Page 76 - Marlie Burton Roche : Landscape and Bread

Qué día ha sobrevenido! Qué espesa luz de leche,

compacta, digital, me favorece!
He oído relinchar su rojo caballo
desnudo sin herraduras y radiante.

Pablo Neruda

What a morning is here! What a milk-heavy glow
in the air, integral, all of a piece,
intending some good! I have heard its red horses,
naked to bridle and iron, shimmering, whinnying there.

Translation of Pablo Neruda poem-by Ben Belitt

PEACE ACCORDS

offensive in El Salvador in 1989 demonstrated that the
The November FMLN insurgency forces had matured to the point where
they could use military action to accomplish defined political goals. They set out to force the Salvadoran
government and military into accepting the concept of a negotiated political solution, and in this

they succeeded. The impasse was broken and the possibilities for the creation of a democratized and
demilitarization Salvadoran state were put in place. The agreement to resume peace talks was signed in
Geneva on April 4th, 1990. This was the first concrete move towards peace.

The Secretary General of the United Nations was involved throughout the negotiations. Human rights
of the civilian population had to be universally respected for the agreements to proceed through the
preliminary stages and subsequent cease-fire. A wide range of Salvadoran social and political forces
participated in the negotiations. Political agreements were required as a precondition to demobilization

on the part of the FMLN. Except for military elites, and the most extreme members of the far right,
there was universal agreement that the state’s institutionalization of militarism and counterinsurgency
against its own population required change. All acts of war ceased, both those acts carried out by the
military state against civilian populations as well as those carried out by the insurgency against the

military. The cease-fire took place within the framework of political agreements meant to guaranteed

72 MARLIE BURTON-ROCHE LANDSCAPE & BREAD