The ripeness of the conflict and a favourable international context behind the success of the UN mediation in the Salvadoran civil war.

????????????Introduction. The Salvadoran civil war (1979-1992) is an emblematic case because it began during the Cold War, dragged on for a decade, and was resolved through the UN mediation (1990-1992) in the post-Cold War period. I chose to analyse this case because it represents the typical intra-state conflict exacerbated by the Cold War and resolved just after the end of it. Besides, the civil war in El Salvador is interesting because the internal and external ripeness of it led to its resolution.

???????????My argument is that after 1989 the Salvadoran civil conflict was internally ready for a peaceful resolution; at the same time, the end of the US-USSR opposition and the transition to unipolarism have externally facilitated the achievement of the Chapultepec Peace Accords. However, due to a matter of space, it was not possible to analyse all the contributors that somehow enabled the agreement. In this case study, I preferred to focus on those factors that led the parties to engage in serious negotiations and cooperate to solve the conflict prior to the opening of the negotiating table. The importance of a high-profile third-party intervention, Alvaro de Soto's[1] mediation, strategies and approaches and the conditions established within the peace settlement, such as the power-sharing, were definitely other elements that contributed to the success of the intervention and the duration of peace. Although worthy of further study, this paper does not explore those factors proper to the mediation and negotiation.

????????????The paper proceeds as follows. In the first section, I provide a very brief overview of the existing literature of some of the most important conflict resolution mechanisms. In the second section, I recap the conflict until the onset of the UN peaceful intervention[2]. The third section first explains how the 1989-1991 global systemic change has been a determining factor in resolving many civil conflicts, including the Salvadoran one, and then brings statistical evidence to support it. In the fourth section, I report the conditions identified by Haas, Zartman, and Stedman for ripeness and then I demonstrate their presence in the Salvadoran conflict. The fifth section quickly presents other contributors to peace. Finally, I conclude by summarising the lessons learned from the Salvadoran case

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???????????Literature review. Conflict Resolution (CR) is conceptualised as the methods and processes involved in facilitating a peaceful end to conflicts. It has grown in importance over time as a result of its increased usefulness to resolve intra- and interstate wars peacefully. Although each dispute has its history, underlying reasons, and interests, conflicts can be clustered according to certain characteristics.

???????????CR scholars seek recurring causal mechanisms that ease conflict resolution for one (or more) cluster(s). Zartman (2000), Haass (1988), Stedman (1991) and Greig (2001) agree that an external actor should intervene at a particular time in the course of a dispute where circumstances are more conducive to conflict management. In addition to ripeness, the resolution's success depends significantly on the intervention of the third party. Focusing on mediation, the more multidimensional and extensive the power-sharing mechanism in civil war settlement, the lower the risk of returning to the use of armed violence to settle disputes (Hartzell and Hoddie, 2003). Moreover, the more versatile ("transformable") the international conflict is, the more likely are the parties to seek mediation, and the more likely the mediation is to be offered (Terris and Maoz, 2005). The mediator's style, tactics, credibility, culture, national ownership, preparedness, impartiality and personal interest can also influence the outcome (Curran et al., 2004; Salacuse, 1998; United Nations, 2012; Beber, 2012).

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???????????Background. During the 1970s, heated tensions between the right-wing government and the left-wing opposition plagued the state of El Salvador and culminated in widespread protests and rebellions demanding policies to reduce the country's pronounced socioeconomic inequalities and redistribute political power. The Nicaraguan revolution of July 1979 led many Salvadoran military officials to fear that the leftist guerrilla forces would soon overthrow Carlos Humberto Romero's[3] government. To prevent this scenario, 800 army officers deposed the incumbent president and installed their government with the support of the USA in October 1979. Right away, the Junta Revolucionaria de Gobierno (JRG) deployed death squads to repress activists of the leftist reformist movement. The assassination of Archbishop óscar Romero, perpetrated by a hitman paid by death squad commander Roberto D'Aubuisson, is considered the formal event of the onset of the civil conflict. The survivors of the reform movement fled the country taking refuge in the mountains, and founded the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).

???????????The Salvadoran Civil War is the typical Cold War conflict. Indeed, driven by the fear that El Salvador, like Nicaragua and Cuba before it, might fall to the communist revolution, the USA supported the military-led junta government by increasing economic and military aid to El Salvador. The Soviets responded by supporting the FMLN through its puppet states in Central America. From 1980 to 1990, civil war ravaged the country, causing a total of 75,000 casualties.

