Opinion
Page 8 Wednesday, May 6, 1981 The Michigan Daily
I
The Michigan Daily
Vol. XCI, No. IS
Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
test " ow
T HAS BEEN said that nothing motivates
political Washington so much as the desire
to conform, even at the cost of one's principles.
As the Reagan administration storms ahead in
its efforts to reshape America, congressional
liberals continue to go belly up in their op-
position.
Though the bulk of programs proposed by the
White House are antithetical to the deepest
beliefs of progressivism, only the faintest,
bleating objections have thus far emanated
from the House and Senate.
It seems the effect of opinion polls and
paranoia over losing one's office count for more
these days than do one's life-long convictions.
Though it's not unusual for the party out of
power to lose some initial vitality in the face of
defeat, the Democrats' present, craven parade
of me-tooism reeks of a doctrinal retraction far
beyond mere post-election regrouping.
Such head-in-the-sand doctrine won't make
our problems any less real. Children still go to
bed hungry in this country; the elderly suffer
continuous hardship, our environment
stagnates. We tremble as a bellicose foreign
policy propels the world ever closer to war.
It is surely a time for simple courage, for
those with integrity to say "This is what I
believe" in the face of easy expediency. Sen.
Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has declared he will fight
Reagan's budget schemes, regardless of
political consequences; the corresponding
silence of his senior colleague Donald Riegle is,
sadly, far more indicative of a liberal
establishment which currently values personal
survival over the general good.
Martyrs of our time
By David Helvarg
Try as they may, Secretary of
State Alexander Haig and other
Administration spokesmen have
been unable to convince the
American public that the war in
El Salvador is a simple contest
between godless communism and
democracy. The reason for that
failure is almost self-evident: the
Administration's interpretation
has little to do with the reality of
El Salvador.
During my own months there, I
came to this understanding
through personal contect with
many persons - Salvadoran and
American alike - who were
deeply involved in the conflict,
but were neither terrorists of the
right not guerrillas on the left.
Four of them have since joined
the fatal toll of thousands who
have died at the hands of the
government.
I MET ITA Fordtfollowing two
tough days in the rightist-
controlled town of Arcatao, near
the Honduran border. "I can't
believe how little the U.S. has
learned from Vietnam that it
would get involved trying to prop
up this government," Ita Ford
said later at the Church refugee
center in nearby Chaletenango
where she worked. She was a
thoughtful and attractive woman,
light-boned and watchful.
I told her about the painted
graffiti in Arcatao: "Death to
Communist Priests and Nuns."
"I know," she shrugged. "I spoke
with Colonel Arbaiza (comman-
der of the army in Chaletenango)
the other day. Actually he did
most of the talking. He explained
to me how the Catholic Church is
subversive because it has this
bias for the poor. I told him Jesus
had that same bias. He said Jesus
was certainly subversive in his
time."
Several weeks earlier Ita had
been in a land rover that turned
over in a river while on a mission
trying to save the life of a 19-year-
old government informer. "When
I got out of the water and I had to
walk for hours through the forest
to get to town, it was so cold, all I
could think of was 'Why her,
God?' Why did you call her and
not me?' " She tried to smile. "I
don't know. Maybe I've been
chosen for another purpose"
I was in Guatemala City get-
ting ready to go to Quiche when I
heard about the killings. Ita, two
other North American nuns and a
fourth woman, a Catholic layper-
son, had been kidnapped near the
international airport. They had
been raped and executed, their
bodies buried in a shallow grave.
"WE'RE NOT really hopeful
about appealing to the gover-
nment for an end tn human rights
He'd been in Salvador since last
May, 1980 working for the AFL-
CIO's American Institute for
Free Labor Development
(AIFLD). He'd been recruited for
the job by his ex-law professor at
the University of Washington,
Roy Prosterman, who helped
write El Salvador's "Land to the
Tiller" reform program. From
either perspective it was a
failure. The land reform didn't
work. It was used as a pretext by
the military for continued
repression.
The first people to point this out
to me were, surprisingly, the
people charged with carrying out
the land reform for the gover-
nment. The Secretary-General of
the Salvadoran Institute for
Agrarian Transformation was
Rodolfo Viera, a dark, solidly
built campesino.
"Whan tha rafrm e-ar-a-i T
6
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SALVADORAN SOLDIERS search farmworkers last December
following the nearby murder of four American nuns.
SPEAKER "TIP" O'NEILL
IN HIS MOST AMAZING
ROLE AS...
ELNTU
T" c,
THE L A TIMES SYNDICATE
military government that's
responsible for most of the
killing," explained Magdalena
Henriquez, a spokeswoman for
the Human Rights Commission of
El Salvador.
"Only about 30 to 40 percent of
the killings are the result of com-
bat," she said as we went through
a shoebox full of documentary
photos. "The rest are killed by
the death squads, by plainclothes
military men.
"Doing human rights work in
El Salvador is like walking a
tightrope, never knowing when
you're going to fall off," she ad-
ded. Two weeks later, Magdalena
fell. She was kidnapped while
shopping near her home by 12
armed men driving Cherokee
jeeps and carrying G-3 German
automatic rifles (standard
National Police equipment). A
friend called to tell me that her
body had been found in a shallow
grave near the beach at La Liber-
tad.
MARK PEARLMAN was a
connection from San Diego, my
hometown. Mark was an in-
telligent, gentle giant of a man.
thought it was the beginning of
some small justice for the cam-
pesino, but we've gotten very lit-
tle support from the gover-
nment," Viera said.
Shortly thereafter Viera was
wounded in the hip in a failed
assassination attempt and went
into hiding at Mark's house. He
blamed the army for the attack,
in which two bystanders were
killed.
NEVERTHELESS, MARK told
me before I left, "I like the work
I'm doing. I feel I'm doing a lot of
good. The reform still has a
chance."
On Saturday, January 3, Mark,
Rodolfo Viera and Michael
Hammer of AIFLD were shot to
death by gunmen who casually
walked into the Sheraton hotel
coffee shop where they were
having dinner, opened fire on
them and the sauntered out
through the lobby.
Correspondent David
Helvarg wrote this story for
Pacific News Service.
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