universidad centroamericana josé simeón cañas ......universidad centroamericana josé simeón...

Digitalizado por Biblioteca "P. Florentino Idoate, S.J." Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas

Ignacio Martín-Baró

SOCIAL ATTITUDES AND GROUP CONFLICT

IN EL SALVADOR

·---=--. ''.!'!'.'c~SID.W CHITROAMERIC/\1!11 J..~,(! 1

A Thesis submitted to Dr. Milton J, Rosenberg in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Master of Arts degree in Social Sciences,

DIVISIONAL MASTER'S PROGRAM IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

~ University of Chicago May, 1977


acknowledgements:

I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Milton J, Rosenberg for his interest, guidance and critica! comments.

Dr. Suzanne Kobasa has been an excellent advisor and a continuous source of suggestions.

Steve Schacht helped me with the computer analysis.

Galio Gurdián, Héctor Lindo, and Segundo Portilla devoted generously their time to be judges for the value analysis.

Bob Kopek did the proofreading,

To all of them I am deeply grateful.


l. INTRODUCTION,

2.

3,

1.1. Historical facts.

1.1.1. El Salvador.

1.1.2. The Project of Agrarian

Transformation.

1,2, Interpretations of the conflict.

1.3. The psychosocial perspective,

1.4. Theoretical background.

1.4.1. Social conflict.

1.4.2. Attitudes,

1.4.3. Attitude change.

1.5. Hypotheses.

1.5.1. First hypothesis,

1.5.2. Second hypothesis.

METHODOLOGY.

2.1. Content analysis.

2.2. The docurnents.

2.3. Codification system,

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS.

3.1. Chronology of the debate,

3.1.1. First Phase.

3.1.2. Second Phase.

3.1.3. Third Phase.

3.1.4. After the debate,

3,2, Attitudes toward the Agrarian Transform.

1

3

7

9

12

13

15

20

21

22

24

25

27 28

33

37 39 41

43

3,2.1. The object of the attitude. 45

3.2.2. Values related to the Agrarian

Transformation. 47

3.2.2.1. Communism~Nationalism. 48

3.2.2.2, Democracy, 49


Table of Contents, 2.

3.2.2.3. People's Will. 49 3.2.2.4. Prívate Property. so 3,2.2.S. Productivity. 51 3.2.2.6. Social Injustice. 51 3.2.2.7. Wealth Distribution. 52

3.2.3. Value statistical analysis.

3.2.3.1. Groups and values. 53 3.2.3.2. Phases of the debate and

values. 54 3 ,2. 3. 3. Groups, Phases, and

values. 55 3.2.3.4. Evolution and mutual

influence. 56 3.2.4. Representation of attitudes. 58

3.2.4.1. First Phase: Fig. 2; 59 3.2.4.2. Second Phase: Fig; 3. 61 3.2;4. 3. Third Phase: Fig. 4.· 65 3.2.4.4; Change in the attitudes

toward the Agr. Transf. 65

4. DISCUSSION.

4.1. First hypothesis.

4 .l . l. Attitudes and social groups. 68 4. l. 2. An example of the different

attitudes. 78 4.2. Second hypothesis.

4.2.'1. Evolution of the attitudes

through the debate, 81 4.2.1.l• First Phase. 83 4.2.1.2. Second Phase. 84 4.2;1.3. Third Phase. 86

4.2.2. Levels of social consciousness. 88 4.2.2.1. First Phase. 89 4 . .2 •. 2.2; Second Phase. 92 4.2.2.3. Third Phase. 96


Table of Contents, 3.

4.2.3. Attitude change through inconsistency.

4.2.4. After the debate.

S. CONCLUSION.

6.

5.1. A psychosocial interpretation of the

debate. 5.2, Sorne theoretical implications.

REFERENCES,

APPENDIX.

98

102

104 107

110


FIGURES AND TABLES ------- ------------- ------

Fig. 1 Map of El Salvador,

Table I Per capita income distribution for 1970

in El Salvador,

Table II Land distribution in El Salvador.

Table III Number of documents by group, kind,

and Phase •.

Table IV Spearman rank correlation coefficients

of value analysis.

Table V Historical evolution of the debate.

Table VI Relative frequency of values by groups and Phases,

Table VII Modif ication of the values through the debate,

Tab, VIII Spearman correlation coefficients

between the values expressed by

both groups.

Fig. 2 Attitudes in the First Phase,

Fig. 3 Attitudes in the Second Phase.

Fig, 4 Attitudes in the Third Phase;'

Table IX Order of value by relative frequency.

1

2

4

28

31

34

48

56

57

60

62

64

72


(1) I N T R O D U C T I O N = = = = = = = = = = =

1.1. HISTORICAL FACTS,

1.1.1. El Salvador,

El Salvador is a small Republic on the Pacific coast of

Central America, with an area of 8,259 square miles (cf, Fig.

1), and an esti.mated population of more than four million

people --the population at the end of 1974 was of 3,956,400

people (Ministerio de Planificación, 1976, p. 13). Its

already high population density and its high rate of population

increase, officially estimated at 3.06 (Ministerio de Planifi~

cación, 1976, p. 14), aggravate the existing social problems.

Fig. l

EL SALVADOR


2.

Ihe Salvadoran economic system is based on the production

and export of coffee, sugar cane, and cotton (cf, White, 1973).

During the sixties, the establishment of the Central American

Common Market stimulated the industrial development of the

country; however, this process of industrialization carne to

an abrupt end around 1967,

Ihe annual per capita income in El Salvador is U, S.' $

338.4 (Ministerio de Planificación, 1976, p. 33), but this

figure does not give an adequate picture of the economic

situation of most people, since there is a sharply skewed

distribution of the income; "The richest 10 % of the capital

city receives a greater income than the 90 % of the poorest,

A greater inequality can be seen in the fact that 1 % of those

1~ith the highest income in El Salvador received more income

than SO % of the poorest families" (Burke, 1976, p;' 478).

Ihis distribution can be observed in Table I.

TABLE I

PER CAPITA INCOME DISTRIBUTION FOR 1970 IN EL SALVADOR

Population % Per Cap, Inc. (in $ U,B.·)

Highest 5 % 1, 442 High 15 % 568 Middle 30 % 213 Lowest 50 % 81

Source: SIECA, 1973, Tb. II-3, p. 47.


3.

Other social indicators can help to fonn a better idea of

the Salvadoran situation. Thus, 51 % of the population over

15 years old was illiterate in 1971 (SIECA, 1972; CONAPLAN,

p. 42); 58.3 % of the "economically active" rural population

is currently unemployed (SIECA, 1973, p. 186, Tb. 21), and

there is an estimated deficit of about 330,000 houses (SIECA,

1973, p. 175, Tb, 12). Moreover, recent data shows that El

Salvador is the fifth worst fed country in the world, f act

acknowledged by President Malina in his address of September

15, 1976.

Since its independence from Spain in 1821, El Salvador

has been a parliamentary Republic, usually governed by members

of the few families that constitute the economic elite, and

who own most natural and industrial resources of the country,

But, after 1932, when a popular revolution broke out and was

unmercifully smashed in blood (cf, Anderson, 1971), the military

took charge of the political direction of the country and trans~

fonned the presidehtial election into a conventional public

confinnation of a choice already made inside the Anny ranks

(White, 1973),

1.1.2. The Project of Agrarian Transfonnation.

Traditionally and with a few exceptions, in El Salvador

the land did not belong to private individuals, but it was the

common property of Indian communities. Since 1856, however,

and especially after the liberal refonn of 1881-1882 which


4.

abolished the communities and the ejidos (common lands) in order

to favor the growing of coffee, a few owners began to accumulate

the best lands of the country (White, 1973), Today, while 1.9 %

of the owners possess 57,5 % of the land (usually, the best

land), 91. 4 % own 21. 9 % of the land, and 6 .7 % the remaining

20~6 % (see Table II),

TABLE II LAND DISTRIBUTION IN EL SALVADOR

FARMS

Hectare Number (thousands)

1 - 10 207,3

10 - 50 15, 2 50 - 200 3,3

200 - more 1,0

TOTAL 226,8

%

91.4 6.7 l. 5

0.4

100.0

AREA

Number (thousands)

346,2 326,0 313,2 596,0

1,581,4

%

21. 9 20.6 19 ,'8 37.7

100;0

Source: Dirección General de Estadística y Censos, 1966,'

The concentration of the national income and the economic

resources in the hands of a few families constitutes the great~

est hindrance for a social and economic development of El Sal-

vador. The evidence of this fact has become increasingle clear

and, under heavy socio~economic pressures, the Goverrunent has

come to acknowledge publicly the need for urgent reforms. This

new consciousness is at the origins of the projected Land

Reform.


5.

Thus, after his pre-arranged rise to the Presidency in 1972

(cf. Hernández~Pico ~al., 1972), Col. Arturo A. Molina pledged

in his inaugural presidential address a broad policy. of "National

Transformation" (Presidential Address, July 1, 1972; GOV, doc.

09,23b), Consequently, on June 29, 1975, the Legislative Assembly

issued a Decree creating the "Salvadoran Institute of Agrarian

Transformation" (ISTA), that would be the institutional instrument

for the projected land reform. And, on June 29, 1976, the same

Legislative Assembly decreed the "First Project of Agrarian

Transformation," which would be applied in a very productive

zone mostly owned by big landholders,

There were two most surprising characteristics of the Project:

a) It established the limits of land ownership in the zone of

the Project ata maximum of 35 ha. (Decreto de creación ••• ,

1976, Art. 3); b) It also determined the forms of expropriation

and indemnification to be used (Decreto, Art • 4-19), which

attributed to the ISTA a decisive power in case of conflicting

views,

The Project, however, was not a revolutionary one. The

Government intentionally named it Agrarian Transf ormation,

rejecting the more traditional name of Land Ref orm which, in

the official rhetoric, was linked with "socialist" or "communist"

forras of government. Its explicit goals aimed at the creation

of new private owners and at the reactivation of the national

economy through the creation of an internal market. It also

offered the present owners the opportunity to sell their lands


6 ..

at normal prices; in fact, the whole Project was presented as

an "insurance policy" far the future of capitalism in the country

and of the capitalists themselves,

The reaction of the landowners and, more generally, of the

whole private enterprise, was immediate, On July 9, ten days

after the Project had been approved by the Assembly and without

knowing its exact terms, the Nacional Association of the Private

Enterprise (ANEP), an organization which includes 30 Associations

representing all the private intereses in El Salvador, issued a

bitter Manifesto opposing the projected reform and accusing the

Government of leading the country into an economic chaos (ANEP,

doc. 07,09), The next day, on July 10, the Government issued a

no less bitter answer to this manifesto, in a statement published

by all local newspapers,

From that moment on, a public debate took place through the

mass media between the Government and ANEP, a debate which lasted

until mid October. Certainly, this debate constituted an unusual

political event in El Salvador because of the contenders involved

and because of its intensity, length, and bitterness •' Although

the basic ideological debate developed through the newspapers,

this was by no means the only battle f ield, nor perhaps the most

important, ANEP tried to apply all kinds of social, economic,

and political pressures on the Government; all these pressures

in one way or another were reflected in the written debate,

Perhaps the most relevant sociopolitical fact was the rise

and activities of the "Agropecuarian Front of the Oriental Region"


7.

(FARO), Though FARO :.:.which in Spanish means floodlight-:. at

the beginning only included sorne of the landowners affected by

the Project, it soon became a flag for most wealthy landholders

of the country, as well as for other persons involved in private

enterprises (in 4,2,·2.2 I will study the characteristics and

meaning of FARO), Since its public inception in mid August,

FARO showed open aggressiveness and a beligerant style, FARO's

manifestos abounded in personal attacks, veiled threats, distorted

imputations, and even obvious calumnies. This overheated style

characterized the three meetings that FARO held in diff erent

places of the country, which brought together the so-called

"living forces" of the private enterprise. The meetings were

highly publicized and, unquestionably, represented a formidable

political weapon against the governmental project.

After three long months of conflict and public debate, on

October 19, 1976, the Legislative Assembly approved substantial

amendments to the First Project of Agrarian Transf ormation which

effected its practical annulment.- Once more, the Government

yielded to the demands of the economic elite.

1.2. INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CONFLICT,

Few interpretations of the conflict have been offered,

partially due to the lack of skilled analysts in the country,

but also partially due to the dangerous witch-hunt that f ollowed

the conclusion of the conflict. Most of the known interpretations


B.

have been published in a special issue of Estudios Centro Ameri

canos (ECA), journal of the Central American University in San

Salvador. It is to be noted that this University publicly

issued an early statement, conditionally supporting the Agrarian

Transf ormation ~~a statement which angered ANEP-FARO and which

was f ollowed by the criminal detonation of several bombs in the

buildings of the University. Certainly, not everything was

ideological debate in the conflict.

The interpretations agree in seeing the conflict as an

instance of the class struggle in El Salvador (cf, ~ .§.1!§. órdenes,

1976; Estado y Sociedad, 1977; Menjívar & Ruiz, 1976; Zamora,

1976), Sorne analysts see in the projected Agrarian Transformation

a measure that, somehow, represented the objective interests of

the oppressed class, "It is against this kind of State which

was beginning to issue sorne measures in behalf of the most

oppressed -~structural, not paternalistic, measures~~ that the

struggle of the bourgeois class was directed,,,, They were not

fighting against a quantitative measure, but against a qualitative

one" (~ .§.1!§. Órdenes, 1976, p. 639).

Other analysts (Estado y Sociedad, 1977; Zamora, 1976)

deny this possible link between the governmental actions and

the oppressed class, and explain the conflict as a direct con~

frontation between two factions of the ruling class, the object

of this struggle being the hegemonic power, "The ideological

fight was intended to overcome a hegemonic crisis among the


9.

groups of the dominant class" (Estado .x: sociedad, 1977, p. 19;

cf. also Zamora, 1976; Marx, 1972),

1.3. THE PSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE,

These interpretations are of a sociopolitical nature and,

although they presuppose the role of psychological factors, they

do not specify or analyze this influence. It is not our intent

to reduce the conflict to psychological terms ~-a kind of psycho

logical reductionism which only serves to hinder the socio

historical dimensions of a political conflict. It is, however,

our contention that psychological analysis can contribute to a

better explanation of the conflict and its characteristics, Ours

is, therefore, an inclusive, not an exclusive, analysis.

There are several points of the conflict that psychology

can help to understand. One of them is the psychodynamics of

the groups involved, By group psychodynamics we do not necessarily

mean the restricted sense given to this label in "popularized"

psychology, and which seems to apply only to small groups. In

a broad sense, by group psychodynamics we mean the particular

motivations, perceptions, emotions, and actions generated by the

interaction of individuals and groups in the context of a

particular historical situation. We assume that human inter

action generates a new psychosocial field and that the individuals'

activity can only be understood in reference to this new social

field (cf, Moscovici, 1972),


10.

This social field might be psychologically understood as

the configuration of new group attitudes, attitudes that acquire

reality in every individual member, but that are of a psycho~

social nature, Consequently, any action expressing these new

attitudes has an ideological character, that is, not only ex~

presses the individual's motivations, but also the interests

and values of the group, Attitudes are, therefore, conceived

as a mediating variable between group interests and individual

motivation, between the social consciousness of a group and

individual perception and cognition, between group structure

and individual action.

Cognitions are basic elements of any attitude, How an

object is perceived and understood, what meaning it has for a

particular person or group, is a crucial factor in arder to

understand the activity of that person or group. In our case,

"the presence or absence of conflict is never rigidly determined

by the objective state of affairs" (Deutsch, 1972, p. 124),

although the objective situation can be a conflict situation.•

The problem is how and when the objective conflict becomes also

a subjective one, "Hence, it is important in charactering any

conflict to depict the objective state of affairs, the state

of affairs as perceived by the conflicting parties, and the

interdependence between the objective and perceived realities"

(Deutsch, 1972, p. 123),

Affect is the other basic element of any attitude, Affects


11.

are understood here as the emotional feelings that accompany

any knowlege -~feelings of like or dislike, attraction or

repulsion.toward an object, Individuals experience the

evaluation of the world by means of their affects, How a

perceived or known object will be valued, depends on the part~

icular frame of reference of every individual or group, Affect

and cognition are not independent, but dependent, psychological

processes, and it is their organization toward different objects

that we call attitude (see next section),

A psychosocial study of the group attitudes can lead us

to a better understanding of the group dynamics ~~the motivation~

al and cognitive processes underlying group activity. What were

the motives, values, and cognitions ~~according to the unit of

analysis adopted~~ of both Government and ANEP~FARO during the

conflict over the Agrarian Transformation? How did both groups

perceive this Project? To what values did they relate it?

