The quagmire of dependency
Chapin, Jim
U.S. ROLE IN EL SALVADOR The quagmire...
...USAID has signed a cooperation agreement mass depopulation of the rural zones backing the rebels...
...He supported the Christian grimmer history of their nation, have been less attractive and Democrats fairly strongly until this year, but has distanced more bloodthirsty than the Sandinistas...
...A special irony is that Chenichikova's natal city is price of our continued support...
...opinion...
...example, even by normal Latin American standards...
...Duarte tary strategy, has retreated from the Nicaraguan/Cuban exam- appears to be an arrogant and often inefficient man who insists ple to the Vietnamese example...
...If anything, These groups carried out a number of larger and more enunder Duarte and with American support, the military has thusiastic anti-Duarte labor rallies on February 21, March 25, become more powerful as an independent force in the last few and on May Day...
...Ochoa was labor union federation which it helped to put together in 1980...
...As always, the Salvadoran rebels, reflecting the Romero, has been more cautious...
...As long as we are then freed in exchange for public confessions of guerrilla willing to continue to increase aid at the present rate - and if connections...
...to the Duarte govern- war over time has resulted in the destruction of the old Salment in El Salvador, and where that commitment might lead...
...The Commonweal: 434...
...Walter Dean Burnham has suggested that depopulation has resumed in earnest...
...The continuance of the ever-growing commitment of the U.S...
...Today it is not...
...In a way it is an ironic choice, on trying to run his government single-handedly...
...They now grown too strong...
...that "to call someone a Communist here is practically a The FMLN, not fully wanting to recognize this state of death sentence...
...We National and international ballet competitions in the Soviet need to support a domestic force for peace in El Salvador, and Union are held in Moscow...
...And it has fallen out of the American possibility of an end to the persistent conflict in El Salvador...
...Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas, perhaps re- The new slogan is "one party, one army, until the taking of sponding to the murder of his predecessor, Archbishop Oscar power...
...nity for all political forces (including Marxist, Leninist, and In addition to transfers of established and rising talents, the Communist) to push their case, else the war will go on indefi- Kirov has lost many of its top dancers to the West through nitely...
...Its "professionalization" may be laying the of support for Duarte in 1984) have *been unhappy not only groundwork for it to function independently of the old oligar- with Duarte's economic policies and his failure to negotiate, chy, just as the equally "professional" Chilean military has but also with his use of security troops to smash strikes and been functioning for the last dozen years...
...This so-called "clean fundamentalist religion has filled the social space in the United warfare" relies on heavy bombing from above and the use of States that in other countries would be filled by socialism, and troops on the ground...
...Despite to have come to nought, pressures on religious groups in El American attempts to make Nicaragua into the "North Viet- Salvador grow ominous...
...positions in the United Nations...
...That allowing a Protestant group to distribute food to refugees, and policy has known several phases...
...Colonel The AFL-CIO, acting through the AIFLD, has worked to Sigifredo Ochoa, who has always been an anti-Duarte light- destroy the Popular Democratic Unity (UPD), the moderate ning rod in the military, was violently critical...
...While American politi- Salvador seems weaker now than a year ago, with two very cians and journalists have exercised themselves over $100 important exceptions: the American government and the Salmillion in aid to Nicaraguan contras, they have ignored the vadoran military which it sponsors...
...After 1982, this policy Campus Crusade for Christ, the number of Protestant baptisms had to be abandoned in certain areas because rebel control had has risen from 70,000 in 1975 to 250,000 last year...
...strange admiration of their alleged Communist foes, wants This is not to say that negotiations serve no purpose...
...The effect of "liberalization" in the cities is to allow an expression of attitudes to the left of those the U.S...
...serious negotiations with the rebels...
...Among the most noted of these have been Rudolph political system will probably not produce a capitalist political Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Natalia Makarova...
...The FMLN (Farabundo Marti istration all around the world - requires that we see the world Liberation Front) held her for forty-four days, and was able to as the Communists do, as total...
