El Salvador: A Setback for Moderation

The right takes control of the new constituent assembly

Rhythmic shouts of "D'Aubuisson! D'Aubuisson!" erupted from the gallery as the boyish-looking figure strode toward the dais of San Salvador's wood-and marble-paneled Blue Chamber in the Legislative Palace. Wearing a three-piece suit, he glanced down at his ten-page handwritten text and declared, "Now that we are starting on the road toward representative democracy, we will leave in the past all desires for revenge. We will use all our strength to guarantee human rights, and we will gain, step by step, that precious tranquillity that we have lost."

With those words, Roberto d'Aubuisson, 38, the charismatic leader of El Salvador's right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), tried to allay the fears generated by his designation as President of El Salvador's new constituent assembly. D'Aubuisson, who was once described by former U.S. Ambassador Robert White as a "pathological killer," had just assumed a key position in a country racked by left-wing insurgency and right-wing terror that have left some 30,000 people dead since October 1979. D'Aubuisson's election was an apparent defeat not only for outgoing junta President José Napoleón Duarte's Christian Democrats, who had won a 40% plurality in the March 28 ballot, but for the Reagan Administration, which had made no secret of its preference for the moderate Christian Democrats. The constituent assembly will name a provisional government to replace Duarte's junta, write a new constitution and prepare for elections.

In the political horse trading that followed the elections, the Christian Democrats were outflanked by a rightist coalition that included D'Aubuisson's ARENA and the National Conciliation Party (P.C.N.). Controlling at least 34 of the assembly's 60 seats, the alliance was in a position to freeze out Duarte's party. But the U.S. mounted a strong lobbying effort to ensure the Christian Democrats at least a share of power. The Reagan Administration's principal argument was that if the moderates were left out of the government, the U.S. Congress would not support continued military aid to help the government defeat the leftist guerrillas who are trying to seize power.

Washington's diplomatic campaign reached a crescendo early last week with the arrival in San Salvador of Lieut. General Vernon Walters, U.S. ambassador-at-large, and John Carbaugh, an aide to conservative Senator Jesse Helms. Meeting with the leaders of El Salvador's main political parties, Walters and Carbaugh discussed a letter from Secretary of State Alexander Haig that bluntly reiterated three conditions for continued U.S. support: 1) the formation of a government of national unity that would give the Christian Democrats power in proportion to their performance at the polls; 2) continued progress in land, economic and human rights reforms; and 3) presidential elections by 1983.