Complicity & corruption
White, Robert E.
to be painted in subtle shades of gray rather than in the blackand-white of winning and losing sides. (Copies of the report are available from the Knights of Columbus, 1275 Pennsylvania Ave....
...He has made a special study, arising out of his pastoral work with college students, of atheism and belief in the modern world...
...For the last eleven years, these modern engines of war have wiped out whole towns and villages in E1 Salvador...
...On November 16, 1989, a junior Salvadoran officer interrupted the DNI meeting to report the death of the Jesuits...
...112 b x w illus...
...THE CULTURE OF ATHEISM FREEDOM TO B~'~r.~.VE FR...
...A deal between Reagan's men and the mullahs...
...PHALAN: Tell me a little about yourself, your background...
...Historically, U.S...
...In particular, over the last decade, we have locked ourselves into support for an army that routinely tortures and kills large numbers of citizens on the mere suspicion that they sympathize with change...
...government supports both democracy and demilitarization, Salvadoran military intransigence, supported by the extreme right wing of the governing Arena party, will cause further negotiations to fail...
...Irritating...
...Later, I discovered a much more vibrant community of young Christians at Caen University in France, in a much more pagan society of course...
...In this country, we watched stunned and disbelieving as a defeated Saddam Hussein employed aircraft and helicopter gunships to bomb and strafe the Kurdish people...
...In Panama, the name of Gen...
...Our guess is that no one worried much about what it meant...
...Part of the price the church pays for its "countercultural" positions...
...This bears witness to the essential evil of the present system and the overpowering need for change...
...connection are for those who hold the law in total contempt...
...Without the CIA connection, decent officers in the PDF might well have taken matters into their own hands early on and successfully ousted Noriega...
...The pity of all this is that there is a real problem (and rather than addressing it, this report is now part of it...
...What are the cartoonist, and the Times, suggesting...
...CIA officers share a building with the National Intelligence Directorate (DNI), the Salvadoran military intelligence agency...
...An organized antidefamation campaign is one answer, but if it's to be done, 'twere best that it be done well...
...TESTIMONY ON EL SALVADOR COMPLICITY & CORRUPTION DEMOCRACY & DEMILITARIZATION he government of E1 Salvador and the Salvadoran revolutionary movement, known as the FMLN, have been meeting in Mexico City, moving haltingly toward an agreement on UN proposals that could lead to a cease-fire in that country's elevenyear-old civil war...
...How to respond...
...Without benefit of research, how would you describe these experiences...
...Still, the Salvadoran revolutionary movement has not only survived, it has grown stronger...
...Yet if you seek a reason why the Salvadoran military has seldom taken U.S...
...This is particularly difficult to accomplish because a new policy is seldom defined with the necessary precision and at the necessary level to overcome competing bureaucratic interests...
...Now that neither the Soviet Union nor Cuba has either the will or the strength to project power into Central America, that thesis has lost whatever relevance it might once have had...
...Alternatively, what does the persistent refusal of diocesan officials to speak up about the problem of pedophilia among the clergy tell us...
...Legitimate and open U.S...
...For those old enough to remember, Ronald Reagan's election victory over President Jimmy Carter in 1980 owed much to the hostage drama in Iran...
...Ask Mrs...
...I did a degree in literature in Dublin and another one in France before joining the Jesuits at twenty-two...
...For the CIA to participate in the intelligence deliberations of another government is a highly dubious practice, reminiscent of our Vietnam experience...
...They serve to remind us of the tens of thousands of others who have died at the hands of the Salvadoran military...
...A transvestite...
...rationalized its policy toward Central America on the premise that however regrettable, institutionalized military violence must be tolerated because the turbulence that often accompanies profound change might serve as an opportunity for Soviet and Cuban imperialism...
...The question was there in school...
...to democracy through demilitarization can overcome Salvadoran military intransigence...
...Some people suspected that Reagan's victory and the curious release of the hostages was more than a coincidence...
...PHALAN: Was your vocation a long time in gestation...
...To that end, since I left the presidency of the Republic of Costa Rica, I have been promoting the demilitarization of Central America...
...support for democracy in Central America and elsewhere is necessary...
...GALLAGHER: Yes and no...
...More recently, we have supported a similar policy in Panama...
...congressional concerns about human rights violations seriously and has never tried or convicted any officer for any such crime, you might well query some Salvadoran captains and majors about the relationship which exists between the CIA and certain senior military officers whose reputation for cruelty and barbarism sets the worst possible example...
...In rode Ronald Reagan on that white horse of his...
...The pope is an anti-Semite...
...Stranger things have happened...
...GALLAGHER GOES TO ROME ichael Paul Gatlagher, S.J., an Irish Jesuit, was appointed to the Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-Believers in Rome last year...
...Before taking up his duties, Father Gallagher taught English literature at University College, Dublin (UCD...
...There, it is our aircraft and our helicopter gunships, our ammunition and our bombs that rain death and destruction on the Salvadoran people...
...They concluded, therefore, that Noriega and his policies reflected the priorities of the U.S...
