Aid to El Salvador Is Aid to Murder : Same Old Gang, New Front Man, for America’s Pointless War

Sitting with friends, watching pictures of ponderous, metal-sheathed vehicles crush life from the young Chinese, I joined the general expressions of horror and shock. But not surprise. For if there is one unforgettable lesson of our blood-stained century, it is that the savagery of mankind has not been tamed--as some once hoped--by the advance of science and reason. That monster, which has no home, which lives everywhere within the entire race, is continually ready to strike wherever the bonds of social order are loosened.

Yet even as we recoil at the slaughter in Beijing, the U.S. Congress is preparing to help finance a similar assault on the innocents in a tiny fragment of Central America known as El Salvador.

El Salvador is no longer a country, it is a battlefield. It has been engaged in civil war for the entire decade. In that time more than 70,000 Salvadorans have been killed; at least one out of every 10 people has been forced from home and village; an even larger number have sought sanctuary outside its borders.

The protagonists in this conflict have been a loose band of guerrillas who claim allegiance to some vaguely defined form of Marxism, opposed by the authoritarian Salvadoran military allied with some wealthy businessmen and landowners. Yet the war is basically an American war. We send more than $1 million a day to support the power of the army and the rich. These resources alone sustain this long and bloody conflict.

Although successful in keeping the war going, we have failed to halt the worst abuses of power or to construct a government willing to bring some measure of freedom and social justice to that ravaged land.

In the early ‘80s, right-wing forces, led by Roberto D’Aubuisson, organized a number of “death squads” to murder suspected guerrilla sympathizers and innocent peasants alike. Individuals, even entire families, were slaughtered in their homes or simply disappeared. When the courageous archbishop of El Salvador dared to protest these outrages, D’Aubuisson had him shot at the altar of his church.

Although most Americans are barely aware of El Salvador’s existence, and almost none could locate it on a map, these outrages were so blatant that an ordinarily indifferent public was stirred. An annoyed but compliant State Department felt compelled to assist a “moderate” Christian Democrat, Jose Napoleon Duarte, into the presidency; our chosen leader of a client state.

Unfortunately Duarte proved to be ineffectual. Necessary reforms were not made and the Salvadoran military simply ignored his wishes and commands. In deference to American sensibilities--and at the command of American authorities--death squads were abandoned and the notorious D’Aubuisson disappeared, temporarily, into the shadows.

To replace him, the extreme right, organized as the Arena Party, selected a nominal leader more congenial to American sensibilities--Alfredo Cristiani, a millionaire businessman, educated at Georgetown and well-versed in the phrases that would please the continuing stream of American visitors to his country.

I met with Cristiani little over a year ago while he pleasantly discoursed of the need for human rights, democracy, improved education and health care for the masses. Following this conversation, I talked with the American ambassador. There was no doubt that the United States had decided that the Arena Party, under the freshly polished leadership of Cristiani, would take over the country at the close of Duarte’s term.

And so it was. About a week ago, Cristiani was sworn into office in what our government termed El Salvador’s “first peaceful transition of power from one elected civilian to another.” But the crowd attending the ceremony more realistically reserved its loudest cheers for the entrance of Roberto D’Aubuisson who, lacking any official position, is clearly the leader--the don --of El Salvador. His henchmen occupy key security positions and the leaders of the military are his loyal subordinates.

There is little doubt that “democracy” in El Salvador is a charade; the new government is simply the old gang with a new front man. The vice president, hand-picked by D’Aubuisson, has already indicated his intention to reconstitute the death squads. The country will be run by the radical right, its use of brutality unrestrained by law; the wealth of the nation--including the immense flow of U.S. aid--will be allocated to the military and the wealthy few. Meanwhile, massacres of the past, and the murder of the archbishop, will go unpunished; after all, the perpetrators now control the instruments of legal power.

All this is happening with the full approval of the United States, which is pledged to pour millions of dollars into continuing the interminable conflict.

For the people of El Salvador, it is the continuation of tragedy. The majority of peasants and urban workers care little for either the guerrillas or the government. They want only peace--the chance to live and work free from the omnipresent shadow of terror, to reap the rewards of their own labor, to avoid the confiscations of the wealthy and the guns of the soldiers. So little to ask. But they are unlikely to get it; not as long as the war and the horrors of an unrestrained soldiery are sustained by the wealth of the United States.

We should know by now that we can supply guns and money to Central America, but we cannot control their use. We can call for democracy and human rights, but we cannot make them happen. In Nicaragua we supported Anastasio Somoza and got the Sandinistas. In Panama, we supported Manuel A. Noriega, and we got . . . Noriega. Now we are about to support the criminal D’Aubuisson and his gang. The consequence will probably be the eventual rule of an anti-American Marxist government. But a lot of people will be slaughtered along the way, and a lot of our money will be stolen.

To vote for continued aid to El Salvador is to vote for murder and torture, to vote for increasing the possessions of the wealthy at the expense of the impoverished peasants. And it is, in all probability, to vote for the installation of still another hostile government in a part of the continent where America, if not loved, was respected, its leadership acknowledged.

But that seems exactly what the President and Congress are about to do. From the peaceful sterility of Washington chambers, we will send forth the means to unleash the most savage impulses of men. There will be no blood on the Capitol steps. But the blood of thousands will stain the soil of El Salvador. No U.S. interest will have been served. But the innocence that protects our freedom, the principles that restrain our own buried lawlessness--will be further eroded.