OPINION Page 4 Wednesday, January 24, 1990 The Michigan Daily El Salvador 1S spanish for Vietnam by A. Hernandez Lozano Twenty one years ago President Lyndon Johnson presented me with the Air Medal (1st Strike/Flight Award) for meritorious achievement in aerial flight as a helicopter gunner during combat support missions in support of the Republic of Vietnam. On January 22, 1990 I returned my Air Medal to President George Bush for three reasons: (1) I am hoping that it will lift the heavy burden of shame and guilt I have felt over the years as a result of having been a member of the U.S. armed forces, which while assisting a brutal and corrupt military dictatorship in South Vietnam, committed senseless barbaric atrocities and war crimes against the Vietnamese people. (2) I am returning my medal to express the indignation and outrage I feel to see our leaders behaving more like Nazi war criminals rather than statesmen worthy of our respect, as they gloat and cheer over the illegal invasiop of Panama. This inva- sion, undertaken without consulting Congress, is a violation of the Constitu- tion of the United States, Article 1, sec- tion 8 which clearly states that Congress, not the President, has the power to declare war. Worse, somewhere between two and four thousand Panamanians, most of them innocent civilians, were killed by invading U.S. troops. The total number will never be known since American authorities hastily ordered that the victims, men, women and children, be secretly buried in mass graves. And all this carnage just so they could arrest General Manuel Noriega, a CIA crony gone astray. (3) I do not want a medal from a nation that has for the past ten years been en- gaged in committing atrocities against the poor people of El Salvador by giving un- conditional military assistance to the Sal- vadoran government and its death squads. Even after the latest round of massacres, in which six Jesuit priests and many other Salvadoran citizens were murdered by members of the U.S. trained Atlacatl bat- talion, your administration continues to lavish weapons and our hard earned tax dollars (1.4 million dollars a day) on the perpetrators of these abominable atrocities. The murder of the priests is only the latest in a bloody trail of brutal crimes against civilians committed by Salvadoran troops "advised" by U.S. military person- nel. In 1981 this same battalion was re- sponsible for the grisly murders of more then 700 men, women and children in the Salvadoran province of Morazan. It was also responsible for the killing of at least 68 unarmed civilians in Cabanas province in 1984 and was involved in the massacre of at least 50 peasants in Chalatenango province the same year. It is time that our leaders, who have of late been acting as apologists for the per- petrators of these heinous crimes, recog- nize that the Salvadoran military and the right wing paramilitary death squads re- sponsible for the murders of thousands of Salvadoran civilians are'one and the same. And the time is long overdue for our gov- ernment to stop funding those atrocities. As a veteran of the Vietnam fiasco I can only say that it is sad and tragic to see our leaders still have not learned that in the kind of power struggle such as is taking place in El Salvador, dollars and bombs are a poor substitute for constructive polit- ical ideas. What disturbs me is the endless list of grotesque human rights abuses committed by the Salvadoran military and its death squads. But what outrages me even more is the fact that over the past ten years the U.S. has given nearly four billion dollars in aid and weapons to a brutal regime that In the Vietnamese village My-Lai the elite Americal Division of the U.S. Army massacred over 400 civilians. The My Lai massacre represents the real character of U.S. intervention in Vietnam. has turned on its own people, killing 70,000 men, women and children with bombs and bullets paid for with our tax dollars. I was outraged to see another $85 mil- lion dollars appropriated even in the midst of the latest carnage in mid November 1989 in which U.S. trained pilots indis- criminately bombed Salvadoran civilians living in the poor areas of the densely populated capital of San Salvador. Of course when the fighting spread to neigh- borhoods where the rich live, the Salvado- ran military meticulously avoided bomb- ing those areas. It was an inescapable les- son that clearly illustrates the criminal contempt with which the U.S. supported military regards the poor people of Sal- vador. Returning my Air Medal at this time is my way of voicing the strongest condem- nation possible of present U.S. policy in El Salvador. Plain and simple, it is a pol- icy that supports a military regime which is guilty of committing unspeakable hu- man rights abuses against its own people. By returning my medal I hope to distance myself from an evil policy I personally saw bring untold human misery and death to so many in Southeast Asia, and which I now see being brutally applied against the people of El Salvador and Central Amer- ica. Still, perhaps President Bush and the American people would better understand my returning the Air Medal if I provided a backdrop for my actions by recounting some of the tragic, eye opening experi- ences I had in Vietnam. They are experi- ences which have had a profound impact on my perceptions of present U.S. policy in El Salvador and Central America, and point out why I view that policy as being misguided, immoral and indeed criminal. What follows are insights that touch at the very core of what was wrong with U.S. policy in Vietnam at a time when I see our leaders engaged in pursuing an equally disastrous and bloody conflict in El Salvador. I volunteered to go to Vietnam because initially I believed my government's stated objectives that we were there to help the Vietnamese people in their struggle for peace and democracy. However, once there, I realized that