These questions can be answered by studying the attitudes of

both groups toward the Project, insofar as these attitudes

constituted the new psychosocial field in which the group

actions were rooted, As Deutsch says (1972, p. 124), "the

psychological processes of perceiving and valuing are involved

in turning objective conditions into experienced conflict."

On the other hand, it is clear that the public debate

between the Government and ANEP-FARO explicitly intended a

mutual modification of their attitudes -~or, at least, a modi~

fication of their concrete actions, Arguments went back and


12.

forth trying to convince the opponent about the irrationality

of his attitude and behavior. To what extent was this argument

ation effective7 In what measure did the debate induce a

modification of the contenders' attitudes7 In other words, in

what measure can we speak of attitude change due to the public

debate? This is a very important question with which we will

be dealing in this work.

A caution seems necessary. We are assuming that the debate

intended a modification of the contenders' attitudes, Now, the

verification of an attitude change would not necessarily have

to be interpreted as the direct consequence of the debate. As

we have already noted, many other activities took place, many

pressures were applied on both sides beside the public debate,

perhaps more effective than the debate itself. It is our

assumption, however, that the debate and the other pressures

do not constitute alternative explanations of attitude change,

We assume that the debate ideologically reveals the group

processes and, consequently, in one way or another expresses

the psychosocial attitudes of both groups throughout the

conflict -~and this expression includes the presence of any

kind of pressure applied to the groups•

1.4. IHEORETICAL BACKGROUND.

Sorne theoretical ideas have already been exposed in the

preceding paragraphs. In this section, I will try to present

more explicitly the basic theoretical assumptions in which the

present work is based.


13.

1.4.1. Social conflict,

Following the analysis of many contemporary Latin American

social scientists (cf,, for instance, Dos Santos, 1968; Gunder

Frank, 1971, 1972; Jaguaribe, 1970; Ribeiro, 1971), I assume

that the bese model f or understanding the social structure of

Latin American countries is the dialectic;..historic model;· This

model explains how, through a historical process of internacional

dependence, Latin American countries have been shaped and

organized to serve the needs of external "metropolises," The

basic mode of production determines an essential link between

the internal organization of the country and a state of dependence

with respect to foreign countries. At Che same time, this mode

of production determines the social relations between individuals

(cf, Marx, 1971).

The capitalist mode of production dominant in most Latin

American countries divides men into two different social groups,

according to their relation toward the means of production:

those who own Che means of production, and those who only have

their bodies to sell in the work market, Both social groups

or classes have irreconciliable objective intereses, and their

existence in the same historical society constitutes a situation

of objective social conflict.

From Chis perspective, it is important to underline the

objective character of the social conflict, Most psychologists,

in dealing with social problems, tend to assume more or less

explicitly that conflict is a dysfunction inside a stable system

or a deviation from a normative organization, and not an essential


14.

characteristic of present societies (cf, also Coser, 1956),

Moreover, they tend to assume as true the assertion of the

UNESCO charter that "wars begin in the minds of men," There

fore, they hypothesize that social perception plays the decisive

role in the origin of social conflicts (cf. Stagner, 1963).

Without denying the important role played by psychological factors

in social conflicts ~-as I noted in the preceding section~- it is

my contention that the objective situation of social conflict is

prior to its psychological elaboration and, consequently, that

even the role of the perception in the conflict cannot be

adequately understood unless it is related to a historical social

context.

However, the historical evolution of Latin American countries

has made possible the simultaneous coexistence in them of dif

ferent modes of production: beside technologically advanced

factories one still finds very pri.mitive artisan mills or

medieval forms of land use, Therefore, several social classes

actually exist, which somehow overlap the two basic classes

corresponding to the dominant mode of production (Ribeiro, 1971;

Jerez, 1977).

From the individual's perspective, two aspects of social

class must be distinguished, On the one side, there is the

objective fact of class membership: an"'\ individual belongs to

one class or another, and this membership is determined by his

situation in the productive system. This objective membership

produces what Lukács (1971) calls "class psychology," that is,


15;

the psychological characteristics corresponding to the values,

customs, and forms of education of a particular social class,

On the other side, there is the subjective fact of class cons

ciousness, that is, the awareness of a particular individual

about his class membership as well as about the objective

interests of his own class. lb.ere are innumerable possible

levels of class consciousness, from a complete lack of awareness

about the objective interests of one's own social class to a

complete awareness and personal identification with those

interests,

Different levels of class consciousness help to explain

the psychosocial existence of many groups overlapping diff erent

social classes. In every society we can expect to find not

only different objective social classes, but also different

groups formed across classes, partially due to different levels

of social consciousness,

1.4.2. Attitudes.

lb.ese two concepts, social class and social consciousness,

are necessary to fully tm.derstand the conceptualization of

attitudes that I use in this work,

From a formal perspective and following Rosenberg (1960a;

1960b; 1962; 1965; 1968), I conceive an attitude as a radial

structure of cognitions and affects toward an object or class

of objects.

On the other hand, from a socio-genetic perspective, I

conceive attitudes as the psychological structuring of the


individual's ideology (Martín-Baró, 1972). This statement

implies that:

16.

a) Individual attitudes are rooted in the social groups to

which the individual belongs;

b) Attitutdes fulfil adaptational, economic, expressive,

and defensive functions (McGuire, 1969) which are

individually as well as socially meaningful;

c) Ideology is not only an organized system of beliefs

about man and society, but also a psychological structure

through which men experience their life.

This conceptualization intends to translate into psycho

logical terms Althusser's concept of ideology (1968, principally

pp. 181-194). Therefore, ideology is not here understood as a

superstructure of cognitive character, but as a "structural

system through which and in which the individual reaches the

reality ~-perception, cognition, understandign~- and interacts

with reality ~~action" (Martín~Baró, 1976, p. 10). As Porshnev

(1970, p. 16) puts it "ideology acquires social strength

-incitement or inhibition-~ solely through psychology; a

change in ideology, as any other process, is brought about

through psychology and is conditioned psychologically."

Thus conceived, attitudes are the basic constructs to

explain the insertion of individuals into social groups, as

well as the social character of individuals. The affective~

cognitive model assumes that stable attitudes possess an

internal consistency, that is, that there is a "relationship of


17.

consistency between a comparatively stable affective or evaluative

orientation toward sorne object and the person's beliefs abou~~that

object is related to other objects of affective significance"

(Rosenberg, 1968, P• 74), But, according to our conceptualization

of attitudes, we also have to postulate an external consistency

between the individual's attitude system and the interests or

values of his social group or class, This is not, of course, a

simple or one~to-one relationship; the members of a social class

do not necessarily have the same set of attitudes. But, insofar

as they become more conscious about their social membership and

the interests of their own social class, their basic attitudes

tend to conform more and more with those objective interests.

Social consciousness is, thus, the intervening variable between

class membership and class attitudes. There is an objective

external inconsistency whenever the attitudes of an individual

do not correspond to the interests of his class; but this

inconsistency only becomes subjectively operative by means of

social consciousness, External consistency has been studied

from another perspective as the relationship between individuals

and "reference groups" (cf. Kelley, 1968; Newcomb, 1968; Siegel

& Siegel, 1968),

Kelley (1968) believes that a distinction must be drawn

between groups serving a normative function for the individual,

that is, setting his behavior standards, and groups serving a

comparative function for the individual, that is "serving -ª.§.

or being a standard or comparison point against which the person


18.

can evaluate himself and others" (p. 213), In any case, as

Newcomb (1968, p, 224) points out, attitudes are not acquired

in a social vacuum, but "their acquisition is a function of

relating oneself to sorne group or groups, positively or nega

tively." Our assumption is that whether the reference group

for an individual is his own social class or other class or

group will depend upon his social consciousness,

Freire (1970, pp. 27-56) has analyzed the basic attitudes

that characterize the members of the two classes corresponding

to the dominant mode of production in Latin American countries:

the attitudes of the oppressor and the attitudes of the oppressed;

It has to be noted that this analysis presents almost "pure"

characteristics corresponding to "pure" classes, and that the

analysis is of a dialectical nature, that is, that both sets of

attitudinal traits are mutually shaping.

The oppressor initiates a situation of violence and perceives

the whole world from the vantage point of dominance; everything

is "connaturally" due to him and, therefore, he finds it logical

to impose upon the society his interests, his values, and his

opinions. In order to maintain this situation, the oppressor

mythifies the reality and, under ideal values of "freedom,"

"peace," and "order" rationalizes a situation of human dependence

and structural injustice. For the oppressor, to be a human

person means to be like him and, therefore, anything against

him is also against "human nature," For him, not to oppress


19.

is to be oppressed. Finally, the oppressor has a possesive

attitude toward the world: to "become" is to possess more and

more things and, upan his contact, everything and everybody

becomes a reified object of possession.

The oppressed, on the other hand, confronts the world from

a perspective of submission that makes him perceive reality in

a fatalistic way: everything is somehow predetermined and he

cannot alter the course of events. The world of the oppressed

is a closed world, a world without history, This fatalism is

the counterpart of the oppressor's mythification of reality,

Besides, the oppressed has what Freire calls an "existential

duality," that is, he has introjected as ideal the image of the

oppressor who becomes his identification model, Confronted

with this idealization of the oppressor, the oppressed experiences

himself as devoid of value; This self~depreciation leads him

to search for his realization through a relationship of sub

mission. If for the oppressor "becoming a person" is to possess

objects, for the oppressed "becoming" is to be possessed.

As we said befare, this attitudinal characterization

corresponds to "pure" social classes, ideal types which actually

do not exist. But it is a valuable model to understand the

consistent relationship between individual attitudes and social

classes, Let us note, by the way, that while the oppressor's

attitudes denote a high level of social consciousness, those of

the oppressed imply an almost complete lack of it.


20.

1.4.3. Attitude change.

According to Rosenberg (1968, p. 75), attitude change is

basically due "to a sort of homeostatic process in which the

production of affective-cognitive inconsistency arouses further

symbolic activity leading toward restoration of inner consis

tency," Ihere are, consequently, two possible sequences of

attitude change: one originating in the modification of cognitive

responses, the other originating in the modification of affective

responses, "Ihese two sequences are assumed to operate (1) only

when the degree of affective~cognitive inconsistency exceeds the

individual's present tolerance for such inconsistency; and (2)

only when the original alteration of either the affective or

cognitive component has been sufficiently compelling, and is

strongly enough maintained, to be irreversible" (p, 78), In~

consistency and attitude change are dependent upon other

variables like the hedonic instrumentality of a particular

attitude, its general or personal character, its positive or

negative valence, all of which affect the "threshold of intolerance

for inconsistency," Whether an attitude is more likely to change

or not, will partially depend on this threshold.

It seems consistent with this model to assume that the

threshold of intolerance is closely related to social conscious~

ness, Ihe less conscious an individual about his class, the

more inconsistency he will be able to tolerate between his

attitudes and his class interests. Ihis is not only an objective


21.

inconsistency, but also a subjective one, insofar as class

consciousness dete:rntines the presence in the cognitive system

of values and beliefs corresponding to the situation of one's

own social class,

1.5. HYPOTHESES,

In this work, I i.ntend to analyze the attitudes of the

groups i.nvolved in the conflict about the Agrarian Transfor

mation in El Salvador, as well as the possible attitude change

that took place through the public debate and that led to the

resolution of the conflict,

1.5.1. First hypothesis.

The basic attitude toward ~ Agrarian Transfo:rntation of

~ conflicti.ng groups .!:!S§. similar• 1!:!i§. similitude shows

!hfil;; both groups belonged .tQ the ~ social class,

The concept of attitude has already been defi.ned in the

preceding section. By basic attitude I mean the constellation

of the values most related to the object of an attitude and

their valence; In other words, with basic attitude I ref er to

the frame of ref erence, the value context in which a particular

object is placed, This is a wholistic conception, that assumes

that the meaning of an object "basically" depends on the context

in which it is placed.

Si.nce there was an open conflict, we can presuppose that

the direct evaluation of the Agrarian Transf o:rntation was diff erent


22.

for the conflicting groups. Ille problem is whether this

evaluation was made in relation to the same or to different

values, and how the object "Agrarian Transformation" was ins

trumentally related to them.

If we find that both groups argued from the same values,

from the same evaluative frame of reference, we will conclude

that both groups belonged to the same social class. But, if

one or severa! of these reference values are different, we will

have to reject our hypothesis and accept that both groups most

probably belonged to different social classes.

1.5.2, Second hypothesis.

Psychologically, the public debate aimed at s greater

consistencv in ~ attitudes .Qf the groups; this

consistency would produce their final agreement,

Illis second-hypothesis can be divided into two subhypotheses:

a. Ille debate tried .fQ increase the class consciousness

of the participants about their common interests,

b, Resolution of the debate :!:!ª2. reached through s process

of inconsistency raising.

All the terms have already been explained in the preceding

section. Ille goal of this hypothesis is to see first whether

there was any perceptible change in the contenders' attitudes

through the debate and, second, how this change ~-if any~- was

produced, I am hypothesizing that there was a significant change

and that this change was induced by a process of inconsistency


23.

raising through the debate. I am further hypothesizing that

this inconsistency was raised by an appeal to the conunon social

interests of both groups and that the resolution of the conflict

was reached when both groups became conscious of those conunon

social interests,

It seems to me important to state once more that this hy

pothes is does not deny, but rather presupposse, the existence

of forces other than the ideological enes directly used in the

public debate, Illese forces are assumed to be reflected, in

one way ar another, in the ongoing argumentation as well as in

the verifiable emphasis on different values, ar in more ar less

direct allusions --dangers, threats, events.


24.

(2) M E T H O D O L O G Y = = = = = = = = =

The particular circumstances of the events under study

li.mited the possibilities for different methodological approaches,

This was clearly a case where the variables could not be mani

pulated and where the social relevance of the problem seemed to

require unobtrusive methods. Li.mitations in ti.me, space, and

money made impossible a direct access to the subjects of the

debate.

On the other hand, the conflict presented three interesting

characteristics:

a) Its beginning and end could be accurately defined by

the dates of the Legislative approbation and subsequent

amendment of the First Project of Agrarian Transf ormation;

b) The public debate that took place through the news~

papers offered a unique set of documents, which reflected

the whole process of the conflict;

c) The conflict was centered upon a single object: the

Project of Agrarian Transf ormation.

The limitations and possibilities directed me toward a

methodology of archival analysis and, therefore, I decided to

apply a content analysis.


25,

2.1. CONTENT ANALYSIS,

Berelson (1954, p. 489) defined content analysis as "a

research technique for the objective, systematic, and quant

itative description of the manifest content of communication,"

This definition seems too restrictive to many contemporaneous

authors, who believe that content analysis should also be

applied qualitatively even to latent contents, As A, L.

