Word: peasant
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...diabolical handful. Some are composed of soldiers, while others are made up of "off-duty" policemen, sons of wealthy landowners or simply hired thugs. Though some of the military brass may sympathize with and tolerate the teams, a chain of command has never been proved. Last fall, peasant union leaders accused the directors of the intelligence departments of the treasury police, the national guard and the national police of being linked to the squads; after Washington pressed for their removal, Defense Minister Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova transferred them...
...ties between the police forces and the death squads are rooted in Salvadoran history. Created in 1912, the national guard often acted as a private security force for the country's landowners, who helped to pay the salaries; when peasant uprisings got out of hand, the landlords organized bands of vigilantes to assist the guardsmen. In 1932, when Farabundo Marti, the father of El Salvador's revolutionary movement, led a revolt, paramilitary squads were sanctioned to aid the army in squashing the rebellion. The estimated toll: at least 10,000. The lines between official and illegal violence blurred...
Over the past year, the civilian population has grown used to the contra presence and now provides a network of assistance. Our patrol carries rations of dried beef, rice, roasted cocoa beans and sugar, but peasants along the way offer us tortillas, bananas and water. More important, the local campesinos act as couriers and give our patrol intelligence about Sandinista troop movements. On the third and fourth nights of our trek, we are invited to sleep at peasant homes. During the days, we frequently take long rests at farmhouses. The contras chat easily with our hosts, some of whom...
...made Hino tourist buses. Earlier this month, the Peking Daily (circ. 500,000) ran a photo of an attractive woman and her family standing next to a new Toyota. Thanks to an income of more than $18,000 last year, Chicken Farmer Sun Guiying had just become the first peasant in the 35-year history of the People's Republic to buy a private...
...sacrifice and subservience to party in favor of such Western vices as self-interest, elitism and cynical moral pragmatism. Last year a Shanghai newspaper printed what it took to be the inspiring story of Zhang Hua, a medical student who lost his life while trying to save a drowning peasant. More than 1,600 readers wrote to the paper, many of them indignant. Was it not terrible, they complained, that a young man whose training cost the state thousands of dollars should give up his future on behalf of a 69-year...