HL Deb 24 May 1982 vol 430 cc1047-65

9.50 p.m.

Lord Chitnis rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what opinion they have formed of the election in El Salvador and how they formed it.

The noble Lord said: I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. At the start, I should apologise for the lateness of the hour at which I am doing so but that is not entirely my fault. I make no apology at all for raising the question of El Salvador when I realise that many of your Lordships' minds will be on other parts of Latin America. I have a sneaking suspicion that long after our relations with the Argentines is settled and the future of the Falkland Islands is settled, the problem of El Salvador will still be there and will bubble once again to the surface.

I confess also that I suspect I know the answer to the Question which I am asking. I imagine that the Government are likely to say: "Taking one thing and another, and what with this and that, and in all the circumstances, the election in El Salvador was relatively fair". The evidence they will give for coming to this position will be the report of the official observers, Professor Derek Bowett and Professor John Gals-worthy, published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 24 pages, at £2.55p.

Therefore I will, if I may, start with the second part of my Question first and concentrate on the official observers' report. The official observers record that they arrived in El Salvador on Sunday, 21st March, a week before polling day. The very first thing that I should like to establish is whether the observers were aware that under a perfectly reasonable provision of El Salvadorean law public campaigning in the election campaign was suspended on Wednesday, 72 hours after their arrival. If so, one wonders how this squares with the assurance given in a Written Answer by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, when he was Foreign Secretary, that the observers would arrive in El Salvador in time enough to observe the election campaign. I suspect that in 72 hours one can see very little of the campaign.

But then I should like to call attention to the conditions under which Professor Derek Bowett and Professor John Galsworthy conducted their observations. On arriving at San Salvador airport, they were taken under armed escort of the Salvadorean National Guard to the Hotel Presidente, which had been commandeered by the Government, entry to which was restricted to only observers and their staff. Whenever they set foot outside this hotel they were again under the escort of the national guard.

I firmly believe, having observed elections both as an official observer and an unofficial observer in various places, that it is quite impossible to observe an election objectively under these conditions. If you accept the hospitality of the authorities, and if you accept the protection of the authorities, I do not see how you can reasonably be expected to estimate the conduct of those authorities objectively. Certainly if observing other people's elections is going to become a new international spectator sport, as it shows some sign of doing, I suggest that in future when Her Majesty's Government send observers to elections the official standing of the observers should derive only and solely from the British Government and not from the host Government, and that the British Government should make their own arrangements for the observers' hospitality, protection and all other arrangements.

It follows from what I say that I am not particularly impressed by the account of the official observers' travels as detailed in the report. Quite honestly, it is too much to expect the people of El Salvador or any similar country to talk freely to foreigners who suddenly turn up in a rather remote part of the country where they happen to live, surrounded by armed guards, who the people know are their enemies. But those are the conditions under which the British official observers normally went around.

That said, I should say I am extremely impressed by the observers' achievement in discovering what has so far eluded the spy satellites of the CIA, namely, the border between El Salvador and Nicaragua. Her Majesty's Government, I think I should say, ought to know that in Central America there is a considerable feeling that people in Britain know very little about conditions in that part of the world. They are aware, as many of your Lordships may not be, for example, that Her Majesty's Government's accredited representative to El Salvador did not spend a single day in that country in 1981. They feel, frankly, that people do not know what is going on there, and just as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, had occasion last Thursday to question the Foreign Office's knowledge of geography, so I must do tonight. I think it would be helpful if the Government were to put on the record that they are aware that there is no border between Nicaragua and El Salvador.

It also follows that, as I am not impressed by the observers' travels, neither am I impressed with their conclusions. Take first of all the size of the electorate that was meant to be voting in this election. Dr. Bustamante, the celebrated Salvadorean gynaecologist who was in charge of the electoral commission, told me that he had no idea of the size of his electorate and indeed said then, before polling day, that he had no intention of publishing a percentage turn-out since he had no idea of the total number of people involved. He did, though, give me and others various estimates which he made; and one thing I must ask is why, quite extraordinarily, the official observers disagree, not just with me but with Dr. Bustamante's figures?

For example, on page 9 of their report they publish an estimate of the total electorate of El Salvador at 5.09 million. That figure they justify. They explain why they had come to it, and I have no quarrel with it. But then they go on to assert, without any evidence whatever, that 60 per cent. of the electorate of El Salvador was under the voting age of 18. They just assert this without any justification, and they then say there were 200 refugees, where Dr. Bustamante himself said that there were 400,000 refugees and every reputable aid agency says there are 500,000 refugees. No reason is given for this. They say that 50,000 people were without identity cards—something you had to have to vote in El Salvador—and the Salvadorean authorities say that 100,000 people were without identity cards.

Why was there this extraordinary discrepancy? And, leaving aside that and just taking the fact that there were a large number of refugees and a large number of people without identity cards, I fail to see why, simply on the word of official observers, Salvadorean authorities or anybody else, these people who are Salvadorean citizens are simply considered to be non-persons in the context of the election and thus disenfranchised.

Incidentally, while we are on the subject of figures, I suggest that your Lordships should take some care before you believe any figure of total turn-out that you are given. There was a strange happening soon after the election finished, when the computer—which, I think quite unnecessarily, was hired to count the votes—found it all too much and stopped for a day and a half. From that moment on, nobody seems to be clear as to exactly how many people voted. Certainly I have had two separate figures from the Salvadorean authorities, differing quite considerably as to the number of people who voted. I therefore suggest that no figure can be taken with any great confidence.