George says (1959, p. 7), "qualitative analysis of a li..mited

number of crucial communications may often yield better clues

to the particular intentions of a particular speaker at one

moment in ti.me than more standardized quantitative methods,"

I think that both approaches ~~quantitative and qualitative~~

are not exclusive, and that both can fruitfully complement one

another, As Pool says (1959, p. 192, footnote), "it should

not be assumed that qualitative methods are insightful, and

quantitative ones merely mechanical methods for checking

hypotheses, The relationship is a circular one; each provides

new insights on which the other can feed,' New insights about

a text gained by a quantitative content analysis, once discovered,

become obvious and can be used in further intuitive examination

of the text,"

Today, content analysis is being revaluated as a useful

tool for social psychology. Sorne years ago, it was widely

used by well-known socio-political analysts, like H. D. Lasswell

and N. Leites (cf. Lasswell & Leites, 1949), The studies of

Berelson (1952; 1954) and White (1951) helped to systematize


26.

this technique, pointing out its possibilities and its weak

nesses,

TIJ.e primary focus of these authors was the study of pro

pagandistic material, and content analysis was used during

several international conflicts, Osgood and collaborators

(1958; 1959) applied content analysis to the study of attitudes;

their "semantic differential scale" has become very popular

among social psychologists. But it is perhaps the movement

under the lead of Ithiel de Sola Pool (1959; 1970) that is

making possible the present revaluation of content analysis as

a useful method for social psychology, His analysis of political

symbols (1970), for instance, has direct relevance for the

present study,

I intend to use content analysis not only as a represent~

ational model, but also as an instrumental one. Representational

"means that the important point about the communication is what

is revealed by the content of the lexical iteras present in it;

that is, something in the words of the message may have indi~

catorial validity regardless of circumstances." Instrumental

signifies that "the important point is not what the message

says on the face of it but what it conveys, given its context and

circumstances" (pool, 1959, p, 3), If "almost any communication

has both representational and instrumental aspects" (Pool, 1959,

p, 209), this fact appears especially true in the Salvadoran

conflict, TIJ.e specific words and values were certainly important,


27;

but the particular historical circumstances provided them with

new meanings and implications.

2,2, THE DOCUMENTS,

Document has been understood here in a very bread sense,

as any kind of written publication issued by either one of the

two groups under its name, This last requisite ~-the official

endorsement of the statement by any of the belligerent groups-~

excluded from my analysis a huge variety of documents signed

by other groups or institutions, by particular subgroups or

factions of the contenders' groups, and by front associations

--names of non~existent associations used as cover-ups to

express support, attack, or threats in an "unofficial" way.

The exclusion of these documents represents a handicap for the

analysis, depriving it of very interesting aspects of the

debate; but, in sorne instances, there is no way to preve the

link between these documents and the debating groups; in other

instances --as is the case with the documents of the particular

associations included in ANEP-- their opinions and attitudes

are already inserted in the official documents.

The documents were obtained from the f our principal news~

papers published in San Salvador, the capital city of El Sal~

vador: El Diario de Hoy, La Prensa Gráfica, El Mundo, and

Diario Latino. Whenever the same document appeared the same

day in severa! of these papers, it was considered as a single

document.


28.

Three kinds of documents can be distinguished: a) Maní~

festos and transcriptions of official speeches; b) Theoretical

analyses; e) Invitations and reports. The total number of

documents issued during the debate was 77: 26 issued by the

Government, and 51 by ANEP~FARO (cf, Table III).

GROUP

GOVERNMENT

TABLE III

NUMBER GROUP,

OF DOCUMENTS BY KIND, AND PHASE

Kind of PHASE document lrst, 2nd,

Manifestos 3 1 Analyses 3 8 Invit,/Reports o 2

Subtotal 6 11

3rd, Total

2 6 o 11 7 9

9 26 ------------- --------------ANEP~FARO Manifestos 2 7 1 10

Analyses 2 6 9 17 Invit. /Reports o 14 10 24

Subtotal 4 27 20 51 --------------------------TOTAL 10 38 29 77

2,3, CODIFICATION SYSTEM

For this work, I have taken the statements as units of

analysis, A statement is any meaningful phrase or paragraph,

that is, any written unit that has sense in itself, Every

unit has been analyzed to see whether it explicitly states


29.

or clearly i.mplies one or several values (White, 1951, p, 2),

The values have been subsequently codified and then tabulated.

In this way, I obtained the frequency tables of the stated

values for every single document and for all of them,

A value is here understood as any idea, f act, or reality

considered as good, desirable, and attractive, or, respectively,

bad, undesirable, and unattractive, 1he codification of values,

therefore, i.mplied their qualification as positive or negative

-~as values or antivalues, Sorne statements also implied an

ambivalence toward certain values, and this ambivalence was

codified with both positive and negative signs.

Finally, the values were instrumentally related to the

central object of the study, the Agrarian Transfo:anation. Three

types of relationships were considered: positive, negative, and

ambivalent. The absence of relationship between the values and

the central object was also considered, pri.marily in connection

with the evolution of the attitudes through the debate,

In order to check the reliability of my analysis, I sub

mitted a sample of the documents (15 %) to three judges, ignorant

of the hypotheses to be tested, Each of them was given a written

set of rules for the analysis and was briefly instructed in the

practice, 1he results of their analyses were compared with my

analysis of the same documents by means of a Kendall's coefficient

of concordance test (Kendall, 1948), According to Siegel (1956),

this test is particularly useful to verify the level of agreement

among different judges and, therefore, the reliability of a


30,

particular analysis. The formula for Kendall's coefficient of

concordance is (Hays, 1973, p. 802):

12 [ T~ ,; J 3 ~N + 1)

N - 1 W = m2 N (Nz - 1)

Where Tf Totals of rank columns

m: Number of judges;

N: Number of individuals

(j);

(here, codified values).

Since there were two conflicting groups in the debate, I

separated the analysis of the documents corresponding to each

group, and obtained different coefficients of concordance. The

resul ts are:

wgov = ,808

w = .839 anep

p < .01

p < .01

The probability of obtaining these coefficients of concor~

dance is less than .01 (cf, Siegel, 1956, Table R of Appendix),

These results do not necessarily mean that my analysis is

objective, since, in principle, all three judges might also be

biased. Nevertheless, they increase the reliability of the

codification system and support the contention that the analysis

really expresses the values manifested by both debating groups.

It also must be noted that the analysis of concordance has

not been made statement by statement, but for the total frequencies

obtained from the documents analyzed, Therefore, a perfect

concordance between two judges does not mean that they have

codified each and every statement in the same way, but that


31.

they have obtained the same frequency ranks in the value codi~

fication of the documents.

I also compared the frequencies of each particular judge

with my own by means of a Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

test (cf. Siegel, 1956), The formula is (Hays, 1973, p. 789):

6 e~ ni) N (Nz - 1)

Where D.: Difference between ranks l.

associated with the

particular individual i;

N Number of individuals

(here, codified values).

Table IV presents the results obtained correlating my

analysis with those of each judge for both groups, Govenunent

and ANEP~FARO,

TABLE IV

SPEARMAN RANK CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS OF VALUE ANALYSIS

Docum. JUDGES group 1 2 3

GOV, .75 1.00 .75 IMB ANEP .86 .79 ,86

All these results are significant at an alpha level of ,OS

(cf, Siegel, 1956, Table P of Appendix). But here also apply

the same cautions mentioned before with respect to Kendall's

coefficient of concordance.


32,

As for the frequencies obtained in the total analysis, they

were submitted to a computarized log-linear analysis of nominal

or ordinal qualitative data by the method of maximum likelihood,

"Multiqual" (cf._ Bock, 1975; Bock & Yates, 1973) to check the

influence of groups and phases on the expressed values. lhe

results of these analyses are given in the next section,

Finally, in order to obtain a visual representation of the

attitudes of both groups with respect to the object "Agrarian

Transformation" a graphic design was drawn following Rosenberg's

terms (1968), relating the central object to its frame of values,

and showing their respective instrumental relationships.


33,

( 3) DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS =========== ========

3.1. CHRONOLOGY Q[ THE DEBATE.

In the Introduction, I presented a broad perspective of

the sociohistorical context in which the conflict on the First

Project of Agrarian Transf onnation took place, as well as a

brief account of its development. It is important to keep

this historical context in mind, because the particular events

that constituted the conflict acquire full meaning only in

relation to it .-

As was stated in the preceding section, seventy seven

documents composed the public debate, The debate was only one

aspect, although a central one, of the conflict; but the

documents are also particular links of a whole chain and, there-

fore, they must be placed in a temporal process --the historical

evolution of the debate.

Table V presents that process, differentiating the

documents of both groups in a temporal succession in arder to

make clear their relation and, perhaps, their mutual influence.


TABLE V

HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE DEBATE

FIRST PHASE

07,07 Presidential Address, 07, 09 Manifesto ANEP.~,

07.10 Official Decree1 First Project

07 .14

07 .16 07 .1 7

of Agrarian Transfo:rmation Presidential Address in Ahuachapán, Goverrunent answers ANEP,

Goverrunent answers ANEP,

Government answers ANEP, Government to Salvadoran people,•

07, 13

07.15

07 .19

SECOND PHASE 08,09 08 .12

08,27 Gov, is technically prepared, Instruments far the AT.

08,20 08,23

08,26

ANEP answers Goverrunent,

ANEP answers Goverrunent;

This is ANEP,

Manifestos Associations ANEP,

ANEP: Nobody can deny these facts, ANEP: Goverrunental ineff iciency

on land administration, Invitation meeting FARO>~. ANEP: What is the social benefit

of the AD~7 FARO: We will not sell our land,

( •• 1 •• )

* ANEP: National Association of the Private Enterprise, FARO: Agropecuarian Front of the Oriental Region, AT: Agrarian Transf o:rmation,


TABLE V (continued)

•• 1 '

08.30 AT is constitutional (I), 08,31 Invitation meeting FARO, 09.01 ANEP is ready to help,

Invitation meeting FARO, 09,02 AT is constitutional (II), 09,02 Invitation meeting FARO, 09,03 AT is constitutional (III), 09,03 Invitation meeting FARO,·

First meeting FARO, 09,06 Resolutions meeting FARO,

FARO: This is the "small group"

(IV), that opposes the AT,

09,07 AT is constitutional 09,07 ANEP: This is the "small group",,, FARO: This is the "small group",,,

09,08 Resolutions FARO, 09.09 ANEP: Land Reform failed in Guate-

mala (I), ANEP: If a decision of a few is

harmful to us all;·,, it is a bad decision,

Invitation meeting FARO,· 09 .10 ANEP: Land Reform failed,,, (II), 09;11 ANEP1 Land Reform failed,,, (III),

09.13 AT is constitutional (V), Second meeting FARO,

09.13 FARO demands dialogue with Gov. ANEP1 FARO demands dialogue,,,

09.14 AT is constitutional (VI), 09 .14 ANEP: FARO demands dialogue, , , ANEP: If a decision,,.

09 .16 Presidential Address, 09.16 ANEP1 If a decision,., People have to know the truth,

09.17 People have to know the truth, 09,17 ANEP: Mani.festo, ANEP1 If a decision,,,

w ( o • • • • )

U1 .


• 1 • o

09,21

09.22

09,23

09,24

TABLE V (continued)

THIRD

Presidential Address 1975: AT is electoral program,

People have to know the truth.'

People have to know the truth, Presidential Address 1972. People have to know the truth,

PHASE

09,20 09,21

09,22

09.23

09,24

ANEP1 ANEP: FAR01

ANEP: FAR01 FARO: ANEP1

Legal study (I), Legal study (II), Machiavellian advice to Pres,' Melina, Legal study (III). Manifesto. There is no Minist, of Agric, Legal study (IV),

Invitation meeting FARO, FARO: You are alone, Mr, Pres, ANEP: Legal study (V), ANEP: Other legal studies,

09,27 People have to know the truth, 09. 25

09,28 09.29 09 ,.30 10.01 10.02

09,29 09,30

People have to know the truth, People have to know the truth,

10.04 10.05 10,06

Invitation meeting FARO, Invitation meeting FARO, Invitation meeting FARO, · ANEP: Invitation meeting FARO, Multiple invitations meeting FARO. ANEP: Invitation meeting FARO,

Third meeting FARO, Popular response to FARO's call, Popular response to FARO's call, FAR01 Thanks to nationalistic

people,

10.08 10 .19

Resolution: Committee Gov,-ANEP/FARO; Amendments to AT Project,

10.25 ANEP1 Period of national recovery, 11.29 FARO is democratic and apolitical. w

°'


37.

The debate has been divided into three phases, This division

is not arbitrary; rather it shows the existence of critical

turning points in the debate. The documents of each of the

three phases for both groups manifest different value emphases,

thus allowing an analysis of the possible evolution of the

attitudes, This different value emphasis is cognitive in sorne

instances, affective in others. In the following description

I will try to make explicit those tUI:ning points as well as the

different emphases given to the values by both continding groups.

3,1.1. First Phase.

Ten documents constitute the First Phase of the debate,

four issued by the Government, six by ANEP, I have excluded

from this consideration the Official Decree, since it was the

formal object of the debate. This Phase lasted from July 7 un

til July 19, and it was the shortest of the debate,

It began with the publication of a Presidential Address

held on July 1 of 1976, and it was followed by a quick succession

of replies and rejoinders, All the cognitive elements or values

that characterize the attitudes of both groups through the

debate are already present in this Phase, However, the same

cannot be said of the affective elements, Certainly, the

emotional tone of this First Phase of the debate is high, but

it seems still "under control." In fact, only one veiled threat

appears during this Phase ~-the threat by ANEP of stopping any

kind of investments in the country if the Agrarian Transformation

were to take place (ANEP, doc. 07.13).


38.

ANEP addresses its manifestos directly to the Government,

while the Government tries to address ANEP as a small segment

of the Salvadoran people, The general feeling is that the

Project took ANEP by surprise and f ound it unprepared f or the

debate, Therefore, while the Government offered a wide variety

of data and arguments in favor of the Agrarian Transformation,

ANEP reduced itself to a stubborn opposition based on simple

and reiterated principles,

This lack of progress in the intellectual debate, added to

an increasingly emotional tone, led the Government to stop the

argument with a final issue addressed to the "Salvadoran people;"

"It is no longer possible to waste time on an unfruitful argument,

since the mind of the discrepant group is subjected to the same

forras of the anachronistic social and economic structures which

have been at work in this country" (GOV, doc. 07.17).

The governmental silence !asted more than forty days.

ANEP, after a final propagandistic statement about its popular

representativeness, also remained silent for about twenty days

-~apparently, preparing a new and tougher propagandistic campaign.

But, in the meantime, most Associations included in ANEP publicly

issued their own manifestos, basically repeating the same

principles already presented by ANEP and supporting its stance;

Other real and front groups also took part in the public debate.,

increasingly raising the emotional level of the argument. But

this aspect of the debate, although important, falls out of

our present analysis,


39.

3.1.2. Second Phase.

1he Second Phase of the debate lasts from August 9 till

September 17, and it includes thirty eight documents, eleven

issued by the Government, twenty seven by ANEP-FARO. 1hese

data already show that ANEP not only begins to take the initiative

of the debate but also to intensify its campaign.

In fact, this Second Phase begins with a very well designed

propagandistic document establishing an appealing comparison

between the governmental inefficiency and the efficiency of

the private enterprise. 1he document clearly states the

governmental lack of technical capacity and even insinuates

its lack of administrative honesty. 1his kind of attack on

the Government had a political tone, intentionally absent until

now from ANEP' s documents ,· But from this moment on, all the

argument became political or politicized,

It took almost two weeks f or the Government to break its

decision of remaining silent in order to answer this attack,

Its reply was twof old: on the one side, it asserted its

technical capacity and, in veiled terms, its administrative

honesty too; on the other side, it issued a series of documents

trying to preve from different perspectives that the Agrarian

Transformation was not only in accord with the Constitution of

the Republic, but it was even required by it in order to accomplish

its expressed intention. With this reply, the Government clearly

showed the impact of the.political attack on its policies,


40.

In the meanwhile, the most relevant event of this Second

Phase had already taken place: the public rise of FARO ;..;..the

Agropecuarian Front of the Oriental Region; Although the

formation of FARO had already been made public by the daily

news, its official presence in the debate begins with an

aggressive invitation to a meeting "in order to unify criteria

and the actions to be taken against the impending danger of

being despoiled of our lands" (FARO, doc. 08,20), All FARO

documents are extremely belligerent and offensive. But a more

important characteristic is that they explicitly link the

debate with external activities, principally meetings; These

activities were political in character; however, FARO explicitly

and persistently denies in its documents any kind of political

involvement.

