Ugly, Unholy War in Salvador

The release of American church worker Jennifer Jean Casolo is one of the few truly heartening events to occur in tormented El Salvador during recent weeks. From the night of her arrest nearly a month ago, those who knew anything of the young volunteer and her work were skeptical of government charges that she allowed Marxist insurgents to conceal arms on the grounds of her rented house. While in custody, her obvious honesty, fidelity to her creed and manifest concern for the well-being of the Salvadoran people further eroded the government’s credibility.

However, the warm glow of satisfaction produced by Casolo’s release ought not to blind Americans to the Salvadoran government’s continuing persecution of church and relief workers of all persuasions--or to the Bush Administration’s wholly inadequate response to this alarming turn of events. Since the murder of six Jesuit priests and two women bystanders last month, El Salvador’s right-wing government has launched a calculated campaign of harassment and intimidation not only against Roman Catholics, but also against the Episcopal, Lutheran, Baptist and Mennonite churches.

Even United Nations officials assisting refugees and children have been compelled to flee to escape military pressure. Dozens of clerics and relief workers have been forced to leave the country or have been arrested. The two men arrested with Casolo are still in jail, as are the Rev. Luis Serrano, head of El Salvador’s Episcopal Church and 17 of his lay workers.

The Bush Administration has responded to this sinister conduct by waging what amounts to a public relations campaign on the Salvadoran government’s behalf. On the day after Casolo’s arrest, for example, presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater answered questions about the case with sarcastic comments that insinuated her guilt; he later apologized. And, while she still was in custody, a U.S. Justice Department official suggested publicly that Casolo might be prosecuted for violating the Neutrality Act.

This week, William Walker, the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, said he understood the reasons for the Salvadorans’ wider crackdown on religious and relief workers, and made an absurd comparison between the arrest of foreign missionaries in the country and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. “In the heat after the attack on Pearl Harbor . . . there was a lot of emotion and anger flowing,” he said. “We are in a situation in which a city is under attack by some very vicious, well-armed people. Given that circumstance, (the arrests) happen.”

In one sense, though, it’s hard to imagine a more apt analogy. For, as history has proven, the Japanese-Americans were completely innocent and their treatment entirely wrong.