Then there are the observers' conclusions. They talk quite a bit about the Left, and I wonder whether I can say one thing here. In so far as I, in this speech, will talk about the Left, I am using the term in the way it is used in El Salvador. By the El Salvadorean use of the word "Left" I think every noble Lord in this Chamber would be considered to be a dangerous member of the Left. The Left in El Salvador means anybody from the centre of the Conservative Party in this country leftwards.

The Left did not participate in the Salvadorean election, because they would have been butchered had they done so. If your Lordships want evidence of this, the Secretary-General of the Christian Democrat Party—the part of it which was contesting the election—told me that 700 of his party workers had been murdered in the two years prior to the election. If you digest that figure in relation to a small country the size of El Salvador, which has a population of about 5 million, you realise its enormity. You also wonder what would have happened if parties on the Left, who had to produce a nomination paper of 3,000 names to be lodged with the authorities in order to qualify to stand at the election, had done so. But while the official observers pay some note to this point, they also went on to say that they thought that the Left did not participate in the Salvadorean election, because of their long-standing disbelief in, distrust and distaste for democracy. This is a quite monstrous slur to come from the Master of Queen's College Cambridge and a former British ambassador.

The leading figures of the FDR, the political coalition of the Salvadorean left, are, for example, Dr. Guillermo Ungo and Senor Ruben Zamora; one a socialist, using a British term, and the other a Christian Democrat. These people have spent their lives fighting to get democracy introduced to El Salvador. In return for this, they have suffered exile, harassment and physical threat. It is quite monstrous that two people, who have never suffered a day of their lives for their political beliefs, should make this implicit, and pretty explicit, slur on Dr. Guillermo Ungo, Senor Ruben Zamora and their colleagues. If nothing else, I hope that the Government will tonight repudiate this slur on them and, indeed, might go on to say that they believe that the Left had good reason for boycotting this election, lest they be butchered by people on the Right in El Salvador.

Incidentally, another thing that the report said about the Left is that, five days before the election, the Left volunteered that they would stand were the election to be put off for a bit. I have gone to some trouble to investigate this tale. It is plainly and simply untrue. Were the Government to say that this was repeated by the observers only as something that was said to them, I would say that lots of things were told to the official observers in El Salvador, as lots of things were told to me, and one does not necessarily have to report them all.

Furthermore, they made the point that the Left tried to disrupt the election. That is a comment that can be made only by people who do not know the normal conditions of life in El Salvador. Certainly, the disruption of daily life caused by the Left was not half as bad as it was when I was there last summer, when power cuts were a normal feature of daily life and there was considerably more fighting in the streets of El Salvador than usual. Certainly, too, one man with a gun could have caused mass panic in the crowds gathered around the polling stations on polling day. The fact that this did not happen gives the lie to that assertion.

The main conclusion of the observers' report is that the election in El Salvador was fair. But I am afraid that the reason for their coming to that conclusion was that they chose to take a very narrow focus on what an election is. Their spokesman in El Salvador announced that the British were there not to take account of the human rights situation; that was outside their terms of reference. What they were there to do was to concentrate on observance of the electoral law and the process of casting a vote. This is a ridiculously narrow concept of what an election is. To make the point, I can only tell your Lordships that I suspect—though I have never done it—that if one went to the Soviet Union and observed an election purely from the proposition of whether Soviet electoral law was observed, and whether people were putting bits of paper into ballot boxes, without troops having guns at their backs, you might equally come to the conclusion that a Soviet election was free and fair.

The British official observers in El Salvador ignored the human rights situation, the deaths and the disappearances that go on every day. They ignored the circumstances of the war and the political campaigning. If you read the account of their travels as recorded in their report, you will find that they spent a lot of time talking to returning officers but, according to their report, they did not go to a single political meeting or visit a single political party's headquarters. Can you imagine that doing that in any normal election would give you a reasonable idea of what was happening?

I must ask the Government whether they believe that their observers gave enough weight to these other and, I think, major considerations. In other words, I think very little of the official observers' report—without calling attention to Appendix C, a rather odd appendix which purports to detail the parties which were registered at elections and the parties which were not. Among the list of parties registering is one which does not exist. It is a trade union. Accion Democratica, which won seats in the Assembly, is not recorded in the list. And one party—the MNR—is recorded as being both a registered party and a non-registered party.

I went to El Salvador two weeks before polling day in this election. I published a report about it, 28 pages and costing £1, in which I came to a somewhat different conclusion. If I may, I shall briefly explain to your Lordships why. The first and major flaw in the Salvadorean election was that as a result of the non-participation of the Left, the people of El Salvador had an extraordinarily limited choice. They were given two alternatives only. If I may adapt that to an English situation, it is as if there were an election between a weak Conservative Party under the thumb of the military and a murderous version of the National Front. That is the choice which the electors had. I recognise that, if you have this, it is an election. If forced to do so, I could make a choice between those two alternatives, but I should never delude myself into believing that those were the only proper political choices which should be available either to the people of El Salvador or to the people of this country.