The Second Phase is much more affective that the First, l

at least with respect to ANEP;..FARO documents; These documents

become more and more filled with adjectives of high emotional

connotations as well as with personal allusions. While the

Government keeps its tactic of addressing ANEP;..FARO as a small

segment of the Salvadoran population, ANEP-FARO start addressing

the Government less directly and "the living forces of the

country" more directly, Actually, the "living forces" were

sorne of those involved in one way or another with private

enterprises _;..agricultural, industrial, managerial, or others•·

The invitations to FARO meetings, which from this moment on

will become more and more frequent, are never simple convocations,


but explicit calls to a "national unity" and to "the fight

against cormmmism."

41.

At the same time, the publication of all kind of manifestos,

notes, public letters, and cartoons by front associations plagued

the daily newspapers, It has been calculated (Stein, 1976,

p. 552) that, during this Phase of the debate, ANEP spent at

least an average of 13,000 dollars a week just for newspapers'

propaganda ~-which is a high sum by any standard, but more in a

poor country like El Salvador.

If ANEP started this new Phase of the debate, ANEP itself

put an end to it. 1he turning point was marked by a new

manifesto, where, once more, ANEP stated its same basic principles,

though this time in explicit political terms, since "all the

articles of the Law are essentially conceived with a political

purpose" (ANEP, doc. 09.17a). This political emphasis was

imaginatively underlined in a propagandistic document republished

the same day for the last time, which had as headline the slogan

"If a decision of a few is harmful to us all .•• it is nota good

decision" (ANEP, doc. 09.17b). Thenceforth, ANEP-FAROwould

lead a campaign in pure political terms.

3.1.3. 1hird Phase.

Twenty nine documents constitute the 1hird Phase of the

debate, nine issued by the Government, twenty by ANEP-FARO.

Once more, there is a sensible quantitative diff erence in favor

of the latter. 1his last Phase goes from September 20 until


42.

October 6, and the affective tones reach a peak in sorne of the

documents.

'Ille Phase begins with a series of legal analyses issued

by ANEP which, in style and content, contrast sharply with the

legal analyses issued by the Government (see 4.1) ,· ANEP-FARO

documents seem less oriented toward the Government, and more

oriented toward any potential or present member of its own

group, On its side, the Government no longer addresses ANEP~

FARO, not even indirectly or as a part of the Salvadoran people1

it explicitly addresses the "majority" of the Salvadoran people,

Only two long documents are issued by the Government during

this Phase, both of them reissues of old Presidential Addresses.

With them, the Government tries to show that the Agrarian Trans

f ormation is simply the execution of the program offered by

President Molina when he was "elected" by the Salvadoran people.

As for the rest, the only governmental documents are a series

of invitations to watch TV presentations by members of the

Government. All these invitations are headed "'Ille people have

the right to know the truth," and explicitly accuse Al'!EP~FARO

of distorting the nature and intention of the Agrarian Trans~

fo:anation,

ANEP-FARO, after the publication of the legal study,

concentrated exclusively in advertising a FARO meeting, the

meeting of "the national unity," where all the "living and

democratic forces" of the Republic would supposedly gather,


43.

and in triumphantly reporting it after its occurrence,

TI:te Third Pllase ends on October 6, when FARO issues a

public acknowledgment which implies that the debate is over.

TI:te day before, the newspapers had published the declaration

of sorne representatives of ANEP saying that they were ready for

a "constructive dialogue" with the Government. During the

following days, the Government made public a decision to

create a mixed Committee charged with the revision of the

Project of Agrarian Transf ormation, and announced the resignation

of both the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Planning.

TI:te debate was really over,

3.1.4. After the debate,·

On October 19, the Legislative Assembly approved essential

amendments to the First Project, "in order to make more feasible

the Agrarian Transformation." TI:te amendments restated the right

of private property almost in absolute terms, identifying the

"social function" of the land with its productivity ;..-which had

been the ANEP;,.FARO position since the beginning of the debate,

In fact, after these legal changes, the Government undertook

to dismantle the organization prepared to carry out the Project

of Agrarian Transformation.

Once the debate was over, two interesting documents were

issued, one by ANEP, the other by FARO. Both of them are

relevant for our analysis.

On October 25, ANEP issued a public statement supporting


44.

the a.mendments, since, with them ;..-it was stated-- "our country

begins a period of recovery in national trust and peace," On

the other hand, "it has been clearly proved that the entre:..

preneurial unity is of vital relevance for the survival of free

enterprise" :..:..statement which denotes the high degree of socio:..

political consciousness reach.ed by ANEP during the debate.

FARO issued a manifesto on November 29, more than a month

after the end of the debate, also supporting the a.mendments to

the Project of Agrarian Transformation and analyzing the socio;.

political situation of the country with its characteristic

aggressive parlance;

The last part of the manif esto constitutes a declaration

of FARO's institutional goals: "The FAROs were born as independent

apolitical associations in order to def end the vital principles

of private property, the creative power of private initiative,

the Democratic System, the true legal-political system structured

in the Political Constitution, and in order to reach progressively

better standards of life for our people" (FARO, doc. 11.29;

emphasis is mine ;.._r. M, B;), But paradoxic as this paragraph

may seem with the declaration of its apolitical character and

the statement of strictly political goals, the paradox reaches

a climax two paragraphs later, when FARO states that its

organization "should keep to a basic line of political behavior,

limited to those high principles, without turning into sheer

party political positions ;•"


3.2. ATTITUDES TOWARD THE AGRARIAN TRANSFORMATION.

3.2.1. The object of the attitude.

45.

The object of the attitude under study is the First Project

of Agrarian Transformation (AT). It is interesting to note that

when the original law on the "Salvadoran Institute of Agrarian

Transformation" (ISTA) was .issued one year befare, almost the

only public reaction was a mild manifesto by ANEP, ANEP also

pressured the Government and achieved the introduction of an

amendment to the law requiring that any project had to be

finished bef ore another one could be started --an amendment that

obviously made impossible any kind of general Land Reform, ANEP

received assurances from Col. Malina that the ISTA would not

affect any productive land. With the amendment and the assurances

and the implicit conviction that most laws of this kind had

traditionally been "wet paper" ("window dressing"), ANEP remained

quiet. Consequently, ANEP was surprised and unprepared when the

First Project was approved in a f ast maneuver by the Government

with the Legislative Assembly.

Since there was a conflict, it seems obvious that the

evaluation of this First Project of Agrarian Transf ormation was

different for the Government and ANEP~FARO. 'llle diff erence was

not only qualitative, but also quantitative. For the Government

the Project was the best possible measure; f or ANEP-FARO it was

the worst one. Therefore, from the beginning the attitudes were

extremely polarized and expressed a radical split in the evaluation

of the Agrarian Transformation,


46.

Throughout the public debate, this extremely different

evaluation of the Agrarian Transformation remained constant.

But once an agreement was reached, both Government and ANEP-FARO

expressed their decision to develop an Agrarian Transformation

~-though now it would be in very different terms. Actually,

after the amendments to the Project were introduced, nothing

was done, except the practical dismantlement of the !STA.

The fact that the direct evaluation of the Agrarian Trans

formation by both groups did not change through the debate does

not mean that the attitudes did not change, As we said before,

an attitude cannot be adequately understood in isolation; it

has to be analyzed in relation to all those values which f orm

its frame of reference and which are instrumentally related to

its central object. It is this radial structure that constitutes

an attitude, and in this radial structure we should find its

internal consistency or inconsistency,

On the other hand, we cannot forget that the debate had an

essential propagandistic character, and that both Government and

ANEP-FARO publicly committed themselves to the defense of their

respective viewpoints. Therefore, it is normal to expect from

both groups a consistent evaluation of the central object of

their attitudes. But this persistent evaluation does not

necessarily mean a consisten attitude. It is this aspect that

we have to examine now,


47.

3,2,2, Values related to the Agrarian Transformation,

Only a few values were related to the Agrarian Transf or~

mation during the debate, In fact, I was able to reduce all

the values expressed in the debate to seven, and probably it

would be possible ~~through a factor analysis~- to reduce them

even more.

Since the absolute frequency of the expressed values was

different f or both groups due to the different number of

documents issued as well as to their diff erent length, I have

reduced these absolute figures to relative frequencies, that

is, to the frequency that a determined value was expressed in

relation to the total number of expressed values. In this way,

we can obtain a comparative table of the relative frequencies

of the values expressed by both groups through the debate,

As totals for the relative frequencies I have taken the total

number of values expressed in the documents of every Phase of

the debate, The relative frequencies are expressed in Table VI.


48.

TABLE VI

RELATIVE FREQUENCY OF VALUES BY GROUPS AND PHASES

GROUP GOVERNMENT ANEP;.FARO

VALUE PHASE 1 rst 2nd 3rd TOT, 1rst 2nd 3rd TOT,

Communism-Nationalism - ,04 ,03 ,03 .20 .24 .19 .21 Democracy (Constit.) ,24 ,21 ,29 .23 .19 .23 ,34 ,27

People' s Will '15 .02 .09 ,07 .03 .23 .14 .1 7 Private Property ,12 .19 .04 .14 .10 .12 .20 .15

Productivity .14 .19 .22 .18 .45 .15 • 13 o'l 8 Social Injustice ,26 .23 .27 ;25 .03 ,03 .02

Wealth Distribution .09 .12 .06 .10 - -TOTAL 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 LOO

Let us explain the particular meaning of each of these

values.

3,2,2.1. Communism-Nationalism (CN).

Communism is a highly emotional term used to express a

stereotyped view of a social system characterized by the lack

of all kinds of freedom and individual rights under the absolute

dictatorship of the state, It also implies the suppression of

private property, and the establishment of atheism, violence,

and police terrorism. Evidently, communism in this context

means all kind of negative things.

Nationalism was a symbolic value used through the debate

to signify the fight against communism. A typical slogan in

many documents of ANEP-FARO was: "Let's defend our country

against the communist danger,"

Communism and nationalism were, therefore, two faces of


the sarne value, in the sense that whenever one of them was

mentioned the denial of the other was implicitly and, more

often, explicitly involved.

49.

Although other te:ans did not significantly appear in

the debate, it is interesting to note that communism is current~

ly identified in El Salvador with socialism, totalitarianism,

and marxism, without the least discrimination.

3.2.2.2. Democracy (De),

Democracy is fo:anally understood as the social system in

which the rulers are elected by the people. It implies respect

for individual rights, private property, and an economic system

based on the "free market."

Actually, throughout the debate the te:an democracy was

basically used to mean the present legal status guo, that is,

the maintainance of the present legal system ~~democracy as

defined by the present Constitution of El Salvador. This is

the reason why democracy was most often used in a positivistic

sense, interchangeable with constitutionality and legality.

Every time the term democracy was mentioned, it meant respect

for the Constitution; every time the te:an constitutionality

was used it meant democratic requirements.

3,2.2.3. People's 1ii.11 (PW).

In a democratic system, the will of the people is

supposed to be the final criterion for any kind of policy.

That is why it is so important in any political struggle to


50.

show popular support,

In the Salvadoran debate on the Agrarian Transfo:anation,

the concept of "people" was relatively little used; nevertheless,

both groups tried to prove from the beginning that they represent~

ed the will of the majority of the Salvadoran people; In fact,

one of the strongest governmental attacks on ANEP~FARO was that

they only represented a very reduced minority, the minority of

the "few privileged ones." The response of ANEP~FARO was to

show with figures and with meetings that they represented the

majority and, certainly, the "living forces" of the democratic

working system• On its part, ANEP-FARO insisted that the Project

represented the view of a few "a:an~chair technocrats" -~communists

encysted in the Government, willing to establish a totalitarian

dictatorship against the will of the democratic majority.

3,2,2,4. Private Property (PP),

Private property was understood as the individual right

to use, dispose of, and even destroy all those things legally

acquired os possessed, The te:an private property was used

interchangeably with private initiative, private enterprise,

and free enterprise. Let us underline, by the way, the identi

fication of private and free that this use implies,

Actually, private property was identified with the

present fo:ans of private property existing in El Salvador,

which practically means an absolute conception of the private

property right, Although theoretically the right of private

property ends where the rights of other individuals begin, in


51.

fact these limits never seem to appear in El Salvador.

It was precisely in relation to this point that the

Government was more embivalent; while recognizing the right

of private property, it tried to define sorne limits to it. Its

attitude concerning this value seemed a continuous "yes, but"

--private property yes, but in "social ft.mction" (for an

excellent discussion, cf. Ellacuría, 1976).

3,2,2.S. Productivity (Pro).

Productivity was t.mderstood as the capacity to generate

goods, basically food, services, and other consumer goods. Pro;.

ductivity was used in a sense that implied not only the value of

producing more in quantity, but also the technical capacity to

do it. Every time that the value "productivity" was mentioned,

it was implicitly or explicitly linked with this technical and

administrative capacityo'

In a broader context, productivity was used inter

changeably with economic development. lherefore, to develop

the cot.mtry was identified with more production.

3,2,2.6, Social Iniustice (SI).

By s_ocial injustice was t.mderstood a situation of social

inequality where a few people ;.;."the privileged minority"-

enjoyed high standards of living and all the commodities of

contemporaneous civilization, while most people --"the majority";.;.

had to live at inhuman levels of rough subsistence. Sometimes,

instead of social injustice, the Government spoke of structural

injustice, to point out that the inequality was a logical


52.

consequence of the social structure. Social injustice was also

li.nked with the urgent necessity for radical social changes.

Moreover, when the Govenunent spoke of "social ft.mction" or

"social interest," it referred explicitly to this situation of

social injustice which had to be changed,

On the other hand, ANEP-FARO, with only one exception

(FARO, doc. 09,22c), never mentioned the situation of social

injustice, Instead, they spoke of the need f or social justice,

but on very few occasions and without ever giving any further

data or elaboration. Moreover, when they spoke of "social

interest" or "social ft.mction" they always made explicit reference

to development or higher productivity. Consequently, for ANEP

FARO the "social interest" or "social ft.mction" was to produce

more, Hence their insistence upon the identification between

the social ft.mction of private property with the level of

productivity, If any private property -~any private land, for

instance~- was productive, it was, by itself, a social ft.mction.

3.2.2,7. Wealth Distribution (WD).

TI:tis value was never mentioned by ANEP~FARO, Only the

Govenunent used it to mean the need for a more equitable income

distribution among the Salvadoran population. Sometimes it was

mentioned as the need to favor the "less privileged" sector of

the people.

Its use was linked with the value "productivity," in

the sense that the goal is not only to produce more, but also


53.

to distribute the products better. If private property was not

fulfilling its "social function" it was because the benefits of

the production remained in the hands of the private owners

instead of being justly distributed among all those who had

cooperated in the production process.

3.2.3, Value statistical analysis.

All the obtained data were submitted to a computarized

program of log~linear analysis by the method of maximum like-

lihood, "Multiqual," and various models containing group and

time contrasts as well as their interaction were submitted to

a goodness of fit test (cf, Bock, 1975; Bock and Yates, 1973).

The more significant results for the purpose of this work are

presented here.

3,2,3,l. Groups and values,

The first question I had to answer was whether the

frequency of the expressed values depended on the groups, that

is, whether the relative frequency of the expressed values was

significantly different for both groups.

The results indicate that there was a difference,

significant ata level superior to alpha = ,001. In the goodness

of fit test the obtained result, with six degrees of freedom,

was:

2 X = 223.96 p < .001

The results of the computer's program were very similar.

The first result here presented was obtained when the influence


S4.

of groups was entered before that of time (Phases of the debate),

the second when it was entered after that of time, in both cases

with six degrees of freedom.

x2 = 21s.92 p < .001

x2 = 211.29 p < .001

Evidently, we can reject the hypothesis of no influence:

the pattern of the expressed values depended on the groups.

3.2.3.2. Phases of the debate and values.

An important aspect of the analysis was t~ see whether

there was a significant diff erence in the frequencies of the

values expressed in the three Phases of the debate. I first

measured the difference between the values expressed in the

Second Phase and the values expressed in the lhird Phase

--ignoring the influence of the groups. lhe results obtained

--first and second run-- with six degrees of freedom were non

significant.

x2 = 12.01

x2 = 10.22

p > .os

p > .os

Then, I measured the diff erence between the values

expressed in the First Phase and in the lhird Phase --also

ignoring the influence of the groups. lhe results --first

and second run-- were significant at an alpha level of .OS,

with six degrees of freedom.

x2 = 12.66 p < .os

x2 = 15. 82 p < • os


SS.

