Wanted: a policy for Central America:
Hehir, J Bryan
Church/world watch Wanted: a policy for Central America J. Bryan Hehir PRESIDENT REAGAN'S State of the Union message was concerned primarily with the domestic economy. Its foreign policy...
...From Rivera Damas in Salvador to Obando Bravo in Nicaragua, from local clergy and religious to missionaries and lay catechists, the church shapes much of the pattern of life wherein the political questions are defined and contested...
...The requirements for a political strategy complement those for a regional strategy...
...None of these moves seems likely at the moment, even with the administration's change in tone...
...The local influence is fundamental, but part of the church's unique role is its link to the universal church...
...The Washington Post commentary observed that the president, "ignored the hard-hitting foreign policy themes of his first two years . . . and spoke in bipartisan mainstream terms that could have been used by any of his predecessors in the postwar era...
...In El Salvador this applies to both the government and the opposition...
...It is the latter which is required...
...The pattern within each country is different, but nowhere is the church absent...
...Three articles in the New York Times during the week of the State of the Union address described both the devastating suffering and the desperation about the possibility for change in the region...
...The administration has retreated from geopolitical scenarios...
...Hence the need for advocates of a policy regional in scope and political in content...
...policy should be the region of Central America...
...The role of the U.S...
...Finally, the church in other countries has been a significant part of the Central America debate, not least in the United States...
...It is not demonstrable that if we are convinced of a political solution, others will agree...
...BRYAN HEHIR...
...changes in tone will not be sufficient to reverse the cycle of violence convulsing Central America...
...Even without the State of the Union address there have been indications in some of Assistant Secretary of State Enders's speeches that the realities of Central America have required policy revisions if not yet redefinition...
...This raises the third point: the role of the Catholic church...
...A political option in Central America will demand of the United States some new choices in El Salvador, political rather than military moves vis-a-vis Nicaragua, and action in concert with nations like Mexico and Venezuela...
...Serious pursuit of a political settlement requires acknowledgment that a decisive military solution is not possible in political or moral terms...
...More of the same - either from the United States or from the regional contestants - is not sufficient...
...The primary resource is the local church in each nation...
...It is not clear that either has accepted the point, but its relevance for U.S...
...There are policy tasks that only can be undertaken here...
...Three comments restricted to the U.S...
...policy remains...
...both the church and the state should be in pursuit of the changes required...
...For much of the past two years the policy debate in the United States has moved between two poles: (1) the administration's contention that Central America needed to be seen in "geopolitical" terms, with the outcome having far-reaching implications for the U.S.-Soviet relationship, and (2) the contrasting focus of administration critics who argued for the primacy of internal conditions in each country...
...Second, the regional policy must be principally political in its content...
...if a political settlement is to be achieved, U.S...
...while the internal conditions in each country remain basic for any policy, the case can be convincingly made that regional analysis and action is the imperative of the moment...
...Since the latter is so significant, the limited church role is crucially important...
...J. BRYAN HEHIRJ...
...There are three levels of the church's influence on Central America...
...First, the focus for U.S...
...Whether the shift in tone amounts to any change in substance is the more complex question yet to be answered...
...A regional strategy would be based on the conviction that a danger exists that the turmoil now felt individually by El Salvador or Guatemala has the distinct potential of exploding into a four- or five-nation war, and it would be based on the recognition that movement in one place (El Salvador) may require movement on other fronts (U.S.-Nicaragua relations...
...The visit will be complex and delicate in many ways, but it is hard to conceive of any single figure with greater capacity to bring a sense of hope to ordinary people and to legitimate new diplomatic moves by parties locked in conflict...
...Its foreign policy section was noteworthy for a shift in tone from earlier policy statements...
...More than a change in tone is needed in U.S...
...policy debate constitute less than a policy but may point toward one...
...church is precise and limited: its impact on American policy...
...but it is very likely that if we encourage ideas about a military solution, the Sal-vadoran military will be confirmed on their present course...
...Much has changed in Central America during three years of war, but the significance of the church remains...
...In 1983 the nations of Central America are not defined as the place to draw the line on a textbook case of international Communist subversion or even the place to demonstrate U.S...
...This will be demonstrated in the most striking terms by the visit of John Paul II to Central America in March...
...resolve to resist the Soviet Union throughout the developing world...
...One example of the change was Central America...
...participation is indispensable...
...Its potential for pressing a negotiated solution in the region is not unlimited but may be unrivaled by any other party...
Vol. 110 • February 1983 • No. 4
