Go ahead for U.S. invasion

Scan page 2

Editorial Board: Les Evans, Dianne Feeley, Jeff Mackler, Jim Published monthly by the Socialist Action Publishing Association, 3435 St., No. 308, San Francisco, CA 94110. Phone: (415) 821-0458. Subscriptions: U.S.: $6.00 for 12 issues; outside U.S., Canada, Mexico: $20.00.

On Feb. 1, the Reagan administration announced that it would seek Congressional approval of major increases in military and economic aid to Central America. This aid proposal contains most of the recommendations of the President's Commission on Central America, popularly known as the Kissinger Commission.

With deliberately moderate language, the report is designed to bolster Reagan's Central America policy before the American public. Its conclusions fall along SANTA ANA JBERTAD - Dire - FMLN Zone of Milicary Sup Over the past two months, the FMLN has demonstrated the capacity for impressive military campaigns. Last Dec. 30, the guerrillas successfully overran a major army base in the province of Chalatenango. Two days later, they destroyed the important Cuscatlan bridge. On Jan. 15, the rebels returned to attack the same military base in Chalatenango as they simultaneously staged a light attack on another military outpost three miles away.

familiar lines: support for counterrevolutionary attempts to destabilize the Nicaraguan government; rejection of a negotiated settlement with the FDR/FMLN of El Salvador; an increase in military aid to the Salvadoran government to $400 million per year; and the expendituru of $8 billion over five years for the economic development of the region.

Central America today

All of the proposals submitted by the Kissinger Commission, ranging from the scholarships in higher education to the establishment of private development corporations, will fail to alter the poverty in which the majority of Central Americans live because the region's economies are dominated by imperialist economic interests and by a handful of oligarchs who own a vast percentage of the land. American investment alone, soared from 12 percent of the total investments in the region in 1970 to 33 percent in 1979.

On the key issue of land reform, the Commission does not make a single specific recommendation. Rather, it limits itself to stating that "in programs of land reform, ways should be found to insure that the redistribution of land provides the new owners with a valid title, that governments promptly allocate resources as they become available to insure that former owners are effectively compensated, and that in the end the system enhances incentives to expand the nation's total agricultural output."

However, the Central American governments, with the exception of Nicaragua, are dominated precisely by those landowning classes who refuse to part Socialist Action February 191 with their estates. All attempts at land reform have been blocked either at the level of government, or in the countryside itself. In El Salvador, the AIFLDsponsored land reform, which was halted after its first phase, was used by the Government as an opportunity to identify peasant leaders who were subsequently killed by government troops or death squads.

The Kissinger Commission notes that, "In the short run the region will continue to rely largely on the earnings which come from the export of commodities.

HONDURAS • SAN SALVADOR SAN VIC LA PAZ SÂM PIÉUE!

USULUTAN In response to the advances of the FDR/FMLN, and to the increased mobilization of the Nicaraguan people, the U.S. government sent several dozen Navy warships, thousands of U.S. Marines and more than 100 fighterbombers off the coast of Nicaragua and El Salvador. Close to 800 U.S. troops are scheduled to remain in Honduras.

Clearly the "Big Pine" maneuvers, where U.S.-commanded planes and ships landed Honduran armed forces into The derogatory label attached to the Central American countries (Banana Republics) stems from precisely this economic deformation. Though the Commission recommends the lowering of tariff barriers by the region's trading partners, this proposal fails to alter the basic composition of the export commodities themselves. Without an end to the subordination of the Central American economies to imperialist economic interests, the doubling of economic aid proposed by the Kissinger Commission will be siphoned off through corruption and investment abroad to the pockets of a few wealthy Central Americans and their North American benefactors.

Death squads and human rights The Kissinger Commission professes a strong desire to curb the death squads operating in Central America. However, the United States government itself has shown no propensity to take any steps toward curbing the activity of right-wing Salvadoran exiles operating in the United States. Despite having assembled a list of 28 exiles providing aid to death squads in El Salvador, no action has been taken against any of them. Robert E. White, former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, identified six wealthy Salvadorans in Miami as contributors to the death squads. He said, "I don't believe there was then, or is now, any serious campaign to insist that the Salvadoran military be placed under the law." His 1981 cablegram to the State Department stated that, "many Salvadorans and some official Americans have been aware that rightist death squads are financed and directed by a group of selfexiled millionaires in Miami." It further noted that the six exiles "organize, fund, and direct death squads through their agent, Major Roberto d'Aubuisson.' Major d'Aubuisson is a central leader of El Salvador's government, having recently resigned as speaker of the Constituent Assembly in order to run for president.

