The new FMLN
The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (MILN) has been transformed over the last three years. The abandonment of the armed struggle and the Front's insertion in a new political framework has characterised the political context in El Salvador since the end of hostilities in 1992. At the same time, the new international context obliged the left everywhere to review its historic identifications, and to construct or restate new schemas for continuing the struggle for social justice.
To find out more, International Viewpoint interviewed Mario A. Mijango, former "commandant Raul" of the ERP, now a member of the leadership of the Democratic Tendency (TD) and co-ordinator of the FMLN's agrarian affairs secretariat.
• Mijango: Parallel to the debate on the necessity of a political and ideological renewal to adapt to the new Salvadoran reality, we have witnessed a demand for the internal democratisation and opening of greater spaces of participation within each of the five parties which until recently made up the FMLN. During the war, all the militants unfailingly respected military discipline, but with the appearance of new political conditions, everyone thought that it was necessary to develop the level of participation inside the parties. The active participation of middle cadres and rank and file militants in the discussions has little by little undermined the positions of the traditional "historic" leaderships of each party, which has responded by trying to rein in the discussion.
Within the Popular Renewal Expression current (ERP), a number of us demanded more internal democracy and participation, and a renewal of the ERP's ideological assumptions. But we argued that it was important not to lose sight of two essentials; the social interests of the people and the construction of a model of society that guarantees social justice. Little by little, it became impossible to debate and the historical leadership of the ERP decided to resolve the problem by expelling those cadres leading the opposition.
In December 1994, the 'purged' ERP left the FMLN to set up a social democratic party, as did the majority of the National Resistance current (RN) Those of us who had been expelled decided not to found a traditional political organisation but rather to bring to the FMLN a new kind of politics based on a different organic concept; no longer a coalition of parties but a unified party with internal political tendencies.
The departure of the ERP and the RN was difficult, but necessary because our internal contradictions were tying the hands of the FMILN, especially during the 1994 elections. Their departure has opened a space for debate on democratisation. The FMLN Convention of December 17 and 18 decided unanimously to transform the Front into a unified party with the right to political tendencies.
Our "Democratic Tendency" and the Frontist Tendency are in a much more comfortable position than the Popular Forces of Liberation (FPL), the Salvadoran Communist Party and the Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers (PRTC). Now that they are part of the pluralistic FMLN party, they need to review their own internal organisation.
The unification of the party allows us to better utilise our human and material. During the war period, each of the five forces had to be present in each decision-making body, leading to a great waste of energy. Each tendency must now put the interests of the FMLN above its own interests.
There is a risk that certain hegemonic currents will wish to lead the Front or worse to transform it insidiously into a single party. This would mean the political death of the FMLN. But I believe it is very much more likely that we will build a political instrument adapted to the new period. Unification will involve a necessary period of transition where each party will show the extent of its good will. We are in the process of creating internal bodies charged with overseeing this process.
The current advances reflect aspiration of Salvadoran society which wishes to see a unified FMLN, not as an opposition but a viable governmental option.
El Salvador • Each of the former parties of the FMLN has its own popular organisations in the countryside. Will these be unified?
We have reached a consensus that it is necessary to separate the party as a political instrument from the popular organisations. The TD wishes this separation to be very clear. The popular organisations should return to their original vocation, that of working for the social sectors they represent.
Moreover, the TD considers that the FMLN must play a role in the legal political life of the country and must accept the real autonomy of the political organisations.
Some of our partners, however, wish to unity the apparatuses of the parties and the popular organisations inside the "new" FMLN. This debate recalls that between the advocates of the single party and the defenders of tendencies. In my opinion, this kind of unification would lead the FMLN to develop a great internal political activism, which would wear it down. This would reduce its margin of manoeuvre in the political confrontation with the government. The FMLN national council recently admitted that our internal problems had prevented us from responding to the hopes of our electorate. The FMLN as a political opposition in he assembly had not been offensive enough. It is necessary that we balance our internal restructuring with political action at the national level, rather than turning in on ourselves. • What kind of national action?
