Word: salvadors
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...DECISION LAST WEEK by the House Foreign Affairs Committee granting the Reagan Administration's request for $60 million in necessary aid to El Salvador is yet another step in the wrong direction for U.S. policy in Central America. Symbolically the assistance constitutes a show of support for the recently elected Constituted Assembly headed by Roberto d'Aubuisson, the extreme right-wing leader who former U.S. ambassador Robert White calls a "pathological killer." Concretely, the guns and funds mean the prolongation of a bloody civil war that continues to ravage El Salvador...
Administration officials and members of Congress have argued that the March elections in El Salvador were the start of a true democratic process. Military aid, they assert, affirms the U.S. support for this process. But that contention seems questionable at best. More significantly, it appears a mere excuse for those who all along have been anxious to step up military aid. The leftist guerillas had been willing to run for the Assembly provided unconditional negotiations among all sides took place beforehand. But Washington insisted on elections first, talks later--driving the rebels from the polls for fear of retribution...
More fundamentally, Washington's policy of showing approval via military aid cannot be condoned. A new shipment of guns to El Salvador will do nothing to bring about conciliation between the leftist guerillas and the new government. Instead, at only serves to increase the tension. In an area as traumatized as El Salvador, it's hard to see how the injection of military aid will do the cause of peace any good. Even the left, which would have proven an improvement but not a panacea for the troubled nation, probably would not have deserved such military support...
...last year, they were operating in 19 of the country's 22 regions, sabotaging public works and generally making life miserable for the army. But Washington couldn't resume aid to Gunmetal because of the prevailing climate of repression: Congress, already divided over arms sales to El Salvador, would undoubtedly have balked at sending guns to Garcia. And State Department envoys were having no success in convincing the general to moderate his policies. Guevara, minister of defense under Garcia, seemed no more likely to cooperate...
...social security contributions, but a jarring 10% drop in business investment last year forced the government to postpone $1.8 billion in new levies. Internationally, after signing an agreement to furnish Nicaragua's Sandinista regime with $90 million in defensive arms and after sounding off in favor of El Salvador's guerrillas, Mitterrand and his colleagues talked with the two countries' neighbors-and the U.S. France is now quietly backing off from its initial stance. A once bruited second arms deal with Nicaragua is now unlikely...