???????????1989 was a critical year for the conflict. In March, Alfredo Cristiani became president of El Salvador as a member of the ultra-right Nationalist Republican Alliance party (ARENA) founded by D'Aubuisson. During the election campaign, he expressed his desire to end the conflict through a peace agreement and, in early autumn, he managed to start a dialogue with the FMLN leaders, although the Salvadoran army remained reluctant to go along with the talks. Indeed, the violent episodes between the military and the FMLN did not stop. First, the headquarters of the Salvadoran Workers Union was bombed. Then, the FMLN launched a decisive and unexpected offensive to demonstrate its continued relevance and ignite a popular rebellion. Finally, the Military Corps reacted with the unjustified assassination of six Jesuit priests (Betancur et al., 1993).

???????????At the same time, attempts to initiate a peace process continued. Two FMLN leaders flew to Montreal to discuss the possibility of having the UN mediate a peace process. Central American Presidents signed a declaration inviting the UN to intervene in the region. Lastly, in January 1990, Cristiani made a formal request to UN Secretary-general Perez de Cuellar. On April 4, 1990, the Geneva document was signed, initiating a "continuous and uninterrupted" process of direct negotiations, mediated by the UN representative de Soto, which ended with the broad and comprehensive accords in 1992.

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???????????International Systemic Change.?According to structural realism, the combination of nuclear weapons with bipolarity led to stability during the Cold War because the existence of the atomic weapon made a direct confrontation too costly and third parties could not act as balancers between the two superpowers. "With only two powers capable of acting on a world scale, anything that happens anywhere is a concern to both of them" since a loss for one appears as a gain for the other altering the relative balance of power (Waltz, 1979, p. 171). This explains why many civil wars were fought as proxy conflicts in which superpowers actively provided aid, arms and advisors to their favoured side, as well as hampering international conflict management endeavours. In sum, any action by one power was essentially counterbalanced by the other superpower. In fact, the amount of arms funding by the US and USSR/Russia for both inter- and intra-state purposes is roughly at the same level during the Cold War period, while it is drastically different in the following decade (figure 1).

Figure 1: USSR/Russia and Arms Transfers, 1950-2009. Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Arms Transfers Database (2012).

??????????Thanks to continued indirect assistance and aid from the two superpowers, the combatants were able to fight each other for longer than they could have done if they had supported themselves only with their own resources. When the USSR collapsed, Soviet money and arms dried up, and previously intractable conflicts came to an end (Hironaka, 2005; Kanet, 2006). Summing up, the nuclear bipolar system forced the two competing superpowers to intervene in any power vacuum that arose in order to maintain the balance of power, and because of this, the duration of the civil conflicts dragged on (Anderson, 2013).

???????????In a unipolar system[4], the only "hegemon" can: (1) intervene to back one side or force a negotiated settlement with the result of hastening the end of the war in either case; (2) disregard the intra-state conflicts where it has no interest to intervene since it cannot threaten the unipole's dominance of the system; (3) remain disengaged but support third-parties intervention for humanitarian purposes. In the 1990s, the last option was in many cases preferred over the others. According to John Ikenberry and Constitutional IR scholars, in a forward-looking perspective, the US did not abuse its unquestioned primacy and left the UN and other International Organisations more room to adequately fulfil the role for which they were created. As figure 2 shows, the number of UN peace missions has substantially increased with the transition from bipolarity to unipolarity (Shukla, 1999, p. 23; Beardsley and Schmidt, 2012, p. 42). Accordingly, as table 1 shows, the amount of conflict peace settlements and ceasefires rose in the post-Cold War period. As table 2 indicates, from 1989 to 1996, the UN displayed at least partial success in resolving 29 out of the 30 cases, highlighting that the UN was more influential with the expiration of the Cold War than during any other era of the organisation.

Figure 2: Number of diplomatic, technocratic, political development and peacekeeping missions per year (UNPI Data).

Table 1: Conflict outcomes from 1946 to 2009 based on the UCDP Conflict Termination Dataset (CTD definition) (Kreutz, 2010). Note: Those conflicts with at least 25 battle-related deaths that have come to an end are included in the above statistics. Ongoing wars (28 in total) have been excluded. The conflicts are grouped according to whether the conflict began in the Cold War or after it.???????????

Table 2: Cases where the UN showed Limited or Great Success between 1945-1996 (Shukla, 1999, p. 14 and p. 32). Note: From 1989 to 1996, the UN had great success in resolving 5 of the 30 (Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique, Greece VS Macedonia and the Aouzou strip dispute), 24 were limited successes.

