In Review
Report on Human Rights in El Salvador by Aryeh Neier and Juan Mendez. Americas Watch Committee and The American Civil Liberties Union, 91 pp. $5 (paper). This volume is a third regular...
...The book opens with a brief history of colonial Grenada, then jumps to a close assessment of the development of the nation's infrastructure and social conditions from the 1950s on...
...But although it missed the closing chapters, this work could not have been more timely, as it comments on both the course of the New Jewel Movement and the destabilization operations against it...
...The study looks at how various sectors of Salvadorean society--the human rights monitors, political leaders, health professionals, refugees and the university-are functioning under present conditions...
...the historic role of the United States in Nicaragua...
...Chris Searle completed his study of New Jewel Grenada before last October's coup and subsequent U.S...
...164 pp...
...and the circumstances of Nicaragua today...
...the Reagan Administration's destabilization campaign...
...9.95 (paper...
...And Also Teach Them to Read by Sheryl Hershon with Judy Butler...
...Authors Neier and Mendez traveled to El Salvador in June of last year to collect data for this most recent update...
...Dunkerley is a research fellow in Latin American Studies at the University of Liverpool, so part of his analysis centers on how the governments of Western Europe, the Thatcher government in particular, have responded to the United States' involvement in El Salvador...
...Searle also details the lives of Maurice Bishop and Bernard Coard in London's West Indian community, Grenada's Black Power Movement and the New Jewel party...
...The material is divided into four subsections: "The Debate" between the U.S...
...commentators, should be of considerable interest to a U.S...
...audience...
...Writers and Readers (distributed by W. W. Norton & Co., Inc...
...Many of the photographs are important in themselves, for technicalities of contrast and composition, as well as for an imaginative use of the allegorical-the perfect symmetry of an anonymous confessional, a cluster of children by the blood of the dead, the outstretched arms of the victims of a frenzied fear, the startled looks of the fighters...
...intervention in that island...
...8.95 (paper...
...Grove Press, 359 pp...
...El Salvador text by Carolyn Forche, edited by Harry Mattison, Susan Meiselas and Fae Rubenstein...
...7.95 (paper...
...This volume is a third regular supplement to the Report on Human Rights in El Salvador, first published in January 1982...
...The text is nicely accented by snatches of popular songs and interviews with Grenadians and sets a good background for understanding the events of last autumn...
...The crusade reduced the illiteracy rate from 50% to 12%, making Nicaragua the third most literate country in Latin America, after Cuba and Argentina, and producing one of the most tangible achievements of the Sandinista revolution...
...The track record of the government's Human Rights Commission is also carefully scrutinized...
...The Long War is an exhaustive study, meticulously detailing: the creation of the coffee economy and the rise of the oligarchy, the crisis of the 1930s and the role of the Communist Party, the Martinez and Romero governments, the 1979 coup, the effects of the Reagan Administration's foreign policy, the 1982 elections and the various political factions now engaged in El Salvador's civil war...
...PreBishop Grenada was, of course, domi12 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS nated by the eccentric Eric Gairy-and Searle describes at length Gairy's peculiar brand of fervent religiosity, superstition, obeah and political tribalism...
...The pieces assembled here are intelligently and coherently arranged and are particularly good at pinpointing which claims are never substantiated, and which questions are never answered...
...14.95 (paper...
...The authors have also researched a number of individual atrocities committed by the Left and by the Right, and examine the Law of Amnesty and Citizen Rehabilitation and various statutes affecting court procedures in human rights cases...
...and Nicaraguan governments over questions of totalitarianism and the Sandinistas' relations with their Central American neighbors...
...Grenada: The Struggle Against Destabilization by Chris Searle...
...Graphic portraits of this sort, when presented well, have an overwhelming impact-few people are so able to visualize the suffering of an entire nation-and El Salvador is no exception...
...Lawrence Hill & Co., 224 pp...
...10.95 (paper...
...Like the previous editions, this report attempts to influence President Reagan and the State Department's official certification procedures on human rights in El Salvador...
...publications, have contributed their work to this photographic essay...
...Thirty internationally known photographers, whose work has appeared in most of the major European and U.S...
...The photographs are enhanced by Carolyn Forche's narrative, which manages to transform the stark reality of suffering with a mood and understanding equal to that of the Latin American poets...
...The Nicaragua Reader: Documents of a Revolution Under Fire edited by Peter Rosset and John Vandermeer...
...Dunkerley's book is an important addition to the literature of the historical developments in El Salvador that have lead to that nation's present situation...
...Sheryl Hershon, a teacher from Oregon, recounts her experiences as the leader of 25 young brigadistas in this extraordinary educational program...
...If the book has a flaw, it is probably that the suffering here eclipses any notion of hope and expectation, which must exist somewhere, as well as a sense of distance and detachment, which must exist in other quarters...
...Verso Editions (distributed by Schocken Books), 264 pp...
...Writers and Readers, 120 pp...
...His perspective, removed a step farther from the conflict than that of the U.S...
...The editors of this anthology have collected an interesting assortment of speeches, essays, official reports and news articles to present a highly useful body of information on the achievements and on the doubts surrounding the Sandinista government...
...The Nicaraguan Literacy Crusade began on March 23, 1980 when 60,000 Nicaraguan brigadistas-high school and university students and their teachers-moved into the rural zones to teach the campesinos how to read...
...The Long War: Dictatorship and Revolution in El Salvador by James Dunkerley...
Vol. 18 • March 1984 • No. 2
