" OPINION Page 4 Thursday, March 5, 1981 The Michigan Daily Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Don't protest investments without offering alternatives Vol. XCI, No. 124 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, M! 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board MSA stil has time to remedy Schaper stml S ADLY, IT SHOULD come as no great surprise to now-dismayed Michigan Student Assembly members that their plan to revise MSA's tangled election code has hit a snag. Last mon- th, MSA appointed David Schaper - who during his long, controversial career in University politics has ad- mitted rigging student elections - to reorganize and rewrite the MSA elec-, tion code. This week, Schaper has submitted a revised version of that code in which he ignored a number of changes MSA directed him to make. SLast week, Schaper submitted a first draft revision of the code to the ssembly, which then scoured over the draft, making deletions, additions and rewording some parts. This week, $chaper returned with the final draft, presumably simply revised to ac- cbmmodate MSA's changes.But, in the final draft Schaper submitted, a num- ber of the additions made by the Assembly were not included, some of NSA's rewording was not present, and Schaper even made some additions of his own out of the blue. Now, several Assembly members have said they are outraged that Schaper did not follow through with their directive. MSA members should not be stun- ned. It was their poor judgement that enabled Schaper to abuse and manipulate the authority in the first place. Why MSA consented when Schaper volunteered to rewrite the code in January is a mystery. Certainly, the election code, a scrambled patchwork of confusing and often ambiguous regulations, needs revision. But, Schaper, who has admit- ted violating the very principles of the document in the past, is not the person to revise it. The Assembly clearly stumbled in its appointment of Schaper, But it is not too late for it to regain its balance by promptly dismissing Schaper from his duties and looking for a new, more ap- propriate, candidate. By Ross Romeo The University Regents are in a dilemma that needs clarification. Arguments of "proper" University investments are a major concern to advocates of divestiture in South Africa and those students who say the University should not invest in defense com- panies. Whether they are right or wrong, their arguments leave out important implications, and to my amazement, these lobbyists haven't offered an alternative list of cor- porations in which the University should in- vest. No wonder they are having a difficult time with the Regents. The anti-apartheid and anti-defense lob- byists must come up with an alternate in- vestment policy if they want any chance of success. Cramming Regents meetings with 150 students ishan effective way of bringing the issue to light, but beyond that, it has little im- pact for several reasons: " There is nothing wrong with having a say in how the University should maintain its in- vestment portfolio, but the financial im- maturity of the lobbyists is evident. Throwing investments around is foolish unless you ad- vocate where this money should be rein- vested. " Let's not follow the Michigan State University Syndrome. It's no secret that MSU's entire Humanities Department is on the financial guillotine. Everyone attributes this to the state of Michigan's cutbacks in university funding, but in reality, that is only part of the reason. MSU actually receives more money from the state than The University of Michigan bank and taken out a money market cer-, tificate! Had their divestiture been gradual instead of immediate, they would have had more time in determining a better, alternative invest- ment portfolio. As of February 15, corporate investments were yielding between 28-34 percent on the dollar in South Africa. Computed out, the an- nual yield would be about $300 for every $1,000 that's invested, making South Africa the second best investment in the world. This is money that MSU no longer makes, and that is why their cutbacks are more drastic than here at the University. Refusal to invest in American defense com- panies could have similar financial reper- cussions. Since our government gives them a lot of business, these companies are some of the best investments on the market today. This is not saying that investments in South Africa and defense companies are morally acceptable. But if the lobbyists want to have any effect, they must present some financial recommendations in addition to their ideological rhetoric. If the Regents should agree to their moral arguments, the University must be prepared to make cutbacks similar to those of MSU which involves 6000 students and 34 tenured faculty members in the Humanities Depar- tment. So I challenge the lobbyists with this dif- ficult question:- Stop telling us what the University should divest from. How about a new verse for the same old song - what should the University invest in? Ross Romeo is an LSA junior. STUDENTS PACK last month's meeting of the University Regents to protest proposed University investment in five American defense contractors. does. Then why are they suffering more than we are? Over a year