UN observers, police team monitors Peace Accords.

• Position: El Salvador

A continued UN presence in El Salvador to ensure the successful implementation of the 1992 Peace Accords was instituted on 1 May, a day after the four-year UN Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL) had formally fulfilled its mandate.

An 18-member team of observers and civilian police consultants - the UN Mission in El Salvador (MINUSAL) - was to verify compliance with pending aspects of the Peace Accords, signed by the Government of El Salvador and the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) in January 1992 in Mexico City.

In those comprehensive agreements, which formally ended a 12-year civil war that had claimed some 75,000 lives and resulted in more than a million refugees, the parties pledged a new era of cooperation, democracy and prosperity.

ONUSAL was established by the Security Council on 20 May 1991 to monitor compliance with the 1990 San Jose Agreement on Human Rights between the Government and the FMLN. Subsequently, its mandate was substantially enlarged and its strength increased to enable it to verify the 1992 Peace Accords and later to observe El Salvador's elections in March and April 1994.

Resolution 991:

Irreversibility urged

The Security Council on 28 April, recognizing with satisfaction that El Salvador had "evolved from a country riven by conflict into a democratic and peaceful nation", urged the country's Government, the FMLN and all concerned to "ensure the irreversibility of the peace process".

By unanimously adopting resolution 991 (1995), it also urged them to accelerate the implementation of the Peace Accords and "work together to achieve fulfilment of outstanding commitments".

In welcoming the continued commitment of the Government and people of El Salvador to "reconciliation, stabilization and development of political life", the Council called on States and international institutions to continue providing them assistance "as they consolidate the gains made in the peace process".

A programme of work to complete the...