Americas Watch notes that under the previous military government, violent killings by military death squads were running at the rate of 100 per month. Over 50,000 have been killed and 400 rural villages have been destroyed by the death squads since the military coup in 1982.
After the election, Colonel D'Jalma Dominguez, an army spokesman, explains:
"For convenience sake a civilian government is preferable, such as the one we have now. If anything goes wrong, only the Christian Democrats will get the blame. It's better to remain outside. The real power will not be lost."