ago, the MSU Board of Trustees yielded to the pressure of the anti- apartheid lobbyists and divested MSU's en- tire holdings in any company that does business in South Africa. Since then, their Wall Street investments have faltered, sometimes yielding only 10-16 percent profit. They might as well have gone to the local U.S. fuels Salvadoran terror Yet more defense hikes f 3HE REAGAN Administration's T1 proposal to increase the military budget poses several potential problems. At a time when the administration is aemandtjng enormous slashes in the fderal budget, it'is unconscionable that it plans to ask Congress for a $38 billion increase in military spending. Since his inauguration, President Reagan has continuously bemoaned excess government spending. As a result, countless social programs have fallen victim to the budget cutter's ax. Washington may have argument for a modest increase in military outlays, but such a dramatic increase is un- thinkable -when the maintenance of so many domestic programs is needed. True, the administration is attem- pting to cut some financial corners with its proposal to buy arms on long term orders. Officials say this will reduce more than $1 billion a year by 1985, but the proposal also carries some severe financial consequences. Long-term contracts are difficult to alter. Currently, under short-term con- tract, the government's liability is limited to $5 million if the contract is terminated. The liability, however, would bettremendously increased un- der a multi-year contract. This would also "lock-in" the Defen- se Department's position for future federal funds. If, for instance, there is a need to cut back on military spen- ding, Congress may not have the power to do so because of the long range agreements. In the interest of maintaning equitable funds for all government programs, both in the long and the short run, Congress should kill Reagan's proposal. Unsigned I * 1 . 1 e pearing on ditorials ap- the left side of this page represent a majority opinion of the Daily 's Editorial Board. SAN SALVADOR - "All the reforms we fought for have been lost. The great problem is on the right. Terrorists operate with im- punity and the government does nothing to stop them. El Salvador's problems do not come from Cuba or Nicaragua. The problem is that this country is caught in a process of selfdestruction unleashed by those who use the banner of anti-Communism to preserve and expand repression and unjustice." The speaker, Col. Adolfo Arnoldo Majano, is the kind of Salvadoran who official U.S. policy presumably supports:a conservative army officer, American-trained and strongly pro-American in his beliefs. He had staked his reputation on bringing reform to El Salvador and doing something about the terrorism which cost so many Salvadoran lives, as well as those of two U.S. government advisers and four American Catholic women brutally mur- dered here last year. TODAY, NOTHING HAS been done about these murders, the reform effort has been en- tirely abandoned and Majano himself is under arrest. A modest, serious, friendly and disciplined officer, 42 years old, and with four children - Col. Majano might correspond to some com- puter print-out of the Pentagon's and State Department's ideal Latin American military man. Second in his class in advanced military studies in Mexico, he has commanded a Salvadoran infantry battalion and been chief of studies at the Captain-General Gerardo Barrios Military School, the West Point of El Salvador. In October 1979 Majano helped install a military junta in San Salvador which the United States supported on the grounds that it was a moderate civilian-military coalition struggling for national reform. Majano was one of the strongest proponents within the Salvadoran military of land reform and other attempts to alleviate El Salvador's astonishingly unequal distribution of national wealth. , BUT WITH strong backing from the U.S. embassy here, Salvadoran military men with far less savory reputations than Majano's, have steadily deprived scores of reform- minded officers of any power to control terrorism or to implement real reform. Majano himself last October narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by the same "anti-Communist" forces that have also murdered priests and nuns on allegations that they are the agents of Cuba and Marxism. A number of reformist Salvadoran officers, including close friends of Majano, have also been murdered. Dozens of other Salvadoran lieutenants, captains, majors, and colonels have been stripped of their commands - precisely at the time, according to U.S. of- ficial proponents of military aid to El Salvador, the country faces a dire threat from "Marxist guerilla insurgents." While lavishing aid on Salvadoran colonels with known links both to the reactionary oligarchy and the right-wing death squads, the U.S. embassy never once intervened to support those Salvadoran officers who have By T. D. Allman tried both to combat terrorism and im- plement reform. LAST MONTH, IN a little noticed but most important event for El Salvador and the U.S. involvement here,, Colonel Majano was dismissed from the ruling junta as part of a government reshuffle strongly supported by the American embassy and the State