Similarly, on Jan. 29, the day after Americas Watch released a 260-page report detailing a rise in human rights violations in Guatemala, the Reagan administration agreed to begin to sell helicopter parts to the Guatemalan government, the first such open and direct cash sale since 1977. The Americas Watch report noted thousands of urban killings by death squads, forced relocaLATiON CMNON Honduras in a mock invasion, is a practice run for an invasion of Nicaragua.

The Reagan administration has to choose between allowing the extension of the revolution in Central America, or rapidly increasing its military intervention. Clearly it is choosing the latter.

U.S. Hands off Central America and Caribbean!

tion of tens of thousands to "re-education camps," and the pressing of 700,000 Guatemalan civilians into support tasks for the military.

The Kissinger Commission and elections In a section of the report entitled, "The Search for Peace," the Commission claims that, "a true political solution in El Salvador can be reached only through free elections in which all significant groups have a right to participate.' The Commission calls on the FDR/ FMLN to negotiate "mutually acceptable" procedures for the elections, scheduled for March 25.

But even the U.S. government is demonstrating some uneasiness over the elections, since these are shaping up as a major conflict between Major D'Aubuisson and Jose Napoleon Duarte. Should D'Aubuisson win the elections, it is likely that he will authorize the death Editor: Alan Benjamin Associate Editors: Mark Harris, Business Manager: Kate Curry Weinstein Staff: Paul Colvin, Larry Cooperman, Robin David, Gonzalez, Linda Ray, Marion Syrek, Sylvia Weinstein Write for airmail rates to all other countries.

Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily Action. These are expressed in editorials. tionally. Paradoxically, the victory of Duarte might mean the same thing, since he has no authority over the ultrarightist sectors in El Salvador. In his previous term as president, Duarte demonstrated a total incapacity, if not lack of desire, to control the death squads.

The Commission and the FDR/FMLN The Kissinger Commission referred to the present situation in El Salvador as a "stalemate-a condition which in the long term favors the guerrillas." It noted that the "government of El Salvador is severly hampered by the erosion four years of war have produced in the country's basic institutions—by the difficulty it has in enforcing its authority and carrying out its functions."

The Commission's oblique reference to the Salvadoran government's inability to "carry out its functions" is the nearest the report came to noting the actual reason for the present military situation— the popular support enjoyed by the FDR/FMLN and the isolation of the "elected" Salvadoran government. The Commission's report glossed over the recent history of El Salvador which caused the present situation.

Over the past decade there was a rapid expansion of popular organizations, trade unions, neighborhood associations, women's organizations, and peasant groups. These organizations represent hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans, and have sponsored strikes and demonstration involving an immense percentage of the country's total population.

Attack on Nicaragua

The Kissinger Commission portrays Nicaragua as "a base for Soviet and Cuban efforts to penetrate the rest of the Central American isthmus." It calls for a two-pronged approach involving (1) the continuation of support to the counter-revolutionaries who are presently staging raids into Nicaragua and (2) offering restored economic aid in exchange for major political concessions.

In fact, it is only the Sandinista government in Nicaragua that has begun to tackle the multitudes of problems that are the legacy of underdevelopment and imperialist exploitation. Besides their economic performance (which has been better than the other Central American countries in the recent period), they have, as even the Kissinger Commission admits, "made significant gains against illiteracy and disease."

U.S. Out Now!

The threat of direct U.S. military intervention in Central America has never been greater. The CIA-armed and funded counterrevolutionaries ('contras") are losing their war against the armed and mobilized Nicaraguan people. The FDR/FMLN are making major gains against the tottering Salvadoran junta.

The Kissinger Commission, with its bipartisan cover (even Lane Kirkland of the AFL-CIO was a member) has given the green light to greater U.S. intervention in the Central American region.

It is more urgent than ever to respond to this report by building a broad, mass anti-intervention movement that can stay the hand of the U.S. warmakers. • ACTION Schreiber Richter, Nat May May Gong, Army