Secondly, the electorate were given no choice about policies. There were no party manifestoes and ideas about what each party would do. The election was fought by all parties and by the electoral commission itself on the basis of negative attacks on their opponents and slogans. And not one of the parties contesting the election made a positive proposal about the one thing which the election was meant to be about—namely, how to finish the war. The electoral commission had the slogan, taken up by the parties, "Your vote the solution", but nobody was explaining how voting at this electon would solve anything, even though this was the one major issue.

Noble Lords should recognise that there is a real war going on in El Salvador. It is certainly true that there are towns like Santa Ana which are relatively peaceful, but in San Salvador, the capital, gun battles are taking place every night, or on many nights, there are dead people to be seen if you go outside before breakfast, lying in the streets, and, worst of all, in the North and in the West of the country there is a real war in the sense of helicopter gunships blowing up bridges, and devastion and death. That is what is going on in El Salvador, and that is what this election did nothing to solve.

However, having decided to hold an election, there were enormous pressures on voters to vote. This is not to suggest that, as in Zimbabwe in the first election there, voters were herded by troops to the polling station. It was rather more subtle than that. First, there was the considerable psychological pressure, with tremendous publicity put out by the electoral commis- sion that the army was safeguarding the democratic process. That may sound an innocent statement in Britain, but in El Salvador where people have learned what the army is like, I must tell your Lordships that that in itself is an implied threat. But there was also the technique of casting the vote, which I believe I can show to your Lordships was a tremendous and unacceptable pressure on voters.

They decided to hold the election in El Salvador without a register. I make no complaint about that. It is perfectly possible to have a free and fair election without a register. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, and I saw one when we attended the second Zimbabwe election. If you have an election without a register, all you need to do is to mark the voter's body. This is normally done by putting a mark on their hand with something which will not come off during the hours of polling. That is what you must do and it is all that you need to do. However, the Salvadorean authorities did two other things as well. First, voters had to give their names which were written down on a list when they arrived at the polling station. If you decide to hold an election without a register that is all right, but it is a complete nonsense to try to compile an election register by hand on polling day. Nonetheless, this is what they did, and the voter had to sign his name against that. This is an unnecessary provision against fraud and particularly in the context of El Salvador, where most citizens of that country would have wanted very much to make sure their name was on that list. Then their identity cards were marked with what the authorities called an indelible mark.

Take the point that in El Salvador your identity card is your passport to life and liberty. You have to show it very often at road blocks, to your employer, and whenever you want to do anything important. Very considerable propaganda was put out that these cards were going to be marked, and this caused very great pressure on the voters. I know of one Salvadorean politician on the Left who has been imprisoned for his political beliefs and who obviously had no vested interest in the choice that was offered in that mis-election. He none the less felt that he ought to go down, cast his vote and get his card marked.

In Guazapa, a Salvadorean country town, ballot papers ran out halfway through the afternoon. The voters were extremely upset and very angry—not because they were being deprived of their democratic voice, but because their cards were not going to be marked. An official had to reassure them on that point before they would go home.

Again, in the Guardian last week we have a tale that tells us that already—so soon after the election—the people from El Noria have fled, afraid that they were going to be killed because they had not voted in the election for the constituent assembly and because they knew it would be detectable from their cards that they had not done so. I hope the Government can explain to me—because I cannot and I do not believe that the official observers did—how marking the cards of voters was a prevention against fraud given that the hands had already been marked, and why (other than for the reasons I have explained) this provision was produced.

This provision produced total chaos on polling day. It was an extremely elaborate voting process which involved people finding names, having cards marked and so on which in itself—if one wanted to be pernickety—invalidated the election. That is one of the explanations for the vast crowds that I have been told about. Also, if there are very few polling stations you will also get vast crowds. If in Beaconsfield on Thursday there are only four polling stations—which is about the number there were in Soyapango, which has a population about the size of an English constituency—then you will get vast crowds. If people tell me that the crowds were all terribly cheerful, I will only say this. First, most of the film that was shown was from San Salvador early in the day. Secondly, if you were to reintroduce rationing to this country and everyone had to queue up for ration cards at a very small number of delivery points, and if you were to ask them to do this on a very pleasant and sunny Sunday morning, the crowds would be quite cheerful and would make the best of a bad job. I daresay that they would queue up in a happy and friendly way—which would tell you nothing at all about their sympathy with the reintroduction of rationing.

In other words, I find that the election was bad—bad in conduct, bad in timing and bad in result. After all, there was no reason to have an election now and hardly a more inappropriate time could have been chosen by the Salvadorean authorities and by the Americans who urged this election on them. This is not hindsight. Last July I saw Ambassador Hinton of the United States in El Salvador and urged him not to press for an election now, citing the unfortunate precedent of the internal election in Zimbabwe, which was held in similar circumstances. Ambassador Hinton's reply was if there was an election now which improved matters, that would be "one up" to the Americans; if the election did not work, then nothing would have been lost. This was, of course, a most dreadful misjudgment.

As the election unfolded, as a result of the way in which it was run the extreme Right has been allowed into the highest circles of Salvadorean politics. The lives of ordinary Salvadoreans have been made worse. The killings and the disappearances are already increasing. The war goes on. And within the last few days, the land reform campaign has been suspended. After all the travail of the election, an interim president has been unveiled to the El Salvadorean people whose name was never mentioned and who played no part in the election campaign. Major D'Aubuisson is the Speaker of the constituent assembly, and a more bizarre colleague for Mr. Speaker Thomas than the man described by Ambassador White as a "pathological killer" it would be difficult to think of.

