Esquipulas II: Looking Back at the Successes of Central America's 1987 Peace Accords
Esquipulas II: Looking Back at the Successes of Central America's 1987 Peace Accords
Norman Stockwell 12 Aug 2014
On August 7th, 1987, the five Central American presidents signed a peace accord known as Esquipulas II named after the city in Guatemala where the first round of meetings had taken place the year before. The accord included a number of provisions for cooperation between the five countries, and most notably called for an end to support for “irregular forces” by all of the signatories. This provision was aimed at ending the Contra war in Nicaragua, and included an offer of amnesty to those Nicaragua contra fighters who chose to lay down their arms and reintegrate into society. This groundbreaking document was later used as a basis for other peace agreements in the region. The process was also important because the U.S. government, the main funder of the Contra forces, was actually pushed out of the negotiations and had little influence over their outcome.
In October of that year, a small group, including me, traveled by panga (small motorized boats) up Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast to interview contras that were surrendering and returning to their communities. We traveled from Bluefields to the coastal towns of Haulover, Pearl Lagoon (Laguna de Perlas), Brown Bank, La Fe, Orinoco, and Tasbapauni. In each location we met with members of local Peace Commissions and Sandinista military and political officials. In some areas we accompanied local residents as they affixed posters to trees in the surrounding bush areas that proclaimed “amnistia” (amnesty) and showed a photo of the five presidents at the signing ceremony of Esquipulas II in Guatemala City.
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In a novel, and seemingly successful, approach, the local political leadership provided every pair of returning contras (called “desalzados”) with a fishing net (a venture funded by donations from the government of Norway). The idea was to give the returning youth a means of employment and a way to reintegrate into the life of their community. Many, it seemed, had joined the contras because it provided a way out of unemployment, and they were each given a backpack!
The desalzados, mostly young men in their late teens, told of being led into the bush and then mostly abandoned by their commanders. “Sometimes we eat, sometimes we don’t eat,” one young man told me. They had very little direction and often turned to staging raids on their own communities in order to get needed provisions. Many kept secretly in touch with their families when they could, others had no contact and returned to parents who had not known if they were still alive. All of them seemed, at least at this time, glad to have put this portion of their lives behind them. However, none returned with weapons. Many may never have had one. Others, one local resident told me, “probably buried them somewhere, just in case they want to go back.”
More:
http://www.towardfreedom.com/31-archives/americas/3630-esquipulas-ii-looking-back-at-the-successes-of-central-america-s-1987-peace-accords