As Salvadoran Deadline Passes, a Tenuous Peace : Civil war: U.N. officials try to patch up leaky accords as government, rebels trade charges over demobilization.

MEXICO CITY —  The government of El Salvador and leftist guerrillas have failed to meet their deadline for completing a 10-month peace process, and top U.N. officials flew Friday to San Salvador to try to hold together the fragile peace accords.

The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front has begun to disarm its third group of about 1,500 guerrillas. But 40% of the rebels in the 8,000-member force still carry weapons. All were to have been demobilized by today in exchange for widespread political and military reforms from the government.

In January, the two sides signed U.N.-brokered accords to end their country’s 12-year civil war. The agreement called for the rebels to lay down their guns in five stages and convert to a legal political party. The government, in turn, would purge the armed forces of human rights abusers, reform the electoral system and judiciary and distribute land to former combatants. A new civilian police force would replace militarized police forces.

While the cease-fire has held firm--there have been no armed clashes--mutual distrust and political maneuvering have delayed implementation of the accords.

On Monday, the rebels agreed to a U.N. proposal to extend the deadline to Dec. 15. Meanwhile, they said, they will demobilize the third group of combatants.

Under pressure from the military and extreme right, President Alfredo Cristiani accepted the extension for demobilizing rebels but said he was suspending military reforms. “The government is halting everything related to demobilization, reduction and restructuring of the armed forces of El Salvador and is not willing to resume this process until all the FMLN’s weapons have been destroyed,” Cristiani said.

The rebels say they have been slow to hand over their guns because the government is lagging on reforms.

In advertisements and editorials, right-wing groups urged Cristiani not to extend the deadline and warned that the accords sought to destroy the armed forces. Cristiani’s Nationalist Republican Alliance, or ARENA party, asked the electoral council to block the rebels’ petition to become a legal political party until they are fully disarmed.

Adding to the tense climate, a clandestine rightist death squad, the Maxmiliano Hernandez Martinez Brigade, threatened to assassinate rebel leaders, U.N. officials and journalists after today’s deadline. “Killing leaders is the thing that could really bring this process to a halt,” said rebel spokeswoman Ana Guadalupe Martinez.

Leftist politicians warn that the peace process also could fall apart if the government does not proceed with military reforms, particularly with the purge. An ad hoc commission set up under the accords presented Cristiani and the United Nations with a list of 90 to 110 senior officers who should be removed from duty because of abuses and corruption. The secret list reportedly includes the defense minister, Gen. Rene Emilio Ponce, and his vice minister, Gen. Orlando Zepeda.

Diplomats say they believe problems in the peace process are not insurmountable.

“This process will continue,” a Latin American diplomat said. “What is happening is that we are reaching the (substantive) point of all the accords. We’re cutting to the quick.”

U.N. peacekeeping chief Marrack Goulding and U.N. Assistant Secretary General Alvaro de Soto arrived in San Salvador to devise a new timetable for reforms and new criteria to evaluate compliance, the diplomat said.

In New York, the Security Council adopted a resolution Friday extending the United Nations’ 1,146-person peacekeeping operation in El Salvador for one month in recognition that the accords have fallen behind schedule. The mandate for the $31-million U.N. mission was to have expired today.

In El Salvador, the government is to begin distributing farmland to former rebels and their supporters and some soldiers this weekend. Under the U.N. plan agreed to by both sides, 47,500 people will receive between 3.5 and 12 acres.

The army has reduced its troops from 63,000 to about 40,000, according to Gen. Mauricio Vargas. Two of the army’s counterinsurgency battalions have been disbanded, but three remain. Among them is the Atlacatl, which has one of the worst human rights records. Formation of the new civilian police is behind schedule, but 45 people have been sent to Puerto Rico and Spain for training as a new police officer corps.