So I hope that the Government will agree that this was an inappropriate election run in impossible circumstances. But perhaps the official observers had an impossible task given to them because of their terms of reference, because of their unfamiliarity both with the country and with observing elections, and because they were not necessarily the first choice for this job. Therefore, not too much weight should be given to their report. But since the election in El Salvador was such a bungled exercise, I hope the Government will agree not to be influenced by the spurious mandate claimed by those in the majority in the Salvadorean assembly when they come to determine Britain's future policy and actions on El Salvador.

10.16 p.m.

Lord Underhill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, for opening this very important matter, even though it may be at this late hour. As one who was privileged to be a member of the parliamentary delegation which observed the Zimbabwe election in 1980, I recognise only too well the task of the two Government observers of the El Salvador election. As the noble Lord has said, their terms of reference were rather confined. They were stated by the Lord Privy Seal in the other place on 2nd March. It is clear that the terms of reference were confined to the actual election process and the election campaign, and there is no doubt, and their own spokesman has said, that that excluded consideration of human rights.

I am sure we must set out the actual background. In the same speech in which the Lord Privy Seal set out the terms of reference, he said: The history of this unhappy country has been one of unrelieved violence and cruelty, dominated by a few families who have abused their wealth and privileges and have ruled by military force".—[Official Report, 2/3/82; col. 210.] Time and time again popular moves towards reform have been frustrated by military coups and brutal repression. We have now two reports, the report of the official Government observers and the report of the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, who went out to El Salvador, I think, on behalf of the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group. It is always difficult to make assessments of reports of events when we are sitting some thousands of miles away, but on the actual election I find in the two reports a great deal of common ground. I hope the Minister when he comes to reply will be able to deal with this question raised by Lord Chitnis about the security provision and whether or not the observers were free to move around as freely as your delegation was when we went to the official elections in Zimbabwe.

In one footnote the observers refer to encountering dismay and anger at the reporting of events by the British press and media. They do not elaborate upon that, and I must ask, who were the persons who expressed these views and what did they complain about? There is no information given. In the report of Lord Chitnis he refers to certain events to which consideration must be given. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees at the end of 1981 stated that 329,500 refugees from El Salvador were in neighbouring countries. In a brief footnote on page 9 of the observer's report they state that perhaps 200,000 left the country. As I think they were referring to electors, those two figures may somewhat agree, although some observers commented that there would be large numbers of other people from El Salvador who are refugees in neighbouring countries but unregistered. Lord Chitnis states that there were some 300,000 displaced persons in El Salvador. The observers' report in paragraph 9 states: In present circumstances, many Salvadoreans were displaced, taking refuge from the fighting". There is no indication whether or not they agree with the figure of 300,000 displaced persons. If one takes the refugees and the numbers said to be displaced, then one in 10 of the population of El Salvador is homeless. Yet the El Salvador authorities were proceeding with an election.

Many figures have been mentioned about the number of deaths of civilians. It is generally accepted by most commentators in the press throughout the world that something like 30,000 civilian deaths took place in 1980–81. The legal aid office of the arch-diocese of San Salvador claims that it has documented deaths in 1981 alone of some 12,500 non-combatant civilians killed by security forces or para-military squads. There is no reason to deny those figures.

I listed a number of points which I thought were essential for an efficient election campaign. Time prevents me from going through them. However it seems, looking at both reports, that there is agreement on a number of points. Both are in agreement that the absence of an electoral register was no obstacle to fair elections in the circumstances. Both agree that the arrangements to vote anywhere were also sensible in the circumstances. Both describe the process of marking the identity card and the right hand. But cognisance should be taken of the point which the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, made in his speech that the term "invisible" and the term "indelible" were used. Whether or not the use of the word "indelible" was to have a psychological impression upon persons who might not otherwise go to vote, is a matter of conjecture. Both reports have criticised that the election law provides no limitation whatever on parties' election expenditure.

The noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, in his report has commented on the massive expenditure by some of the parties. We have heard the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, tonight refer to the unsatisfactory distribution of election material to some polling stations, that some stations ran out of ballot papers and that there was also need for more polling stations. Those same criticisms appear in the observers' report. But there seems to be general agreement in both reports on the absence of any interference with voters at polling stations and on the generally relaxed attitude of voters going to the poll. In fact, I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, comments in his report that things may have been chaotic but there was no evidence of double voting or massive fraud—it was certainly not possible at polling station level.

One foreign paper which I read said that we can be satisfied that there was no fraud because the Christian Democrats and the Right parties were keeping clerical tabs on each other so that there could be none. The official report refers to the clerks at polling stations drawing up lists of those who voted. We have heard the noble Lord endorse that tonight. It means that there was, and still is, a clear list available to the authorities of all those who voted. In the light of what has gone on in the last two years at least, such a list with people absent from it could be extremely dangerous.

There would appear to be three vital issues outstanding: the right and opportunity of parties to contest the elections; the opportunity to vote; and the conclusions about the voting. The observers in their report state that the El Salvador Government offered guarantees to all participants, and they seem inclined to the view that all parties incurred the same degree of risk. One of the points of their conclusion is that the abstention of the Left was, in the opinion of most people, due mainly to the fear by the Left that the election would demonstrate that they enjoyed little popular support. I would suggest that that statement, "in the opinion of most people", is far from objective. Their conclusion adds, however, that in the light of past events, the fear for Left-wing candidates, had there been any, was not without justification and they comment on the fact that in 1980 seven leaders of the moderate Left opposition had been kidnapped, tortured and eventually murdered.

The noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, has tonight referred to the need for 3,000 signatories before a party could be registered to contest the election. That is also in the observers' official report. The noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, comments that, in view of the death lists, the submission of that number of names would put lives at risk.

A point which is in his report and to which he has not referred tonight is that the army command regard the FDR, which is the alliance of political parties on the Left, as terrorists; that there were 138 names on a death list issued by the army press office in March 1981. I would ask the Minister whether that has been checked and, if it has not, I believe it should be, because it was a definite statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, that this was issued by the army or the security press office. Is it also correct, as claimed by the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, that the central election committee—which, in effect, is Government-directed—advised in June 1981 that the FDR parties should contest the elections from outside the country?

Both reports refer to the Franco-Mexican Declaration of 28th August 1981, which described the alliance of FDR and FMLN, which is the alliance of the guerrilla forces, as a representative political force and called for dialogue between the Government and the Opposition parties, including that alliance. The observers' note on this ended: This was not the view of HMG". This would indicate that the Government's view on any non-participation of the Left in the election was concluded in advance of the observers' report. The noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, states that all the Right-wing parties which contested the election also opposed any such dialogue, and that the alliance parties time and time again expressed willingness to open negotiations with the El Salvador junta.

I think it would be wrong to assume from the observers' conclusions that the Opposition parties did not want a proper election. In his report the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, has given a very useful summary of the parties which contested the election and those which did not. I must refer to one that did not contest the election, the MNR. This is a social democratic party, a member of Socialist International, of which the Labour Party, of which I am proud to be a member, is also an active affiliate. They have consistently advocated the holding of elections, but that the elections should follow a cease-fire.

You have heard the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, express doubts about the electoral register and the turn-out. When I look at the figures given in the observers' report—and I admit that this is only up to the time they left, when the counting had not finished—and, when I look at the official figures claimed by the noble Lord in his report as given to him by the El Salvador embassy in this country, I must conclude that the figures depend upon an estimation of the potential electorate, bearing in mind that there is no electoral register, and there seems to be no information, as the noble Lord says, as to whether or not the persons who are under 18 years of age represented 60 per cent.—there is no indication from where that figure came. There is obviously no sound figure of population, because that was based on the 1970 census, with a statement that there had been an increase of 3.2 per cent. per year. Based on that, 60 per cent. are taken off as being under 18 and, therefore, not in the electorate.

The figures would also depend on the allowance being made for those prevented from voting because of the fighting—the observers put this as high as 100,000—and also figures for those who are refugees in neighbouring countries. How many of those in neighbouring countries who are refugees were able to come back to El Salvador to vote? Noble Lords have heard me say that the United Nations Committee has stated that there are at least 329,000 refugees in neighbouring countries, and other people think that is high. If we take the refugees outside the country and those prevented from voting, we have at least 430,000, and it could be higher. That is at least 20 per cent. of the estimated normal electorate. That is a figure which should make us think carefully about whether or not you could have a proper election, even if the election process is conducted fairly, if 20 per cent. of the people were not able to take part in the voting.

Paragraph 28 of the observers' report states that the turnout was massive and quite unprecedented, and that while voters were perhaps undecided as between the political parties, they wished to vote as a demonstration of their desire for peace and they believed that the elections offered some promise of peace. It so happens that I came across a report which appeared in the Economist on 27th March, the day before the elections, and I quote: With the guerrillas refusing to take part and the war continuing, the election bears some of the stigma that Rhodesia's 'internal' election in 1979 did. Yet polling seems likely to be as fair as it can be under the circumstances". We must keep in mind what the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, said about the Zimbabwe elections because at the "internal" election in 1979 the two—and I use the word for description—"guerrilla" parties did not contest those elections, and there was what was considered to be a high turnout. A massive majority was given to Bishop Muzorewa whose UNAC party secured 67 per cent. of the vote. At the 1980 election when both PF and Zanu PF took part, a further 900,000 people voted and they obtained together 87 per cent. of the votes, and Muzorewa's party support dropped from that figure of 67 per cent. a year before to only 8 per cent.

It would be argued, and I think rightly, that people voted at the interim election for peace and their own government, and at the 1980 elections, which were so well supervised by British election staff, they voted for the parties they really wanted. The difference is that there was the Lancaster House agreement in which the guerrilla parties took part. That did not happen in El Salvador. As the observers' footnote stated, such dialogue was not the view of Her Majesty's Government.

It is not my purpose tonight to go into the realms of policy. But it would appear to me that if the USA had urged a ceasefire and discussions with all elements in the country and the United Kingdom had supported that proposal, things might have been much different. As it is, the future looks very bleak. I must echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis. While the election process in many respects may seem to have been fair up to a point, if we regard the election solely on that and ignore the brutalities that took place right up to the eve of the election, ignore the fact that a dialogue was dismissed, ignore the fact that Her Majesty's Government were in favour of having no dialogue, then we must criticise the situation in which we find ourselves today.

10.36 p.m.

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has commented on the technicalities of the electoral procedure, as he is indeed well qualified to do. But I hope that he will forgive me if I return to the general aspects of the problem and the implications of the recent election on the lines of the Motion drawn by the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis. Although the Motion put down by the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, is on rather narrow lines, he has fortunately amplified the scope in his remarks and I find this helpful and would like to take up the more general aspects.

