The United States and Latin America in the 1990s edited by Jonathan Hartlyn, Lars Schoultz and Augusto Varas, Universi- ty of North Carolina Press, 1992, 328 pp., $39.95 (cloth), $15.95 (paper). This is a useful collection of essays from a center-left perspective on the likely direction of U.S.-Latin American relations in the coming decade. Some essays, like the insightful surveys of the Latin American Right (by Rosario Espinal) and Left (by Marcelo Cavarozzi), offer background analysis of changes in the conti- nent that might have a significant impact on the formulation of U.S. policy. Others deal with specific areas of intra-hemispheric policy concern: debt and development, trade, democracy and human rights, the drug trade, the environ- ment and migration. If the book has a central theme, it is that "strategic denial"-the refusal to allow European powers access to Latin American markets-from President Monroe to the present, has always been the cornerstone of U.S. policy in the region. From this perspective, the end of the Cold War throws traditional policy into a state of crisis, creating new dilemmas and opportunities for policymakers. The policy studies in particular probably reflect the thinking of the left wing of the Clinton Administration. Western Hemisphere Immigra- tion and United States Foreign Policy edited by Christopher Mitchell, Penn- sylvania State University Press, 1992, 314 pp., $45.00 (cloth), $14.95 (paper). These essays examine the connec- tion between U.S. foreign policy and immigration to the United States from Mexico, Central Am- erica and the Caribbean. The authors-not surprisingly-find that U.S. immigration policy is typically an extension of U.S. for- eign policy. In an interesting essay on Cuban immigration, for exam- ple, Jorge Dominguez discusses the interplay between Cuban emi- gration policy and the role of U.S. administrations in determining that migration flow over the past three decades. While the perspectives reflected in this collection are fair- ly mainstream-there is no real debate here-the book does a nice job of widening the usual context of discussion. Stolen Continents: The "New World" Through Indian Eyes Since 1492 by Ronald Wright, Houghton Mifflin, 1992, 424 pp., $22.95 (cloth), $12.95 (paper). Wright takes on the ambitious task of retelling the history of the Americas since the fifteenth centu- ry from the perspective of the hemisphere's indigenous peoples. In Cut Stones and Crossroads: A Journey in Peru and Time Among the Maya, Wright wrote scintillat- ing contemporary travelogue. Here, he cobbles together a narra- tive history from post-Columbian native documents recently un- earthed by scholars. Wright focuses on five indige- nous groups: the Iroquois, the Cherokee, the Aztec, the Maya and the Inca. He divides the book into three chronological sections: the Conquest, the colonial period, and post-independence. The earlier sec- tions make for compelling reading as Wright weaves together excerpts from Indian texts, often eerily for- mal as the writers grapple with the foreign tongue, and evocative descriptions of the Indians' world view and the destruction wrought by the Spaniards. Readers versed in the contempo- rary history of these indigenous peoples are perhaps best advised to skip the last section which deals with more recent events. Wright boils down great masses of materi- al, leaving a desiccated account heavy on rhetoric and light on telling detail. The Making of Social Move- ments in Latin America: Identi- ty, Strategy, and Democracy edited by Arturo Escobar and Sonia E. Alvarez, Westview Press, 1992, 383 pp., $59.95 (cloth), $18.95 (paper). The so-called "lost decade" of the 1980s in Latin America saw the rise of diverse forms of organized resistance, and an accompanying outpouring of academic analysis about the phenomena. Escobar and Alvarez have assembled some of the best writing on the subject. The editors include both articles which emphasize the construction of new identity, and those which are concerned with practical ques- tions of strategy and democratiza- tion. The collection has a balanced representation of authors from North America and Latin America. The diversity of forms of collective action in the hemisphere is reflect- ed in the case studies, among them the gay, urban, ethnic and ecologi- cal movements. Of particular note is an article joint-authored by four scholars which tracks the evolving concerns of the women's move- ment as manifested in the region's biannual feminist Encuentros. A Chronicle of Death Foretold: The Jesuit Murders in El Salvador by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 330 Seventh Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10001, February 1993, 367 pp., $15.00 (paper). This is a summary report on the murder of six Jesuit priests, their cook, and her young daughter in San Salvador in November, 1989. The report provides detailed accounts of the crime and the ensu- ing investigation, presents evi- Continued on page 48 Vol XXVI, No 5 May 1993 47 Vol XXVI, No 5 May 1993 47IN REVIEW dence of a carefully orchestrated cover-up by Salvadoran investiga- tors, and implicates U.S. officials both at the embassy