...Both had been trained at the Perm school which had dominated regime is a slide to the right, which reduces gov- been established by Kirov teachers when the company was ernment support...
...aid to El Salvador topped half-a- The military has generally continued to protect former billion dollars, more than $120 per Salvadoran, a level of death-squad members, and no major figure has been successsupport exceeded only by what we give to Israel...
...But when the government drifts to the right (or, as social democratic and Christian democratic wings of the FDR now, is pulled there by its American sponsors) the rebel forces (Democratic Revolutionary Front), have made tentative ap- gain strength and the U.S...
...withdraws its aid to the army...
...For that reason alone, we president (June 1), called once more for negotiations...
...Real income support in El Salvador...
...In 1985, U.S...
...As a result, today half-a-million The Catholic church in El Salvador has been institutionally people, more than 10 percent of the country's population, are weak judging by the number of vocations to the priesthood, for displaced persons...
...commentators have claimed that this episode demonstrated Here, as elsewhere, "anti-Communists" unwittingly make Duarte's power: the army was unhappy, to say the least, but imitation the sincerest form of flattery...
...Just as the accesBernard Packer sion of Cory Aquino (with the support of the same military EFormer head of AIFLD in El Salvador leaders who bolstered the Marcos regime for two decades) will not solve the problems of the Philippines, so Duarte's uneasy...
...The problem is American aid...
...However, if fully tried for anything up to and including killing Salvadoran one takes into account the higher GNP of Israel, U. S. aid to El archbishops and American nuns, shooting AFL-CIO repreSalvador is almost exactly equivalent: one-fifth of each coun- sentatives, or plotting to kill American ambassadors...
...Where our agree, with the single qualification of removing the "might...
...Roberto Mauricio Staben (a CIA favorite and JIM CHAPIN, writer, political consultant, and a former national di- commander of the American-trained Arce battalion) has alrector of the Democratic Socialists of America, is the Chair of World ready been released, and Rodolfo Isidro Lopez Sibrian (who Hunger Year...
...Even so, try's GNP...
...It is still a good company but support for the government, because that decreases both the circumstance and design have eroded its position...
...Like most historical events, it leads in ambivalent directions, rather than providing the sim"In El Salvador, it's good for your health to have an ple good guys/bad guys dichotomies beloved of American American connection...
...report...
...Our policy of demanding a victory and an than back to their home companies, no matter where they have end to the death squads at the same time simply can't work: received their training...
...Neither nothing so much as to imitate them...
...Nothing like that is happening now...
...Since 1984, however, with the increased claim that some 20 percent of the country's population are assistance of U.S...
...years ago...
...More common is the policy of try in a big way...
...Because that federation was not sufficiently pro-Duarte...
...Unemployment and army...
...It is an appealing shortcut, but a fatal one...
...And the largest has narrowed that base...
...Liberalization permits finalists, Nadezda Pavlova (gold medal) was assigned to the' rising left-wing opposition, which, denied political space, will Bolshoi and Olga Chenichikova (silver) ended up with the find military space...
...The American intervention in recent years has been more than relatively few priests and nuns cover the whole ideological 15 August 1986: 431 spectrum from left to right, but it has been possible for the summer, it was agreed that the purely military struggle had archbishops to emerge as the voice of "moderate" public failed, and that it was time for a prolonged popular struggle...
...The natural direction, of a military- Kirov...
...If the Salvadoran government thinks our sup- Maryinsky Ballet, it was always looked upon with some suspiport is unlimited, it has no incentive and no ability to make cion and jealousy by the restored capital city, Moscow...
...The ironic effect of we are now doing in El Salvador: by substituting our dollars present American policies is to complete a "forced-draft and military support for the social base that an indigenous urbanization and "modernization" of El Salvador, by destroy- democracy requires...
...More and more, the key to Duarte's American firm in the country, Texas Instruments, has just position is in Washington...
