El Salvador and Nicaragua

A common sense reading of Sharpe’s analysis of the “El Salvador question” should suffice to expose the harsh reality of Washington’s strategy.

If 70% of the Salvadoran population, “though largely sympathetic to the insurgent’s reformist aims,” have not given them the support needed for an outright victory, it is precisely because of the internal terror practiced by the Salvadoran military and death squads. This terror is the only answer allowed by the Salvadoran oligarchy, thus making a political solution impossible. In fact, members of the Arena party have talked openly about a “final solution.”

Everyone knows this, including Secretary of State James Baker and President Bush. If they do not force political concessions from the Arena government, they are clearly giving the Salvadoran military and death squads time to implement their worst and most brutal plans. If there is another matanza (massacre), as in 1932, Washington will (again) be able to wring its hands and deplore the regretful, but apparently unavoidable, tragedy.

Unfortunately, Sharpe himself has missed the “really important question:” Given America’s overwhelming military might in this hemisphere; given our overwhelming economic power; given our much-vaunted moral superiority; given U.S. corporate interests in doing business with communist Russia and China; given the appeal of U.S. cultural values to the overwhelming majority of Latin Americans; why is it necessary for us always to support brutal dictatorships rather than accepting and doing business with leftist governments in this hemisphere?

Don’t look to Washington for the answer.

BILL BECKER

Woodland Hills