The relation between time and the expressed values is

significant, although much smaller than the relation between

values and the groups themselves.

3,2.3.3. Groups, Phases, and values.

The measure of the combined eff ect of groups and Phases

on the frequency of the expressed values was, once more, highly

significant•' I first measured the difference between the values

expressed by both groups in the Second and Third Phase ~~the

effect of group by Phase 2-Phase 3 on the expressed values-

and obtained the f ollowing results with six degrees of freedom.

x!- = 33. 90 (both runs) p < ;'001

Then I tested the same effect of Phase by group, but

this time in the f requencies of the values expressed in the

First and the 'Illird Phase. The results, with the same six

degrees of freedom, were:

x!- = 40.9S (both runs) p < .001

Consequently, there was a combined influence of Groups

and Phases in the frequencies of the expressed values, 'Illese

results, highly significant, seem to indicate that there is

an evolution in the frequencies of the expressed values far

both groups through the debate,

This conclusion receives a further confirmation when

we apply a goodness of fit test to the frequencies of particular

values expressed by both groups in the three Phases of the

debate, The results obtained, with two degrees of freedom,


56.

are shown in Table VII,

TABLE VII

MODIFICATION OF THE VALUES THROUGH THE DEBATE

Value x2 p

Democracy 25.14 < .001 Peop, Will 51.10 < .001 Priv. Pro. 37.16 < .001

Productiv. 3, 95 > .10

The other three values --Communism-Nationalism, Social

Injustice, Wealth Distribution~- were not tested since their

frequencies for one group were zero or near zero.

The frequencies of Democracy, People's Will, and Private

Property seem dependent on the Group and Phase of the debate,

that is, there seems to be an evolution of these particular

values through the debate, The non significant result of

Productivity appears surprising, since a look at the relative

frequencies of both groups shows a clear pattern of modification

(cf, next point),

3,2,3.4, Evolution a...."ld mutual influence.

The obtained results seem to indicate not only that

there was an evolution in the values expressed by both groups

in the three Phases of the debate, but also that this evolution

was at least partially due to their mutual influence --the


57.

influence of the debate and all the externa! factors impinging

upon it. From these statistical analyses we cannot certainly

infer a causal effect; but we can infer the existence of an

effective interaction between the two groups during the debate.

Ihis inf erence is also supported by the correlation between

the frequencies of particular values expressed through the

debate, Obviously, these correlation are based on few data

-~six~~ and, therefore, are not reliable. But the correlation

coefficients are brought here just as another clue to the

existence of an evolutionary process of mutual interaction.

Ihese coefficients are expressed in Table VIII.

TABLE VIII

SPEARMAN CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS ... BETWEEN THE VALUES EXPRESSED BY BOTH GROUPS"

i:

Value

Communism-Nationalism Democracy

People's Will

Private Property

Productivity

Social Injustice

.54

.80 ~.99

-.78 -.95 ~.69

Coefficients obtainedwith 6 data,

The correlation coefficient for the value Wealth Distribution

could not be obtained since ANEP-FARO never expressed it. It is

interesting to note that the two higher coefficients, People's


58.

Will and Productivity, are both negative, and that one of these

corresponds to one value, Productivity, for which a non signifi-

2 cant X was obtained,

3,2,4, Representation of attitudes,

Following Rosenberg's lead (1968, pp. 79~80), I have re~

presented the attitudes of both Goverrunent and ANEP~FARO in a

space --"attitudinal cognitorium"~- where the central object,

the Agrarian Transfonnation (AT), is related to other objects,

symbolic values, either positively or negatively (cf, Figures

2, 3, and 4). Let us explain briefly these representations.

First of all, each pair of designs corresponds to the

values expressed by both groups in each of the Phases of the

debate on the Agrarian Transf onnation.

The cognitive elements that constitute the attitude toward

the Agrarian Transfonnation are symbolically represented by the

seven values surrounding the central object, and the lines

linking the values with the central object, These lines also

represent cognitive elements, that is, the instrumental relation~

ships existing for ~~perceived by~- the subject of the attitude

between the central object and those peripheral objects or

values.

The affective elements of the attitude have been represented

with colors. Every object in the actitudinal space has one of

three colors: green, which means positive affect; red, which

means negative affect; and black, which means no significant

expressed connection between a value and the central object,


59.

1he same meanings hold for the instrumental lines, except that

instead of black I have suppressed the linking line whenever

no significant connection between a value and the Agrarian

Transf ormation was expressed in the corresponding Phase of the

debate, By "significant connection" is meant a quantitative

expression of a particular value equal or higher to five percent

of the total number of values expressed in each Phase, 1his

quantitative criterion does not rule out the possibility that

a value with a low frequency has a qualitative relevance. But,

for the sake of the representation, I have chosen the quantitative

criterion, leaving for the discussion the analysis of other

qualitative aspects.

Whenever an ambivalence is expressed, this is represented

by a double-colored circle or line. I have chosen this device

instead of calculating a ratio between positive and negative

evaluations and assigning to the value or relation the color

of the dominant affect, in order to express more clearly the

existing ambivalence and the possible consequent inconsistencies.

Finally, every object and relationship has received a

quantitative evaluation with either positive or negative signs.

One sign expresses a moderate evaluation; two signs a strong

one; and two different signs, ambivalence.

3,2,4.1. First Phase: Figure 1· The graphic representation of the attitudes of both

groups during the First Phase of the debate shows f our different

reference values: Communism-Nationalism (CN), People's Will (PW),


60.

Fig. 2 F I R S T p H AS E

GOVERNHENT

ANEP-FARO


61.

Social Injustice (SI), and Wealth Distribution (WD), The only

value in which both groups completely agree is Pemocracy (De),

though the perceived relationship to the Agrarian Transf ormation

is different, as the different signs Agrarian Transformation seem

to require. The other value where there is a practical agreement

is Productivity (Pro), although the ANEP's evaluation is much

higher, and the Government is ambivalent with respect to the

relationship between this value and the Agrarian Transformation

-~the Government believes that the Agrarian Transformation

might, at least at the beginning, affect land productivity.

The Government is also ambivalent in its evaluation of

Private Property. It not only believes that the Agrarian Trans~

formation does not clearly favor the enforcement of this value,

but also that the existing forras of private property have

positive and negative aspects.

In this First Phase, therefore, ANEP shows a simpler and

more consistent attitude than the Government toward the central

object, The Agrarian Transformation is linked by ANEP with

fewer values and in a more definite form.

3,2,4,,2;, Second Phase: Figure _d,

In this Phase of the debate, we can still observe f our

different values in the attitudes of both groups: Communism

Nationalism, People's Will, Social Injustice, and Wealth Dis

tribution. These are the sarne as in the preceding Phase, but

it is now the Government, and not ANEP~FARO, that does not give

quantitative relevance to the value People's Will, The other


62,

Fip;. 3 SECO UD P H A S E

GOVEP.~ENT

ANEP-FARO


63.

three differences are as in the First Phase: the Government

does not significantly mention the value Communism~Nationalism,

and ANEP~FARO still ignore Social Injustice and Wealth Distri

bution, lhe change with respect to People's Will indicates the

possibility that a process of inconsistency has been induced in

the attitude of ANEP-FARO --or that ANEP~FARO have become more

conscious of the political relevance of the value People's Will:'

Certainly, the Government insistently charged that ANEP~FARO

represented the opinion of only a "vecy reduced minority,"

lhe Government shows a significant change in its eva~

luation of Productivity: it increases its positive value and

changes its relation to the Agrarian Transformation from one

of ambivalence to a clearly positive one. Here, too, we can

suspect an effort to solve an inconsistency, strongly emphasized

by the opposing group.

lherefore, while the Government increases and clarifies

its evaluation of Productivity, AL'!EP~FARO gives it less relevance

~-though still holding its basic evaluation-~ and increases its

evaluation of People's Will. lhe only remaining obvious in

consistency is the governmental evaluation of Private Property,

still considered in itself and in its relation to the Agrarian

Transformation as simultaneously positive and negative.

In general, we can say that the Government's attitude is

more consistent in this Phase than it was in the First one; but

ANEP's attitude maintains the same consistency that it had in

the First Phase, accrued by the incorporation of People's Will,


64,

Fig. 4 T H I R D P H A S E

GOVERNMENT

ANEP-FARO


65.

3,2,4.3. Third Phase: Figure~.

Once more, we have four different reference values in

this Phase. However, while three of them, Communism~Nationalism,

Social Injustice, and Wealth Distribution, are the same as in

the previous Phases, the fourth is no longer People's Will, but

Private Property (PP), This change seems extremely important,

since Private Property was the only remaining inconsistent

element in the Government's attitude. Its dropping might mean

that the Government cannot consistently incorporate it in its

attitude toward the Agrarian Transformation,

At the same time, the Government increases the instrumental

value of the Agrarian Transformation with respect to Productivity,

and brings People's Will to the value frame of reference again.-

By contrast, ANEP-FARO maintains the same values and evaluations

as in the Second Phase, increasing still more its emphasis on

Democracy and Private Property.

3,2,4.4. Changes in the attitudes toward the Agrarian

Transf ormation.

Through the representation of the attitudes in the three

Phases of the debate, we have seen that sorne changes took place~

The only change observed in ANEP~FARO was its incorpo~

ration of People's Will, For the rest, it remained steadily

consistent.

The Government, however, changed three values, One of

these changes was only quantitative: People's Will was given

less emphasis in the Second Phase than in the First of Third,


66,

But the other two changes were quantitative and, more significant~

ly, qualitative as well, The Goverrunent was clearly ambivalent

toward Private Property and Productivity at the beginning of

the debate. It soon solved its ambivalence with respect to

Productivity, giving it an increasing relevance and a definite

instrumental evaluation,· But the Goverrunent did not seem able

to solve its ambivalence toward Private Property, and it had to

drop this value in the Third Phase of the debate, One of the

crucial points of the debate resolution probably lies here, I

will examine this point later.

We can summarize the relevant aspects of the debate as

shown by the representation of the attitudes of both groups

through the debate in five points:

a. There is a clear and constant evaluation given by

both groups to the value Democracy.

b, The Goverrunent does not significantly include in

its frame of reference the value Communism-Nationalism,

and ANEP~FARO do the same with respect to Social

Injustice and Wealth Distribution.

c. Though the value People's Will is first brought

into the debate by the Goverrunent, it is more

consistently incorporated into the frame of reference

by ANEP~FARO,

d, ANEP-FARO progressively give less relevance to

Productivity, while maintaining it as a basic

reference value. The Goverrunent, on the other hand,


67.

gives it an increasing relevance, solving an initial

instrumental ambivalence toward it.

e, ANEP-FARO give an increasing relevance to Private

Property, while the Government, ambivalent toward

it, drops it in the Illird Phase of the debate.


68.

(4) D I S C U S S I O N = = = = = =

4.1. FIRST HYPOTHESIS,

4.1.1. Attitudes and social groups.

The first hypothesis of this work stated that the conflict-

ing groups had similar basic attitudes toward the Agrarian

Transformation and that this similarity showed that both groups

belonged to the same social class.

The hypothesis is based on the assumption that we can

define social groups by means of the attitudes they hold toward

relevant objects; the link between attitudes and groups is

provided by the ideological nature of attitudes. I have

further theorized that attitudes are not constituted by a simple

relationship subject-object, but by a radial structure in which

the central object of a particular attitude acquires meaning

and is evaluated by its instrum~ntal relations with the other

objects ~~values~~ of the structure,

Therefore, I defined operationally the first hypothesis

in terms of the diversity or identity of the values which both

groups instrumentally related to the Agrarian Transformation

--the central object of the attitude, If these values are

different, the first hypothesis has to be rejected and we will


69.

have to say that the evidence does not preve that both groups

belonged to the same social class,

A final comment bef ore I get into the analysis of the

first hypothesis, By speaking of the contending groups, I do

not intend to mean that they represent the two fundamental

social classes that Marxist theory distinguishes in capitalistic

countries --the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. On the ene

side, this cannot be the case in a country like El Salvador,

where --as I said in the Introduction-- several modes of

production are at work and, consequently, we can expect to

find more than two social classes. On the other side, the

lowest social class in El Salvador does not correspond to the

characteristics that typify the proletariat, Rather, this

lowest class has to be considered as a Lumpenproletariat

(Gunder Frank, 1972; Ribeiro, 1971), completely marginated

from any kind of social influence, Its illiterateness and,

more deeply, its lack of any kind of social power, prevents

it from any possible activity other than its own survival.

Illerefore, my first hypothesis refers to the contending

groups as two possible diff erent social classes ar two groups

of the same social class -~but, in any case, as groups ar

classes at the upper levels of the social stratification. Ill.e

point is whether ene of these groups --the Govenunent-- was

really trying to link itself with the lowest classes of El

Salvador, ar whether it was just a case of diff erent levels


70.

of social consciousness inside the same social class.

Did both groups show the same basic attitudes toward the

Agrarian Transformation during the debate? In other words,

did they ref er to the same set of values in order to estimate

the meaning and value of the central object, the Agrarian

Transformation?

This question directs us toward an analysis of the total

set of values expressed by both groups throughout the debate,

I leave aside for the moment the problem whether all these

values were expressed in the three Ptiases of the debate or

just in one or two of them.

According to our statistical analysis (cf, 3.2.3.1), there

is a difference in the frequencies of the values expressed by

both groups, significant beyond the .001 level. The conclusion

we can draw f rom this test is that the f requency of the expressed

values was not independent of the groups. But we need to

elaborate the meaning of this general difference by means

of a qualitative analysis.

If we look at Table VI (p. 48), we can notice that the

only value in which there is an absolute difference is Wealth

Distribution. In fact, ANEP-FARO never mentioned it, although

it was one of the crucial points used by the Government for

its argumentation, But this difference,though very important,

does not accoi.mt for all the variance between the values

expressed by both groups. Actually, if we test the same


71.

obtained frequencies leaving out the value Wealth Distribution,

we obtain a ;;?- still significant beyond the .001 level. There-

fore, we have to look far differences in the other values;

If we follow the sarne quantitative criterion that we used

far the representation of the attitudes, that is, if we take

into account only those values with a relative frequency superior

to five percent of the total frequency, two other value dif~

ferences appear: Communism-Nationalism and Social Injustice.

The Government devoted no significant attention to the value

Communism~Nationalism, which was one of ANEP-FARO's war-horses,

On its part, ANEP-FARO almost systematically omitted to mention

the value Social Injustice ~~as we saw in 3,2,2.6; This omission

is still more significant if we consider that the Government

tried to link the situation of social injustice with the need

for a better wealth distribution.

On the one side, we have the Government insisting upan the

situation of social injustice and the need far wealth distribution,

systematically ignored or omitted by ANEP-FARO; on the other

side, ANEP~FARO blarne the Government for its communist policy,

while emphasizing their own nationalistic stance.

The picture of the differences becomes still clearer if

we establish a comparative list of the expressed values ordered

according to the quantitative relevance given to them by both

groups (cf, Tahle IX).


Rank

1

2

3

4

5

6

TABLE IX

ORDER OF BY RELATIVE

GOVERNMENT

Social Injustice

Democracy

Productivity

Private Property

Wealth Distribution

People's Will

VALUES FREQUENCY

ANEP-FARO

Democracy

Communism-Nationalism

Productivity

People's Will

Private Property

72.

As we can see, the most striking difference seems to be

in the relevance given to Social Injustice by the Government

and to Communism~Nationalism by ANEP~FARO --values respectively

omitted by the other group, 'Ill.e diff erence seems to be not

only quantitative, but qualitative as well. Moreover, if we

take a closer look at the evolution of the debate, we can come

to the conclusion that this difference is not casual, but

rather constitutes the core of the contrasting attitudes.

In effect, every time the Government insisted upan the

situation of social injustice, every time it showed with data

the irrationality of a social organization characterized by

tremendous inequalities, ANEP~FARO accused the Government of

using socialistic language, of promoting the class struggle,

in one word, of communism. "ANEP rejects the demagogic and

class language of the last governmental issue" (ANEP, doc.