and in Wash- ington in the failure to bring the perpetrators to justice. This is the tenth in a series of reports on the assassination prepared by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, which also served as legal counsel to the Jesuits on the case. Nine suspects were eventually charged in the case and stood trial in September, 1991. Two officers were convicted, including Col. Guillermo Benavides of the elite U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion, the corps found to have committed the murders. Seven others, including the confessed triggerman, were acquitted. In spite of this unprece- dented (for El Salvador) conviction of a high-ranking officer in a human-rights case, the report alleges that a large number of sus- pects were not brought to trial, including Air Force General Juan Raphael Bustillo, who ordered the murders after he was flown to El Salvador from the United States in a private plane co-piloted by for- mer CIA agent Felix Rodriguez. Lt. Col. Manuel Antonio Rivas Mejia, of the U.S.-created and financed Special Investigative Unit (SIU) of the Salvadoran mili- tary, interviewed Col. Benavides in December, 1989 in the compa- ny of three U.S. diplomats. During Benavides' subsequent trial, the court was never provided with a transcript of this interview. When Lt. Col. Rivas was himself impli- cated in the cover-up, the U.S. embassy protected him against an indictment. U.S. officials never provided investigators with important testi- mony that a U.S. Army officer gave the FBI, and interfered in the trial testimony of another of the military advisors. A criminal investigator brought in by the U.S. embassy concluded that there was evidence to support the claim that the murders were the result of a broad-based conspiracy, but his report was never made available to Salvadoran investigators. The Lawyers Committee report also provides evidence possibly linking Vice President Francisco Merino to the murders. It also details the active role of the Cris- tiani government in the cover-up. Even though the trial and convic- tion of the two officers was an important step towards the estab- lishment of the rule of law in El Salvador, the case also places the need for judicial reform in sharp relief. In vindication of these findings, the United Nations' Truth Com- mission (investigating human- rights violations in El Salvador) found "substantial proof" that Defense Minister Gen. Rend Emilio Ponce and other members of the military high command ordered the actions taken by mem- bers of the Atlacatl Battalion. The U.N. report underscores charges by Congressman Moakley that U.S. embassy officials warned Gen. Ponce that he was a suspect, there- by giving him time to pressure a key witness to change his story. The report also calls for the imme- diate replacement of the members of the Supreme Court, and cites Dr. Mauricio Guti6rrez Castro, president of the court, for unpro- fessional conduct. iGracias! A Latin American Journal by Henri Nouwen, Orbis Books, Maryknoll Press, 1993, 188 pp., $10.95 (paper). iGracias! is a compilation of the daily journal entries that the Dutch priest and theologian Henri Nouwen made while he lived among the people of Bolivia and Peru for six months in an attempt to carve out a vocation on behalf of the poor of Latin America. Drawing heavily on ideas of the seminal liberation theologian Gus- tavo Guti6rrez, Nouwen writes that those involved in liberation strug- gle in Latin America need to value and embrace the qualities of soft- ness and gentleness. Nouwen also poses a crucial question: what is an appropriate and effective level of solidarity for someone outside the native culture? As a white Euro- pean protected in many ways from the disease and deprivation which is a fact of life for the poor of Peru and Bolivia, Nouwen asks himself if he can ever enter into full com- munity with them. Nouwen adopts an attitude of humility and respectful deference. Again and again he writes that he has much more to learn from the people of Peru and Bolivia than they from him. Nouwen is refresh- ingly different from historical Christian missionaries in his insis- tence that the greatest service he can perform is not to impose his agenda onto the communities of the oppressed, but to receive the gifts that the people of Latin America have to give to him and to the rest of the world. The move- ment of wisdom, Nouwen writes, is from south to north. Nouwen's occasional Christo- centrism, one of the few weakness- es in the volume, is balanced by his numerous journal entries affirming the value of indigenous religiosity. He seems pulled between the arrogance of the tradi- tional Catholic missionary agenda and his own respect and admiration for the people and their own cul- tural expressions. -G. Derrick Hodge Benedita Da Silva video by Eunice Gutman, 1990, color, 29 mins, $250 (sale), $50 (rental), Cinema Guild. A profile of Brazil's first black female member of Congress. The film includes music, testimonial, interviews with neighbors and sup- porters, scenes from the favela, and campaign footage of her run for Congress. There is also some frank discussion of racism in contempo- rary Brazil.
