United States and Latin America

According to Allen B. Hazelwood (“El Salvador: Sleepwalking Into Disaster,” Op-Ed Page, Jan. 29), El Salvador is a “problem” to be “solved” by the United States, a battleground on which communism must be defeated. On the basis of this arrogant premise the United States pours hundreds of millions of dollars into El Salvador each year, most of which is used for military purposes. And, somehow, Hazelwood expects the military, which intimidates the civilian population, using U.S. military weapons, to sow seeds of democracy.

The real problem in El Salvador is poverty and a system that keeps the majority poor, to the economic benefit of a few. Hazelwood would have us believe that it is the FMLN that has created the crisis of unrest that exists in the country today. The people of El Salvador do not need the FMLN to educate them, as he claims, about “rampant injustice.” They experience it daily.

The United States itself is and has been a part of the problem in El Salvador. Since long before the present civil war, Central America has been treated by U.S. investors as a happy hunting ground for raw materials and cheap labor, which has accelerated the concentration of land and resources into fewer and fewer hands. Without addressing these inequities in a serious way, there can be no peace in El Salvador.

MERILIE ROBERTSON

Canoga Park