07,15), According to ANEP-FARO, this language would reflect


73,

the presence in the Goverrunent of "communists," "It is time

for President Molina to open his eyes and sweep away all that

clutter: frustrated technicians, only motivated by their re

sentment and social maladjustment; seditious ex-communists,

full of poison and rancor; disguised extremists, who pretend

to love a regime they hate" (ANEP, doc. 09.11). Therefore,

according to ANEP~FARO the First Project of Agrarian Trans~

fo:anation would only pretend "to open the window to inter~

national communism" (FARO, doc. 09,02),

It is o,bvious that both the Gove·rrunent and ANEP~FARO were

confronted with the same objective situation. Actually, ANEP~

FARO never denied the socio-economic figures offered by the

Goverrunent, although on more than one occasion they charged

that the data were grossly exaggerated (cf. for instance: ANEP,

doc. 07.13; FARO, doc. 09.22c). The problem lay in how it was

interpreted.

To name a certain situation as one of social injustice is,

certainly, to give an interpretation of it -~an interpretation

which implied that the beneficiaries were profiting from inequity

and human exploitation.' And it was this interpretation of the

social situation that ANEP-FARO considered as communist. For

them, it was not social injustice, but underdevelopment and

insufficient productivity that caused the Salvadoran situation

(cf; ANEP, doc. 07.09; doc; 07.15).

The core of the different attitudes, then, seems to be in

a different perception of the social situation. But the problem


74.

is still more complex, since this different interpretation also

implied an evaluation of the present economic system. Both

groups persistently avowed their commitment to the capitalist

system as it was consecrated by the Constitution of the Republic,

President Molina went as far as saying that he was pushing the

Agrarian Transformation because it represented a "life insurance

policy for the free enterprise and the democratic regime" (GOV,

doc. 07,07),• At the same time, the Government spoke of "struc:..

tural injustice" in the sense that the socio:..economic organization

enforced an inequitable distribution of wealth. Therefore, the

Government seemed to consider as a structural deficiency of the

system what ANEP-FARO saw as an insufficient development of it.

Once more, the difference was interpretative.

This different perception of the social situation and of

the socio:..economic system reveals the different attitudes that

both groups held toward the Agrarian Transformation, The

reasoning might seem circular, but it is not. We begin by

realising the diff erent values emphasized by each group; these

different values imply a diff erent perception of the social

situation; and this different perception is but the expression

of different attitudes vis-a-vis a concrete reality -:..in this

case, the Project of Agrarian Transformation.

We know that the interpretation of reality is the central

cognitive function of ideology (cf, Berger & Luckmann, 1967),

an that different ideologies imply a different situation in a

social system. Therefore, the fact that the different values


75.

emphasized by both groups can adequately be explained by a

different social perception leads us to the conclusion that

the Government and ANEP-FARO had different attitudes toward

the Agrarian Transformation.

It follows from this analysis that we cannot accept the

first hypothesis, In summary, the rejection of the first hy~

pothesis is based on two kinds of arguments:

a, The quantitative analysis shows that:

(1) there is a statistically significant difference

between the frequencies of the values expressed by

both groups;

(2) there is ene value, Wealth Distribution, in which

there is an absolute difference between both groups;

(3) there are two other values, Social Injustice and

Communism-Nationalism, highly emphasized by ene of the

groups and almost completely omitted by the other.

b. The qualitative analysis shows that:

(1) the different values omitted by the groups are

mutually related in a meaningful form;

(2) this interrelated difference implies a different

perception of the social situation and of the socio~

economic system;

(3) this different perception, in its turn, implies

different attitudes toward the Agrarian Transf ormation.

The rejection of the first hypothesis leds us to the

conclusion that the Government and ANEP-FARO did not belong


76.

to the sarne class. lb.is conclusion rnight seern questionable,

since social classes are determined by sociological f actors

--the objective situation in the productive systern--, and not

by psychological ones. But we are not trying to define class

rnernbership by rneans of psychological elernents: rather we are

trying to find out through psychological analysis whether or

not two groups belonged to the sarne social class, lhe difference

rnay seern subtle, but it is not, lhe formation of social classes

is determined by social factors, but the ascription of a group

to a social class has to influence its psychology, And it is

through the analysis of sorne psychological expressions that

we pretend to know the social ascription of sorne groups. In

all this analysis I arn in disagreernent with R; Brown, who pretends

to preve with psychological data the inadequacy of the concept

of social class (cf, Brown, 1965), In our case, this kind of

analysis has led us to the conclusion that the Government and

ANEP-FARO did not belong to the sarne social class.

It rnight also be argued that the propagandistic character

of the debate could be hindering the class identity of both

groups. Without cornpletely rejecting this hypothesis, I think

it loses credibility if we observe: 1) that the problern debated

was one of fundamental relevance .. for the social situation of

both groups (cf, 4.2.2 and 5.1); and 2) that we are not

focusing on the direct evaluation of the attitudes' central

object. It seerns clear that publicity required that the

Government rnaintained a consistent evaluation of the Agrarian


77.

Transfo:r:mation --as in fact happened even after the debate.

We have focused instead on the reference values which in

principle were not the manifest object of the debate, and it

is in these values that we have found a significant difference.

Our conclusion might be further confi:r:med by a sociological

analysis that would specify how these two groups related to the

means of production of the Salvadoran system; It could also

be interesting to see the social origin and status of A:r:my

officials, who govern the country since 1932 and are the decisive

factor with respect to important political decisions, as was the

case with the Agrarian Transformation. Our conjecture, simply

based on experience, is that most A:r:my officials come from the

lowest middle class~ But these analyses fall outside of our

present work.

Now, the conclusion reached should not conceal the fact

that both groups also had sorne aspects in common, More

concretely, they both agreed in their reference and evaluation

of Democracy and Private Property ~~two essential values, as I

will show later, The definition of the Government and ANEP-FARO

as different social classes requires, then, that we consider not

only those aspects in which they differ from each other, but

· also those aspects in which both find themselves in agreement.

It is precisely this set of differences and commonalities that

specifies the relations of the Government and ANEP-FARO at the

interior of the same social system, and allows us to discern

the points of possible conflict.


78.

4.1.2, An example of the different attitudes.

ni.ere is a part of the debate which clearly exemplifies

the different attitudes held by both groups toward the Agrarian

Transformation.· Ill.is part is the analyses about the constitu;.

tional character of the First Project of Agrarian Transf ormation

issued by the two groups in several documents (GOV, doc. 08.30;

09,02; 09,03; 09.07; 09.13; 09.14; ANEP, doc. 09,20; 09.2la;

09,22a; 09;•23; 09.24c; cf, also Ungo, 1976),

ni.e first thing to be noted is the relevance given by both

the Government and ANEP-FARO to the legal character of the

Agrarian Transformation. Ill.is special concern confirms that

both groups agree in the value Democracy and both try, by all

means, to show their commitment to the Constitution that

positively consecrates the democratic regime.

However, the coincidences of both analyses end with the

common acceptance of Democracy. For the rest, the legal analyses

are completely different, in form and in content. Let us try

to summarize these differences in three points.

a. ni.e Government bases its legal study on the analysis

of the present social situation of the country, It offers a

profuse series of socio;.economic data which make clear the

inequalities in every order of human life ;.:.economic, cultural,

political-- that is; the inequality in the distribution of the

goods socially produced. It is this situation of social

injustice that, according to the Government, constitutes the

final reason for the proposed changes, namely, the Agrarian


79.

Transformation.

ANEP, on the other hand, bases its analysis almost com~

pletely on authority ~-the legal expertise of its authors·;·

ANEP devotes a considerable part of the first document to

emphasize the academic and experiential credits of the authors

of the analysis ~~three well~known lawyers, who had played

relevant roles in the Salvadoran public life. Moreover, the

argument of authority is not only used with respect to the

source of the study, but also with respect to the content: in

all the five documents into which the analysis is divided, a

continuous recourse is made to the work of scholars and to the

Constitutions of other countries in order to support the

argumentation offered;·

This first difference is, then, clear: the Government

tries to see directly the situation of El Salvador, while

ANEP remains at the ideological level of the law itself;·

b, The second difference concerns the kind and style of

the analyses. The Government tries to get beyond the formulations

showing the intention of the law, that is, the problems it

pretends to solve as well as the solutions presented.•

ANEP, on its part, reduces its analysis to the formal

level -~that is, to a study about the formal logic of the

articles, their internal consistency, as well as the link

between the legal dispositions and previous legislation. Speak~

ing, for instance, about the "social function" of private property,

it reduces itself to an analysis of its definition and how the


80.

terms have to be understood, without ever mentioning any f act

about the present forms of private property in El Salvador and

its real effects --not its formal conceptualization.

Ihis second difference is consistent with the first one:

while the Government is more concerned with the factual effects

of private property in the country, ANEP keeps its analysis at

an abstract level. In other words, the Government analyzes

private property historically, ANEP does it ahistorically.

Once more, the different perception ~~ideological interpretation~

of the Agrarian Transformation is manifest,

c, Finally, the Goverrunent analyzes the Agrarian Trans~

formation from several perspectives: legal (doc. 08,·30),

economic (doc. 09 ,02), philosophical and political (doc. 09. 03),

social (doc. 09,07), and technical (doc. 09.13; 09.14); All

these perspective allow the Government to link the Agrarian

Transformation with different aspects of the Salvadoran society,

all of them characterized by the same conditions of under

development, inequality, and human oppression.

ANEP, on the contrary, restricts its study to the legal

perspective, and the only subject of its analysis is the concept

of private property and the constitutional i.mplications of the

First Project of Agrarian Transformation with respect to it.

Ihese three basic differences and the conunon frame of

Democracy confirm our antecedent analysis and the conclusion

that both groups had different attitudes toward the Agrarian

Transf ormation and, theref ore, do not belong to the same social


81.

class, The above mentioned difference in the ideological level

of the analyses issued constitutes an important aspect of the

difference, which I will examine later;

4.2, SECOND HYPOTHESIS,

4. 2 .1.' Evolution of attitudes through the debate;'

Since the debate on the Agrarian Transf ormation was public

and had an obvious propagandistic character, it was to be ex~

pected that each contending group would maintain its own

consistent direct evaluation of the Agrarian Transformation,

It would be naive to expect any change in this evaluation.

However, I have already indicated that the consistency of the

attitudes should not be looked for in the evaluation of their

central object, but rather in the frame of reference --values~~

in which this central object is placed, In this sense, we can

follow the Phases of the debate observing the expression or

omission of certain values, and the diverse emphasis given to

them. In other words, it is in these reference values that

we should look f or a possible evolution of the attitudes toward

the Agrarian Transformation.

The second hypothesis of this work assumes that there was

a change in the attitudes of the contending groups through the

debate, I have already shown (cf, 3.2,3,2, and 3,2,3.3) that

it is statistically sound to assume that this evolution took

place. We need, now, to take a closer look at this evolution

and its possible meaning.


82.

Four values are held in conunon by the Goverrunent and ANEP~

FARO in the debate: Democracy, People's Will, Private Property,

and Productivity. From these four values, only Productivity

does not seem to change in a statistically significant form

(cf, Table VII, p; 56), though it does change and the direction

of its change is constant and inverse for both groups (cf,

Table VI, p. 48), The change of People's Will is irregular,

in the sense that it does not f ollow a definite direction of

change through the three Phases of the debate -~though its

pattern of change seems the most correlated, r = - , 99 ,' Both

groups change significantly in the relevance given to the value

Democracy. In fact, this is not only the value in which both

groups completely agree, but also the value which changes in

the same increasing direction, In the last Phase of the debate,

Democracy is the value most emphasized by both groups. The

last conunon value is Private Property,· This value is increas

ingly emphasized by both groups in the two first Phases; but,

while AL'IEP-FARO keep this trend in the Third Phase, the

Goverrunent drops it abruptly, Therefore, we can reasonably

suspect that, if there is a change in the attitudes toward the

Agrarian Transformation, one of the crucial points and perhaps

the crucial point must lie in the evaluation of Private Property.

The evolution could then be described in the answer to the

following question: What should be the social function of

private property in the Salvadoran democratic regime in order

to fulfill the popular will? Let us follow the evolution of the


83,

four common values -~Democracy, People's Will, Private Property,

and Productivity-- through the three Phases of the debate,

4.2.1.1; First Phase.

From the beginning, both groups give a great emphasis

to Democracy, Moreover, for both groups the respect to the

Constitution of the Republic represents an unquestionable basis

and a necessary frame of reference for the debate, The Government,

principally President Melina, links this democratic feeling with

its constitutional duty of accomplishing the will of the Salva~

doran people. Hence its emphasis on People's Will and its

attack on the minority charac_ter of ANEP,

ANEP expresses little concern at the beginning for the

value People's Will, and devotes the greatest part of its

argument to emphasize the relevance of Productivity~' Actually,

this value is expressed by ANEP in this Phase with a relative

frequency greater than any other value in any Phase of the

debate,' On its side, the Government considers Productivity

important, but shows an ambivalence in relating it to the

Agrarian Transformation: though in the long run the Agrarian

Transformation will increase the land productivity, it is

implied that at the beginning the Agrarian Transformation might

negatively affect the agrarian production.'

Private Property does not receive a great quantitative

emphasis in the First Phase. However, it constitutes the most

important qualitative concern, In fact, ANEP links it to

Democracy and to Productivity, Without private enterprise,


84;

ANEP says, Productivity will sink.

The Government is extremely ambivalent toward Private

Property in this Phase, probably because ~-as I showed in 4.1~~

its consideration stems from a direct analysis of the social

situation and an evaluation of the factual effects that Private

Property has prod_uced and is still producing in El Salvador.

Certainly, looking at the Salvadoran situation, Private Property

cannot be praised or considered as an efficient democratic means

to fulfill People's Will;· On the contrary, Private Property is

the structural element responsible for the inequitable Wealth

Distribution,'' The Government thinks that no Democracy can exist

without Private Property; but the latter has to be subordinated

to the former, and not vice versa. Consequently, the Government

sees the Agrarian Transformation as a means to put limits to

certain f orms of land ownership and to increase the number of

private owners.

Precisely here lies one of the deepest inconsistencies

of the Government: it feels that the present forms of Private

Property are greatly responsible for the situation of Social

Injustice prevailing in the country; however, instead of

rejecting Private Property, the Goverrunent pretends to correct

its negative consequences by increasing the number of private

owners.

4.2.1.2. Second Phase.

The emphasis given by both groups to Democracy is

similar in this Phase to that of the First Phase,' Once more,


85.

Democracy is the basic field and Prame of reference f or any kind

of argumentation about the Agrarian Transformation. But, while

the Government stops emphasizing People's Will, ANEP~FARO begin

to give it a great relevance. This pretends to be an explicit

answer to the governmental charge that they represent only a

minority elite; But the new emphasis on People's Will is more

dramatically expressed by the rise and activities of FARO which

from the beginning presents itself as the bearer of the national

feeling and the speaker fer the "living forces" of the Republic.

On the other hand, ANEP-FARO sharply decrease their

emphasis on Productivity, while the Government increases the

relevance given to this value and suppresses its previous

ambivalence toward it. The Government now insists that the

Agrarian Transformation not only will increase the Productivity

of the land, but it will benefit the whole economic system,

promoting new investments and creating a solid internal market.

If the Government solves its ambivalence toward Pro~

ductivity, it cannot do the same with Prívate Property.· The

greater emphasis given by the Government in this Second Phase

to this value has, nevertheless, a slightly different affective

tone: the governmental documents begin to present Prívate

Property less in terms of the social inequality it has produced

in the past, and more in terms of the "social function" it has

to fulfill in the future. And this is the reason why the

Agrarian Transformation is necessary: to make possible the

social function of Private Property, If the Agrarian


86.