???????????The Salvadoran case fits perfectly with the scenario explained so far. While the continuous flow of aid from the two superpowers allowed the combatants to continue fighting, in the post-Cold War period, the Soviet support stopped, and the US aid was halved and directed toward a UN peaceful conflict resolution (Drinkard, 1990). The USA made this choice since El Salvador was no longer a strategic priority and in reaction to the 1989 murder of the six Jesuits suspected of sympathising with the insurgents. Indeed, El Salvador's inability to control the actions of the military corps was no longer tolerated. Although brutal atrocities were common throughout the conflict, only the 1989 one sparked an enormous outcry from the international world. This is naturally related to the Cold War expiration: the end of the rigid bipolar alignment has indeed granted greater freedom to all the international community[5]. Indeed, a group of Central American states with similar views and interests regarding the geopolitical region reacted by exerting international pressure toward a peaceful resolution of the dispute and by externally raising the defection cost during the mediation. According to the president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, Cristiani was almost forced by the presidents of Central America at the San José Summit in December 1989 to accept the UN intervention (Messing, 1997).

???????????What explained is quantitatively confirmed by Anderson (2013), analysing 294 civil wars from 1946 to 2009. His duration models identify a (statistically significant) large negative relationship between the post-Cold war dummy variable and civil war duration, showing that a transition from the bipolar Cold War era to the post-Cold War unipolar period decreases an intra-state war's average expected survival time by over 50 percent. In other words, the average duration of civil conflicts initiated during the Cold War is more than twice that of Post-Cold War era intra-state conflicts[6]. Descriptive statistics confirm this too. The wars fought during the Cold War had an average duration of 2289 days, while the conflicts started in the Post-Cold War period had an average duration of 722 days (table 3). Mean civil war durations are markedly higher in the Cold War era relative to the post-Cold War period in every region of the world (table 3).

Table 3: Mean Intra-state conflict duration (in days), 1946-1990 based on the UCDP Conflict Termination Dataset (CTD definition) (Kreutz, 2010). Note: Those conflicts with at least 25 battle-related deaths that have come to an end are included in the above statistics. Ongoing wars (28 in total) have been excluded. The conflicts are grouped according to whether the conflict began in the Cold War or after it.??????????

???????????In conclusion, the end of the Cold War and the transition to unipolarity facilitated the peaceful resolution of the Salvadoran conflict because the power game between the two superpowers, and with-it interest and international aid, had waned, the UN was freer to play their peace-making role, and the US with some Central American countries not only pressured for a peaceful resolution but also increased the political cost of defection. ?

???????????Ripeness. According to Haas (1988) and Zartman (2000), a conflict is ripe if both parties simultaneously perceive that they are in a mutually hurting stalemate (MHS) and see a negotiated solution as a way out. More specifically, both disputants must consider themselves on a pain-producing path without being able to escalate to victory. The power relationship or the perception of it must change in a way that a side that previously had the upper hand in the conflict begins to slip, and the underdog starts rising. Therefore, a rough power parity between the opponent forces needs to exist before settlement can be achieved. Additionally, they need to feel that an agreement is necessary, and they will be worse in the future if no deal is found. Thus, they must be willing to compromise and agree on an acceptable policy track to get there. Subjective and objective indicators help identify a moment of ripeness. Individual and collective perceptions are expressed in feeling trapped in a MHS (because of the perceived equality of power) and in the will to seek a joint solution. Objective evidence can instead be found in a stalemate in the military situation, in the scarcity of human, economic and military resources, in the actual existence of a rough power parity between the parties, in the duration and cost of the war so far, in the number of victims of it and in the popular feeling about the conflict. Finally, Stedman (1991) argues that ripeness can be promoted by a change in the internal composition of one or both sides and the willingness of the new leadership to settle: the rise of new leaders, a split in a government previously unified, or the mergence of a divided leadership could change the approach to the conflict and its resolution. For example, new political entrepreneurs may have the flexibility and freshness to try new ideas and sufficient political power to overcome internal commitments with conservative group members and old strategies.

???????????Analysing some critical events in 1989, El Salvador's interstate conflict seems to meet these requirements, and the dispute appeared to be ripe for successful peaceful intervention. Indeed, both objective and subjective indicators of ripeness are present in the Salvadoran Civil War. The conflict had been dragging on for ten years, claiming more than 75,000 deaths, and the economic and military resources available to both disputants were significantly reduced due to the transformation of the international system. Moreover, in 1989, the largest FMLN offensive left the rebels with limited weaponry and weakened forces, unable to continue the conflict for long. Regarding subjective indicators, the 1989 offensive had a fundamental twofold impact by changing the perceptions of the rivals and convincing them of the need to compromise to solve the conflict. On the one hand, the main goal of the FMLN's offensive was to spark a massive popular mobilisation. However, despite the military success of the offensive, the insurgents failed in their primary purpose due to popular fatigue from prolonged bloodshed and realised that the civil war could no more be sustained without the popular insurrection. According to Montgomery (1995, p. 215), in 1989, 76% of the Salvadoran population believed that the government should negotiate with the FMLN. On the other hand, the Salvadoran government had the impression that the FMLN was still strong and, therefore, the conflict far from being won. An offensive of this magnitude was stronger than expected and led the government to scale back power relations and reassess its chances of victory downward.

