From: harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (Harel Barzilai)
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: FMLN -- BASIC BACKGROUND
Date: 27 Jul 92 06:05:44 GMT
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB

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		 About the Salvadoran Revolution and

	 the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front)
	 ====================================================


   "Fifty years of lies, fifty years of injustice, fifty
   years of frustration. This is a history of people starving
   to death, living in misery. For fifty years the same
   people had all the power, all the money, all the jobs, all
   the education, all the opportunities.  Those who did not
   have anything tried to take it away from those who had
   everything. But there were no democratic systems available
   to them, so they have radicalized themselves, have
   resorted to violence.  And of course this second group,
   the rich, do not want to give up anything, so they are
   fighting."

--Former president Jose Napoleon Duarte, in a 1980 interview, when
asked about the origins of the conflict in El Salvador; Raymond
Bonner, the interviewer, was surprised by Duarte's sympathetic
explanation for the revolution, and added:

 "But what struck me more...was what he [Duarte] had not said.  He had
 said nothing about Castro or Cuba. He had not mentioned the
 Sandinistas or Nicaragua.  There was no talk of the cold war and the
 Soviet Union. (Duarte was to raise those themes later, when they
 reflected the views of the Reagan administration in Washington) What
 Duarte was saying was that the revolution had been caused and fueled
 by the conditions in El Salvador"

[see New York Times Magazine, Feb.  22, 1981; see also Bonner's book
_Weakness and Deceit:U.S. Policy and El Salvador_ (New York:Times
Books, 1984), page 24] [[source and reference from: "What Are We
Afraid Of?" by John Lamperti; look up in the file "groups"]]


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Former U.S. Ambassador Robert White:

"The history of El Salvador bears consistent witness to the greed and
brutality of men who look on compromise as weakness and who regard
torture and murder as routine and acceptable methods of coping with
dissent. The failure of US policy makers to press for a negotiated end
to the war in El Salvador has placed our country in league with a
clique of assassins masquerading as an army...

"...to the Salvadoran military, the [rebel offensive, [which followed
a wave of government repression, including the bombing of the
FENASTRAS union building --HB]] came as a gift, an opportunity to
wipe out not only insurgents but also priests, labor union organizers,
peasant leaders and thousands of poor citizens who support change.  On
November 16, armed, uniformed men dragged six Jesuit priests and two
servants from their beds. They tortured the priests for close to an
hour, then executed all their captives...

"Day after day, the world watches with horror as modern engines of war
supplied by the U.S. strafe, bomb and burn the shantytowns of San
Salvador, maiming and killing thousands of innocent civilians. They do
little damage to the pockets of mobile guerrillas armed only with
hand-held weapons. The Government has denied Red Cross requests for a
cease-fire to evacuate the wounded...

"President Bush described the Salvadoran revolutionaries as
`terrorists' and the Salvadoran Government as `a democracy'.
Wrong on both counts.

"The revolutionaries took up arms only after the military and economic
elites of El Salvador had rejected all avenues of peaceful change for
more than half a century. No competent observer doubts that
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
the Salvadoran revolution is home grown, authentic and enjoys wide
popular support... [the revolutionaries'] demand that the military
purge itself of its most notorious abusers of human rights was derided
as `absurd, ridiculous and impossible' [by the government]

"..The outdated security doctrine that guides Bush Administration
thinking demands the subordination of El Salvador's need for social
and economic justice to our supposed national security requirements.
This has meant the establishment of a veneer of democracy in El
Salvador, where the armed forces, with U.S. acquiescence, decide with
deadly force who can and cannot participate in political life. In El
Salvador, the fundamental duty of a democratic government to protect
its citizens has been stood on its head. People are tortured,
disappear and are killed at the whim of security forces that enjoy
absolute immunity from legal action..."

	--Former U.S. Ambassador Robert White,
	in the New York Times, 	Nov. 21, 1989

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** Topic: SALPRESS News 01/20/91 **
** Written  5:28 pm  Jan 23, 1991 by salpress in cdp:reg.elsalvador **
                   NEWS SERVICE ON EL SALVADOR
             for WEEKEND UPDATE, JANUARY 18-20, 1991
                  A Special Service of SALPRESS

BISHOP SAYS AVERTED ATTENTION ENDANGERS HUMAN RIGHTS

Human rights violations in El Salvador may worsen because world
attention has shifted to the Persian Gulf war, according to San
Salvador's auxiliary bishop, Gregorio Rosa Chavez.  In his January 20
homily, the bishop expressed fears that the Middle East conflict will
allow repression in El Salvador to rise.  He said that the 28 deaths
over the last week of the Salvadoran price is "a high price to pay for
not yet having obtained peace."

On January 18, the independent Human Rights Commission (CDHES)
revealed that 1005 civilians were killed by the Salvadoran army in
1990.  The commission blamed another 27 deaths on the Farabundo Marti
National Liberation Front (FMLN) and 189 on death squads, defined as
armed men in plainclothes.  The CDHES was unable to attribute 102
civilian deaths to either side.

November and December were reported as particularly fatal months, with
115 and 118 civilian deaths.  Over these two months the army allegedly
killed 97 civilians and the FMLN, four.

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