Outrage sweeps U.S. over mass killings by Salvadoran gov't NO MORE US AID to EL SALVADOR

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8 SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1989 who managed to escape to the United States, rally organizers placed responsibility for the savage violence on the Salvadoran government, and then on the U.S. Congress and the Bush administration.

Three thousand people demonstrated in San Francisco two days earlier at an event originally called to oppose U.S. support to the Nicaraguan contras. Rally organizers readily agreed to incorporate demands opposing U.S. support to the Salvadoran government. They announced a Dec. 2 conference at Oakland's Laney College to plan further actions and stressed the need to oppose U.S. interference in the Nicaraguan elections.

"El Salvador vencerá!"

About 7000 people rallied in Los Angeles on Nov. 18. In addition to a spokesperson for the FMLN, speakers included a representative of the striking Eastern Airline machinists— who solidarized with the besieged Salvadoran labor movement. A representative of the Nicaraguan government began his remarks with the traditional, "Si Nicaragua venció, El ...U.S. war (continued from page 1: “U.S. military aid fuels Salvador war, repression”) set of "anti-terrorist" laws that can be used to jail journalists as well as citizens participating in transportation boycotts or other forms of civil disobedience. On Nov. 24, the repressive legislation passed El Salvador's Legislative Assembly by a vote of 45 to 0 (members of the Christian Democratic Party all abstained).

Bush sends in commandos But despite the "anti-terrorist" laws-and the use of massive firepower and even napalm to quell the population-Cristiani may well be unable to hold on. As the struggle against the isolated Cristiani regime widens, so does the possibility of direct U.S. military intervention.

The Bush administration responded immediately, for example, to the FMLN Nov. 21 occupation of some 30 blocks of downtown San Salvador, including the taking of a luxury hotel that housed U.S. diplomats and military advisers.

State Department spokeswoman Margaret D. Tutwiler charged that the FMLN had taken U.S. hostages. She also characterized the FMLN as "terrorists, pure and simple," stating that the Bush administration would not negotiate with them. This left the door open for immediate U.s. military intervention.

As it was later disclosed, Bush ordered a group of soldiers from the specially trained Delta Force to "rescue" the U.S. advisers. In fact, there were no hostages. By the time the Delta Force arrived on the scene, the diplomats and advisers had left the hotel.

Night bombing missions

A number of established Mexican news sources have also affirmed that U.S. pilots are Salvador vencerá!"

A Boston rally of 3000 was supported in an unprecedented move by Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, who (in addition to sharing the platform with an FMLN representative and opposing all U.S. aid to El Salvador) declared a flying all-night bombing missions in El Salvador. These acts of terror against civilian populations pulverize and incinerate working-class neighborhoods.

They indicate the extreme isolation of the hated Cristiani government, which represents a ruling elite of 2 percent which in turn owns 60 percent of the nation's wealth.

It did not go unnoticed that similar bombings were not employed in the posh neighborhoods occupied by the FMLN during the seizure of the downtown hotel.

Special U.S. units in Panama have been placed on armed alert. U.S. warships patrol the Salvadoran coastline. Expedited shipments of arms have already been rushed to the tottering Cristiani regime, while the United States has prevailed on its puppets in Guatemala and Honduras to place their troops on alert-at the service of Cristiani if the need arises.

If events continue to escalate, the specter of regional war cannot be ruled out-—and along with it, direct U.S. military intervention.

A "negotiated" solution?

On Nov. 22, the FMLN's Radio Venceremos broadcast a call for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations with the armed forces. The statement said that they did not want to negotiate with the Cristiani government, pointing out that the armed forces have traditionally had a de-facto veto over all govemment decisions.

FLN spokesperson Salvador Sanabria (speaking on the television news program "Nightline" on Nov. 21) did, however, leave the door open to talks with the Cristiani government when he stated that the recent military offensive was designed to force a "political negotiated solution."

Yet other FMLN representatives have insisted that the FMLN will "go on to take El Salvador completely." Accordingly, FDR-FMLN spokesperson Luis Flores told Socialist Action, "We are in discussions with Joseph Ryan/Sociailat Action day of mourning for the slain priests. Flynn ordered city officials to fly public flags at half-mast.

Four hundred Boston activists organized a sit-in protest at the offices of U.S. Senator John Kerry. A similar protest was organized different social forces about the formation of a provisional government."

Flores's reference here was to recent FMLN negotiations with elements in the Christian Democratic Party and other bourgeois forces opposed to the Cristiani government. The current goal of the FMILN is to press for the formation of a new government with these forces—a government based on a mixed (capitalist) economy with guarantees to the private sector.

This is the current version of the view put forward by the FMLN in 1982 when it presented its proposal for a Government of Broad Participation—or GAP, as it became known by its Spanish acronym. The GAP represented a marked retreat by the FMLN at that time when compared to its previous proposals, which looked more to socialist solutions to El Salvador's vast social inequality.

The sometimes conflicting views of FMLN spokespersons on whether their policy includes a negotiated settlement with the Cristiani government are a product of the rapidly changing situation in El Salvador.

It now appears that what began as a major military offensive to compel negotiations has developed into a near insurrection, perhaps surpassing even the projections of the FMLN.

An FMLN speaker at a Nov. 18 rally in Los Angeles explained, for example, that when a temporary truce was declared in a working-class suburb of San Salvador occupied by the FMLN, only 20,000 of the 500,000 inhabitants took the opportunity provided to leave. The rest remained to support the FMLN.

Building a broad-based movement As administration officials meet in the White House Situation Room in what the New York Times describes as a "crisis atmosphere," anti-intervention activists are beginning to consider large-scale mobilizations to P.O. Box 404830 Brooklyn, N.Y.

11240-4830 212-966-961 Witnesses observed uniformed soldiers fleeing the scene.

These events were reported in detail by the National Labor Committee in Support of Democracy and Human Rights in El Salvador, a U.S. labor coalition representing 20 top officers of national unions.

A letter from National Labor Committee staffperson David Dyson urges U.S. unionists to condemn the murders and to demand that the Salvadoran government take action in regard to the "disappearance" of Salvadoran trade unionists Christina Chan-Chan and Francisco Massi, both abducted by Air Force troops on Aug. 19.

Letters to the Cristiani government and to the U.S. officials protesting the bombings were sent by United Automobile Workers President Owen Bieber and by Jack Sheinkman, president of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. Sheinkman protested the administration's El Salvador policy in a recent speech at the Nov. 17-19 national AFL-CIO convention in Washington D.C.

prevent the sending of any U.S. troops or military supplies to El Salvador.

As the war in El Salvador proceeds, an almost daily flurry of proposals for a negotiated political solution have emerged. Some emanate from the FMLN-others have come from well-meaning people who desire an end to the bloodshed. Still others reflect the diplomatic needs of Cristiani and/or the White House to appear open to peaceful solutions.

It is not the responsibility or even the right of the anti-intervention movement to select among these various proposals. Respect for the fundamental right of self-determination necessarily includes a rejection of the idea that U.S. military power gives it the right to negotiate the future of any nation.

The FMLN has the right to put forward or withdraw proposals which suit its needs as it fights against the U.S.-imposed regime. But the construction of a broad-based opposition movement in the United States should not be tied to agreement with any set of negotiations proposals to end the war.

The best support we can provide to the people of El Salvador as they struggle for their liberation is to build a mass movement which can involve the majority of American working people-whose sons and daughters will be the cannon fodder for any U.S. intervention.

End all U.S. aid to the Salvadoran government! Self-determination for the Salvadoran people! No U.S. intervention in Central America!

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