???????????Finally, the 1989 transition of leadership from the centrist José Napoleón Duarte to Cristiani also contributed to the success of the peace intervention. The latter's significant influence within the traditional landowners, business elite, and Salvadoran military allowed him to make more credible commitments before and during the negotiations than the former. Indeed, thanks to the ARENA's founder support[7], he was able to pursue the mediation way in the first place and then to close the deal despite the discordant opinions of the party's influential conservative members (Perez de Cuellar, 1997, p. 417).

???????????In conclusion, the prospect of another decade of low-intensity conflict, with some spikes, was not feasible for either party. In 1989, both disputants perceived the conflict in an MHS situation, revaluated their priorities and came to the same conclusion: neither side could defeat the other, and a political settlement through the UN mediation was the best and only available option. Indeed, at the turn of 1989 and 1990, President Cristiani and the leaders of the FMLN, albeit on different occasions, formally and directly requested the UN mediation intervention. Also, de Soto (1999, p. 356) recognised that in 1989 "the conflict was ripe for a negotiated solution", sharing the above-expressed view.

???????????However, ripeness is only a necessary, not sufficient, condition for a peaceful resolution (Haas, 1988; Zartman, 2000) and only combined with the global systemic change and with other resolution factors led to peace.?

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???????????Other determinant factors. Once the disputants committed themselves, the deep involvement of UN mediation and the Group of Friends' inclusion was fundamental to putting pressure on both sides to make concessions and internally increase the cost of defection[8]. The creation of the UN Human Rights Observation Mission in the first substantive agreement of July 1990 was effective in reassuring that what would be decided would be implemented. The mediation of de Soto was instrumental in building trust among the parties through the "two-track approach"[9].

???????????Since one of the main goals of the FMLN was the possibility of safe participation in the country's political life (with the right of association and representation), the inclusion of multiple dimensions of power-sharing in the Chapultepec Accords was key to progress in the negotiations and to promote long-term peace. According to Hartzell and Hoddie (2003), the Salvadoran agreement included 3 out of 4 dimensions of power-sharing, namely political, military and economic institutions.

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???????????Conclusion. Unlike the four previous resolution attempts, the conflict was domestically and externally ripe in 1989. In the post-Cold War era, the US built a global order based on international law leaving the UN more room for manoeuvre. With the decline of the USSR, El Salvador no longer represented a battlefield between the force of capitalism and communism. The USA was less concerned that a possible FMLN victory would spark communism around its continent. So its efforts shifted from obstructing rebels to supporting a legitimate democratic transition to have a stable El Salvador. Furthermore, the high-level attention, especially from the US, the UN, and the Group of Friends, pressured both sides to initiate the dialogue, respect human rights, make concessions, and avoid defection. Internally, historical evidence indicates that an MHS emerged in 1989, forcing the two parties to reconsider their relative positions, their chances of victory and the cost-benefit ratio of continued fighting versus a peace settlement. Finally, other factors such as mediation by a high-profile third party and power-sharing were crucial in reaching the final agreement.

???????????In conclusion, this case supports Anderson's theory that the Cold war prolongs the duration of the conflict compared to post-cold war and Zartman's thesis that chances for negotiated political deal increase when the conflict hurts the two parties more in war than it would if they reached peace. It ultimately corroborates the thesis that the convergence of internal and external impulses is crucial in moving from conflict to serious dialogue.

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References:

-?????????Anderson, N. (2013) "The Systemic Dimensions of Intrastate Conflict: Assessing the Impact of Polarity on Civil War Duration". 2013 International Studies Association Convention, Working Paper No. 2013-21.

-?????????Beardsley, K. and Schmidt, H. (2012) "Following the Flag or Following the Charter? Examining the Determinants of UN Involvement in International Crises, 1945-2002". International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 56, pp. 33-49.

-?????????Beber, B. (2012) "International Mediation, Selection Effects, and the Question of Bias". Conflict Management and Peace Science, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 397-424.