...Until 1982 units of the armed the military has given them access to the camps, barracks, and forces would enter villages in search of the insurgents, often jails, and has helped them on housing projects...
...govern- Dance ment wants, but these attitudes can only be suppressed by letting the death squads go back to their old ways...
...representatives met with representatives of Duarte in Lima this . This, not anything that has happened or may happen in April, and Duarte, on the second anniversary of his election as Nicaragua, is the "Vietnam model...
...from its people) dependent upon us for its very survival...
...I would they function best: social wars and weaponry...
...The theory of "low will escape punishment...
...As the government's real domestic strength and its room to maneuver inheritor and standard-bearer of the traditions of the Imperial with flexibility...
...intensity conflict" - which was developed by French counThe most dramatic event of the last year was the September ter-insurgents in Algeria and Vietnam, then used by us in 10, 1985 kidnapping of Duarte's daughter Ines, who had been Vietnam, and now is being implemented by the Reagan adminhis campaign manager in 1984...
...Accusations that church humannam" of the conflict, the analogy fails...
...So far, confrontations with it...
...Sysnecessarily difficult changes...
...events in El Salvador, the involvement of the United States in In fact, one can make a case that almost every force in El that country has steadily increased...
...society functions best is in the arts of peace: business, comThe violence that the Marxist-Leninist wing of the FMLN has munications, and culture...
...The direction of the last year's politics has dropped 30 percent so far in this decade...
...His party, for the Vietnamese never fully realized how vast American unable to carry out the policy of its natural constituency, is firepower was, and they, too, kept getting trapped into direct tending to become a collection of corrupt hangers-on...
...a year or so of toppling the regime altogether...
...the (potentially anti-American) right, from 1972 to 1979, and The anti-Duarte elements of UPD joined with unions of again in 1982-84, the result was a vast increase in rebel teachers and public administrators to form the National Unity strength that, according to some military analysts, came within of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS) in February of this year...
...One major figure, Lt...
...supplied aircraft and bombers, the policy of active members...
...forever with no result (even the archbishop has spoken As Duarte has been pulled right by the pressure of U.S./ despairingly of the war as "apocalyptic and interminable"), IMF economic policies and urged to compromise with the but in fact we should remember that the revolutionary forces army and the political right, some of the space to his immediate have at least twice come somewhat close to victory, once in left has opened...
...It has taken place on a wide front...
...vadoran oligarchy...
...What is Americas, says the AFL-CIO has followed "the logic of recent happening is rather interesting: a bifurcated and more sophisti- U.S...
...This strategy couples an easing of political that in the context of a policy that has defined Duarte as the restriction in the cities with an increase of violence in the rural acceptable left end of the political spectrum, and then pulled areas...
...It is a sum higher than the entire national budget of the experience of the military in the years without an American El Salvador a few years ago...
...A number of enterprise, since many of the leaders and parties involved have church workers have received death threats...
...lermo Ungo of the FDR responded with guarded hope...
...intention to execute sponsor of the Duarte government exceeding that of even a few Phase II of the land reform...
...government and military that is totally dependent upon us...
...Guil- should pay more attention to what is happening in El Salvador...
...This should be an interesting stituting any judicial process to prove them...
...On each occasion the strikes, something one did not see much of at the height of the United States increased the level of its involvement and stopdeath squads...
...Bernard Packer, the AIFLD representative in Salvador, began The military remains unwilling to punish even the most a group called the Democratic Workers' Federation in 1984...
...administration will not attempt to "build democracy" as the U.S...
...re-assigned to Washington, where he has so far failed to Why...
...The forces of the death squads have been Other than occasional statements about Duarte and his struggle politically scattered: the right-wing quasi-Fascist bloc built up against the military (a struggle which goes nowhere), the by Roberto D'Aubuisson under the name of ARENA (Repubmedia, lacking any clear "story line," has largely abandoned lican National Alliance) has shattered, with various individuits coverage of the issues...
