Editorials
Steinfels, Margaret O'Brien
Prudent Ms. Prunskiene What can be done to help Lithuania free itself from the Soviet Union's grasp? Or to help its more circumspect sister Baltic republics Latvia and Estonia? Not enough, and...
...The bottom line: the Salvadoran military is effectively immune from the rule of civilian law...
...Somehow you must get from dry land to where the man is struggling...
...Mikhail Gorbachev met with Ms...
...With the prospect for peace brighter than at any time in recent memory, Washington must make sure that the present turning point is not lost.ng point is not lost...
...With the Soviet oil embargo making Lithuania's economic situation increasingly perilous, the shrewd and resourceful prime minister, Kazimiera Prunskiene, seized on Secretary of State James Baker's pre-summit visit to Moscow to press for Soviet concessions...
...Cynics and hardliners note that the Bush administration would be embarrassed by a further Soviet crackdown in Lithuania, especially before or during the Gorbachev-Bush summit...
...The Salvadoran government and military are dragging their feet...
...D'Amato scurried to the Lithuanian border in April brandishing a "Lithuanian" passport in a theatrical attempt to demonstrate solidarity with the secessionists...
...Gorbachev came to power...
...No one disputes the validity of Lithuania's claims or the illegality of the Soviet Union's annexation of the state fifty years ago with the connivance of Nazi Germany...
...At this writing, the debate was continuing in Vilnius...
...Such antics demonstrate the notorious limitations of issuing moralistic denunciations about complex political conflicts...
...The House Foreign Affairs Committee's vote last month to cut off 50 percent of funds for El Salvador (and to reinstate them if the FMLN fails to negotiate in good faith) sent such a message...
...It is clear from the report that if the murders at the university are to be a turning point in Salvadoran history, such an event will have to be encouraged, indeed induced, from outside El Salvador...
...But Lithuania's best chance for independence is to be found in a Soviet Union tied economically and culturally to Europe and America...
...I must add that for my own people, the people of Lithuania and me personally, we have been favorably affected when Mr...
...Gorbachev wants Lithuania to suspend its March 11 declaration of independence before the Soviet Union will even consider Lithuanian sovereignty...
...could effect Lithuania's rescue...
...would rather abandon the Lithuanians than upset glasnost's apple cart...
...The secretary had just read the Moakley Report, the House Democrats' scathing review of the Salvadoran government's inept investigation into the cold-blooded execution...
...U.S.-trained special forces, the notorious Atlacatl Battalion, committed the university murders...
...funds used for the military should therefore be halted until a truly accountable, responsive, civilian-controlled military exists...
...Critics charge that with SALT agreements and other arms limitation treaties on the verge of completion, the U.S...
...Take New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato...
...But with an appalling history of human rights violations-not only during the past ten years, but long antedating the present civil war-the Salvadoran military remains impervious to mere nudges...
...The FMLN's November offensive demonstrated that a military stalemate exists...
...In this instance, embracing the oblique morality of realpolitik appears to be in the best interest of freedom...
...Such an outward-looking state will find it more difficult to deny legitimate claims of self-determination...
...In the words of the House document, "Despite a decade of promises, tens of millions of dollars of U.S...
...military officers, skirting the U.S...
...It is not now in fact an independent nation like Poland or Hungary, but a constituent member of the Soviet Union...
...At this time, however, it is hard to see how the U.S...
...El Salvador is at a major juncture...
...Prunskiene seems to accept the need for this kind of compromise, but she must still convince the radically separatist-minded Lithuanian parliament of the wisdom of such a tactical retreat...
...Last month's inconclusive developments surrounding the Lithuanian-Soviet crisis only confirm how volatile and intractable the problem of independence for the Baltic nations is...
...that no general uprising is about to occur...
...Please...
...Its defiance of Moscow is seen as a greater threat to Soviet authority and domestic order...
...It is a gripping report-part police blotter, part white paper-and the strongest expose to date in a U.S...
...With the end to the cold war and possibly to the arms race a realistic possibility, prudence with respect to the Lithuanian-Soviet conflict is not necessarily appeasement...
...That must include pragmatic political efforts to reconcile a large and suspicious ethnic Russian population to the prospect of minority status in a sovereign Lithuania...
...aid, and repeated statements that progress is just around the corner, the Salvadoran justice system remains essentially an oxymoron-neither systematic nor just...
...Secretary of State Baker, while supporting Lithuanian independence, implicitly endorsed a suspension of the unilateral declaration...