...Most importantly, means which reflect old objectives but that are in conflict with new objectives must be rooted out...
...When he lived in Dublin, Gallagher chose to reside in Ballymun, a poor area north of the city's center, far removed from his university campus...
...Gallagher's most recent book, Struggles of Faith (Dublin: Columba Press, 1990) is a collection of essays...
...As the citizen of a nation that has found that the best response to underdevelopment is the absence of weapons, I believe that it is time to recognize these men and women who have the vision and courage to disarm their countries in order to struggle for development in democracy and freedom...
...This article is based on testimony given before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last month...
...policy toward El Salvador has had as its cornerstone reliance on the coercive power of the Salvadoran military...
...What exactly does televising the exorcism of a sixteenyear-old girl on "20/20" tell us about Catholicism...
...ambassador to E1 Salvador William G. Walker told a group of U.S...
...Jesuits, "I have asked the question and they tell me no...
...There is such a thing as Catholic-bashing in the media...
...Unless we adopt this position, the Salvadoran people's hopes for peace will prove illusory and the war will continue to drag on...
...Reagan's astrologer...
...It ~vould seem unrealistic to expect the Salvadoran military to place themselves under the law when we have taught them that the rewards of a U.S...
...There was no evidence that he favored the Isabella campaign...
...Fair enough...
...Now the New York Times and the respected PBS documentary series "Front Line" have both carried stories exploring the possibility that the late William J. Casey, Reagan's campaign manager and future CIA director, cut a deal with the Iranians in which hostages were not to be released until after the November election...
...ROBERT E. WHITE Robert E. White, U.S...
...why should they...
...Or will we use This Promised Land, El Salvador Photographs by Steve Cagan Text by Beth Cagan and Steve Cagan Foreword by Dr...
...When I visited I reached his apartment via a squalid, graffiti-scrawled, urine-smelling stairwell...
...government knew...
...When asked ifCIA agents were present at the November 16 meeting, U.S...
...continues to support a military establishment that insists that the law has no power over it...
...government...
...During the investigation of the murder of the Jesuits, the Washington Post and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights reported that a group of U.S...
...The U.S...
...The degree to which Catholics---or former Catholics--are critical may reflect honest disagreement, and editors don't feel compelled to regard coverage of such disagreements as anti-Catholic...
...But it is not yet clear to the Salvadoran negotiators where the U.S...
...He completed a doctorate in the area in the early eighties and has published widely on the subject...
...Barbara Ehrenreich Ten years ago thousands of men, women, and children from E1 Salvador fled to Honduras to escape government repression and violence...
...Yet the crucial questions for Central America and its people are: Will the U.S...
...That was what gave the stimulus to rediscovering my faith...
...These CIA agents routinely attend DNI meetings...
...He is responsible for the section dealing with the English-speaking world...
...In our view, "Media Coverage" demonstrates, first, that its authors and funders don't understand journalism very well, and, second, that they don't know bias when they see it...
...When after due deliberation a new course is set, then it becomes the task of the administration to ensure that logical changes that flow from the new policy are put into effect...
...Only a clear commitment by the U.S...
...This would be the late fifties, before the council...
...Offensive...
...His sitting room floor was covered in gray linoleum seamed with brown tape...
...Surprise surprise, so the hostages were released on the very day President Reagan was inaugurated...
...The murders of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the four American churchwomen, and the six Jesuit priests and their co-workers are not exceptional...
...Secondly, our presence and participation in these meetings would appear to make our government an accessory to the policies and actions of the Salvadoran military, in somewhat the same manner that we were complicit in the policies and actions of another Central American military, that of Panama...
...Sometimes there are problems of cultural ignorance: Commonwealoccasionally fields inquiries from junior staff members of newspapers or, more likely, TV shows that reveal a level of illiteracy about Catholicism and about religion that would make the devil weep...
...We have, since 1948, given firm, unequivocal support to a demilitarized Costa Rica...
...It was a secret from the American people that Gen...
...But it's not always easy to get at what is offensive about media treatment of the church...
...Cloth, $24.95 ~,~ Rutgers University Press 109 Church Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 our enormous influence to again guide El Salvador down that blind alley which insists that for Central America democracy and militarism are compatible concepts...
...London: Darton, Longman and Todd...
...In the first place, no truly sovereign government would tolerate the presence of foreign observers at such sensitive internal meetings...
...Steve and Beth Cagan tell the story of the refugees' camp, their harrowing flight, and their brave decision to return to E1 Salvador...
...In some circles the pope is just fair game and forget about the details...
...Our inability to negotiate a release of the American hostages held in Teheran by the Ayatollah's revolutionaries made Carter look like the perverbial "pitiful giant...
...The president of E1 Salvador, like the president of the United States, has an obligation to see that the laws of his country are faithfully executed...
...For the war-hounded refugees of Colomoncagua, whose story Beth and Steve Cagan tell with great sensitivity and respect, utopia was never a pipedream, it was a practical necessity...
...Consider, for example, the cartoon that accompanied a recent New York Times Op-Ed piece (April 6, 1991) by Kenneth Woodward arguing against the proposed canonization of Queen Isabella--who among other things ordered Jews to become Catholics or get out of Spain...