nothing could have been further from the truth. It was the experience of living for a year among the Vietnamese people and my participation in the savage and ruthless war against them which finally made me realize that what the U.S government was doing in Vietnam was morally reprehensi- ble and constituted crimes against human- ity. The first incident to point that out took place in late March 1968 just outside the Marine air base at Phu Bai in Thua Thien province. About 200 marines, including myself, had just been issued new M-16 ri- fles and were sent outside the base for the specific purpose of test-firing the weapons. At first it was like watching a bunch of kids having fun playing with their new war toys; but then it got ugly. An old man came out running from be- hind a line of trees about a hundred yards down range, chasing three water buffalo that were heading towards the line of fire. In the midst of the constant automatic weapons fire I saw some of the marines closer to me take aim and shoot at the wa- ter buffalo, some of them laughing at the old man as they fired their weapons. The old man was desperately running back and forth, trying to save his animals by get- ting them out of the line of fire, but to no avail. Two of the beasts were quickly shot dead and the troops kept on laughing and shooting, as several officers just watched and snickered at the old man's futile at- tempt to save the last water buffalo. "Get out of the way old man, or you're next," one of the marines yelled out, aim- ing his weapon, trying to shoot the re- maining water buffalo. Then, in quick order, someone shot the last water buffalo and then the old man went down. He rolled over and tried to crawl, but only made it a few feet before a volley of automatic weapons fire put him out of his misery. Infuriated by what I had just seen I ap- proached one of the officers and asked why he did nothing to stop it. His reply was that the "old gook" was not worth my concern and to "forget about it." Then, in a weak attempt to justify the killing, he made an off-the-cuff remark about how the old man was "probably a commie." Angry and disgusted by the contemptible incident I started walking back to the base without firing my weapon. But as I looked back, the troops continued firing away with their new toys and having a jolly good time, as - 1fiTNE'IE - OKOK N ET and shoot unarmed Vietnamese men, women and children who were running out from their thatched roof dwellings for the cover of the surrounding jungle. It was customary to test-fire the machine guns shortly after take off. But on that particular occasion the pilot's instructions were that we could take advantage of live targets and "use the gooks for practice." As if to justify his ac- tions he then proceeded to point out that we were in a "free-fire zone" where every- thing and everybody was game. At first I hesitated, then flatly refused, replying that I would rather wait and take target practice somewhere else. It was a very big decision that had to be made in literally seconds; but at the same time it was easy for me to reject the pilot's in- structions. Growing up in rural Mexico I had lived and worked on our small farm and I simply couldn't bring myself to shoot and kill other people I had come to know as being just poor peasant farmers like myself. I distinctly recall the anger and sadness I felt at the thought that I had come half way around the world to sup- posedly help the Vietnamese people, and instead, had just received instructions to murder children by using them for target practice. s But for each one of us who refused to participate in committing atrocities there were many trigger happy U.S. soldiers who were eager to "up the body count" by shooting their share of "gooks." It was common to hear the other gunners return from a mission bragging about their ex- ploits and boast about how many "gooks" they had "wasted." In short, I quickly found myself in a war in which a racist ha- tred of the Vietnamese people proved to be pervasive among U.S. troops, and seemed to be the dominant reason for waging a bloody war against them. As far as the majority of American troops were con- cerned, the Vietnamese were "everybody's nigger" and like Native and African Amer- icans n our own country, they paid a very heavy price for the racist war waged agaist them by duped trigger-happy young men and misguided U.S. leaders. In subsequent flying missions I looked out from my lofty perch, hovering over the magnificent, tropical landscape and watched as U.S. war planes mercilessly fire-bombed and obliterated entire villages with napalm. This was followed by the dropping of anti-personnel cluster bombs and deadly white phosphorus explosives on the people fleeing the area. I watched in horror as thunderous napalm explosions mushroomed into huge fireballs that de- voured the landscape. Billowing dark clouds of flaming smoke rose from the ashes heere only seconds before a group of thatched roof huts had stood. Air strikes on civilians became a matter of routine; and the killing of innocent people from a distance, with massive bombing strikes, had become standard practice in the northern provinces. Every man, woman and child was seen as an ac- tual or potential enemy. U.S. bombing raids, and the war in general, had reached the point where the full impact of Ameri- can fire-power was not directed at a distin- guishable army, or against a particular group in the population, but rather, against the population as a whole. The sick lyrics of a song often sung by beer guzzling marines at the Phu Bai NCO club epitomized this tragedy: Bomb the schools and the churches. Bomb the rice fields, too. burned and the inhabitants not killed on the spot were put in concentration camps called "settlement camps," where thou- sands died of starvation and disease. According to the Indochina Resource Center in Washington, 40,994 civilians were tortured and murdered