EL SALVADOR is on the brink of insurrection and neighbour. Guatemala, is also in the grip of a popular revolt.
the region was cracked open a year ago by the workers, peasants, students of Nicaragua. Led by the Sandinista National (FSLN), they backed Somoza dictatorship.
The shock waves from their victory are now being felt throughout Latin America...and Reporting on events in El Salvador, the New York Times wrote in July: 'As recognition America's strategic importance has civil war.
Washington's traditional hold on Four and Liberation toppled the USelsewhere.
of Central Below pressure has mounted gress, the National Security Council and the Pentagon for a hard-line response to the leftist challenge.' Today Carter is fighting a secret war in El Salvador.
thousand Salvadorans killed in the first six months of 1980, and every day more are being gunned down by the official armed forces and right-wing paramilitary gangs of the ruling junta.
This is Washington's war. The slaughter could not go on without military, economic and political support from the Carter administration for the Salvadoran military regime.
look at the nature of this backing.
source, this Department's Office of Munitions Control licences worth of arms porations. for Salvador.
Even more Salvadoran are Israel, Washington's weapons channel to discredited rightist regimes. In recent years Israel per cent of the weapons purchased by El Salvador.
These in Coneffectively were form and year the fighter-bombers, port planes, expects to issue $250,000 and Galil assault rifles. from US corexport to EI are already Salvador. of the military's provided by usual tionary (FDR), Belgian supplied more than 80 Gauche:
the fighting. include Ouragan with 8,260 square miles. Its population of 4.1 million, however, is surpassed only by There has been considerable industrialisation but most Salvadorans don't benelit from the wealth they produce. Average income is Hunger is a big problem in El Salvador. About half of all children die of malnatrition or related ailments before their first birthday. There are fewer than three doctors for every 10,000 inhabitants. Witeracy is 59 per cent.
Since 1932 the army has ruled El Salvador on behalf of a tiny elite known as the 'fourteen famities, which controls over 60 per eent of the Most industry is foreign-owned, US corporations predominate. These US capitalists rake in Salvador include Exxon, International Basic coffee company, Westinghouse Electric, Alcoa, TexThey back the junta because it defends their interests. That is why the demand 'Yankee go home' is central to the fight of the Salvadoran SALVADORAN troops - armed by Arava transand large quantities of Uzi submachine guns Apart from this aid, there US trops In El Fabio Castillo, 'The former rector of the University and now representative of the RevoluDemocratic Front with the police recenty told the "The socialist weekly La uniformed 'American troops have also begun to be directly involved in Minister • In fact, American military advisors are tions of cupied zones:' Rico, members and so on.
As Salvadoran region.
countries zuela, 'peacekeeping Salvador. the tervention.
for would be the SOCC 'peacekeeping raguan I hope.
intervention the USA stationed at three anti-guerrilla bases in El Salvador.
Writing from San Salvador sUll.
June, Intercontinental
Press/Inprecor correspondent J.Milan reported:
presence of North American advisors and pilots is very evident. They are working with the army, but evén more presence of two Yankee soldiers stood out at a press conference to explain the detention of exEducation been made in recent days by peasants from the militarily ocIntervention In the US colony of Puerto it has been learned, the National Guard are attending weekend training sessions on El Salvador - its people, culture, terrain, The obvious implication is that they are training for a possible invasion.
cover for intervention, Washingon has sought to in- ror volve other governments of the In June. Jorge Chiribogo Guerrero, a leftist MP in Ecuador, said that the …OT the Andean Pact (Colombia, VenePeru, Bolivia, Ecuador) were already involved Pentagon plans for mission in Orden, According Prensa Latina despatch from the Colomolan capilal bogola, an ar ticle by journalist Patricia Lara in the 29 June issue of the daily El Espectador regarded the Andean Pact military force "to be most convenient way for the United States to intervene although this does not rule out direct US inExplosion league.
other alternative eserved by the United States preventing the revolutionary victory in El Salvador intervention of Guatemala and Honduras on the pretext of any border incident with the small Central American country, thè commentary notes.' missIon In response to talk of a force' NicaForeign Minister Miguel D'Escoto commented: their .President Carter would not feel tempted to do the inal. much less order ? direct EI Salvador. estate.' For us, that would be like aggression against our own persince we are an integral part of Central America. If that should occur, it would produce an explosion Central American political struggle.' THE WHITE HOUSE claims that the regime in El Salvador is made up of well reformers, caught between extremists of the right and left.
But the junta's. announcement of reforms.
coincided with an official declaration of a state of siege, removing any formal rights Salvadorans had The much-heralded land redistribution has, in fact. been used as cover for a tercampaign against suspect peasants. Betty Richardson Nute and William Nute Jr reported in the 11 June Los Angeles Times on a recent factfinding visit to El Salvador.
On 3 March, they wrote the National Guard and the rightist terror group, invaded a community Bible-study group it Canton Carmen Montes Chalatenango department, and massacred 12 people. In Canton Ojo de Agua, two men were decapitated and their hands and feet cut off and two girls' arms were cut off and they were left to • bleed to death.' Their crime? Members ship in a Christian peasant The Nutes heard eyewitness reports of such murders in six departments: Chalatenango. . Cuscațlan, Cabanas, Santa Ana, PLa Libertad, and La Paz.
...at the Hacienda de : Tihuilacoyo in • La Pal those who applied for ad the promises cooperative were sysT tematically slain along with children. Often thi new "cooperative is run by salle Orden memb who was manager of the o
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WHY SALVADORANS ARE IN REVOLT EL SALVADOR is the smallest country in Cen-
huge profits off the sweat and blood of the US corporations with investments in El
Samayoa. Numerous denuncia- 'Green Berets' have
'REFORM' IS COVER FOR TERROR