Cristiani, Rebels in Salvador Pact : Civil war: Accord provides for ‘re-integration into society’ of guerrillas. U.N. chief says the way is open for a cease-fire to end hostilities that have killed 75,000.

UNITED NATIONS —  Salvadoran government and rebel leaders Wednesday took a significant but still-incomplete step toward ending the 11-year civil war that has killed 75,000 of their countrymen, signing an agreement providing for “the re-integration into society” of the guerrilla movement.

The accord, signed by President Alfredo Cristiani and members of the high command of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, was announced late in the afternoon by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar after 10 days of negotiations. He said the way is now open for talks on a cease-fire and a termination of the bloodshed.

The talks had bogged down over a demand by the FMLN--as the Marxist-Leninist guerrilla movement is known by its initials in Spanish--that its 7,000-member fighting force be integrated in some form into the national military system.

The government had clearly refused such a demand, and Perez de Cuellar called the resulting deadlock “the Gordian knot” blocking a cease-fire.

After Wednesday’s accord, the secretary general said: “We have just signed a broad agreement of conditions and guarantees for the re-integration into society of the FMLN. . . . The Gordian knot has been untied.”

Throughout the process, Perez de Cuellar had met separately with each delegation. It was not clear Wednesday if Cristiani and the FMLN leaders even signed the pact in front of one another.

The agreement, which does not call for an immediate cease-fire, provides for the formation of a civilian national police force that will accept “on a non-discriminatory basis” applicants from all sectors of society, including the guerrillas.

A second point calls for the formation of a commission to oversee the “purification” of the Salvadoran military, which has been accused by every international human rights organization and the United States of long-term, serious human rights violations.

A related part of the agreement allows for a reduction of the 57,000-member Salvadoran military.

Finally, the pact provides that a commission, made up of all sectors of society, including the government, the FMLN and political parties, would guarantee the safety of the guerrillas as they return to civil life.

According to Alvaro DeSoto, a senior aide to Perez de Cuellar and the man who actually led the negotiations, that commission will begin operating eight days after a cease-fire is actually signed, but he added that the members could open informal operations now.

While the so-called purification commission will be broad-based, the method for reducing the size of the army remains to be arranged.

In spite of the optimism about an open path to a cease-fire, DeSoto said that when the talks resume Oct. 12, they will focus first on social and economic issues.

President Cristiani has said that he will not negotiate any changes in his free-market economic policy or his right-wing social program on grounds that he was elected on the basis of those approaches and that the guerrillas cannot change them at the point of a gun.

And there remain serious disputes over the terms of a cease-fire. The guerrillas have insisted on keeping control of the territory they now hold and on not turning in their arms until satisfied of their safety.

The government, particularly the army, say that any territory held by the guerrillas should be given up after a short time and that all FMLN units must disarm. The army has been carrying out a nationwide offensive over the last four months to trim the amount of territory controlled by the FMLN.

Four people were killed in scattered fighting between guerrillas and troops, government and guerrillas sources in El Salvador said Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. The FMLN radio accused the government of ordering the attacks to scuttle negotiations. It said the rebels will continue to observe a unilateral cease-fire but intend to defend themselves.

Wednesday’s accord was essentially a program put forth by Perez de Cuellar after he was pressured last month by the United States and the Soviet Union to break the impasse that had settled on the negotiations, which began 17 months ago.

On balance, Cristiani seemed to get the better of this latest round. In a recent interview with The Times, he refused to consider any participation by the FMLN at any level in the armed forces. However, he said that any former guerrilla who applied as a cadet for the civilian police would be accepted if he met normal standards.

That essentially is what Wednesday’s accord provides.

For their part, the guerrillas gained some ground by winning membership on a commission to oversee the so-called purification of the armed forces.

Previous concessions by the FMLN have brought reactions from the guerrilla fighters themselves, who often are more radical than their leaders, resulting in some reneging by the negotiators.

But potentially more serious is the likely reaction by the radical right of Cristiani’s political party, the Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena. Just hours before the agreement was announced, for instance, Cristiani’s vice president, Jose Francisco Merino, said publicly that the rebels would not be permitted in any security force, including the national police.

Merino, a hard-liner once linked to Salvador’s right-wing death squads, said the negotiations should deal only with the disarming and demobilization of the FMLN.

And last Saturday, Gen. Rene Emilio Ponce, the minister of defense, said of the guerrillas that “there is no possibility that they could join the ranks of the army or of any national civil police that might be formed.

Goldman reported from the United Nations and Freed from San Salvador.

A Troubled Past

Oct. 15, 1979: Coup led by moderate colonels Jaime Abdul Gutierrez and Adolfo Arnoldo Majano deposes Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero.

March 9, 1980: Jose Napoleon Duarte, head of Christian Democrat Party, joins junta.

March 24, 1980: Sniper kills Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero at Mass. The killing escalates civil war.

Dec. 2, 1980: Three American nuns and a lay church worker are abducted and killed. Six national guardsmen arrested.

Dec. 13, 1980: Duarte is first civilian president in 49 years.

Jan. 11, 1981: Guerrillas announce a “final offensive.”

Oct. 15, 1984: Duarte meets with guerrillas in first attempt to negotiate peace.

1985-1991: Peace talks held by government and rebels in Mexico, Venezuela, Costa Rica.

Nov. 16, 1989: Six Jesuit professors, their housekeeper and her daughter are killed at University of Central America. Nine military men charged.

June 1, 1990: Rightist Alfredo Cristiani becomes president.