Date: 1982-07-28
Speaker: WILLIAM J. COYNE (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. yesterday. despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. the Reagan administration certified that the Government of El Salvador has met the conditions which were laid down by the International Security and Development Act of 1981 and. therefore. could continue to receive military and economic aid from the United States. This represents not only a serious distortion of reality in El Salvador. but also further encourages the government of that country to continue a policy of repression. When Congress passed the International Security and Development Act of 1981. it placed certain conditions on the continuance of aid to El Salvador. The Salvadoran Government was required to demonstrate that it was: Making a concerted effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights. The administration. in a report which accompanied the certification. points to a downward trend in the monthly total of deaths attributable to political violence in the past 6 months. However. human rights organizations report no such evidence of progress in this area. A recent report by Americas Watch Committee and the American Civil Liberties Union attributes the lower body counts to a geographical shift in repression from urban areas to the countryside. Attacks on journalists and human rights monitors. which have largely confined both groups to the capital city of San Salvador. have made it more difficult to verify atrocities outside of the city. Bringing an end to the torture and murder of Salvadoran citizens by the armed forces. Amnesty International and various other human rights organizations indicate that they have seen no significant government effort to end either the murders or the torture. A recent tale of terror in the Washington Post describes a May incident in which a "Green Cross" volunteer was subjected to torture by the national police. According to that account. the volunteer was strapped to a chair similar to a medieval rack. beaten and forced to inhale lime. The military leadership of El Salvador was not altered as a result of the March 28 elections. Making progress in implementing essential economic and agrarian reforms. The new Minister of Agriculture in El Salvador is an avowed critic of the land reform program. Since the March elections Decree 14. which permitted expropriation and provided the legal basis for land. banking. and trade reforms. has been repealed. Decree 6. which was recently passed. suspends from 1 to 4 years important parts of the land reform program. The program continues to be poorly managed and the repeal of Decree 14 has re portedly resulted in violence in the countryside. Making continued progress to find and implement an equitable political solution. Viewing the March elections in El Salvador as an alternative to negotiations among the various political factions. as the administration appears to be doing. is. in my view. counterproductive. Those elections effectively excluded the opposition and no viable so. lution to the conflict in El Salvador Is possible without the participation of that opposition. Additionally. House Joint Resolution 494 required that the administration certify again that the Government of El Salvador had demonstrated that it has made a good faith effort to investigate and bring to justice those responsible for the 1980 murders of six U.S. churchwomen and agrarian reform workers. While evidence gathered in the investigation strongly points to the involvement of the security forces. after a year and a half no trial has been held. Nor has any date been set for a trial in this matter. Unless. I am missing a dramatic new development in these areas. it is abundantly clear to me that these conditions have not been met. Further. the tunnel vision which has shaped the Reagan administrations policy towards El Salvador. namely its insistence on regarding the strife there strictly as a contest of East versus West. will continue to undermine a political solution to the conflict and insure that the aforementioned conditions will never be met. Moreover. certification under these conditions could also have broad ramifications. Certification at this time could clearly undermine our international credibility as a champion of human rights and democracy. It is essential that the Reagan administration reevaluate its policies towards El Salvador.e