...Politics is the art of the possible, and never more so than when the weak are at the mercy of an unstable, historically unscrupulous, and still powerful neighbor...
...Acknowledging these political realities does not vitiate Lithuania's claims...
...Lithuania's freedom is tied to Gorbachev and his reform efforts...
...Some tireless cold warriors urge forceful action, the imposition of economic sanctions, or even breaking off arms talks until Moscow accedes to Vilnius's declaration...
...Not enough, and probably not much...
...Vilnius should move toward compromise cautiously-but it should move...
...But our significant involvement with the Salvadoran military-and thus our responsibility for it-are unmistakable in the Moakley Report...
...It does not come as news that the U.S...
...No economic sanctions have been applied to them...
...True, such "realism" offers little consolation to the brave Lithuanians...
...Moreover, with internal ethnic strife and political instability seeming to threaten anarchy in the USSR, Lithuania's demands cannot be judged in isolation...
...But it also should begin the arduous task of creating a de facto economic independence and the internal democratic institutions that will make de jure separation easier for the Soviet Union to accept...
...Only then did the Cristiani government charge the nine soldiers...
...But the disclosure of Salvadoran military involvement in the university murders came only after U.S...
...Yet the lack of accountability by the Salvadoran military remains an insurmountable obstacle to peace, particularly when President Cristiani continues to maintain, as he did last month, that a military victory is "possible," and when he refuses to press for fundamental reforms...
...Or to help its more circumspect sister Baltic republics Latvia and Estonia...
...But, the Moakley Report makes clear, these nine would never have proceeded without orders from higher up, a fact the Cristiani government still refuses to pursue in its investigation...
...You cannot save a drowning man by standing on the shore and piously endorsing his right to swim...
...Their perception is accurate...
...Prunskiene despite his initial refusal to conduct any talks with the renegade republic...
...That is not a moral assertion, buc a historical fact...
...and that the corruption inherent in the Salvadoran military was a factor in the army's poor response to the rebels' attack (see Tom Gibb and Frank Smyth's report for the Washington Office on Latin America, "El Salvador: Is Peace Possible...
...STILL WAITING Secretary of State Baker told Congress last month that the murder of the six Jesuits and their two helpers at the Jesuit university in El Salvador in November "has got to become a turning point in the history of El Salvador...
...Embassy, directly confronted the Salvadoran High Command with the evidence...
...Estonia and Latvia must do the same...
...With the added impetus of UN-sponsored negotiations underway in Caracas, Venezuela, the possibility for progress has not been greater in the last ten years of bloodshed...
...The only hope for peace lies in a negotiated settlement: precisely the point the murdered Jesuits were making before they were executed by the army...
...At that time she offered little support to those who were eager to write Gorbachev off as a kinder, gentler Stalin...
...I want to spread rose petals in his path," Ms...
...To enter into serious negotiations with the FMLN, they need a strong push from Washington...
...Truth be told, Lithuania's fate is linked to, not independent of, the Soviet Union...
...government document of the corruption of the Salvadoran military system and the total lack of an independent judiciary in the country...
...Without it, they will never give up their arms and feel that they can safely enter the political process in their country...
...Just two days before, they had received training from U.S...
...Latvia and Estonia have recognized this complication by embracing procedures for secession that fall short of immediate and outright independence...
...The FMLN, following the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, now seem to be willing to show greater flexibility in negotiations...
...She made some progress...
...As Nicaragua is now learning, until warring factions can lay down their arms with some surety, the war will not end...
...The prosperity promised by the ruling ARENA party is impossible under the present circumstances...
...Lithuania should continue to cultivate international opinion, since Gorbachev seems sensitive to it...
...All U.S...
...But the connection between helping Lithuania and rebuffing Moscow is not simple or exact...
...He was refused entry to what remains Soviet territory...
...If you can't do that, it is not especially useful to go on screaming, or to berate the man standing next to you for not shouting as loud as you are...
...It will have to come from Washington...
...As Ms...
...Prunskiene's recent efforts in Moscow demonstrate, Lithuania must adopt a more realistic appraisal of Soviet interests...
...But some broader historical perspective is required in choosing a course of action...
...Green Berets in San Salvador, the same Green Berets caught briefly in a San Salvador hotel when guerrillas occupied it...
...Prunskiene granted as much during a visit to Washington, D.C., earlier in May...
...government bankrolls the Salvadoran government and the Salvadoran military...
...Reform of the military is the basic demand on which the FMLN will not compromise...
...Prunskiene said of Gorbachev...
Vol. 117 • June 1990 • No. 11