I should like to thank him for introducing this subject, which is timely, and to congratulate him on his report which I found extremely interesting. He knows, because we have already discussed it outside this Chamber, that I do not agree with the conclusions that he drew. Therefore, I know that he will listen carefully to the criticisms and comments that I am going to make concerning his report.

As a private citizen, the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, would have had no difficulty travelling in El Salvador, as it is a free country; and his comments, therefore, are not as perceptive as they should have been in that he failed to understand the complexities of the Latin American temperament. He is in some ways, despite his perception, at a disadvantage in that he does not speak the language, although I know he took interpreters with him. The Latin American is a complex person and it has taken us many years to understand him. Indeed, events in the South Atlantic, and the reactions to what has been happening there, have shown up once again the lack of comprehension in this country and elsewhere of Latin American thinking in general.

On the other hand, the observers whom the British Government sent comprised a distinguished academic in constitutional law, someone of consequence, and a retired ambassador who spoke Spanish and whose knowledge of the area was considerable. It was very important for the British Government to have sent observers to the election because any steps towards democracy today are important. I wonder—the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, has not brought this out—what it is he wants to achieve.

When we debated this subject 13 months ago, there were many more speakers and the general tenor of the debate was mostly anti-American, deploring United States intervention and influence. But surely their influence—I put this to the Government—has been beneficial because the hostilities, whichever way one looks at the issue, have diminished, and I am sad that in his report the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, offers only criticisms and no solutions.

In the last few years there has been in El Salvador what amounts to a civil war, and we discussed that last year in that debate. That war has, to a large extent, been fought on United States television screens as well as in the fields of El Salvador. One of the benefits of the recent election is that the massive press coverage in El Salvador has diminished, because events appearing on television screens is no way to resolve problems. The result of the election has been that a constituent assembly has been established, and that must be a setback for the guerrillas. In their official report, the observers comment—I summarise their words—that, despite the difficulties, the elections offered a first step towards the democratic alternatives to violence". Whatever the circumstances, that must be a valuable contribution.

Exactly what has happened? It has not been a victory for D'Aubuisson. We have seen subsequently the appointment of Alvaro Magana as President. He is a conciliator, a lawyer and an economist accustomed to compromise. He is forming a Government which is a coalition of the main parties. His sponsorship for the presidency was with the support of figures like Guillermo Garcia and Jaime Gutierrez, who are radical thinkers, and, in my view, that support alone gives some indication that the reforms, in which many of us believe—I know the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, believes in them—will and must continue.

I think it is deplorable that the Left—and we may understand some of the reasons—did not participate in the elections at all, and I believe that they are the losers thereby. They have demonstrated that they do not believe in the democratic process whatsoever. Naturally, I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

My view, formed after many years of experience in El Salvador and knowledge of the people who live there, is that some very tangible benefits may emerge from the wreckage of this terrible and deplorable strife. There are those who would like to replace authoritarian government, which is what El Salvador has had, but which does at least provide some limited freedoms, with totalitarian government, which precludes all freedoms whatsoever. The moves that have taken place in El Salvador and the election that has taken place will contribute to preventing that from happening.

What has happened in El Salvador shows that the ballot box is better than the bullet. I believe that we should be proud that Her Majesty's Government have participated courageously in promoting democratic traditions in such a small country as El Salvador, which is normally outside their sphere of influence. We must all hope that they can continue to do so and that this will lead to the brighter future which we all desire in that country.

10.42 p.m.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, of course the British Government will have contributed to the installation of democracy and the democratic tradition only if they have returned a valid and illuminating report on the elections which have just taken place. I do not want to speak about El Salvador, or about the difficulties of introducing democracy into a country in the throes of an atrocious civil war; nor about the American wish to have elections in such countries when they are influential in those countries. I want to talk only about the action of an external Government such as our own in sending official observers to report on such elections.

The two official observers went, I understand, at what was in effect the joint invitation of the Salvadorean and American Governments. That was the politics of it. They were chosen by the British Government and sent as their representatives in order to report to the British people, and in the name of the British people, on what had happened. Their report has come out in a White Paper, with the familiar signs on the outside; the august authority of the British state is in that Paper. It cost £2.55 for about half as much material as is in Lord Chitnis's report at £1; but that is a side issue which I shall not pursue.

In order to judge how the observers have done their work one needs to consider the alternative approach that they might have taken. I speak here from experience because I once received a joint invitation from the American Government and the Government of another country in the throes of an atrocious civil war—namely, Vietnam—about eight years ago, to observe an election in South Vietnam. I went there, along with one other British parliamentarian, and quite a large number of parliamentarians from other countries. I found that it was not possible for me to visit any of the parties in their headquarters, except the Government party. It was not possible to travel freely. I made no great point about that at the time because, as everybody remembers, the civil war was indeed an extremely violent one.

It was possible on polling day for me to observe three polling stations, where I found some abuses, but no very obvious ones. I was told, and I accepted, that there were—I believe it was—12,997 other polling stations in operation on that day. The total was 13,000, if I remember right. I did not think that it was worth making a formal report to anybody on the basis of my experience; nor did anybody ask me for one. So I simply wrote an article in The Times, saying that I thought that the result of the Vietnam war would be settled primarily by the Vietnamese and not really by the Americans, and that turned out to be perhaps a not useless result from the journey.