by the CIA through its "Operation Phoenix" assassi- nation program. By 1968, the last year I spent in Vietnam, Phoenix Committees had been set up in each of South Viet- nam's forty-four provinces and were under the direct supervision of the Central Intel- ligence Agency. Those arrested were takep to the Provincial Interrogation Center* (PIC) where they were tortured and eithor imprisoned or killed. Many civilians whose loyalty to the U.S. backed regime was suspect were simply killed on th spot. The sad fact remains that a con- stantly misled American public never knew the true scope of the barbaric atroci- ties committed by U.S. troops in Viet- nam. Today the same murderous strategy is being applied in El Salvador. The one m'- jor difference being that in Vietname sent our own soldiers to kill and be kille4, whereas in El Salvador the U.S. pays tie Salvadoran military and its death squads o carry out its campaign of terror and deah against the peasant population. As was the case in Vietnam, those r- sponsible for the present policy and te bloody violence that it supports, contine to pursue a course based on flagrant distor- tions of the truth, in what is a shameless and desperate attempt to gain the support of the American people for a morally bankrupt policy in Central America. In El Salvador, as was the case in Vie- nam, the civilian population has becom the target of daily bombing raids, in wh4t is part of a deliberate strategy to rid the countryside of its inhabitants, most f whom are peasant farmers that just want to plant their crops and feed their childre. The rationale for carrying out a scorchell earth policy is identical to the U.S. strat- egy in Vietnam: by killing the people or forcing them to flee, those resisting the U.S. backed Salvadoran military will b deprived of a civilian population fro$ which they can obtain food and other ne- cessities. In Vietnam I saw peasants wage a lon* and courageous struggle that ended in the defeat of a brutal, corrupt and inept mil- tary dictatorship that was backed by 550,000 U.S. troops. They withstood the massive firepower of U.S. Navy and Air Force bombers, which together droppe more than 7 million tons of bombs on th people of Vietnam. An astronomical fig- ure when you consider that it was thre times the amount dropped by the allies during WWII on all enemy countries. Qnly when U.S. leaders, who have beei entrusted with the future of this natio, adopt and implement a foreign policy based on the realization that people must be afforded dignity, freedom and the right to self-determination will there be true peace in Central America. The time is long overdue when thosl who lead our nation acknowledge tha U.S. policy is flawed and immoral, an take the courageous action required t bring about a new way of thinking. be £rbi:u .fig Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan 420 Maynard St. Vol. C, No.78 Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Unsigned editorials represent a majority of tne Daily's Editorial Board. All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. ritin on the wall NOW THAT eight members of the Salvadoran military have been arrested for the November murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador, the Bush Ad- ministration is thrilled to have the op- portunity to present itself once again as a crusader for all that is good and just in the region. A Bush Administration official was quoted in the Sunday New York Times saying, "Our position was :motivated by moral outrage and hard- ,boiled politics. This Administration is pragmatic. We saw the handwriting on the wall. We recognized that the con- tinuation of U.S. aid would depend on ;El Salvador's response to this bench- -mark case." What both the Times and the Bush Administration seem to forget is that it is not, administrative outrage that has forced any action on the part of the Cristiani regime but rather the outrage of 'the thousands of people across the United States who have taken to the 'streets to express their outrage at the U.S. funded murders of over 70,000 Salvadoran civilians. Though the U.S. told Cristiani that we would accept nothing less than a thorough investigation," there has been :no official admission or recognition of the reality of life in El Salvador and the U.S. role in the creation of that reality. Salvadoran life is characterized by vio- lence and brutality and the crimes that government commits against its own citizens are made nossible only through the Salvadoran military have taken the fall for Cristiani the U.S. feels com- fortable in continuing its aid to the ter- rorist ARENA party. Congress, in spite of its professed "morality" re- cently passed a new aid package to El Salvador of $85 million. Yet in spite of its ability to arrive at one conclusion from a seemingly con- tradictory premise, the Times article does indicate that people organized and in the streets can have an impact on U.S. foreign policy. Not since the anti- Vietnam war movement has their been such pressure put on the creators of U.S. foreign policy to reconsider the wars they wage in the name of this country.4 Though the movement to stop the U.S. war in Salvador has neither the size nor scope of the anti-Vietnam war movement, there are definite signs that a political consciousness is developing around the extensive human and civil rights.violations perpetrated and spon- sored by the U.S. military. In response to a huge public phone campaign, the coffee company Hills Brothers stopped imports of Salvadoran coffee. And in dozens of cities around the country, activists have returned again and again to protest the war. The anti-Vietnam war movement, which was supported by students, clergy, workers and local officials,. showed the power of organization. This is an imnortant lesson for those of Conducted under CIA auspices, tho Operation Phoenix is responsible, for the torture or murder of 40 ,04 civilians.