Page 2 - The Michigan Daily Sunday, August 12, 1984
Church criticizes hike in aid to El Salvador
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (UPI) -- The
Roman Catholic Church said yesterday that an
additional $70 million in U.S. military aid to the
government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte will
only prolong the four-and-a-half-year-old civil war.
In north central Nicaragua, the Sandinista
Popular Army clashed with a U.S.-backed rebel
force of between 1,600 and 1,800 men, a military
source said.
A CATHOLIC church spokesman in San Salvador
said, "We see the military aid with very little
optimism because it prolongs the conflict and will
continue the pain and suffering of the people."
Congress approved Friday an additional $70 million
in military aid and $120 million in economic aid for
the moderate Christian Democratic government.
Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas said in his
home at the Metropolitan Cathedral last Sunday that
increasing aid to one side in the conflict only spurs
the other to match the increases.
"AMONG THE groups (that are) fighting, when one
receives more aid, the others seek a balance, and so
the calvary of the people is progressively extended,"
a church spokesman said.
Leftist rebels of the Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front (FMLN) have battled to topple the
U.S.-backed government in a civil war that has left
more than 40,000 dead.
Vice President Rodolfo Castillo called the
Congressional action "a very important decision ...
that reflects faith and confidence in the current
government that (it) will use the funds to benefit the
people."
The military aid will be used for "equipment ...
needed to make the armed forces more mobile,"
Castillo said.
A Sandinista spokesman said rebels of the U.S.-
backed Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN,
crossed into Nicaragua from Honduras recently and
were attempting to set up camp in the area
surrounding Waslala, a town about 120 miles north of
Managua in mountainous Matagalpa province.
Details of the fighting were not immediately
available.
Salvadoran refugees
portray life of fear
f Continued from Page 1 >
still in charge of the country's military.
MENDOZA, A 21-year-old from San
Salvador, said 163 towns have been
bombed since the election, and at least
400 people have been killed by the
government for "subversive and
communist" behavior.
Subversive and communist behavior
inclues "complaining about water" -.
which only 20 percent of the people,
have - and "complaining about,
transportation and jobs. If you are in a
school group, you are called a
communist," Mendoza said in faltering
English.
Failure to vote is also an illegal act,
with possible punishments of a fine, loss
of job, jail, death, or "disappearance,"
he added.
THE GUERILLA-backed opposition
to El Salvador's government, the
Farabundo Marti Forces of National
Liberation (FMLN), controls a third of
the country, Mendoza said. He claimed
that the FMLN-controlled areas are
democratic, not fascist like the
controlling government of the country.
"We are living in a totalitarian
regime, and we want a democracy,"
Mendoza said.
A bill, currently before 'Congress
would increase military aid to El.
Salvador to $117 million in the
upcoming fiscal year.
THE REASONS for the United States
to send aid to El Salvador are vague -
one explanation is that it gives "a
pretext of an anti-communist stance,"
another refugee, Alyandro Rodriguez,;
said through an interpreter.
Rodriguez, 44, said President Reagan
is supporting the Salvadoran
government in order to protect the
North American firms - including
Sears, ITT, IBM, and McDonald's -
which have interests in El Salvador.
Rodriguez, who fled with his family
acr-pes the United States' border two
i.i ths ago, is now living at the
Sanctuary, a church-based group
sheltering refugees ina secret location.
HE SAID although there is not much
actual fighting in the large cities like
San Salvador, "part of the army,
national police, national guard, the
treasury - each one has its squadrons.
So they have access to common
information.
"When there is a story that someone
says something negative about the
government, (government people)
dress up in civilian clothes, with
weapons, and take (the person) away to
secret prisons. (Then) the government
decides whether to kill them or take
them to intelligence areas to ask
questions." He added that many of the
people who are taken away are never
heard from again.
Rodriguez, who was a builder in El
Salvador, explained that the judicial
branch of the government is run by the
military, and that the judicial process
is "somewhat arbitrary. There is no
judge, no jury," he said.
Since Duarte's first two-year stint as
president in 1980, more than one. million
Salvadorans have fled the country. In
addition, over 50,000 of the country's six
million people have been killed by
government forces, the refugees said.
RODRIGUEZ also said that since
Duarte was first elected president,
inflation has escalated eight-fold.
A five pound carton of milk that in
1980 cost $3 is now $24. Despite this
exorbitant inflation rate, workers have
not received any raises for the past four
years.
Fewer than 10 percent of the
Salvadoran refugees in the U.S. are
granted political asylum. The rest
either never apply for asylum for fear
of being deported, or apply for political
amnesty and are refused and sent back,
McCloskey said.
DOUG McMAHON/Daily
Alyando Rodriquez, left, and Saul Mondoza, refugees from El Salvador,
speak against U.S. aid to their country at Wesley Hall on E. Huron Friday
night.
MARK WEISBROT, another information about people who had been
member of the LASC, said the U.S. killed by the Salvadoran government.
government "is reluctant to grant "Three of my friends were shot and
asylum because they would have to killed. I was shot also," he said, but "I
admit that they're supporting a brutal was not killed."
government. So people are deported Asked if he will ever return to his
back to El Salvador, where they are native- land, Mendoza responded, "I
thrown in jail, and some are even came here as a student two years ago,
killed." but after six months, I will become
Mendoza, who went to a missionary undocumented (an illegal alien).
school in El Salvador, described how he Hopefully all the problems in my
was named on a death list while country will be finished and I will go
working with others to collect home then. But right now I can't."
HAPPENINGS
SundayamNrhCmuMcin
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Music - Medieval Festival, 11 a.m. to CFT - Wizards, 7:45 p.m.; The Lord of the Rings, p.m., 4051 LSA; "Platform Skills: Effective Public
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Rackham. CFT - Wizards, 7:45 p.m.; The Lord of the Rings,
Performance Network - American Buffalo, 8 Monday 9:15p.m., Michigan
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