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REGION IN CONFLICT OVER U.S. PRESSURE TO CONSOLIDATE MILITARIES.

Article Excerpt
Central American politicians have begun to respond to a U.S. call for reduction and reorganization of the region's military forces as "interference." In El Salvador, where emotions in some sectors are still raw over what is seen as an intrusion into their democratic processes on the part of outgoing US Ambassador Rose Likens, legislators and others now say that statements decrying the value of the region's militaries from US Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Daniel Fisk are just one more incident of meddling in their affairs.

Fisk publicly recommended from Washington, while CAFTA negotiations were going on in Honduras, that the countries sign a nonaggression pact and undertake a profound reform of their armies. The media and analysts duly noted the timing.

For Salvadorans, Fisk's comments come not only when Likens was signaling her country's displeasure at the prospect of a Faribundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) victory in the 2004 presidential elections, but also while the leftist party was making a major push to line up the support of current and former military personnel for its campaign and had made its effort to gain that support a centerpiece of its recent public discourse.

David Munguia Payes, a former colonel and key figure in the FMLN's outreach to the army, departed from his party's most recent attempts at appeasement with Washington to...