Our official observers in the case of the Salvadorean election have declared, by and large, that it was okay. They have given it roughly a clean bill of health. Let us examine this. An election is a social process which takes place between two classes of people, candidates and electors. If we start with the candidates, we find that in the words of the official observers themselves: The fear of the Left for the physical safety of Left-Wing candidates, had there been any, was not without justification". That is very mildly put. Lord Chitnis put it somewhat more robustly in his speech in introducing this very welcome debate. I would put it more robustly still: they knew that if they stood they would be butchered or shot; therefore, they did not stand. Who would?

If we turn now to the other partner in the social contract of an election—the electors—we find once again from the official observers' report the following. If they went and voted they got their hands marked with an ink with lasted more than 24 hours—the official observers do not tell us how much more than 24 hours; it could have been a month, it could have been six months—and they had their identity cards stamped, we understand, for evermore. They were therefore marked as safe people who had voted. They were safe people because, my Lords, in this election voting was compulsory, and if you ignore a compulsory edict from the armed forces and the Government of El Salvador at this moment you know what happens to you—you are butchered or shot.

It is therefore not surprising that many people voted. Nor is it surprising that nobody voted for the Left-wing candidates, because they were not there for fear of being butchered or shot. Nevertheless, the official observers found it possible to give this election a clean bill of health in our name in a White Paper published by the British Government and presented to the British Parliament and people. I will say no more, but I will listen with the greatest interest to what the noble Lord speaking for the Government has to say in reply to this short debate.

10.50 p.m.

Lord Belstead

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, for giving the House an opportunity to consider an event which has been the subject of much public interest and discussion, not only in this country but elsewhere. As your Lordships will know, the Government decided to respond to an official invitation extended by the Government of El Salvador to send observers to the Constituent Assembly elections held in that country on 28th March. The Government sent two independent observers—men whose integrity was unquestionable—to view the electoral process and to report on it. It was made clear at the time to all concerned that this decision was not to be interpreted as support for any political grouping in El Savador.

The observers, Professor Bowett and Sir John Galsworthy, went to El Salvador on 21st March. That was in fact the day they were invited to arrive, and, incidentally, three days before campaigning ended. They remained there for 10 days. The noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, was critical of the timing of the arrival. They were the first official team to arrive. A summary of their findings was made available to the House on 6th April, and their full report on the election was placed in the Library of the House on 22nd April.

I am sure noble Lords will agree that the report is a conscientious and workmanlike document. It can properly serve as a guide to the Government in their judgment of the election. The observers have made it clear that no obstacles were placed in their way by the Government of El Salvador. They point out that they were free to move around the country—one of the tests to which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, attached importance, I think—and to interview anyone they wished in conditions of complete privacy. They concluded that the system provided by the Transitional Electoral Law contained sufficient safeguards to ensure an electoral result reflecting the sentiments of the Salvadorean people, and that the actual conduct of the election, though not free from difficulties, was fair. They also took the view that the people of El Salvador saw the election, not as itself a solution to their problems but as a first and essential step towards a resolution of their great problems. I must say that I was glad that this was an aspect emphasised by my noble friend Lord Montgomery of Alamein in his speech.

Most importantly, the observers believed that the election was a demonstration that the people wished to try to resolve their problems by democratic processes and not by violence. The Government have also read with care the report prepared by the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis. It is not for the Government to defend in detail either document. However, I must tell your Lordships that, although I have listened carefully to the noble Lord's speech, the Government find the official report to be convincing and persuasive and we accept its conclusions.

The noble Lord referred to the non-participation of parties to the left of the Christian Democrats and those who are currently within the umbrella opposition grouping, the FDR—that is, the Democratic Revolutionary Front. It is not correct, however, to believe, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, believed, that all those non-contending parties would have had to go through the process of registering for the election by submitting the names of 3,000 supporters and thus placing their lives at risk. The Salvadorean Electoral Commission had declared that the prior registration in previous elections of two parties within the FDR—namely, the MNR, which was specifically mentioned by Lord Underhill, and the UDN—made their re-registration for the 1982 elections unnecessary. Nonetheless, those parties chose not to participate. I think that that is a matter for regret. But, having said that, one must not be naive in this matter. I fully appreciate that the murder of the FDR leaders in 1980—an act which was condemned by Her Majesty's Government in a message to the Salvadorean Government at the time—served as an ominous precedent. This was, indeed, acknowledged by the official observers. But so, too, was the appalling toll of Christian Democrat party workers mentioned, very fairly, by the noble Lord in page 12 of his report.

The noble Lord was also highly critical of the impression of our official observers about the reluctance of parties within the FDR to participate. But we really cannot get away from the fact that, imperfect though the circumstances for holding such an election were, the majority of the people of El Salvador voted for parties who were known to be to the right of the Christian Democrats and who were implacably opposed to the guerrillas and all they stood for.

I must therefore reject the suggestion that the electorate voted merely in order to get their names listed at the polling station and to have their identity cards marked. The observers' report makes clear that the ink used disappeared within 24 hours—

Lord Kennet

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I believe it says that it lasted for at least 24 hours. If I have misread the report and it said, on the contrary, that it disappeared within 24 hours, I should be grateful if the noble Lord could refer me to the paragraph.

