El Salvador's peace accords stand alone
When I was in El Salvador this summer I was having a conversation with some US officials. At one point they asked, "so where is an example of a successful negotiated settlement to civil war?" Their question didn't come out of nowhere but based upon some things that I was telling them. They were disappointed when I told them that El Salvador is generally considered one of the most successful examples of civil war resolution via negotiated settlement.
In El Salvador, eighteen months of UN-mediated negotiations helped put an end to two decades of violence that cost the lives of well over eighty thousand Salvadorans, the majority of whom were civilians. While there had been some challenges with implementation, all parties agreed to a series of political and security reforms and, to a lesser extent, economic reforms that in some ways addressed the root causes of the conflict. More importantly, perhaps, the reform laid the groundwork so that future governments could continue to make El Salvador a more just society.
There were few violations of the ceasefire during the peace negotiations and the subsequent disarmament and demobilization process. The FMLN hid some weapons in Nicaragua that blew up after the peace process had finalized and some of their members traveled to Guatemala to support the revolutionaries there. The right engaged in some political motivated killings of FMLN activists in the early to mid-1990s which led to the creation of a special group to investigate politically motivated killings (death squad operations). ARENA and the government dragged their feet on removing military officials implicated in human rights abuses. Some were transferred to cushy jobs abroad and others stayed on until retirement. Some military officials put plans in place to carry out a coup in the 1990s, but ended up not following through on the plans. Part of the reason why they did not is because the FMLN went to US officials at the Embassy and warned them (allegedly, of course). FMLN and Government soldiers got caught up in bank robberies and other crimes in the early postwar period as well.
However, we are three decades later and the peace between the FMLN and ARENA is largely intact. The peace exists in spite of extremely high levels of criminal violence, poverty and inequality, and deep-seated polarization and hatred among some of the former groups.
I only bring this up now because of recent news out of Mozambique and Northern Ireland. Those two countries also experience protracted conflicts that ended via negotiated settlements. The Irish Republic Army in Northern Ireland and Renamo in Mozambique turned in their weapons in return for a seat at the table shortly after the FMLN did so. However, both peace processes seem to be on somewhat shaky ground following last year's arrest of Gerry Adams and, more seriously, the politically-motivated killings of IRA members by other IRA members this summer. While it seems that everyone was okay to overlook the incomplete demobilization of the IRA over the last sixteen years, the overt expression of violence has its Unionist government partners publicly questioning shared governance with the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein.
In Mozambique, on the other hand, the former armed Renamo has been involved in a low-level insurgency against the Frelimo government for the last two years. Whereas Northern Ireland has been governed by a power-sharing agreement between the former warring parties, Renamo and Frelimo, like ARENA and the FMLN in El Salvador, agreed to a series of reforms that would allow the two parties to compete against each other electorally in returning for ending the war. However, twenty years of elections left Renamo as a permanent minority. Frelimo has controlled the presidency and congress since the war's end in October 1992, less than one year after the end of El Salvador's civil war.
With all its warts and all, El Salvador's peace settlement remains one of the world's most successful examples of civil war resolution via negotiated settlement.
In El Salvador, eighteen months of UN-mediated negotiations helped put an end to two decades of violence that cost the lives of well over eighty thousand Salvadorans, the majority of whom were civilians. While there had been some challenges with implementation, all parties agreed to a series of political and security reforms and, to a lesser extent, economic reforms that in some ways addressed the root causes of the conflict. More importantly, perhaps, the reform laid the groundwork so that future governments could continue to make El Salvador a more just society.
There were few violations of the ceasefire during the peace negotiations and the subsequent disarmament and demobilization process. The FMLN hid some weapons in Nicaragua that blew up after the peace process had finalized and some of their members traveled to Guatemala to support the revolutionaries there. The right engaged in some political motivated killings of FMLN activists in the early to mid-1990s which led to the creation of a special group to investigate politically motivated killings (death squad operations). ARENA and the government dragged their feet on removing military officials implicated in human rights abuses. Some were transferred to cushy jobs abroad and others stayed on until retirement. Some military officials put plans in place to carry out a coup in the 1990s, but ended up not following through on the plans. Part of the reason why they did not is because the FMLN went to US officials at the Embassy and warned them (allegedly, of course). FMLN and Government soldiers got caught up in bank robberies and other crimes in the early postwar period as well.
However, we are three decades later and the peace between the FMLN and ARENA is largely intact. The peace exists in spite of extremely high levels of criminal violence, poverty and inequality, and deep-seated polarization and hatred among some of the former groups.
I only bring this up now because of recent news out of Mozambique and Northern Ireland. Those two countries also experience protracted conflicts that ended via negotiated settlements. The Irish Republic Army in Northern Ireland and Renamo in Mozambique turned in their weapons in return for a seat at the table shortly after the FMLN did so. However, both peace processes seem to be on somewhat shaky ground following last year's arrest of Gerry Adams and, more seriously, the politically-motivated killings of IRA members by other IRA members this summer. While it seems that everyone was okay to overlook the incomplete demobilization of the IRA over the last sixteen years, the overt expression of violence has its Unionist government partners publicly questioning shared governance with the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein.
In Mozambique, on the other hand, the former armed Renamo has been involved in a low-level insurgency against the Frelimo government for the last two years. Whereas Northern Ireland has been governed by a power-sharing agreement between the former warring parties, Renamo and Frelimo, like ARENA and the FMLN in El Salvador, agreed to a series of reforms that would allow the two parties to compete against each other electorally in returning for ending the war. However, twenty years of elections left Renamo as a permanent minority. Frelimo has controlled the presidency and congress since the war's end in October 1992, less than one year after the end of El Salvador's civil war.
With all its warts and all, El Salvador's peace settlement remains one of the world's most successful examples of civil war resolution via negotiated settlement.
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