NACLA News
El Salvador Conference Carlos Fuentes, noted Mexican writer and former ambassador to France, was the keynote speaker at an April conference on El Salvador co-sponsored by NACLA and four...
...In an eloquent and impassioned speech peppered with literary references, Fuentes attempted to trace the roots of the Salvadorean conflict and propose solutions...
...William LeoGrande, political science professor at American University concurred, adding, "The analogy between Salvador and Vietnam is not in Salvador, it's in the United States...
...This form of colonialism-the right of the conquistador-excludes competent administration or economic planning: It is based on obedience and whim, not on the law...
...Mickey Leland (D-Texas) spoke of a growing Congressional opposition to any form of U.S...
...A great many of the audience's questions were directed toward the only panel supporter of Reagan's El Salvador policy, then acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, James Cheek...
...This state of things requires a standing army-thugs, mercenaries, death squads-responsive to no law save that of the caprice of the ruling clan...
...involvement in the Salvadorean civil war...
...In conclusion, Fuentes painted an Apocalypse Now scenario of total devastation of the region should Reagan's policies be carried out...
...El Salvador Conference Carlos Fuentes, noted Mexican writer and former ambassador to France, was the keynote speaker at an April conference on El Salvador co-sponsored by NACLA and four other organizations...
...The New World, he said, was subjugated by "a form of domination characterized by the subordination of all public and private rights in favor of the chieftain and his clan of relatives, favorites, sycophants and hangers-on...
...A recurrent theme in Fuentes' message was that Latin America should be allowed to solve Latin American problems...
...Reacting to what James Cheek called a preoccupa- tion with the "Vietnam syndrome," Armstrong said, "Vietnam was not a syndrome, it was a trauma and it was as great a trauma as the Great Depression...
...NACLA's own Bob Armstrong spoke on the regional implications of the conflict...
...He called on the superpowers not to use the people of El Salvador to play out their own ideological confrontation...
...Co-sponsors of the event were the Fund for New Priorities, the New School, the Nation Institute, and the Center for Inter-American Relations...
...About 700 people gathered at New York City's New School for Social Research to hear about the current situation in El Salvador and to debate the implications of U.S...
...In a tense confrontation with Melinda Roper, president of the Maryknoll Sisters, Cheek denied that State Department personnel had told families of the four religious women murdered in El Salvador, "Get the hell off our backs...
...policy...
...Representing another branch of government, Rep...
...He also made a strong statement against U.S...
...efforts to destabilize Nicaragua's Sandinista government...
Vol. 15 • May 1981 • No. 3
