rebels also admit to having slain an attorney general, a rightist ideologue and a defector from their ranks who joined the Christian Democrats. They deny the June 9 killing of Jose Antonio Rodriguez Porth, Cristiani’s closest aide.

At his Thursday press conference in El Salvador, Cristiani was asked if the armed forces would respond in kind to the guerrilla’s announced suspension of sabotage and other measures. He said: “The actions of the armed forces are in response to the (rebel) hostilities.”

He added that as a gesture, he would propose to the National Assembly that an amnesty measure be adopted to allow evacuation from El Salvador of wounded rebels, 25 of whom now are occupying the Metropolitan Cathedral in San Salvador.