Depar- tment. He went briefly into hiding, was cap- tured on February 21, and is now awaiting court martial on unverified charges. Designed to assauge growing doubts in America about U.S. support for the junta following the terrorist murders of the four American Catholic women working in El Salvador, the reshuffle was presented as proof that moderate civilians were really in charge. In fact, under the, guise of reforming the Salvadoran government following the murders, the most corrupt members of the junta have virtually total power. From the beginning, the big problem with Majano and other members of the original October 1979 junta, most of whom by now not only are out of power but have themselves been persecuted and in some cases killed, seems to have been that they demonstrated an alarming proclivity to practice what they preached. AS EARLY AS late 1979, the U.S. embassy actively intervened to reduce the influence of both civilian and military reformers on the junta. Because of his national reputation for dedication and honesty, Majano had been unanimously elected to the junta by his fellow officers. With Majano's support, the junta moved to discharge many corrupt officers, and to disband ORDEN, the "counter-terror" organization set up, on U.S. advice, during the Alliance for Progress. Alarmed that "reform" in El Salvador might really mean revolutionary change, American officials then actively lobbied for filling other powerful posts with officers known to be far more conservative. Accor- ding to Salvadoran sources, it was at U.S. oc- ficial instigation that Colonel Jaime Gutierrez, now the junta's most powerful member, was named to office, even though the Salvadoran officer corps itself preferred another candidate with a strong commitment to reform. U.S. officials also successfully persuaded the Salvadorans to accept Colonel Jose Guillermo Garcia as Minister of Defense. Far from being a reformer, Garcia was well known for his tries to the country's reac- tionary oligarchy, and for his toleration of abuses of military power and human rights. THE TRAGEDY OF the situation is not that the U.S. government has lacked opportunities to strengthen the Salvado'ran moderates. It is that it has used every opportunity to destroy those moderates and to shore up opponents of land reform who condone, and in some cases are actually involved in, the right-wing terror campaign that now claims even American lives. As early as March 1980, for example, the refusal of Defense Minister Garcia to take any action against terrorism created within the junta and government. Either Garcia went, the regime's moderate civilians said, or they would leave. Garcia, with strong U.S. embassy support,umaintainedhhis position. The civilians, a number of who were later, murdered, resigned - and El Salvador lur~ ched into full-scale repressive violence. A moderate with a strong sense of loyalty both to his country and to the armed forces, Majano remained in office, hoping to work from within to salvage something of whathe calls "our October process of national renewal and reform." But as U.S. military aid began to flow to the regime, even Salvadoran military officers soon found they acted at their peril when they actually attem- pted to control terrorism. Majano's first major defeat came when he ordered the arrest of Major Roberto D'Abuisson - El Salvador's most notorious terrorist figure. At the insistance of right- wing Salvadoran officers, backed by the U.S. embassy, D'Abuisson was released, and today remains at liberty to mount terrorist attacks all over El Salvador. Majano's attempts to provide protection for Catholics, including Archbishop Oscar Romero before his assassination, also incurred the conser- vatives' ire. And as the months passed, con- servatives like Garcia and Gutierrez found they possessed a powerful new weapon in their power struggle with the reformers: the argument that they, not the figures like Majano, were the only sure way to maintain U.S. aid. GRADUALLY REFORMERS within the military found themselves without troops or 0 with their commands suspended. With the approval of the U.S. military aid mission in FJ Salvador, Defense Minister Garcia also dispursed concentrations of reform officers within the chain of command. Majano's dismissal and arrest only compromised the final acts in the emasculation of the Salvadoran reform movement within the armed forces. "The people are outraged," Colonel Majano remarked before his removal, "at the total difference between what we promised in Oc- tober, 1979, and the reality that has come to pass. When a whole nation feels betrayed, there is the risk that it will rise up." As what Washington now calls the "guerilla offensive" in El Salvador unfolds, the im- pression is that once again America has sided with the military against the civilians. But the victims also have included all that is honest, patriotic, and honorable within the armed forces of El Salvador. As a result of U.S. "aid" to the military here, hundreds of fine officers like Majano have been defested - without a single Communist bullet being fired. T. D. Alman, who wrote this article for the Pacific News Service, .has just retur- ned from assignment in Central A merica.. Ki \j I : i I ! f t L I, / MV4,1 ! - r