business sector initially refused to participate because of land invasions by peasants in connection with the land transfer program. During its brief tenure, the Foro reached agreement on the ratification of the ILO conventions, twelve of which were ratified by the Legislative Assembly by 1995.71 The business sector halted participation in late 1993 due to the upcoming March 1994 elections. The Foro was reestablished as the Consejo Superior del Trabajo, although it never met. One UN report laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of the business community: “the Forum did not fulfill its original mandate.”72
The failure of the Foro was demonstrative of the unwillingness of the Cristiani government to allow open discussion of its economic policies. Neither the Cristiani administration nor the private sector favored labor’s participation in the policymaking process and made no effort to promote or sustain the Foro. According to Miguel Sáenz, “The private sector understood that it was the instrument that could start the debate, which would lead to agreements for the economic and social transformation [of the country], so it killed it.”73 Rubén Zamora called the Foro “a disaster” and suggested that the FMLN might have been naive to believe that the Foro would be able to address significant socioeconomic issues, given Cristiani’s opposition to it.74 Thus, not only was the neoliberal model off the table at the peace accords, but the one mechanism created by the peace accords to address socioeconomic issues was quickly abolished. As such, there was little if any opportunity for labor to participate in policymaking. This failure to incorporate labor into the policymaking process relegated labor to the same position that it was in before the peace accords—outside the system, gaining attention for its demands through strike activity.
The government launched the National Reconstruction Plan (PRN) in 1992 after the inclusion of recommendations from the FMLN and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The FMLN and the UNDP were critical of the PRN to the extent that project development lay largely in the hands of the government and marginalized other participants; infrastructure was given priority over other needs of the former conflict zones; and the target area of the PRN was geographically too small.75 The government responded to these criticisms by easing potential participation for NGOs, increasing the number of targeted municipalities from 84 to 115 (of a total 262), and redefining some programs to give a greater emphasis to the development of human capital over infrastructure.76 While the government changes to the PRN marked some improvement, the problem of NGO participation was never fully resolved. NGOs were required to apply to the National Reconstruction Secretariat for funding, and those associated with the Left were often excluded.77
The PRN had three main areas: investment projects (infrastructure, ex-combatant programs), technical assistance (small UNDP projects), and democratic institutions (National Civilian Police, Human Rights Ombudsman).78 Of those, investment projects received the most donor funding, giving the PRN a focus on the reconstruction of the infrastructure of the former conflict zones. The government established the Secretariat for National Reconstruction (SRN) to oversee the reconstruction process, which was designated as the distributor of funds to those projects. Additionally, the UNDP was instrumental in the reconstruction process. The UNDP, which was specifically included in the accords as a third party at the insistence of the FMLN, was responsible for the development of reinsertion and reconstruction programs.79 The government hoped to raise $800 million for the reconstruction effort, and by 1994 it had succeeded in raising more than $900 million.80
The Ministry of Planning (MIPLAN), the government agency in charge of the PRN, estimated that the war cost $1.5 billion in infrastructure alone, with a replacement cost of $1.63 billion. In addition, the 1986 earthquake caused $1.2 billion in damages.81 During the peace process, El Salvador received assurances from many countries, including the United States, that funding for reconstruction would be forthcoming. Indeed, many believed that the bulk of the funding responsibility would fall on the United States. Of the $698.9 million in external assistance from individual country donors, $535.9 million was from the United States. The Inter-American Development Bank was the single largest multilateral donor, providing $558.8 million of the $929.4 million donated by those groups.82 Despite the significant amount of aid available to the reconstruction process, some areas were prone to significant shortfalls, especially “high-priority” programs. High-priority programs—such as the demobilization of the National Police, the creation of the PNC, and democratic and judicial reform—experienced significant shortfalls, as donors considered them too problematic. While the United States allotted more than 75 percent of its funding to these programs, other donors contributed 78 percent of their funding to lower-priority programs.83 Non-U.S. donors contributed a mere $21 million to the PNC, land transfer, and democratic and judicial institutional programs, while contributing $261 million to physical infrastructure programs.84 This resulted in an anticipated shortfall of $311 million.85
As a result of such donor funding discrepancies, many programs that were the cornerstones of the peace accords suffered serious funding shortfalls. The impact of these shortfalls was significant and was particularly evident in the case of the PNC, where funding shortfalls resulted in woefully inadequate resources for the deployment of the new police force. According to Tommie Sue Montgomery, in one department 230 police officers shared seven vehicles and two motorcycles to serve an area the size of metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia. Other police precincts had no phones, radios, or vehicles.86 Similarly, funding shortfalls impeded the work of the public ministry’s office (including the attorney general) and delayed the land transfer program and judicial reform. Thus, funding shortfalls of high-priority programs jeopardized the peace process by neglecting the very programs that were mandated by the accords.
Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation in El Salvador’s Captured Peace
The importance of transitional justice to the peacebuilding process has been increasingly recognized by the international and scholarly communities. The purpose of transitional justice, which may include judicial and nonjudicial mechanisms, is to provide recognition to the victims of human rights abuses committed during war. The most common transitional justice mechanisms are truth commissions, prosecutions, reparations, institutional reforms, and memorialization.87 Transitional justice also necessarily entails confronting and reconciling the past. While some of the institutional reforms created by the peace accords may ultimately contribute to transitional justice, the process in El Salvador has been quite limited. To date, the most significant state-sanctioned element of transitional justice was the truth commission and its report. As demonstrated below, even that was undermined by the Salvadoran government.
The Truth Commission
The Commission on Truth for El Salvador, agreed to in the Mexico Agreement, was overseen by the United Nations. The commission, chaired by former Colombian president Belisario Betancur, began its work in July 1992 and published its report in March 1993, two months later than the original mandate. During the course of its investigation, the commission received more than seven thousand complaints from victims and witnesses and collected additional evidence from human rights organizations. The commission also conducted forensic investigations, including an exhumation at the site of the 1981 El Mozote massacre. In all, more than twenty-two thousand complaints were documented. The overwhelming majority (95 percent) of those accused in the complaints were classified as “agents of the State, paramilitary groups allied to them, and the death squads.”88 Some 60 percent of complaints involved extrajudicial killings, more than 25 percent involved disappearances, and more than 20 percent included torture. More than 75 percent of the complaints received by the commission pertained to events that occurred from 1980 to 1983, with approximately 50 percent of those occurring in 1980 and 1981. The commission also noted that 95 percent of complaints involved incidents in rural areas.89
The report, From Madness to Hope, identified both patterns of violence and specific cases attributed to State agents and death squads, the most prominent of which included the assassinations of Archbishop Óscar Romero, the Jesuits, the FDR leadership, Attorney General Mario Zamora, the American