TransfoI111ation aff ects the present foI111s of land ownership, it

is in order to promote new foI111s of Private Property, The am

bivalence is still there, though expressed in more positive

teI111s,

ANEP~FARO also maintain their evaluation of Private

Property and change their affective tone toward it. The problem

is no longer for ANEP-FARO the negative consequences of the

Agrarian Transf 0I111ation on the production of the country; the

problem is that, in "destroying" Private Property, the democratic

regime is also affected. In other words, the change that the

Agrarian TransfoI111ation intends to establish with respect to

Private Property is a move toward the establishment of Communism

in the country. Any kind of attact against any foI111 of Private

Property is an attack against Democracy -~it is a communist plot,

Though I will examine this problem in the next point,

let me emphasize the change operated with respect to Private

Property: the Government depoliticizes its position, considering

Private Property less in relation to Social Injustice and more

in relation to Productivity and economic development; ANEP~FARO,

on the contrary, politicize tl].eir stance, judging the effects of

the Agrarian TransfoI111ation less as a threat to Productivity

than as a communist attack against Democracy and against the

People's Will.

4. 2, l. 3 ;; Third Phase,

In the final Phase of the debate, Democracy is not only

more frequently mentioned than in previous Phases, but it is the


87.

value most frequently expressed by both groups ~~.29 for the

Government, ,34 for ANEP-FARO; We might say that both groups

are maximizing their reference to Democracy as a commonly held

criterion. At the same time, the Government once more re

emphasizes People's Will, though less than ANEP~FARO. FARO's

meeting provide ANEP-FARO with the opportunity to claim popular

support for their stance•

The change already observed in Productivity during the

Second Phase continues in this Third Phase: the Government

emphasizes it still more without ambivalence, and ANEP~FARO

give it less relevance, while maintaining it as a basic reference

value.

The most significant change occurs with respect to

Prívate Property. While ANEP~FARO increasingly emphasize this

value, the Government drops it,' The increasing emphasis that

ANEP~FARO have been puting on Democracy has been linked to an

increasing emphasis on Prívate Property ~-these two values show

a correlation of r = .998. On the contrary, the relevant

increase given by the Government to Democracy has been accompanied

by a sharp decrease on Prívate Property --correlation r = ~.995; The change observed in the expressed values thus shows

a clear pattern of evolution, a pattern dependent on the groups

and, apparently, on their mutual influence;· Now we can with

sufficient assurance specify the meaning of this change: Prívate

Property is an essential value for the democratic regime as it is

established by the Salvadoran Constitution. Inasmuch as the


88.

Agrarian Transforrnation interferes with the fo:z:ms of Private

Property legally practiced at the present time in El Salvador,

it interferes with Democracy, Therefore, the Agrarian Trans

forrnation is against Democracy, There is no compatibility

between this Democracy ·and this Project of Agrarian Trans

forrnation.

In summary: There is an evolution in the values

expressed during the debate, which implies the confirrnation of

the attitude held by ANEP-FARO, and a modification of the attitude

held by the Government. This modification lies basically in the

recognition of the central role that Private Property plays in

the Salvadoran democratic regime and, consequently, in the

implicit recognition of the incompatibility of this system with

a Project of Agrarian Transforrnation which affects Private

Property.

The first part of my second hypothesis which assumes an

attitudinal change cannot be rejected: in fact, the Government

changed its attitude toward the Agrarian Transforrnation --it

changed its value frame of reference.

4.2.2. Levels of social consciousness.

The first subhypothesis of the second hypothesis states

that the debate tried to increase the class consciousness of

the participants. In other words, what I am trying to show is

that the change in the values implied an increase in class

consciousness.


89.

I have already defined class consciousness as the individual

or group awareness about the objective interests of one's own

social class. This concept is, certainly, political, insofar

as class consciousness is not a simple knowledge, but a practica!

one. Social consciousness implies the active defense of one's

social class and, therefore, the organization -~political

organization-~ of the group in order to serve those class interests.

It is a well-known social fact that class consciousness increases

in periods of social crisis or unrest, when men are forced by the

circumstances to become aware of their own roots. It is my

contention that this process happened in the Salvadoran conflict,

and that the increase in class consciousness was not only a

by-product of the debate, but it was one of its central elements.

Let us follow, once more, the evolution of the debate, trying to

bring forward this aspect of the debate. In order to do that,

I will contrast the values most emphasized by each group in

each Phase (Table VI, p. 48), and will examine the possible

meaning of their central ref erence role with respect to the

Agrarian Transformation.

4. 2. 2 .1. First Phase.

The two values most emphasized by the Government in this

First Phase are Social Injustice and Democracy, Since these two

values are brought in reference to the Agrarian Transformation,

their joint meaning can be expressed in the following terms:

for the Government, the Agrarian Transformation was a democratic

solution to the situation of Social Injustice. In fact, this


90.

was exactly what Col. Melina manifested in his inaugural

Presidential Address: "What can democracy mean for all those

i.memployed in the coi.mtry as well as in the urban marginal zones?

•••• We cannot close our eyes to the fact that the battle for

the survival of the ideals of freedom, prívate enterprise,

individual rights, that is, the survival of the democratic

system and the institutional bases of the coi.mtry in which we were

born, will take place in the rural area" (GOV, doc. 09.23b).

The attitude of the Governrnent in this First Phase was

obviously political. But I would better call it "naively"

political, insofar as the political character at the beginning

of the debate simply expressed the obvious nature of any govern~

mental action. As we will see, the terrn "political" soon acquired

a different connotation.

The two values more emphasized by ANEP in this Phase were

Productivity and Comrni.mism-Nationalism. The high relevance given

to Productivity implied a more "apolitical" attitude, and the

first attack on the Agrarian Transf orrnation as comrni.mist pretended

to i.mderline its technical inefficiency. Hence, the emphasis on

the governrnental red tape, incapability, and lack of experience.·

El Salvador, ANEP says in its first manifesto, "has little natural

resources and cannot afford the luxury of blithely destroying a

great portien of its productive capacity •••• The adopted measure

needs justification, with economic and technical argurnents really

valid" (Al'lEP, doc. 07.09). For ANEP, the Agrarian Transforrnation

is not a technical measure, but a political one. "The land reforrn


91,

used as a political tool only has meaning in a class struggle,

in which it is intended to destroy the power of one of the

classes and to transfer it to the other" (ANEP, doc. 07.13),

The meaning of ANEP's attitude is also clear: a land

reform only can be justified as a technical means to increase

productivity, not to distribute the land (cf. Sebastián, 1976).

The Agrarian Transformation is a political reform, a typical

communist policy which tends to destroy productivity ~ the

power of the productive class. Three points in ANEP's attitude

deserve to be underlined: (1) ANEP considers Productivity as

the first goal and only justification f or any possible land

reform; (2) ANEP assumes that the Salvadoran production is its

own merit, that is, it identifies Productivity with the activity

and character of its own social class; (3) ANEP rejects the

Project of Agrarian Transformation because it is not a technical,

but a political, measure, and its goal is to destroy productivity

and the productive class -~ANEP's social class.

It is evident that, from the beginning, the attitude of

ANEP implies a social consciousness, that is, a clear awareness

about the interests of its own social class. The same cannot be

said of the governmental attitude, which holds that the Agrarian

Transformation is going to benefit all social classes in El Sal

vador. Paradoxically, the more explicitly political terms and

stance of the Government is less "political" than the explicitly

technical stance of ANEP,' If, technically, the conflict seems

to be between Productivity and Wealth Distribution, politically


92;

the conflict is between Democracy and a supposedly communist

measure ~-the Agrarian Transformation. Whereas the Government

holds that Democracy requires the Agrarian Transformation in

arder to achieve Social Justice, ANEP maintains that the Agrarian

Transformation is a communist bill against Productivity and its

own social class --the productive class.

4,2,2.2. Second Phase.

In this Second Phase, the Government still maintains

Social Injustice and Democracy as the first two values, although

their expression is relatively less frequent than in the First

Phase, At the same time, it significantly increases its expression

of Productivity and Prívate Property. The Government, during this

Phase, addresses a good part of its efforts to preve that the

Agrarian Transformation is a technical solution to the Salvadoran

problems, and that the Government is technically prepared to

fulfill this task; In other words, the Government tries to

de-emphasize the political character of the Agrarian Trans

formation. By this time, ANEP's charge has already achieved the

identification of "political" bill with "antidemocratic" ar

"procommunist" bill1 political means non-technical, class-struggle

policy, And the Government, instead of reaffirming and defending

the political nature of the Agrarian Transformation, begins to

step back and to emphasize its technical character,

ANEP, on the contrary, follows the opposite direction. In

this Second Phase it drops its emphasis on Productivity, and con~

centrates predominantly on the relevance of Democracy, Communism-


93.

Nationalism, and People's Will, three explicit political values.

Its stance is no longer technical: it is openly political. The

Agrarian Transformation is not only a communist measure against

Democracy; it is against the will of the Salvadoran people,

During this Phase, ANEP does not insist on Productivity,

but on the identification of the Salvadoran people with its own

interests --a typical ideological recourse by which the interests

of the dominant class are held as the interests of the whole

society. In other words, ANEP does not represent a single class:

ANEP is the representation of the Salvadoran people;

This political stance and this ideological identification

is pathetically expressed by the rise and activities of FARO, It

is in the meaning of this organization that, in my opinion, lies

one of the crucial elements of the debate,

As I said in the Introduction, FARO was organized by a

group of the landowners affected by the First Project of Agrarian

Transf ormation. It is to be noted that all these landowners were

already organized in several agricultural associations included

in ANEP: the "Salvadoran Cotton Co-operative Ltd.," the "Sugar

Association of El Salvador," the "Agropecuarian Salvadoran

Association," etc. Moreover, the particular economic history of

El Salvador determined that the only class with economic resources

to afford large business or industrial factories was the same

class of landowners, ,Therefore, the big landowners also own

large interests in the industrial and service sectors. In this

sense, the same individuals can be found at the head of the banks,


94.

industries, or land properties, It is not casual that El Sal

vador is known as the country of the fourteen families," This

situation made the rise of FARO apparently unnecessary, since

the affected landowners already.had available severa! associations,

all of them included in ANEP, through which to channel their

opposition to the Agrarian Transformation, Why, then, did they

begin a new association7 What was the meaning of FARO?

The first striking note about FARO is its formal inde~

pendence from Al'IBP and, at the same time, its material identi

fication with it ,· In fact, during the debate both groups

independently signed the same documents, that is, the same

documents appeared one time signed by ANEP, another time by

FARO, Obviously, this represented a material identification of

both groups. Nevertheless, they maintained their formal in

dependence, andan interesting "division of labor,"

Four traits characterized the activity of FARO:

(1) An open aggressiveness, which did not fear to resort

to personal insults, innuendos, attribution of intention, and

even clear calumnies;

(2) The use of express threats of all kinds: economic,

political, and even personal;

(3) A clear political stance and the promotion of

political activities, while denying any kind of political in~

volvement;

(4) The expression of Communism-Nationalism as its


95.

central and almost only value ;·

From these characteristics and the identification/

independence between ANEP and FARO we can discern the meaning

of the latter: FARO represented in the Salvadoran conflict the

political front group of ANEP. In other words, FARO was the

political materialization of ANEP's class consciousness, its

political class instrument. In that way, ANEP could keep its

pretended professional --apolitical?-~ character, its tone of

technical respectability, its self-attributed supraideological

identification with the national interests ~~while, at the same

time, channeling its political consciousness, its class defense

through the activities of FARO. FARO could be "sacrified" in

the conflict; ANEP would survive as a clean professional

association, only concerned with the interests of the whole

country.

It is, then, clear that this Second Phase represents a

politicization of the debate. Whereas the Government begins to

move into a technical field, ANEP moves into the political battle

grol.llld by means of the materialization of its social consciousness,

FARO. Since the Agrarian Transformation is a political measure

against one social class -~ANEP's class~~ FARO will be the

political arm of this class against it.

The technical-political division of labor as well as the

identity of Al~EP~FARO is evident at the end of the Second Phase,

While ANEP "technically" insists that "if a decision of a few

is harmful to us all .. , it is not a good decision" (Al~P, doc.


96.

09.09b; 09.14b; 09.16; 09.17b), FARO issues big propagandistic

reports of its last meeting under the head;.line: "FARO demands

dialogue with the Government" (FARO, doc. 09.13a), And the same

document is also published with Che footnote: "Publication of

ANEP" (ANEP, doc. 09.13b; 09.14).

4.2.2,3,' Third Phase.

As I have already indicated, the most important character

istic of the governmental attitude in this Phase is Che withdrawal

of Private Property from its frame of reference. At the same

time, the Government increases its emphasis on Democracy and

Productivity. Its two first values are still Social Injustice

and Democracy, but now Democracy occupies the first place. Two

elements are, thus, notable in the attitude of the Government

toward the Agrarian Transformation in this Phase: its increased

emphasis on Productivity and its almost complete omission of

Pri vate Property ,"

ANEP;.FARO, on the other hand, increase their emphasis on

Democracy, but now they put as their second expressed value

Private Property and, in third place, with a very high frequency,

Communism~Nationalism.

All the analyses made thus far indicate that the final

role of Private Property in the actitudes of both contenders is

central. The politicization of the debate in its Second Phase

gives to this final change a clear meaning: Private Property

is a political value. Therefore, far A!'lEP;.FARO the Agrarian

Transformation pretends to destroy Democracy bringing Communism


97.

through the suppression of Private Property. As FARO clearly

states in one of its invitations, "the pretended capricious and

unconstitutional interpretation of the Principle of Private

Property in social function is the instrument that will spoil

us from the right of land, house, industrial enterprise, business,

and bank ownership, in order to smash the will of the Salvadorans

and to turn them into real pariahs in behalf of the marxist

regime that the executioners and technocrats of the new class

wish to administer" (FARO, doc. 09,30)•

Evidently, this explicit acknowledgment of the political

character of Private Property is the best expression of a high

class consciousness. Social classes are objectively determined

by their relation to the means of production, and Private Property

is the basic element in this relation. Emphasizing the political

meaning of Private Property, ANEP~FARO are explicitly appealing

to their class interests. And, if the Government cannot deny

this fact, but stops mentioning Private Property, it is because

the character of what is at stake has appeared clear to it. 1he

problem was no longer the distribution of sorne land; the central

problem was the fundamental nature of Private Property. 1his

kind of Democracy is not possible without an almost absolute

right of Private Property.

In sununary: 1he progressive politicization of the debate

implies an appeal to the interests of the Salvadoran dominant

class, Insofar as the Government is a Government of this concrete

political system, to affect Private Property is to affect its


98.

own interests, to destroy the basis of its social power. It is

through the awareness of this fact that the debate reaches a

conclusion, Therefore, we cannot reject the first subhypothesis;

the debate, as it-was led by ANEP-FARO, tried to increase the

class consciousness of the Government, that is, appealed to

their common interests. And their common interests were rooted

in the present forms of Private Property,

4.2. 3. Attitude change through inconsistency,·

My last subhypothesis intends to preve that the process of

attitude change can be adequately explained by Rosenberg's model.

I have already shown that there was a change in the attitudes of

both groups, and that this change was in the direction of an

increasing politicization. The question would be: Can this

process be explained as one of inconsistency raising and solving?

Can the modification induced in the governmental attitude by

ANEP's class consciousness be explained as a process of in~

consistency resolution? I think that the answer is affirmative,

and that Rosenberg's model can adequately be applied to my

analysis. Let me elaborate this affirmative answer.

In the First Phase of the debate, the Government begins by

claiming the incompatibility of a democratic regime with a

situation of Social Injustice, and it presents the Agrarian

Transformation as an i.mportant means to salve this problem. On

its side, Al'IBP begins the debate by un~erlining the incompatibility

between Productivity and Communism: the Agrarian Transformation


99.

is not a democratic solution, because it destroyes Productivity.

The intent of mutual inconsistency raising is clear in the

claims of both groups. However, while in the Second Phase the

Government seems affected by ANEP's argumenta, ANEP answers the

governmenta:l charges by strenghtening its position;' In fact,

the Government tries to salve its initial ambivalence with

respect to Productivity, and gives this value an increasing

relevance. ANEP not only ignores the emphasis on Social Injustice,

but sees the governrnental emphasis on this value as a communist

stance. Consequently, ANEP polarizes itself around its own

values ~~this Democracy, this Private Property, this productive

system. Moreover, it answers the governmental claim on People's

Will by integrating this value and politicizing its position,

bringing its stance to the political field by means of FARO,

The politicization of Private Property accomplished in this

Second Phase by ANEP~FARO effected an unbearable inconsistency

in the attitude of the Governrnent. Since the beginning, the

Government had held an ambiguous evaluation of Private Property·;•

The politicization of this value seemed to reach the governmental

threshold of intolerance far inconsistency, And the dropping in

the Third Phase of this value confirma the theoretical prediction

that attitudes will change when the inconsistent elements cannot

be denied or isolated from the central object of the attitude

(cf, Rosenberg, 1968).

