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Opinion
Page e Wedpesday, June 17, 1981 The Michigan Daily
The Michigan Daily
Vol. XCI, No. 30-S
Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
Public victory
IRDLED AS WE ARE by the age of the
Moral Majority, it's heartening to see
folks on the other.side willing to stand up and be
counted.
Monday night's Ann Arbor City Council
meeting produced an outpouring of citizen op-
position to a genuine case of Big Government in-
trusion into people's lives--a proposed ordinan-
ce requiring prisoners living in local halfway
houses and parolees living elsewhere in Ann
Arbor to register with the city. Public sen-
timent against the proposal has been so intense
that Mayor Lou Belcher announced Monday
night the ordinance has been tabled in-
definitely.
The Mayor's announcement is welcome news
for all concerned. As written, the proposed
statute served little law-enforcement pur-
pose-moreover, it would have raised serious
Constitutional questions as to the violation of a
parolee's right to privacy, due process and
equal protection under the law.
A statute of this type would surely stigmatize
the ex-con, single him out as a social un-
desirable to be watched and feared by the
community-no matter how committed that
person might now be to building a decent life. Is
it the American tradition to kick someone when
he's down?
Monday night at City Hall person after person
rose to voice these and similar sentiments. The
City Council's retreat lends renewed
credence to the notion that public opinion can
make a difference, that political activism in
1981 need not be confined to the denizens of the
political Right.
Who knows-one of these days the real moral
majority may prevail.
'More t
By John Vandermeer
The sign in my office window
reading "U.S. Out of El
Salvador" has been the source of
much campus controversy, as
Lou Fintor reported in his
Michigan Daily article of June 10.
While the particulars of the sign
situation are somewhat
humorous, the fact that a
professor and the University
administration are at odds with
each other is certainly not news.
The important facts are those
to which the sign in my office at-
tempts to draw attention. That.
University personnel entered my
office without my knowledge and
removed my property is not
nearly so important as the fact
that the people of Central
America are suffering and dying
as a consequence of U.S. inter-
vention.
My own perspective comes
from having lived and worked
periodically in Central America
for the last ten years. As a field
biologist my work frequently
bringstme into contractwith
peasants and rural poor, and for-
ces me to view first-hand the
degradation and poverty that
come from so inany-years of
economic and military
domination.
FROM SUCH CONTACT I can-
not shake ,certain images:
children each day picking
through garbage for foodein
Guatemala City; elderly
beggars, crippled with disease, in
San Salvador; infants dying from
malnutrition in rural Honduras;
children taking a break from
shining shoes Ato ask for the lef-
tovers on my plate in San Jose,
Costa Rica. Such images concern
me far more than the legalistic
question of a few pieces of paper
on my window.
These images are real life for
the people of Central America.
While I may have nightmares
because of them, the people there
must live those nightmares. And
it is such inequties that are
causing them to rebel, causing
them to stand up and say
"enough!"
They have rebelled many times
before, and in many ways. In 1954
the people of Guatemala elected
a president who promised to take
some of Guatemala's land back
from the United Fruit Company
and other foreign companies and
return it to the Guatemalan
people (these companies owned
72 percent of Guatemala's arable
land). And where did that get
them? The CIA engineered a
coup, replaced the duly elected
government with a military
blessing that survives to this day
- with full U.S. blessing.
IN 1926, LIBERAL factions of
the Nicaraguan people revolted
against General Emiliano
Chamorro, representative of the
oligarchy. And where did that get
han just a sign
them? The U.S. government in-, the initials of the right-wing
tervened militarily and installed death squad carved in their
Adolfo Diaz-the same man it. chests, and all had their thumbs
had installed as president after, tied behind their backs - a
its first intervention in 1912. common practice of the junta.
In 1959 El Salvadoran dictator And while the U.S. press
Jose Mara Lemus, trained in the remains effectively, blacked out,
U.S., unleashed a reign of terror fighting rages on in the rural
on El Salvador that was too much areas of El Salvador, in part
even for the rich of that country. firected by U.S. military person-
The Salvadorans tossed him out nel, At this time the newly
of office and set up a moderate created Aclajatl Brigade, a 2000-
six-man junta, promising free man force specially trained by
elections by 1962. U.S. Green Berets, is preparing
And where did that get them? for a major offensive against
The U.S. refused to recognize the guerrilla strongholds; thousands
new regime, citing its.pro-Castro of people have been driven from
stance (Fidel Castro, in fact, also their homes through search-and-
refused to recognize the regime). destroy missions. All of the ac-
The result was a new junta of tions of the junta are supported
D EPARTPAET l d IAT
Hnnmam night
right-wing colonels whose first by over 35 million dollars in U.S.
act was to order the police to fire military aid (this year alone), in-
on protesting students. The U.S. cluding the famous remote sen-
immediately recognized the new sing devices developed here at
junta. the University of Michigan (that
These examples are historical. politically neutral university).
Do they have anything to do with . While the war continues with
what is happening today? On a massive U.S. assistance in El
recent visit to Nicaragua I asked Salvador, the U.S. is preparing
a governmental official is he ex- for further intervention in
pected further military interven- Guatemala, is backingdthe
tion. His response: "We would be military regime in Honduras
fools not to, if history is any in- (whose forces are reportedly
dication."' He went on to indicate preparing for an invasion of
that economic sanctions already Nicaragua), and is waging
underway against Nicaragua are devastating economic warfare
more effective than'military in- against Nicaragua.
tervention. His sentiment was THESE ARE the images, per-
that it was up to the people of all sonal experiences, historical fac-
of Central America to defend ts, and ominous portents of the
themselves against U.S. future that keep me awake at
aggression, but it was up to the night. I hope all of us lose sleep
people of the U.S. to stop their over what the United States is
government from such doing in Central America!
aggression in the first place. If, on the way, a couple of
NOWHERE IS such professors become disturbed
belligerance currently more ob- over someone's notion of the
vious than in El Salvador. Earlier propriety of a sign in a
this year a friend of mine and oc- professor's window, or a Univer-
casional Ann Arbor visitor, sity lawyer worries about the
Enrique Barrera Escobar, was legal ramifications of the Univer-
kidnapped and tortured to death sity's tax status, I apologize for
by the junta. His crime? He was any inconvenience I have caused.
a member of the FDR, the um- B
brella organization political small price to pay if just one per-
groua opsend torin te jna son is influenced by the sign or
A friend returning from San the discussions it provokes.
Salvador last month told me he
personally saw seven bodies on
the side of the road on his drive John Vandermeer is an
from San Salvador to the airport. associate professor of biology.
Two were decapitated,two had at theUniversty of Michigqan.
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