Despite Lingering Distrust, Salvador Truce Holds Firm : Central America: Numerous conflicts, however, have put the peace process well behind schedule.

SAN SALVADOR —  Seven months after the government and guerrillas signed an accord to end El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, their cease-fire is holding firm. The army and rebel troops have been confined to their bases and have not had any significant clashes.

But the country’s transition to peace has been fraught with conflicts, putting compliance with the accords so far behind schedule that few people believe the process will be complete by Oct. 31, the deadline set in the U.N.-brokered agreement.

President Alfredo Cristiani insists that the deadline for the demobilization of the 8,000-member Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front and implementation of democratic reforms is sacred. But already there is widespread talk of prolonging U.N. involvement in El Salvador.

Deep distrust between the two sides and mutual accusations continue to cause delays. The government and military believe the leftist guerrilla front wants to remain an armed political party, able to resume battle if it does badly in the 1994 presidential and legislative elections.

The rebels believe the rightist government wants to disarm them without making the sweeping democratic changes that prompted U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to call the accord “a negotiated revolution.” They fear that the extreme right will resume 1980s-style mass killings as soon as the 800 or so U.N. observers leave.

Yet even as the charges fly, the guerrillas’ role in Salvadoran life is undergoing dramatic change. Two formerly clandestine rebel radios now broadcast legally on FM stations; Radio Venceremos offers weather and traffic reports and is sponsoring a marathon. Former guerrilla fighters move about the capital with relative freedom, eating in restaurants and dancing in nightclubs--although ex-commanders maintain bodyguards and strict security measures.

And, after some delay and rancorous debate, the Legislative Assembly cleared the way for the FMLN, as it is known by its initials in Spanish, to become a legal political party. The former combatants have storefront offices in the capital and provinces.

Despite the recriminations between the government and guerrillas, most participants and political observers are confident that El Salvador’s troubled peace process will continue to move forward--in fits and starts, but forward, nonetheless.

“Despite the tensions, both sides want to reach the goals in the accords,” said Mario Zamorano, spokesman for the U.N. monitoring team in El Salvador. “This process is irreversible.”

The only thing that could bring it to a halt, rebel leaders say, would be the unpunished death-squad-style killings of their members and supporters. The rebel leadership has called on the government to investigate five recent assassinations and two attempted killings that they suspect were carried out by the military and extreme right.

“We will not accept the Colombianization of this situation,” said rebel commander Joaquin Villalobos, referring to the killings of Colombian rebels after their return to civilian life.

Salvador Samayoa, one of the rebels’ principal negotiators, added, “If there are dead men in our midst, not even the most moderate of us will be willing to turn over weapons. Nothing.”

The army and government say the killings have been personal disputes or common crimes, not political crimes. U.N. officials say some have been personal, but it is unclear whether other cases can be attributed to death squad activities or simple delinquency.

The accords require the rebels to demobilize in five stages, while the government carries out reforms of the judiciary, electoral system and armed forces. The accords established commissions to purge the armed forces of its worst human rights abusers and to investigate wartime atrocities.

The first contingent of 1,700 or so rebels demobilized June 30. But the government complained that most were the elderly and the wounded, cooks and messengers--not active combatants. More important, the army complained that the guerrillas only turned in 179 “old and rusted” weapons and charged that they are hiding arms caches.

The rebels’ official inventory, said Gen. Mauricio Vargas, one of the government’s chief negotiators, “in type and quality does not represent what happened in the war.” The United Nations agrees.

Cristiani admits that the government has not provided demobilized guerrillas with the food and other aid they were to receive under the accords. Rebel leaders now say they will not demobilize the second contingent until the first one receives aid and land titles that also are part of the agreement.

Land is one of the most complicated and, historically, one of the most divisive issues in tiny El Salvador. Under the accords, the government agreed to buy farmland in combat zones from its original owners at market prices and sell it to the guerrillas and their supporters.