This last point is important. The Government was able to

modify its evaluation of Productivity without changing its


100.

attitude toward the Agrarian Transformation; but it was not

capable of doing the same with Private Property. Why this

difference? In my opinion, the difference lies in the politi

cization of the value Private Property; this politicization

means that Private Property was essentially linked to Democracy,

as ANEP's class consciousness made clear. If the Government

pretended to maintain its evaluation of Democracy identified

with the Constitution of the country -~and this was an unquestion~

able value and the essential element in the frame of reference-~

it had to modify completely its understanding of Private Property,

It could not do it and, therefore, had to drop Private Property.

The change of its attitude toward the Agrarian Transf ormation

had to follow from this fact;

We can ask ourselves whether this change proceeded through

a modification of an affective or a cognitive element. The

answer to that question must be: through both elements, in the

sense that Private Property was not a simple cognitive element,

but also a strong affective one ~~as the analysis has shown.

However, I thi.nk that, paradoxically, the affective element

seemed to play a more relevant role.' Class consciousness is

made possible by situations of personal involvement, and the

new knowledge is not possible until the circumstances force the

individuals to look differently at the daily events. If the

Government could reach a new class consciousness it was insofar

as its own position was menaced by the threat to the basis of


101.

its power. And it is in this aspect that we can place the

effect on the debate of all the ongoing pressures --economic,

political, and personal. Once Private Property was seen as a

political value, the position of the Goverrunent toward the

Agrarian Transformation was no longer tenable; but to realize

this fact required an emotional involvement, made possible by

the strorg pressures of ANEP-FARO,

One final remark. It is clear that the Third Phase of the

debate annot.mced the resolution of the conflict, as in fact

happened, Nevertheless, after the debate both groups, the

Goverrunent and ANEP-FARO, publicly declared that they would

promete in common the Agrarian Transformation; But now, this

Agrarian Transformation would be in the "productive," "apolitical"

terms desired by ANEP-FARO, and without affecting in any way

Private Property, The Goverrunent, evidently, had changed its

attitude toward the Agrarian Transformation. In other words,

the new attitude was toward a new object, and in relation to

different values, especially, without relation to Private Property.

The new attitude not only showed an internal consistency, but

also an external one: there was no more conflict between the

Goverrunent and ANEP-FARO, between the Agrarian Transformation

and the interests of the dominant social class •.

Therefore, I cannot reject the second subhypothesis: the

resolution of the debate was reached through a process of in

consistency raising, Rosenberg's model can adequately explain


102.

the goverrunental attitude change that took place in the Salva

doran debate on the Agrarian Transformation.

4.2.4. After the debate.

The validity of my interpretation of the debate receives a

further confirmation by two documents, issued by ANEP and FARO

sorne time after the conclusion of the debate (cf, 3.1.4),

On October 25, ANEP issued a statement about the amendments

to the First Project of Agrarian Transformation. Its first point

is an acknowledgment that the new definition of Private Property

in social function is the crucial modification of the Project,

that allows the country a period of renewed trust and peace.

ANEP thanks "the living forces" of the Republic for their un

derstanding and support. And, in a final point, "ANEP urges

all the entrepreneurs of the country not only to keep but to

strenghten the unity f or the defense of our principles of free

enterprise" (ANEP, doc. 10.25). As my interpretation of the

debate would lead us to expect, the class consciousness and the

political relevance of Private Property are the central points

of this document.

The document of FARO, issued on November 27, is divided

into three sections: (a) An analysis supporting the amendments

introduced to the Project of Agrarian Transformation; (b) An

analysis of the "socio-political situation," denouncing "subversive"

popular movements and the work of land "agitators;" and (c) A

statement about ~he intentions and goals of FARO as organization.


103.

In 3.1.4, I showed FARO's contradictory claim of being

apolitical and its expressed political goals. Since FARO has

been defined as the political f ront group of ANEP during the

debate, its declaration further confirms this interpretation;

The ideological falseness of its stance supports the contention

that FARO expresses the political consciousness of the dominant

social class, while pretending to be the voice of the "national

interest." A maximum of class consciousness implies, in this

situation of historical oppression, a maximum of ideological

falseness. The attitude of FARO expresses almost in pure terms

the figure and the myths of the "oppressor" type described by

Freire (cf,· 1.4 •. 2);


104.

( 5) e o N e L u s I o N = = = =

S. l •' ! PSYCHOSOCIAL INTERPRETATION OF I!lli DEBATE,

The debate that took place in El Salvador during 1976

betwen the Goverrunent of Col, Melina and the "National

Association of the Private Enterprise" (ANEP) about the First

Project of Agrarian Transf onnation shows the existence of two

different social classes in the ruling sector of the Salvadoran

society. These two classes are linked by the need for maintain-

ing the present social system as it is consecrated by the Cons~

titution of the Republic. One of the essential elements of this

system is the right of Private Property, exerted almost without

limits.- It is through the private ownership of the means of

production that these social classes are configurated and

acquire social power.

Each of these social classes had a different perception of

the social situation and, consequently, gave a different inter~

pretation of the ways to solve the tmderdevelopment and the

social inequality that characterizes the cotmtry. While the

Goverrunent interpreted the situation as one of social injustice,

At'IBP interpreted it as one of deficient productivity. This

difference in the perception of the reality implied a diff erent

level of social consciousness, th~t is, a different awareness


105.

of their objective interests as social classes.

Concretely, these two social classes perceived differently

the land situation of El Salvador and the possible solutions to

its problems. lhe First Project of Agrarian Transformation

issued by the Government and immediately opposed by ANEP made

clear their different attitutdes toward the Salvadoran social

problems.

At the beginning of the debate, the opposing views of

social justice against productivity (First Phase) constituted

the central points of the argument. But it soon became clear

that the opposition was between the present democratic system in

El Salvador and a policy of social justice labeled as communist

by ANEP, since it would represent a serious limitation to its

traditional prerogatives (Second Phase). Finally, the conflict

appeared as one between private property and social justice in

the Salvadoran system (Third Phase).

lhe increasing politicization of the debate showed that,

very often, the criteria of technical efficiency and productivity

simply hide a political interest of the ruling class ~-the defense

and maintainance of the present forras of private property.

Private property is the source of the social domination of one

class over the others, and its meaning is not merely technical,

but political. ANEP was conscious of this meaning, and hence

the rise of FARO as a f ront group which would lead the conf ron

tation to a pure political field.

Dlrough the debate, the Government was f orced to accept


106,

the political meaning of private property and, consequently, to

change its attitude toward the Agrarian Transformation; If the

Government wanted to preserve its own role of social power it

had to preserve the system. And, since the system was founded

on private property, a Project that would affect the present

forras of private property would also affect the system and its

own situation.

The politicization of the debate expresses the existence of

forces other than ideological; but more directly expresses the

central role that social consciousness plays in the configuration

of social actitudes,

Was this conflict the expression of an hegemonic crisis

inside the ruling class? We can neither support nor refute this

sociopolitical interpretation. But, from our psychosocial pers~

pective, it appears that the conflict was deeper: not an

hegemonic conflict inside the ruling class, but an hegemonic

conflict inside the whole society, In other words, it seems

that the debate aimed at a clarification of the central role of

private property in the Salvadoran system: it is through private

property that the ruling class achieves its position of hegemony,

its social power. Any measure that somehow ~~even mildly, as

this Project of Agrarian Transformation-~ could affect private

property had to be felt by the ruling class as an assault against

its social hegemony. It is in this sense that I believe that the

governmental position was representative of the intereses of the


107•'

oppressed classes: the Project of Agrarian Transformation

affected the basic mechanism through which the social system

has exerted and still exerts their oppression (cf, also Sebas~

tián, 1976). Probably, one of the political errors of the

Government in the conflict was to ignore the practical support

of these classes. But this is another question.

Private property gives basis not only to the present social

system, but also to the attitudes of different groups. ANEP's

attitude toward the Agrarian Transformation exemplifies the

social roots of attitudes as well as their social functionality

with respect to the objective interests of a social class. At

the same time, the new consciousness acquired through the debate,

the new attitude toward the Agrarian Transformation, led the

Government to change drastically its reformistic policy aimed

at social justice into a policy of systematic repression of any

kind of social ~~"communist"-- concern, The last events in El

Salvador pathetically confirm this point.

S. 2, SOME THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS ,.

I would like to indicate three theoretical points that seem

to follow from this work and that, in my opinion, deserve further

reflection and research;

The first is more methodological than theoretical, although

it can also have implications for theory, Content analysis has

proved to be a useful tool f or social psychology; The present


108,

study, for all its limitations, preves at least that it is

possible to acquire a significant psychological knowledge of

human events and actions through a careful analysis of relevant

documents,: Its possibilities are, to be sure, limited, as the

modern branch of psychohistory is proving. But it seems

appropriate for the study of those group events where individuality

is less relevant. In any case, social psychology would only gain

by reconsidering content analysis at least as another possible

method of research,

My second point goes back to sorne considerations I made in

the Introduction (cf; 1.4.2), I stated there the group nature

of the attitudes and their ideological character. I think the

present work shows that an understanding of attitudes as the

psychological structure of ideology establishes a valuable bridge

between social groups and individuals, between social structures

and personality, between social interests and individual actions.

I say action, and not behavior, because I intend to emphasize

not only its formal structure, but also its contentual meaning;

and meaning is essentially social. 1he actions of both the

Government and ANEP-FARO, as well as those of their members,

could certainly be referred to that mediating variable called

attitude. But the cognitions and affects that frame any attitude

are individual as well as social elements. I think that if we

pretend to explain more adequately human attitudes, we cannot

limit ourselves to a positivistic functional model, but we have

to reintroduce this model into its historical context.


109.

Hence my third point. lb.e consistency model has rightly

emphasized the internal elements that constitute an attitude,

giving it stability or instability, Now, I think that it follows

from the previous point that this model can and should be enlarged

in order to take into account its relational consistency, that is,

the relation of a particular attitude with its social roots and

reference points. It is here that, in my opinion, social cons~

ciousness plays the central role: the relational consistency of

an attitude will depend on the level of social consciousness of

the subject of that attitude ~~individual or group; It seems to

me that this consideration could help social psychology to a

better understanding of sorne social processes, especially those

that involve significant group changes,

I do not pretend that these points are fully clear, Never~

theless, they seem to me to be promising enough to deserve more

theoretical study and practical research; Social psychology

has devoted a good part of its best efforts to the study of

attitudes, However, during recent years it has been somehow

forgotten, giving way to other models and approaches. Perhaps

it is time to go back to that rich field and reexamine it with

new eyes and renewed interest •.


110.

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A P P E N D I X A ===================

11§.! Q[ OOCUMENTS

Kind of docurnents: A - Manifestos and transcriptions of official speeches.

B - Theoretical analyses. C - Invitations and reports,

Newspapers (San Salvador): DH - El Diario de Hoy,

DL - Diario Latino. EM - El Mundo,

PG - La Prensa Gráfica.

(1) DOCUMENTS ISSUED BY THE GOVERNMENT

07.07 A

07. lOa

07 .'lOb B

07,lOc A

07,14 B

07 .16 B

07 .17 A

08.27a

08.27b

08.30

09.02

09.03

09.06

B

B

B

B

B

B

Newspaper

DH

PG

DH

DH DH

DH EM

DH

PG

DH

DH

DH

DH

Docurnent

Presidential Address.

Decree: First Project of AT.

Goverrunental a.ra;er to ANEP.

Presidential Address in Ahuachapán. Goverrunental answer to ANEP,

Goverrunental answer to ANEP, The Goverrunent to the Salvadoran people,

The Gov. is technically prepared.

The instrurnents for the AT,

AT is constitutional (!),

AT is constitutional (II).

AT is constitutional (III),

AT is constitutional (IV),


Date ,!&1n!! Newspaper

09,13 B DH 09,14 B DH 09,16a A DH

09.16b C DL 09.17 C DH

09,2la A DH

09.2lb C DH 09.22 C EM 09.23a e PG

09,23b A PG 09.24 C PG 09.27 C PG 09.29 C PG 09,30 C PG

Appendix A, 2,

Document

AT is constitutional (V), AT is constitutional (VI), Presidential Address.

People have the right to know the truth. People have the right, •.

Presidential Address 1975, People have the right ,·, ,

People have the right •.• People have the right ..• Presidential Adciress 1972. People have the right •.. People have the right,,, People have the right,,, People have the right,,,

(2) DOCUMENTS ISSUED BY ANEP;.FARO

07. 09 07 .13

07.15 07.19

08.09 08.12

08.20 08.23

08.26 08.31

09.0la 09,0lb

09.02 09.03

A

B

B

A

B

B

e B

A

e A

e e e

DH

DH

DH

DH

DH DH

PG

DH

DH PG

PG PG

DH PG

ANEP: Manifesto. ANEP answers the Government.

ANEP answers the Government. This is ANEP,

ANEP: Nobody can deny these facts; ANEP: Governmental inefficiency on

FARO:

ANEP:

land administration, Invitation to meeting,

What is the social benefit of the AT?

FARO: We will not sell our land. FARO: Invitation to meeting. Al~EP is ready to help. FARO: Invitation to meeting.

FARO: Invitation to meeting. FARO: Invitation to meeting.


Date Kind Newspaper

09.06a 09,06b

09.07a 09. 07b

09.08 09,09a

09.09b

09,09c 09.10

09.11 09 .13a 09.13b 09.l4a 09.14b 09 .16 09.17a 09.17b 09.20 09,21a

09.2lb

09.22a 09.22b

09.22c 09.23

09.24a

09 •24b 09.24c 09.25

09.28

e e

e e e B

A

e B

B

e e e A

A

A

A

B

B

B

B

A

B

B

e B

B

B

e

PG

DH

PG

DH

DH PG

EM

PG PG

PG

EM

DH PG

EM

DL

DH PG

DH

DH DH

DH DH

DH DH DH DH DH DH DH

Appendix A, 3.

Document

FARO: Resolutions meeting,

FARO: This is the "small group" that opposes the AT,

ANEP: This is the "small group",,. FARO: This is the "small group",,,

FARO: Resolutions meeting. ANEP: Land Reform f ailed in Guate

mala (I). ANEP: If a decision of a few is

harmful to us all,,, it is

not a good decision.

FARO:

ANEP:

ANEP:

Invitation to meeting, Land Reform failed ••• (II).

Land Reform failed,,, (III).

FARO demands dialogue with the Gov.

ANEP: FARO demands dialogue .•. ANEP: FARO demands dialogue,,,

ANEP: If a decision •••

ANEP: If a decision. ·" ANEP: Manifesto. ANEP: If a decision• ..

ANEP: Legal study (I). ANEP: Legal study (II),

FARO: Machiavellian advice to

President Melina.

ANEP:

FARO:

FARO: ANEP:

FARO:

FARO:

ANEP: ANEP: FARO:

Legal study ( III) ,·

Manifesto.

There is no Min. of Agriculture. Legal study (IV),

Invitation to meeting. You are alone, Mr. President.

Legal study (V), Other legal study,

Invitation to meeting.


Appendix A, 4.

Date Kind Newspaper Document

09.29 e DH FARO: Invitation to meeting.

09.30 e PG FARO: Invitation to meeting,

10.01 e PG ANEP: Invitation to meeting.

10.02a e EM Multiple invitations to meeting,

10.02b e EM ANEP: Invitation to meeting.

10.04 e EM FARO: Popular answer to FARO's call. 10.os e PG FARO: Popular answer to FARO's call,

10.06 e DH FARO: Thanks to nationalistic people,

10. 25 A DH ANEP: Period of national recovery.

11.27 A PG FARO is democratic and apolitical.


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