% FROM THE NOAM CHOMSKY ARCHIVE
% http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu:/usr/tp0x/chomsky.html
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% Filename:    articles/chomsky.loot.el-salvador
% Title:       none
% Author:      Noam Chomsky
% Appeared-in: Lies Of Our Times, January 1991
% Source:      Dan Epstein 
% Keywords:    
% Synopsis:    
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Letter from Lexington
 
Dear LOOT,
 
On December 7, 1990, the Bush administration announced ``that it
would rush $48.1 million in military aid to the government of El
Salvador'' (Clifford Krauss, _New York Times_, December 8, 1990).
The aid is largely drawn from 1991 appropriations, which means
that Congress may soon be pressured to provide new funding to
maintain the projected 1991 level.  In the background lies the
October 19 congressional vote to withhold 50 percent of planned
military aid, in protest against the failure to prosecute those
responsible for the assassination of six leading Jesuit
intellectuals and two of their employees in November 1989 by a
US-trained elite battalion.  As the new aid was announced on
December 7, the judge closed the investigation into the
assassination.  Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas told reporters
that the decision meant that the ``masterminds'' were now free
from punishment (_Boston Globe_, December 10, 1990, World Briefs,
from Associated Press; ignored in the _New York Times_).

The _Times_ report on the accelerated aid is confined to
administration propaganda, with no attempt at evaluation.  The
White House decision is presented as a response to the guerrilla
offensive with new and more advanced weapons, which ``almost
surely come from either Cuba or Nicaragua or both,'' a state
department official says, though ``hard evidence'' is still
lacking; the story, repeated two days later by Lindsey Gruson,
has a familiar ring.  The ``overall picture,'' the same official
adds, ``remains one of a movement toward democracy and an end to
conflicts,'' but the Salvadoran rebels ``have found it a little
difficult to adjust to reality.''

The ``overall picture'' portrays reality as understood by the US
government and the _New York Times_.  But, merely out of idle
curiosity, one might want to inquire further.  How does the FMLN
perceive reality?  What do the Jesuits who survived have to say
about these matters, and how do other Salvadorans view them?
Those who might be curious about such questions will have to look
elsewhere.

The factual content of the _Times_ report has to do with the
accelerated aid.  Even on this narrow point, there is an
intriguing tale, well concealed.  In October, Congress voted to
hold back $42.5 million in military aid to El Salvador.  The
administration objected, but not too vociferously.  Why?


The IMF Role

A possible answer is provided by the Guatemalan journal,
_Central American Report_ (September 21, 1990).  It reports that
in August, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $50
million loan to El Salvador.  The joint effect of the decisions
by Congress and the IMF was to increase aid to El Salvador; the
new funding increases the level again.  This was the first IMF
loan since July 1982, when US funding for El Salvador moved into
high gear.  As Congress voted to restrict funding, the IMF
(largely under US influence and control) expeditiously moved back
in.

Theoretically, the IMF is providing ``economic aid,'' but that
should cause no problems.  The IMF loan to El Salvador would be
hard to justify under the IMF technical criteria.  Under Reagan
administration pressures, however, the organization (like others)
was hopelessly politicized and pursued the economic agenda of the
rich industrial powers in terms of strictly ``economic'' criteria
(themselves hardly neutral, but that is a different matter).

More information appears in an important November 7 release of
the Center for International Policy in Washington, distributed to
the media, to no avail.  The Center was able to obtain IMF staff
reports and adds other information about the August 27 IMF
decision and its significance.  On May 3, President Alfredo
Cristiani had announced that any economic aid would be
reallocated as necessary for ``defense purposes''; in short,
economic aid is military aid.  On October 13, with the
congressional vote pending, Cristiani's defense minister, Col.
Rene Emilio Ponce, announced that ``the government will seek
alternative means of financing the military so as not to affect
the military budget, and thus the armed forces' actions.''  Ponce
did not add that the ``alternative means'' had already been
provided by the dirty tricks department.

The August IMF grant, of which $32 million has already been
disbursed, springs loose other funds, the Center report
continues.  In September, El Salvador was granted a
debt-rescheduling agreement worth over $100 million, amounting to
another loan.  The IMF says that apart from its own aid (the
largest component provided by the US taxpayer) and the bilateral
agreements of the US and its allies, another $60 million is
expected from multinational sources in 1990, increasing to $100
million in 1991, along with a World Bank loan of $40 million.
European Community loans are linked to advances in peace
negotiations; the IMF, under US domination, is free from this
impediment.

US actions are also free from the impediment of exposure.  I have
found no reference to any of this, apart from a mention in the
last paragraph of a _Boston Globe_ news report (Pamela Constable,
``Jesuit case has sharpened US dilemma in Salvador,'' November
18, 1990, p.4) The US clients are therefore free to continue
their grim work and impose ``democracy,'' Washington-style.


What the Jesuits Have to Say

An independent press would also pursue other questions: Given our
show of anguish over the assassination of the Jesuits, we might
begin with what the Jesuits themselves had to say.  The Jesuit
journal, _Proceso_, published by the University of Central
America, where the priests were murdered, condemns the ``gigantic
and infamous web of complicity'' that blocks the investigation of
the massacre, ``entrenched in the desks of the Ministry and
Vice-Ministries of Defense and behind the walls of the US
Embassy.''  It reviews evidence of the ``conspiracy of silence
and cover-up,'' which has ``now landed on the doorstep of the
State Department.''  Commenting on the congressional aid cut, the
journal observes that ``the Bush administration can manipulate
and even violate at its discretion the conditions contained in
the [congressional] vote and/or continue to use its vast
resources to keep providing military support to the Salvadoran
government''---exactly as it has done.  It alleges further that
``the Bush administration has sent over $100 million in military
aid to El Salvador in the last ten months in unspent funds
appropriated during previous years,'' citing evidence that $50
million of such funds were provided from August through November
(editorials, _Proceso_, October 31 and November 7, 1990).

