Central America: Starting a New Chapter

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A festive inaugural an assassination attempt and a surprise visit

The day seemed more like a fiesta than a state occasion, a jubilant celebration with blue skies and sunny faces. As platoons of schoolchildren paraded through the streets waving tiny blue-and-white Salvadoran flags, vendors sliced tangy strips of green papaya for hungry onlookers. The sizzle of hot dogs on the grill mixed with the blare of Chuck Mangione jazz over the loudspeakers. When each of the 45 foreign delegations was introduced, the velodrome in downtown San Salvador reverberated with the applause of 6,000 spectators. U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, his placid expression breaking into a grin, received the second longest ovation. But the loudest and wildest cheers went to the onetime civil engineer whose appearance on the stage elicited thunders of "Duarte! Duarte! Duarte!" After taking the oath of office from Julia Castillo Rodas, head of the Legislative Assembly, he waved his arms above his head, then kissed his country's flag. Declared the new President: "Today brings light into the long night of horror that El Salvador has been living through."

For José Napoleón Duarte, it was a moment to savor. Robbed of what looked like certain victory in 1972, then beaten by Salvadoran soldiers and exiled to Venezuela for seven years, Duarte realized a long-cherished dream when he was sworn in as his country's first freely elected President in half a century. For El Salvador, the day proffered the sweet promise that after nearly five years of civil war and a dozen years of political turbulence, the country might begin to heal. For the Reagan Administration, the inauguration symbolized its most successful accomplishment in the region, what Washington saw as a showpiece of evolving democracy. "El Salvador is a dramatic example of civilized political change," said an admiring José Figueres Ferrer, 77, a former President of Costa Rica.

Immediately after the ceremony, Shultz flew off to a surprising destination: Nicaragua, whose Sandinista government Ronald Reagan has consistently assailed as a "reign of terror" dedicated to exporting Communist revolution to the region. For 2½ hours the Secretary of State conferred with Junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra at Managua's airport. After the obligatory photos, Ortega swung his chair around so as to face Shultz. Though aides were present, Shultz and Ortega did almost all the talking.

The Secretary of State reiterated the longstanding U.S. conditions for better relations. The Sandinistas, Shultz said, must stop supporting the rebels in El Salvador, send an estimated 10,000 Cuban and Soviet advisers home, cut back their oversize military arsenal, and restore the civil rights that were suspended when the government proclaimed a "state of emergency" in March 1982. In response, Ortega stressed his primary complaint: the Administration's continued backing of the contra guerrillas, who are fighting to topple the Sandinistas.