-?????????Betancur, B., Planchart, R. E. and Buergenthal, T. (1993) "From madness to hope: The twelve-year war in El Salvador. Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador". US Institute for Peace.

-?????????Curran, D. F., Sebenius, J. K. and Watkins, M. (2004) "Two Paths to Peace: Contrasting George Mitchell in Northern Ireland with Richard Holbrooke in Bosnia-Herzegovina". Negotiation Journal, Vol. 20, Ed. 4, pp. 513-537.

-?????????de Soto, A. (1999) "Multiparty mediation: El Salvador" in Chester, A. C., Hampson, F. O. and Aall, P. R. (1999) "Herding Cats: The Management of Complex International Mediation". United States Institute of Peace.

-?????????Drinkard, J. (1990) "Senate Cuts El Salvador Aid, Agree To Forgive Egypt Debt". Associated Press News.

-?????????Greig, M. J. (2001) "Moments of Opportunity: Recognizing Conditions of Ripeness for International Mediation between Enduring Rivals". The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 45, No. 6, pp. 691-718.

-?????????Haass, R. N. (1988) "Ripeness and the Settlement of International Disputes". Survival, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 232-251.

-?????????Hartzell, C. and Hoddie, M. (2003) "Institutionalizing Peace: Power Sharing and Post-Civil War Conflict Management". American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 318-332.

-?????????Hironaka, A. (2005) "Neverending Wars: The International Community, Weak States, and the Perpetuation of Civil War". Harvard University Press.

-?????????Kanet, R. (2006) "The Superpower Quest for Empire: The Cold War and Soviet Support for Wars of National Liberation". Cold War History, Vol. 6, Ed. 3, pp. 331-352.

-?????????Kreutz, J. (2010) "How and When Armed Conflicts End: Introducing the UCDP Conflict Termination Dataset". Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 47, Ed. 2, pp. 243-250.

-?????????Messing, B. (April 6, 1997) "Interview with former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias".

-?????????Montgomery, T. S. (1995) "Revolution in El Salvador: From civil strife to civil peace". Westview Press.

-?????????Perez de Cuellar, J. (1997) "Pilgrimage for peace: A Secretary-General's memoir". St.Martin's Press.

-?????????Salacuse, J. W. (1998) "Ten Ways That Culture Affects Negotiating Style: Some Survey Results". Negotiation Journal, pp. 221-240.

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-?????????Stedman, S. J. (1991) "Peacemaking in Civil War: International Mediation in Zimbabwe, 1974-1980". Lynne Rienner.

-?????????Terris, L. G. and Maoz, Z. (2005) "Rational Mediation: A Theory and a Test". Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 42, No. 5, pp. 563-583.

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-?????????Zartman, I. W. (2000) "Ripeness: The hurting stalemate and beyond" in Stern, P. C. and Druckman, D. "International Conflict resolution after the Cold War". Natl Academy Pr.

[1] Alvaro de Soto was the personal representative of the secretary general to the Central American Peace Process at the UN.

[2] Because the factors explored in this case study are those prior to mediation, space has not been devoted to describing how mediation occurred.

[3] Carlos Humberto Romero?was the President of El Salvador from 1977 to 1979.

[4] There is no unanimous agreement on the type of international system during the decade following the Cold War era. The debate is still open with some scholars arguing that the US was the hegemonic power of the Western bloc, others that consider the US the hegemonic power only of the American continent, and still others seeing the U.S. as the leading power of a multipolar system. In any case, many scholars agree that the 1990s was the period when the international system was more unipolar.

[5] International community defined as the set of States and other institutions whose mutual relations are based on the observance of the rules expressed by international law.

[6] The civil war duration in days is drawn from the Conflict Termination Dataset (Kreutz, 2010): a conflict episode's start date is recorded once the UCDP-PRIO definition criteria are met; a conflict is terminated once it ceases to meet the UCDP-PRIO criteria of incompatibility and/or 25 battle deaths per year.

[7] Cristiani was the protégé of D’Aubuisson, a very influential figure among the extreme right. The latter personally and politically supported the former throughout the peace process playing a key role.

[8] The so-called “Friends of the UN Secretary‐General” was a group of states - Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Venezuela and at a later stage the United States - which participated in the negotiation process resulting in an international multiparty mediation. Other Central American states have also helped to facilitate the peace process, but from the outside. Both of them provided valuable financial resources to conduct the process.

[9] Since the two sides were not speaking to each other, de Soto shuttled between the parties to understand and communicate their positions. Eventually, the disputants came together to create the agreements. Moreover, since the mistrust was such that if either presented a proposal, the other party would reject it, de Soto draft the various proposals that he considered to be the compromise.