Lord Belstead

I am afraid that I cannot refer to the paragraph, my Lords. I think the report said "within 24 hours". What was also said by the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, was that on several occasions ink did not show up at all under polling booth infra-red lamps. So there is extra corroboration in the direction of the argument I am using.

I do not agree that the stamping of identity cards was unnecessary. Marking voters' fingers prevented individuals from voting twice. Marking identity cards prevented the misuse of the cards in neighbouring polling booths. Nor can we accept that most people voted out of fear. There was no way of knowing how a person voted. Moreover, both reports made it clear that the prevailing atmosphere was relaxed. Compulsory voting is not, of course, unknown in unimpeachably democratic countries; for example, Belgium and Australia.

Having said that, there is no question that the guerrillas tried to intimidate and kill people who wanted to vote. As the noble Lord himself noted, mines were laid on roads by the guerrillas. Those watching television saw how guerrillas attempted to take the town of Usulutan. The observers reporting to Her Majesty's Government noted that the guerrillas had made a determined effort to prevent the electorate from reaching the polls by conducting a campaign of burning buses, an act which did not prevent voters turning out in their hundreds of thousands. There is no doubt in the Government's mind that a sustained and reprehensible effort was made by the guerrillas to intimidate the populace and prevent them from exercising a free choice.

In saying that I am bearing out the reasons why the Government accept the argument of the observers that by and large the electoral process was fair but it was not without flaws. Both the official observers and the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, expressed concern at the seemingly limitless funds employed by the extreme Right-wing party ARENA in its campaign. Both reports agreed that the voting procedure was unnecessarily complex and caused delays.

At the same time, I think it is important to note that the noble Lord does not allege personation, double-voting, or massive fraud. On the contrary, I think it is fair to say that he recognises that none of these were in evidence at the polling stations he visited. Equally, he makes no accusation of intimidation or coercion against the army or security forces. On the contrary, he says that the people accepted the presence of the soldiers and admits that the army confined itself to crowd control. On the basis of our own observers' report, I would share those views.

Lord Chitnis

The noble Lord does not believe an election is just polling day, does he?

Lord Belstead

No, my Lords, I did not think that I had given that impression during my speech.

The noble Lord criticised the manner in which the official observers were transported on their journeys in El Salvador. Because of the danger, many Governments did not appoint observers. We would have been failing in our duty if we had asked our observers to deny themselves the security offered by the Salvadorean Government. But I would repeat the assurances given by the observers that at no time did the Sal- vadorean Government deny them the right to go wherever they chose. They have also told us that the security guards never entered a room in which they were holding discussions, and that their escort was always invariably separated from them in the crowds at the polling stations. The noble Lord in his report describes a "bizarre encounter" with Sir John Galsworthy on election day. The person described by him as a bodyguard seated next to Sir John was in fact Her Majesty's Ambassador in Honduras. No observer is infallible and the noble Lord proved that on that occasion.

I should also like to comment on the human rights situation. It was never the intention that the observers should investigate the human rights situation as such. Other organisations—most notably the United Nations Human Rights Commission—are specifically concerned with such a task and are currently conducting an investigation. We have welcomed this investigation and continue to support it. But many points in the official report do touch on subjects of human rights interest; it would be absurd to suggest that human rights considerations were excluded from the context of the report.

The Government's own attitude to human rights in El Salvador was made clear in answer to a Question posed in another place on 3rd March when the Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at that time, Mr. Luce, said: We are fully aware that there is a large scale abuse of human rights in El Salvador. We note that in his final report to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the special representative states that violations of human rights are in the majority—though not solely—perpetrated by members of the State apparatus and violent groups of the extreme Right. We repeat our call upon the Salvadorean Government to ensure that all its citizens, including those within the armed forces, act within the law, and bring those responsible for such abuse to justice". I am glad to have this opportunity to tell the House that this remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

It would not be right for me to leave this subject without some consideration of the' outcome of the elections. As the House knows, no one party won an outright majority in the Constituent Assembly: the Christian Democrats polled the largest vote and obtained 24 of the 60 seats. As happens often in such situations in Western Europe and elsewhere, alliances and coalitions were then formed. Such coalitions are generally regarded, not as a hoax on the electorate as the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, suggests in his report, but as pragmatic attempts to form and continue a Government.

A Government has now been formed under an independent, Alvaro Magana, who won the support of the majority of the Constituent Assembly, including the Christian Democrats. Members of all the main competing parties have been appointed to offices of the new Government. The task before them of bringing an end to the war, rebuilding the economy and recreating a just society is very formidable. Let nobody underestimate that: Her Majesty's Government certainly do not. Let us hope that this is a new opportunity for El Salvador. At the same time I think it right to reaffirm that Her Majesty's Government look to the new Government of El Salvador to curb human rights abuse, to bring those responsible for such abuses to justice and to maintain necessary social and economic reforms.

This year's elections of a Constituent Assembly were only a first step towards a resolution of El Salvador's tragic difficulties. It is now for the new authorities in El Salvador to find a way forward towards a peaceful settlement to a conflict which still rages, as the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, rightly says, and still takes many innocent lives. There are many who have been forced into exile who wish to return and who could have a valuable role to play in El Salvador's future political and economic development. We note from reports that President Magaña has not ruled out the possibility of a dialogue. We fervently hope that it will be possible to achieve a peaceful solution to the problems of his country, and we look to the new authorities in El Salvador to propose how this can best be achieved.