José Napoleón Duarte

Duarte was born in Santa Ana in the department of the same name. While he was studying at Liceo Salvadoreño in May 1944, he took part in the protests that brought down the twelve-year-old regime of then-President General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez. Other military regimes followed, and in 1945 he crossed the border into Guatemala to join the opposition in exile. Although he spoke no English at the time, his father enrolled him in the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States. In 1948, having worked doing dishes and laundry in order to support himself through his studies, he graduated with a degree in engineering before returning to an El Salvador uncomfortably transitioning to a democracy. He married his childhood sweetheart, Maria Inés Durán, with whom he had 6 children: Inés Guadalupe, Alejandro, Napoleón, María Eugenia, María Elena, and Ana Lorena. Duarte got a job in his father-in-law's construction firm and, at the same time, began teaching.

President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan with José Napoleón Duarte and Inés Durán de Duarte.

On 25 March 1984, in the 1984 presidential elections, Duarte (running as the PDC candidate), running along with Rodolfo Antonio Castillo Claramount, came in first with 43.4% of the vote. In the second round, on 6 May, he won with 53.6% of the vote against the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) candidate, Roberto D'Aubuisson. The elections were marred by violence between the FMLN and Salvadoran military at and near the polling stations. As both candidates were known to have close links with wartime undemocratic factions, the US government spent approximately US$2 million to support the democratic process and prevent violence at the voting polls. However, some scholars of Central American history have suggested that the CIA was merely ensuring that Duarte, the candidate favored by the US, was elected.[2]

Duarte became president on 1 June. He was determined to end the civil war by "dialogue without arms," and on 15 October 1984, in La Palma, Chalatenango, he met FMLN leaders face to face, which marked the beginning of the end of the civil war. His basic goal, he claimed, was to see the guerrillas disarm and then to demobilize so that their members could be reincorporated into society. He argued that the issues that had caused them to rise up in armed struggle had been or were being resolved.

The FMLN demanded for ARENA to be banned from participating in the political life of the country, which made the dialogue between the two sides difficult. During 1985, Duarte tried to improve the image of the state by banning the Salvadoran Air Force from bombing civilian areas without presidential permission, creating an Investigative Commission to investigate political assassinations, and prosecuting the right-wing death squads that were alleged to be embedded in the state security services. However, that attempt largely failed to influence the excesses of the death squads.

On 31 March, in the 1985 congressional elections, the PDC gained a majority with 33 seats. ARENA's loss of control in the Congress enabled Duarte to achieve his goals more easily. On 10 September 1985, his daughter, Inés Guadalupe Duarte Durán, and her friend, Ana Cecilia Villeda, arrived by car at the gates of a private university in San Salvador. They were followed in a van by two bodyguards assigned to protect them. As the two vehicles came to a stop, other vehicles positioned themselves to block traffic while a number of armed individuals killed the bodyguards and forced the two women into a truck. The two women were taken to a guerrilla camp.

Four days after the incident, the self-styled Pedro Pablo Castillo commando of the FMLN publicly announced that it had been responsible for the abduction of the women. In spite of angering the military, Duarte's family was sent to the United States for its safety, and he began the negotiations for the release of Inés Duarte and Ana Cecilia Villeda.

José Napoleón Duarte and his wife, First Lady Inés Durán de Duarte, in the Netherlands in 1987

On 24 October, after several weeks of negotiations in which the Salvadoran church and diplomats from the region acted as mediators in secret talks, Inés Duarte and her friend were released in exchange for 22 political prisoners. The operation also included the release of 25 mayors and local officials abducted by FMLN in exchange for 101 war wounded guerrillas, whom the government allowed to leave the country. The entire process of exchanging prisoners, which took place in various parts of the country, was carried out through the International Committee of the Red Cross.

In a communiqué from the FMLN General Command broadcast by Radio Venceremos on the day Inés Duarte was released, the General Command assumed full responsibility for the operation and described the actions of the commando, including the killing of the bodyguards, as "impeccable". The abduction of Inés Duarte and Ana Cecilia Villeda was widely denounced as a violation of international law.

In 1986, Duarte's tax reform plans, bitterly opposed by ARENA, were judged unconstitutional. In August, he participated in the historic Esquipulas II agreement with other leaders to lay the groundwork for a firm and lasting peace in Central America by outlining the demobilization of the guerrilla groups in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. On 5 October 1987, a third dialogue began between the government and the FMLN, and on 28 October, Congress passed an amnesty law, just two days after Herbert Anaya, the president of the special United Nations Human Rights Commission for El Salvador, had been assassinated. Anaya's assassination was interpreted by some as a sign of disapproval of the peace process.

José Napoleón Duarte in 1987

Duarte was criticized by the Organization of American States, which demanded a full investigation into Anaya's death. As a result, Duarte offered a reward of $10,000 and asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate. The National police arrested a suspect Jorge Alberto Miranda Arevalo, who confessed that he had acted as a lookout for the gang. He said that he was a member of one of the guerrillas groups, "the ERP." He was judged and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Duarte was increasingly seen as powerless not only between the two opposing forces of left and right but also in terms of the US anticommunist political influence in the region. With corruption scandals, an economy in tatters, rumors of a right-wing coup, and a civil war that did not appear to have a solution, the government became ineffective, unstable, and unable to stop the indiscriminate violence and brutality. In the 20 March 1988 elections, the PDC were soundly beaten by ARENA in a fair election.

In June 1988, Duarte was rushed to a military hospital in Washington, DC, where he was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer and given between 6 months to a year to live. Both the diagnosis and the prognosis became public knowledge. In spite of having to stay in the United States for surgery and chemotherapy, he refused to resign as president, and he handed power over constitutionally to Alfredo Cristiani in June 1989. He died at 64 in San Salvador on 23 February 1990.

In his autobiography, Duarte wrote: "When the structures and values of Salvadoran society exemplify a democratic system, then the revolution I have worked for will have taken place. This is my dream".[8]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to José Napoleón Duarte.

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• Biography by CIDOB (in Spanish)
• "Central America Still Gunning for Peace"—Time article about Herbert Sanabria's murder in 1987.