With Friends Like These . . . : El Salvador: The hasty repudiation of Jennifer Casolo by her own government was shameful. Are we on the right track in that country?

This will not be a merry Christmas in El Salvador. The land named for the Savior awaits salvation, but salvation tarries. Men and women of the church have not escaped assassins’ guns; those who sought to serve the people of that troubled land have paid with their blood. And El Salvador is once again a sore point of U.S. foreign policy.

The Bush Administration came into office with a promise of a more pragmatic world outlook. In East-West relations, that has been the case. Even in the case of Nicaragua, the rigid ideologues of the previous Administration, who so wantonly wasted the resources and credit of our country, no longer prevail. With El Salvador, though, the blinders of a fixed ideology have once again been attached to the mule team pulling the policy wagon.

This was illustrated in the Administration’s reaction to the arrest of Jennifer Casolo. In the United States, even those charged with the most serious crimes imaginable are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The Bush Administration, however, applied a different standard in Casolo’s case. The initial reaction was that an arms cache had been found in her back yard, and so she probably was guilty. The further implication was that Casolo was suspect because of her association with religious groups seen as a threat by the Salvadoran government.

Although Jennifer Casolo has been released from jail and is back in the States with her family, U.S. officials continue to cast doubt on her innocence. They’ve even gone so far as to suggest that she should have stayed in El Salvador as a test of the integrity of that country’s judicial system. The Justice Department is reportedly determining whether she should be charged under the Neutrality Act, the same law that was never invoked against Americans who ran guns to the Nicaraguan Contras. The overall impression left by Bush Administration officials is that they agree with Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani’s assessment: that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to try Casolo, but he is sure of her guilt.

This Administration has failed to grasp that the war in El Salvador is driven not by a remnant of Cold War tensions, and not by foreign church and relief workers, but by social, political and economic problems specific to that country. Democracy in El Salvador has been oversold. There have been elections, and civilian governments have taken office; whether they have governed is another matter. The Cristiani government is either unable or unwilling to curb a military that has gone beyond a legitimate reaction to the guerrilla offensive to punish labor leaders, priests and others suspected of sympathizing with the foe. By branding dissent as terrorism, the military in El Salvador fuels the revolutionary cause it seeks to stifle.

There ought to be no illusion that the FMLN guerrillas would give up if Soviet, Nicaraguan and Cuban supported ended. They would still fight, though with less sophisticated means. Americans should be wary of easy Vietnam analogies, but in this case it’s appropriate. Regional concerns, not global rivalries, are the issue. The issue is not appeasement of the Faribundo Marti National Liberation Front, whose hands are stained by years of murder and destruction. Rather, the challenge is to address the conditions in El Salvador that allow the guerrillas to flourish.

One casualty of the renewed upheaval in El Salvador is the bipartisan American consensus on the issue. During the presidency of Jose Napoleon Duarte, from 1984 to 1989, El Salvador seemed on the mend. Death-squad killings declined, the FMLN suffered political and military setbacks, and the Salvadoran economy even grew at a modest 1% to 2% a year. In response to these trends, and to the perception that civilian authorities exercised some measure of control, Congress loosened the restrictions on military aid.

The consensus was bound to be broken if death squad actrocities increased, as they did before the presidential election last March. In June, during the consideration of foreign-aid legislation, the House turned back, by a 48-vote margin, an amendment to restrict military aid to El Salvador. By November, when the latest FMLN offensive started, the margin had dropped to 21 on a similar vote.

U.S. military aid to El Salvador is predicated upon civilian control over the armed forces. If the claim that such control exists was questionable in previous years, today it is fraudulent. When the attorney general of El Salvador feels constrained to write to the Pope asking that certain priests be removed for their own safety, it is clear that military, or military-sanctioned, forces are out of control.

Given the firm positions of both the Bush Administration and the Salvadoran military, Congress may try to impose further aid restrictions in the new year. Cutting support to the Salvadoran military would be a harsh step, but perhaps, in the long term, the only realistic one. Considering that the United States provides one-third of El Salvador’s military budget, the leverage is potent.