...We are constantly told to keep hope alive...
...ambassador to El Salvador during the Carter administration, is president of the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C...
...There is no exact parallel to Manuel Noriega in the Salvadoran armed forces...
...is not limited to supplying weapons...
...What we need for ourselves, for Central America, and particularly for E1 Salvador is a diplomacy that emphasizes the rule of law...
...It is a meticulously carried-out execution of an ill-conceived project which may do more to create complacency about Catholicbashing than to counter it...
...Assuming, once again, that you are a regular reader/viewer of the national media, and that you're neither indifferent to nor paranoid about media coverage of the church, we suspect that you couldn't bring yourself to accept"all of the above" as the right answer to the opening quiz--but that you do in fact encounter instances of bias, ignor'ance, stupidity, or simple wrongheadedness in that coverage...
...On the contrary, the power of Noriega to gain control of the PDF related directly to the perception of his fellow officers that Noriega was the chosen instrument of our intelligence community...
...I went to a Jesuit school, Clongowes Wood College, famous 17May 1991:311...
...Manuel Noriega became synonymous with corruption and brutality...
...The Iran contra revelations lent creadence to that view...
...Noriega was an asset of the CIA, but it was not a secret from the officers of the Panamanian Defense Force (PDF...
...At this writing, President Alfredo Cristiani is powerless to enforce the laws of his country, to arrest those who torture and murder, in good part because the U.S...
...That's a pity...
...A book like This Promised Land, El Salvador gives hope a reason for living...
...Isabella Is No Saint," read the headline...
...On occasion, practically all groups--Italians, doctors, blacks, Jews, Arabs, southpaws, Baptists, the rich, farmers, cops, lawyers--feel slighted or scorned or smeared by the media, and sometimes they're right...
...Until very recently, the U.S...
...Great nations do not change course lightly...
...ET CETERA ONE ELECTION TO GO, PLEASE...
...GALLAGHER: I think I was a "church atheist" as a student, meaning that my difficulties with faith in fact were with the church as I was running into it in Ireland...
...A few reference books, including A Working Woman's Cookbook, rested on shelves in the corner...
...A book of pastoral reflections on his university ministry is due out soon: Where Is Your God...
...should move resolutely to support the UN negotiating team by making clear our support for lasting peace based on a progressive and complete demilitarization with abolition of armies as the final goal...
...Secretary General Javier Perez de Cueltar, his designated nego17May 1991:309 tiator, Alvaro de Soto, and the entire UN team deserve praise for their competence and painstaking work in the negotiations...
...The officers knew that 310: Commonweal Noriega was a drug trafficker, and they knew that the U.S...
...And sometimes journalists are simply dense, as in the familiar dismissal, occasionally subtle, often blatant, of Catholic opposition to abortion as rising purely out of misogyny and medievalism...
...bears a share of the responsibility for inflicting on the Salvadoran people a military that massacres its own citizens and enjoys total immunity for its outrages...
...break with the past and encourage Central America to follow the example of Costa Rica and move toward democracy and demilitarization...
...20004...
...I know this prosperity will not come about if we do not stop spending our scarce resources on weapons and soldiers' salaries...
...Choices made by church leaders in seeking or shunning publicity don't always help...
...There were neat piles of newspapers and magazines...
...Sometimes the media show bias by omission, as in the Boston newspapers' grossly inadequate coverage of an ACT-UP demonstration at Holy Cross Cathedral last year (Commonweal, September 14, 1990...
...Our answers: "Often," "sometimes," and "it depends...
...A large photo of PeterHans Kolvenbach, the general of the Society of Jesus, hung on the wall...
...They gathered together into a refugee camp, Colomoncagua...
...Though Catholicism as religion and the Catholic church as institution are indeed often misperceived in this country, how much mileage is to be gained by efforts to show Catholics as a powerless and picked-upon minority...
...Washington, D.C...
...Unless the U.S...
...stands...
...Democracy itself has now replaced the cold war as the rationale for our intervention in E1 Salvador...
...The U.S...
...A few weeks ago the former president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, wrote that the leaders of the region want to bury the pain and the bitterness of war in order to begin constructing a new Central America characterized by the democracy, freedom, and prosperity deserved by their people...
...The responsibility of the U.S...
...But the cartoon shows the face of John Paul II in the dress of the queen...
...In a climate where acting the victim has become one more form of political manipulation, the church has nothing to gain from whining...
...In return, it is alleged, Iran was promised military hardware...
...The Jesuits had no trouble comprehending why Ambassador Walker phrased his response in such a careful manner...
...Those in attendance "cheered and clapped...
...Segundo Montes, S.J...
...In E1 Salvador, however, we are not simply passive observers...
...And, to the extent that there really is Catholic-bashing in the media, media-bashing by Catholics will do more harm than good...
...Once achieved, the cease-fire might provide the required environment for a definitive peace settlement...
...What began as a disorganized collection of individuals would develop into a near-utopian community...
Vol. 118 • May 1991 • No. 10
