TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/120489/12048900.024

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 9KB | 166 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 50

The Sheraton Siege


Guerrillas take the war into the wealthy sections of the
capital, as new questions are raised about the U.S. role and the
deaths of six Jesuits

By David Brand


    For 28 hours, the drama played out on the world's
television screens, and for a while it seemed as if it would
provoke direct U.S. military intervention in El Salvador's ugly,
decade-old civil war. Twelve Green Berets from Fort Bragg, N.C.,
part of a U.S. advisory team in El Salvador, were holed up on
the fourth floor of the Sheraton Hotel in San Salvador's wealthy
Escalon district, while about 20 heavily armed young guerrillas,
who had seemingly blundered into the hotel, roamed the floors
above and below them.

    But there was no shoot-out. Instead, as part of an
agreement brokered by the Roman Catholic Church, the guerrillas
slipped away, and the U.S. soldiers, using journalists as a
shield, ran from the hotel to waiting military vehicles. But so
alarming was the event that President George Bush, acutely
mindful that he had been seen to be dithering during October's
aborted coup in Panama, quickly convened a meeting of a National
Security Council emergency group and ordered a small contingent
of the supersecret Delta Force into San Salvador. At one point
Bush even made the embarrassing claim that the U.S. commandos
had "liberated" the Green Berets.

    The incident pointed up yet again that guerrillas of the
Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (F.M.L.N.) continue
to have the ability to paralyze the government of President
Alfredo Cristiani and outwit the Salvadoran army. Just as the
1968 Tet offensive in Viet Nam forced Washington and the
American public to question the U.S. position in Southeast Asia,
the F.M.L.N.'s latest attacks have raised fundamental doubts
about the whole U.S. approach to El Salvador.

    The slaying on Nov. 16 in San Salvador of six Jesuit
priests has caused such outrage in Washington that Congress is
suddenly talking about reducing U.S. aid if the Cristiani regime
does not conduct a thorough investigation. Last week the House
of Representatives narrowly blocked a Democratic proposal to
hold back 30% of the $85 million in U.S. military aid to El
Salvador this year. The events of the past two weeks also
underscore U.S. intelligence failures, most notably the now
apparent undercounting of the F.M.L.N. forces. Judging by the
scope of the rebel push, Washington officials concede that there
are considerably more than the estimated total of 6,000 rebel
soldiers.

    The Sheraton siege brought the U.S. the closest it has ever
been to exchanging fire with the Salvadoran guerrillas. It
occurred just as the rebels' ten-day-old offensive, which had
been fought in some of the capital's poorest neighborhoods,
Soyapango, Cuidad Delgado and Mejicanos, seemed to be winding
down. In the early hours of Sunday morning, hundreds of
guerrillas were streaming out of Mejicanos' streets, badly
battered by days of intensive government firepower. Where the
rebels went, or how they managed to elude the government troops,
no one seemed to know. But two days later, they re-emerged from
the gullies and ravines that border the city's exclusive Escalon
district and took control of several blocks of the neighborhood,
which is filled with luxurious ranch-style homes set off by
manicured lawns. As the government sent in its helicopters and
light tanks, it became clear that the rebels had switched
tactics and were showing the rich that the war could come to
their elegant front doors. Some demonstrated their support for
the government troops by sending servants out with cookies and
milk.

    One group of rebels was apparently trapped by the army as
it moved along a ravine behind the Sheraton, and fled into the
shelter of the lobby. The guerrillas probably did not know that
among the guests were the Green Berets and Joao Baena Soares,
Secretary General of the Organization of American States, who
was trying to work out a cease-fire. As the rebels took up
residence in the Sheraton's VIP Tower, Salvadoran commandos
hurriedly escorted Soares out of the hotel and drove him away
in an armored car. The Green Berets were not so fortunate. Armed
with M-16 rifles and grenade launchers, they barricaded
themselves behind furniture and waited out the siege. "We're
here against our will because we don't feel we can leave
safely," growled one. "Do we look like hostages?" another asked
defiantly.

    Despite the tension, the scene became like something from
a TV situation comedy, with the rebels enjoying a feast of hotel
food and the U.S. soldiers resolutely glowering from behind
their barricades. Neither side made an attempt to threaten the
other. It was, said one of the advisers, a "Mexican standoff,"
during which they talked to the rebels periodically. "At times
it was friendly, at times tense," said another American.
Finally, the Auxiliary Bishop of San Salvador, Gregorio Rosa
Chavez, mediated the release of the occupants of the hotel and
the escape of the rebels. The U.S. soldiers, though, refused to
leave until the Salvadoran army had checked for booby traps and
mines.

    The entire operation was conducted by Salvadoran soldiers.
Only at the end, when the Green Berets ran out, did the U.S.
forces become involved. The actual number of U.S. commandos sent
to El Salvador was thought to be small, although a much larger
force was positioned outside the country.

    After the guerrillas vanished once again, an exhausted
President Cristiani rejected a rebel request for a United
Nations-supervised cease-fire and declared that "the offensive
is totally defeated." But as he was making that announcement at
an army officers' country club, his words were drowned out by
a bomb explosion. Although the President was not in any danger,
the blast demonstrated that even he could not take his personal
safety for granted.

    Cristiani's top officers appear to have convinced him that
the F.M.L.N. must be decimated before it will return to the
negotiating table. That is probably a forlorn hope, even though
the rebels' losses in the offensive may exceed 1,000. If nothing
else, the rebels proved they can disrupt life in El Salvador
whenever they choose. They have also shown that the government
is all too willing to use its heavy firepower when the war is
being fought in poor neighborhoods but is reluctant to strafe
and bomb a rich enclave like Escalon, where support for the
governing ARENA party is high.

    The rebels also embarrassed the army with their ability to
disappear, then re-emerge at will, often using sewer pipes to
leave areas or exchanging battle fatigues for civilian clothes
and merging into the population. Equally unsettling to the
Cristiani government, as well as to Washington, is that
thousands of Salvadoran residents have collaborated with the
rebels. A U.S. Administration official admitted last week that
"there was a torrent of arms and ammunition" into San Salvador.
Said he: "That couldn't have taken place had not a lot of people
helped, or at the minimum, kept quiet."

    Future U.S. relations with El Salvador will be strongly
influenced by how the Cristiani government handles the
investigation into the killing of the six Jesuits. It has
become harder to avoid the conclusion that only the army or the
police could have carried out the murders. Witnesses have told
of seeing as many as 30 men in olive-drab uniforms enter the
priests' residence, and one woman said she heard a voice over
a shortwave radio say, "We've done it." At week's end the woman
had been escorted out of the country by embassy officials and
flown to the U.S. The murders were also carried out during the
6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, when only the military is on the
streets of the capital. "This was done by the military or by
people closely allied to the military," says Arturo Rivera
Damas, the Archbishop of San Salvador.

    The FBI has been asked to help study fingerprints found at
the scene, and since all Salvadorans are fingerprinted when
they receive a driver's license, the murderers should not be
hard to track down -- if the Cristiani government cooperates.
If it does not, the rebels could have achieved a major goal: to
provoke a crisis in U.S.-Salvadoran relations.


-- Ricardo Chavira/Washington, John Moody/San Jose and Chris
 Norton/San Salvador