[Equality of education has also dropped, since the…]

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Equality of education has also dropped, since the university cannot even afford to buy materials for teaching.

S.A.: That is almost analogous to the federal cutbacks that Reagan is imposing on students in this country.

Miller: Yes, you can definitely see parallels with what's happening in the United States. In the United States more and more people are being cut out of the opportunity to go to school. The ironic part is that one of the big reasons for this is the fact that more and more of our money is going for a defense budget that includes sending money to regimes-such as the one in El Salvador-which use the money to oppress the people, not to fund higher education.

S.A.: Did you do anything else besides visit the universities and meet with students and faculty?

Miller: We visited the prisons where many students who are considered "subversives" are being held. We visited Mariona prison, which is the men's prison, and Ilopango. In both places we were allowed to visit the political prisoners. They gave us testimonies that often included stories of how they had been tortured.

We spoke to the vice minister of justice, Dr. Dino Castro Callejos. We asked her about students being harassed and about political prisoners being held without charges. She claimed that this was totally false-that every person being held had been charged.

When we pressed her about the justification for the closing of the university she said that the national security of El Salvador required it. In regard to the damage to the university, she claimed that it was the students themselves who had vandalized the university and had set fire to the buildings.

She also maintained that most of the destruction occurred when an earthquake struck the poorly constructed buildings. This is totally untrue because the last earthquake that hit El Salvador was in 1962 or 1963.

We inquired-witho ut resultsabout political prisoners such as Claudina Calderon, a psychology student at the University of El Salvador who was disappeared along with her young son. She has not been seen or heard from since she was taken to the city prison in San Salvador. But political prisoners in Ilopango and Mariona told us that they had heard from Catholic social service people that she was still alive.

S.A.: How can American students foster ties with Salvadoran students and show support for them?

Miller: We can get organized and start educating other students. We can do teach-ins. We can get involved in solidarity work. We can do little things like write letters to the editor of our local newspapers. And we can get involved with big actions like the April 20 mobilization.

We can send newspaper articles to EI Salvador about April 20 to let the Salvadorans know that people in the United States do oppose Reagan's policies and that they're acting on it. This will build an international solidarity so strong that it will help carry them through their revolution.