But the accord did not define combat zones. According to U.N. officials, the rebels presented a bloated claim to properties that had to be verified. The area in question is about 520,000 acres.

U.N. and government officials say the majority of landowners are willing to sell, but that the government lacks funds. International aid has been slow to come, they say. Rebel and opposition leaders say the military and far right have been pressuring landowners not to sell.

“They don’t want to leave the FMLN social base capitalized and with the capacity to grow,” a rebel leader said.

Christian Democratic leader Gerardo LeChevalier said, “There is bad faith on the government’s part. They want to frustrate the FMLN.”

Other points of friction involve the military and police forces.

The government belatedly dismantled the militarized Treasury Police and National Guard--security forces with bad human rights records. But the rebels assert that 1,200 officers, including the Treasury Police intelligence unit, were transferred into the still-intact National Police.

Like the demobilized guerrillas, hundreds of police who were dismissed have yet to receive severance pay and other benefits that the government is obliged to provide. A group of former police officers recently took to the airwaves to announce they would be forced to steal if officials do not come through with the money.

Already, many Salvadorans complain of a rampant crime wave, of burglaries and street assaults. Some rebel and opposition leaders contend that officials are encouraging or permitting the crimes as a way to create general chaos--and make a stronger army more attractive--and to disguise the recent assassinations. The killings, these sources believe, are probably being organized out of the National Police.

The accords call for the establishment of a National Civilian Police to replace the current National Police. Organization of the new force, which may include former military and FMLN members, is far behind schedule.

The first class was to graduate from a new police academy as the last guerrillas were demobilized, to give the disarmed rebels a sense of security. The new police are to be a check on illicit activities rather than a collaborator, as in the past.

Besides reforming the police, rebel commanders say, a complete overhaul of the largely ineffective judicial system is necessary for peace and security to last. That, too, is lagging. Human rights activists say killings of ex-rebels and soldiers are not adequately investigated or prosecuted.

The accords require the military to eliminate its elite counterinsurgency battalions and cut its forces by half. Gen. Vargas said 20,000 soldiers had been let go and that the elite Bracamonte Battalion had been eliminated. He said the armed forces will be reduced to about 31,000 members by the end of the year.

Rebels and U.N. officials say the army figures are difficult to verify because their numbers were inflated to begin with.

Although the accords convert the army from a counterinsurgency force to an infantry meant to protect the country’s sovereignty, some officials privately admit they still view the military as a “guarantee” against the rebels.

The army asserts the right to put recruiting offices nationwide, while the rebels claim that the offices could serve as an intelligence-gathering machine and possible organizing tool for death squads like the military’s Nationalist Democratic Organization, or ORDEN, network in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The military, meanwhile, claims that the guerrillas have kept armed security forces in rural areas, and it has refused to allow about 40 mayors to return to their posts in guerrilla-controlled areas. Many in the armed forces are angry that the U.N.-sponsored commissions focus on human rights abuses committed by the military and not by the guerrillas.

“We are the only ones being sacrificed,” one high-ranking army official complained. “This is considered unfair.”

The so-called Ad-Hoc Commission, given the task of purging the military of its worst abusers, has interviewed more than 200 officers as it prepares to draw up a list of who should be dismissed from the military. The commission has no power to prosecute.

But the three-member panel has fallen behind in its duties, and a report scheduled to be released this month has been delayed indefinitely. Part of the problem, commission sources say, is that American officials have been slow in turning over vital information on several cases, including the 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests by soldiers at the height of a guerrilla offensive.

Still, the commission’s findings are expected to have an impact, and some in the military are bracing for what one officer described as a “real kick in the teeth.”

Others feel the commission may limit its recommendations out of fear of reprisals.

“The essential thing is to set a precedent and show how to evaluate the armed forces,” said a source close to the commission. “We want to break the silence, the false concept of loyalty among officials who will never say anything about another even when they know he has committed a crime.”

One source said the commission has made some progress--that some members of the military are talking.

Miller, The Times’ Mexico City Bureau chief, is on assignment in San Salvador.