Here we have further leads for enterprising news bureaus.  If
correct, these reports indicate that while the coverup of the
assassination was under way, steps were being taken to ensure
that any emotional reactions to these atrocities would be
ineffectual.

I stress _these atrocities_.  Labor leaders, human rights
activists, students, peasants, and other low-life are fair game,
and their slaughter and torture leads to no calls for reduction
of aid.  But the Salvadoran Jesuits fail to comprehend the norms
of civilized society.  At a mass in San Salvador (unreported, to
my knowledge), commemorating the assassinations, the Central
American head of the Jesuit order, Rev. Jose Maria Tojeira, said
that ``The developed world's solidarity will not be authentic as
long as it is limited to supporting us, the Jesuits . . . while
alienation, poverty and injustice continue to batter the
disenfranchised'' (AP, November 17, 1990).  Could there be a
message here?

It would not be too difficult to unearth the FMLN conception of
reality, as expressed, for example, in their ``Proclamation to
the Nation'' of September 24, 1990, calling for ``the end of
militarism, a new social and economic order, the democratization
of the nation, and the restoration of our sovereignty and
independent foreign policy'' - all spelled out in some detail.
Nor would it be a hopeless task to discover the published records
of the National Debate for Peace, bringing together under Church
auspices virtually all organized groups in the country.  These
records tell us much about how Salvadorans see reality.  The
participants, from a broad range of social sectors, express
nearly unanimous condemnation of ``the enormous interference of
the US in El Salvador's national affairs,'' of US military aid in
any form, of military interference in state and society ``in
support of the oligarchy and dominant sectors, and thus in
support of North American interests'' as the country is
``subjugated to the interests of international capital,'' and so
on.  The concern for our little brown brothers is attested by the
zero attention given this illuminating study, readily available
in Washington (see my _Necessary Illusions_ [Boston: South End
Press, 1989], pp. 243 ff.).


Other Questions

The Central American Report provides further information on the
questions left unexplored.  The government of Costa Rica reported
an increase in arms shipments entering the country through 1990:
``most of the weapons are believed to originate from contra
stockpiles not handed over to the UN and destined for Colombia
and El Salvador.''  The journal also reported an inquiry of the
Socialist International into the assassination of Salvadoran
socialist leader Hector Oqueli and Guatemalan lawyer Hilda Flores
in Guatemala on January 12, 1990.  The inquiry, conducted by
Professors Tom Farer and Robert Goldman of American University,
concluded that they were probably murdered by the Salvadoran
right, perhaps in an effort to undermine peace negotiations.
Mexico's leading daily reports further that President Cristiani's
intelligence services are now operating in Nicaragua, ``as
confirmed by the recent raid and search of the offices of a
Salvadoran refugee religious organization in Managua,'' the
Ecclesiastical Ecumenical and Service Base Communities, by armed
men, some in uniform (_CAR_, October 5, 26; _Excelsior_, November
5, 1990).

One of the crimes of the Sandinistas was that Nicaragua became a
refuge for writers, human rights activists, priests, peasants and
others who escaped from the death-squad democracies, much as
France served as a refuge for victims of fascist terror in Spain
50 years ago.  It is safe to assume that the US will seek to
overcome such failures to ``adjust to reality.''  There were
other crimes that have not yet been rectified.  The US terror
operations were set in motion as popular organizations began to
take root, in part inspired the ``preferential option for the
poor'' adopted by segments of the Church.  While US terror has
largely succeeded in restoring the traditional and more
satisfactory preferential option for the rich, there still remain
unwelcome residues of these and other efforts, posing a continued
threat of democracy and justice.  In Nicaragua, the goal of
restoring the security forces to US control has not yet been
achieved.  The UNO government has not yet proved sufficiently
harsh and brutal for official US tastes, nor has it yet
recognized adequately the priorities of traditional wealth,
including returning exiles.  And despite US pressures---among
them, withholding of the trickle of promised aid---the UNO
government has not abandoned the World Court case and its call
for reparations for the huge disaster inflicted by the US in the
course of its ``unlawful use of force'' and illegal economic
warfare in the last decade.  The US of course has no intention of
adhering to the judgement of the World Court, but the lingering
annoyance is a bit of an embarrassment amidst the current
posturing about the sanctity of international law.  There is,
then, much to be done.

It is likely that it is being done.  The eyes of the public are
focused on the Gulf, but the state has many eyes, and many busy
hands, and the present moment is an opportune one to pursue its
goals without fear of exposure.  The El Salvador shenanigans are
a case in point.  There is also circumstantial evidence that
clandestine operations may be under way in Nicaragua to remove
the Chamorro government in favor of more obedient and vicious
clients, who will also return the security forces to US control,
as the Carter administration vainly tried to ensure in 1979.  It
has been a leading principle of US policy for many decades,
spelled out in the internal planning record and consistently
pursued in practice, that the means of violence must be in the
hands of the US and its clients so as to ensure that any failure
to ``adjust to reality'' will be properly terminated.  Perhaps a
decade hence, some enterprising journalist will discover that
there is more than a little truth to the statement of Violeta
Chamorro and Interior Minister Carlos Hurtado that ``dark
forces'' are manipulating the current unrest and disorder (AP,
_Boston Globe_, November 16)---not merely Virgilio Godoy as the
scant reporting here assumes, but more traditional and powerful
forces.

Sincerely,


Noam