...But it has, under American Although Packer himself became so controversial he had to be pressure, reduced the level of terror in the country...
...These two facts are not unconnected...
...Given this level of support, we presence has been so grim that the army has concluded that shouldn't be surprised that El Salvador and Israel rank at the nothing can be allowed to interfere with the American very top of the short list of countries that regularly support pipeline, especially since the demands of the American masU.S...
...We must hope that the next the army nor the FMLN can win the military struggle (unless U.S...
...Church officials have denied the accusations necessary to back it up with American troops - the blunt fact (although it is common sense to assume that in a civil-war is that given the present circumstances no government can climate their agencies might well be infiltrated by both come to power in El Salvador without at least American rebel and government agents) and have expressed concern toleration...
...The old UPD unions (who were a major base years...
...with the torture by acid and electricity of some members and At the height of death-squad activity, thousands of people relatives...
...evacuated to that city during the siege of Leningrad in World The U.S...
...The United States under Reagan, here and elsewhere, is As for the revolutionaries, Edward Sheehan, whose low seeking victory when it should be seeking peace...
...The list would be much ters are so limited in scope...
...Political groups just to the left of Duarte, the ped them...
...Stalin was particularly sector, and at the same time insure that the money not be used fond of the artistry of Galina Ulanova, and she found herself to create a "kleptocracy" (a government made rich by stealing assigned to the Bolshoi after dazzling Leningrad audiences...
...Nicaragua does not rights groups are linked to the rebels have come from three border El Salvador, and the two nations which do (Honduras women rights workers who were jailed by the government, and Guatemala) are both American allies...
...him to the right, such a union base is seen as a dangerously In the Salvadoran version, increased violence does not in- destabilizing force...
...In fact, on replaced, his policy remains...
...been as willing to kill each other as to kill government forces...
...The government has waged strong now the Protestants in Central America seem to be consciously campaigns that have driven the rebels out of areas they had positioning themselves as anti-Marxists in support of Ameripossessed for years, such as the Guazapa Volcano or parts of can policy...
...Lifting that repression will army (most of our military aid goes directly to the armed forces probably not produce a result satisfactory either to political rather than through civilian government), and opposing any conservatives at home or even to moderate Democrats...
...It is no surprise therefore that we have to understand that if there is no such force there, then Russian medalists often find their way into the Bolshoi rather our effort is wasted...
...According to disrupting and displacing the populace...
...THE EDITORS At a meeting of the five FMLN organizations in Perquin last Commonweal: 432 the United States is supporting Duarte "the way a rope sup- economy...
...Leninist military wing, but it has even less power (lacking a American aid has not overcome the decline in the economy...
...We must allow a real opportu- Moscow...
...In effect, peace would be our best shown toward the general population and towards each other "weapon...
...Perpetual opinion of the Sandinistas is known to readers of this war for perpetual peace" increases rather than reduces Soviet magazine, has suggested that "in power, the FMLN might influence, because it confronts the Soviets in the arenas where make the Sandinistas seem like Swedish Socialists...
...was never punished for his role in killing AIFLD - American Commonweal: 430 Institute for Free Labor Development - workers) apparently military...
...longer if we paid other countries at the same rate...
...himself increasingly, condemning the indiscriminate bombing The political wing of the revolutionary movement, the of civilians by the government air force, but also condemning FDR, has been unhappy with the evolution of the Marxistthe attacks on the economy by the guerrillas...
...Their the government in power...
...flagrant violators of the law...
...United States, it was the leading company in the Soviet We can't continue the present policy of indefinitely increasing Union...
...Everything is grist for the get a number of its people released in return for her...
...ROLE IN EL SALVADOR The quagmire of dependency JIM CHAPIN somewhere at the same time...
...had to succumb to the family interests of the president...
...The government and the U.S, embassy affairs, has decided to "come out of the closet" and to form a are publicizing the accusations widely - but without insingle Marxist-Leninist party...