The FMLN must fight on two fronts. Firstly, for the complete honouring of the peace accords, which will have many social repercussions, not only for the FMLN base but for society. These accords contain in essence the model of the democratic society that we wish to build in
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El Salvador our country. Secondly, like the other parties, we must prepare for the elections to the national assembly and the municipal councils, scheduled for 1997. This means reactivating our municipal and departmental structures. We will try to lead a better campaign then in 1994, when we were novices.
April 30 is the date fixed for the end of the land transfer programme envisaged by the peace accords. What is happening?
Two and a half years after the beginning of this programme, only 55% of lands earmarked for the former fighters or sympathisers of the FMLN have been effectively transferred. The FMLN has pressured the government to accelerate the procedure, but the Salvadoran legislature has created numerous difficulties. The process of transfer requires around 14 complex stages. This clumsy legal framework slows down the process. The FMLN has demanded that the government accelerate and simplify it. But progress has been very slow. One should not underestimate the bad faith of the
The cases of 400 former fighters of the Democratic National Army (END, the army of the FMLN) and more than 2,000 occupants of land sympathetic to the Front have not been resolved. The transfer programme for former government soldiers is very much slower, which has led to recent violent actions on their part
Land transfer will allow a reorganisation of the economic structure of the countryside. Granting a significant part of the productive land to the peasants will allow development in the countryside and a better standard of living. This requires not just the transfer of land but also sufficient credit and technical support. • How can you raise the standard see things in the long term, to define clearly what is necessary to repay the loans. These are new ideas that shake the habits of the left.
We believe that it is necessary to go beyond the concept of large scale social ownership advanced by the left until now. This model has obviously failed in El Salvador. Co-operative ownership has not shown itself to be an efficient form of
We are not saying that private property is a panacea, which would be to repeat the errors made in eastern Europe. The TD has been one of the first forces to diffuse the new concept of social property with private characteristics. Each person could farm half his/her allotment from the land reform privately, and integrates the rest into co-operative production. We think that the creation of small productive units made up of owners trying to develop to the maximum the global value of their land can be very positive. In this manner the people feel themselves owners of the land they work and they invest. But at the same time they are conscious that to succeed in developing themselves they must remain organised. Concretely we try to associate individual ownership with a collective social expression. If you discuss with the peasants, you can see that it is the type of response they are waiting for.
Another grave problem to be resolved is the transfer of lands to the "new towns" created by the FMLN in he rural zones. During the war, many Salvadorans sought refuge abroad and many others became "displaced" inside the country. As the end of the conflict approached, these people created new communities like Guarjila in Chalatenango, Segundo Montes in Morazan, and Santa Marta in the Cabanas. These "new towns" are today confronted with two major problems. Firstly, they are not recognised as administrative areas, which cuts them off from governmentfinanced programmes of social support. This makes them very dependent on large extent originally constructed on unleased agricultural land, have acquired urban characteristics (clinics, schools, small factories and so on) thanks to support and solidarity from abroad. This has led the owners to speculate by trying to sell their land at the price of urban and not rural land. In most cases they even add the value of the buildings constructed by the current occupants! Negotiations on over 900 properties have broken down. It is impossible to resolve this problem through the current land reform regulations, because these stipulate that the owner must be willing to sell. The FMLN is thus demanding a special regime for these towns.
A similar problem exists in the urban centres of the former guerrilla zones. At the beginning of the war, abandoned their houses were occupied by FMLN sympathisers, essentially returned refugees and displaced persons. Today, the owners wish to recover their housing or demand very high prices from the occupiers. This question too cannot be resolved under the existing land transfer legislation, because the cost of urban accommodation is much higher than the 30,000 colons accorded to each occupant to buy land. Again a specific regime is needed.
We reserve the right to appeal for legal mobilisations of the rank and file. The negotiating table has its limits and the possibilities of dialogue are exhausting themselves. If the government decides to block everything, the FMLN will call for mobilisations for the right to land. * of living?
The only way to escape the current level of poverty is to create the conditions so that people can contribute to their
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The TD has campaigned among its atin America 515
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International Viewpoint #267 June 1995 foreign aid. Secondly, these "new towns"
face many complications in the land transfer process. These communities, to a
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