Aid to El Salvador Protested

A group of Pomona Valley religious leaders organized a demonstration at the Covina office of Rep. David Dreier (R-La Verne) Tuesday to urge him to support a reduction in military aid to El Salvador.

The Pomona Valley Council of Churches, which represents 76 churches from Diamond Bar to Rancho Cucamonga, adopted a resolution June 5 authorizing its El Salvadoran Committee to meet with Dreier, express outrage over attacks against religious workers and urge him to curb military aid.

Pat Irish, executive director of the council, and Father Chris Ponnet of Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church in Claremont said they returned from trips to El Salvador convinced that the U.S. should cut its military aid because of violence by the Salvadoran military against religious workers and others in that country.

Irish and Ponnet were among eight persons who met Tuesday with Dreier aide Mark Harmsen in the congressman’s office after, they said, they had tried for weeks and been unable to obtain an appointment with Dreier.

About 30 people, some carrying signs, gathered at the office to protest U.S. policy in El Salvador.

Dreier, who was in Washington, said in a telephone interview that he will be in California late this week and will try to meet with the group.

Dreier said he shares the group’s abhorrence of human rights violations by extremists in the Salvadoran military. But Dreier said the country’s president, Alfredo Christiani, is “doing everything he can to deal with this.”

Dreier, who visited El Salvador in February to look into the murder of six Jesuit priests and two women last year, said withdrawal of U.S. aid could lead to a victory by Marxist guerrillas.