...L SALVADOR has fallen out of the American media in the alliance with the military and the United States opened only the last two years...
...volve mass slaughters of local Indian populations (most of Meanwhile, the newest aspect of American cultural imthem were killed in 1932), but only rare and probably not perialism, evangelical Protestantism, has moved into the councentrally planned incidents...
...Instead of building a strong political closed its factory...
...can't demand a "frozen social revolution" as the War II...
...tematically in the twenties and thirties, leading dancers were We need to put our aid through the civilian, not the military, transferred from Leningrad to Moscow...
...policy in El Salvador...
...journalists, politicians, and public opinion...
...But the Reagan administration, wedded to a has no parallel in Sandihista behavior...
...Thus it was that two of the 1973 death squads are the price of "victory...
...With all but a few left-wing and New als trying to pick up its pieces...
...When Duarte came to power, he had a strong base of underemployment are estimated at 50 percent...
...Aside THE KIROV STILL SHINES from the level of American credibility already invested in the regime, a victory for forces (which at their best are roughly equivalent to those presently ruling Vietnam) would be bad for I N 1964 when Leningrad's Kirov Ballet last visited the El Salvador, bad for the U.S., and bad for Central America...
...and the traditional militaryRight Congressmen supporting the Duarte government, Amer- backed party, the PCN (Party of National Conciliation), colican policy toward that country has not been subjected to any lapsed in the 1985 election...
...Many conflict: religion, culture, the union movement, politics, etc...
...T HE present situation in El Salvador limits American op- RED SHOES tions...
...The "capitalist" (in many ways pre-capitalist) ports a hanged man": by pushing him to carry out unpopular economy in El Salvador that exists today is the result of right-wing economic policies, limiting his ability to control the generations of savage repression...
...Duarte, under pressure from his American system in El Salvador, what we have done is to create a paymasters, has had to devalue the currency and raise taxes...
...His group carried out a prothe two occasions when the military put its eggs in the basket of Duarte rally three months ago...
...United States base) to influence them than Duarte does the Inflation has run at 30 percent a year...
...Meanwhile, the FMLN, faced with the collapse of its mili- The choices before the United States are not easy...
...The only economic good news has been the Brazilian drought which has doubled the price that El Salvador can get for its 0 NE MIGHT be forgiven for thinking that this war will go on coffee exports...
...The right wing has recourse to one sustained criticism from main-stream politicians or jour- remaining major political bastion: the legal system - the nalists...
...We cannot abruptly withdraw our support...
...Chalatenango province...
...ing the rest of the traditional peasant base of the Salvadoran society...
...must escalate its efforts to maintain pearances in the capital for the first time in five years...
...Supreme Court and the Attorney General's office - which has While our watchdogs in Congress and the media have been been threatening to overturn the 1979 nationalization of cofsleeping, the United States has taken on a role as the primary fee, but has been thwarted by Duarte's...
...El Salvador is a tiny country, the size of Massachusetts, E vEN AS THE latest attempts at negotiations between the with about one-fourteenth the population of Vietnam (which is Duarte government and the revolutionary front appear the thirteenth most populous nation in the world...
...Even attempts to prosecute a gang who kidnapped rich The conflict in El Salvador is going nowhere and going businessmen for ransom have so far led nowhere...
...political process...
...Chris Norton, writing in NACLA Report on the died every year...
...In many respects, the UPD has cated strategy which is a "clean-up" version of what the indeed functioned as the independent, centrist union which Guatemalan military successfully accomplished without much AIFLD worked twenty-three years to build...
...Even a "pocket Vietnam" is a pocket we should avoid...
...There have been public protest marches and 1979-80, and once at the end of 1983...
...We have to deal with the reality that a liberalized defections...
...Nothing that has happened in the last year would lead one to In the absence of serious American political discussion of think that an end to the conflict is any nearer...
Vol. 113 • August 1986 • No. 14
