They went places other delegations have never gone and got closer to the war than most members of the U.S. Embassy are ever able or willing to do. Washington Post Delegations come and go in El Sal- vador. Their visits coincide with the twice-a-year certification of the Salva- dorean government by the U.S. ad- ministration for continued military and economic assistance. They usually are called 'fact-finding missions' in the news and 'dog and pony shows' out of print because of their seeming superficiality. Elected officials and other distinguished vis- itors often seem to bring the answers with them, spend a day or so in whirl- wind meetings with local dignitaries, and then catch the next plane to Washington for the obligatory press conference for or against U.S. aid. The Commission on U.S.-Central American Relations caught reporters and many officials by surprise. Al- though its members did meet with embassy and government officials, their conversations were unusually di- rect and often confrontational. Most of their time was spent in prisons and refugee camps, and in conversation with peasants along the road outside the capital in dangerous war zones. Dallas Times Herald You know, this was really a hard- hitting group. They made a lot of jaws drop around this town. U.S. Embassy official We arrive at Tocotin Interna- tional Airport at dusk on January 18, an eclectic group of twenty Americans expecting to see ma- chine gun-toting soldiers behind every pillar. There are none. On the long drive to the capital, we hide our nervousness by com- menting on rock formations, while someone asks if this is the road where the nuns were killed. Mar/Apr 1983 MASH's Mike Farrell visits refugee camp. Ed Feighan, freshman con- gressman from Cleveland and member of our delegation, is met at the airport by Embassy staff and whisked away in a bullet-proof car. He is told they can't guaran- tee his safety at our hotel, and the rest of us take bets on whether the Congressman will yield to Embas- sy pressures to stay elsewhere. It's my second trip to El Salva- dor with the Commission on U.S.- Central American Relations, and this time I'm one of the coordina- tors of "Risky Tours, Inc.," as we call these twice-yearly trips. It's easy to become numb to the hor- rors of El Salvador. This visit with people seeing it for the first time, would reopen old wounds. At the Camino Real hotel, we are greeted by the U.S. press corps, eager to judge if our dele- gation is "a story." They seem surprised to see that our group includes singer Mary Travers and Mike Farrell, B.J. of M*A*S*H fame. Inexplicably, the Embassy has announced that they dropped out at the last minute. Our waylaid Congressman turns up later that night, having declined the Em- bassy's offers. For the next four days, we shut- tle between meetings with gov- ernment leaders and generals, on the one hand, and those we come to perceive as their victims, on the other: refugees from the Army's "clean-up" operations in the countryside, political prisoners, mothers of the disappeared--and teen-age soldiers with only the vaguest idea of what they are fighting for or against. The emo- tional acrobatics involved are draining. To translate General Garcia's lies into English with a straight face is no easy task. But to convey a sense of some of what 43 Eupdate . update * update * update we experienced is far more dif- ficult. Showcase Prisons "I bet you've never seen a pri- son that nice in the United States," an Embassy officer told me that evening over cocktails. We had expected dungeons on our morning visit to Mariona men's prison, and instead we found spa- cious courtyards, crowded but clean cell blocks and an apparent atmosphere of freedom inside pri- son walls. Mariona's 726 political prisoners are kept apart from the "common criminals"; they are al- lowed to roam freely inside the compound from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.- to play soccer in the courtyard, run on a make-shift track or hold meetings in the office of the Politi- cal Prisoners' Committee. No wonder the government arranged our visit. El Salvador's prisons are its pride. Inside the office of the Political Prisoners' Committee, posters taped to cinderblock walls show the slain archbishop, Oscar Ro- mero, Che Guevara, flowers blooming from the barrel of a gun. We are introduced to the Commit- tee's directorate-a school teach- er, a factory worker, a trade union leader, an economist and others. They begin their presentation with a warning. "Don't be taken in by these sur- roundings and by our existence," says Carlos Molina, an economist and member of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR), arrest- ed in October 1982. "We're just the tip of the iceberg-the part the government wants you to see. But what about the thousands that have been assassinated? What about the disappeared? They want you to believe that now they are taking prisoners instead of kil- ling people. In fact, they are doing 44 both." The prisoners have created seven committees to cope with prison life: a cultural committee that has organized a chorus, poe- try readings, theatrical skits; a disciplinary committee; recrea- tion; political education; clean- up; and so forth. Douglas Ramirez, a high school teacher and mem- ber of the teachers' union ANDES, is in charge of the prisoners' legal committee. Ramirez reads from a sheath of papers prepared by his commit- tee: 35% of the political prisoners at Mariona are under 20 years of age; 45% are urban workers, 21% are students and only 5% are peasants (people from the rural areas never make it alive to the prisons, we are told). Out of a sample of 550 prisoners, 379 have been there for more than six months-the period, according to the state of seige decrees, in which formal charges must be filed. Only 76 prisoners have had charges brought against them. "Supposedly we have the right to legal counsel," says Ramfrez, "but no lawyer has access to our cases." Another prisoner, a teacher, shows us what happened to him before he reached the jail. Hide- ous scars cross his face, chest, and back, the product of hydro- chloric acid. "They threatened to burn out my eyes," he says, "un- less I confessed to being a sub- versive." The stories vary only in the method of torture applied-elec- tric shocks, hot metal bars, mock executions. Almost all the prison- ers say they were "arrested" by armed men in civilian clothes, blindfolded and taken to secret interrogation centers. From there, after a few days or weeks de- pending on the case, they were taken to the headquarters of one of El Salvador's three security forces for further questioning- and physical abuse. (Most of the men we spoke to at Mariona say they were tortured at NACLA staffer Janet Shenk translates during meeting in office of Political Prisoners' Committee inside Mariona men's prison. Seated from left: Marge Tabankin, former head of Vista; prisoner; Rep. Ed Feighan (D-OH). Poster captions read, from left: "Monsignor Romero, you live on in the struggles of our people"; "Mother, your imprisoned son will be liberated by the people"; "To love in times of war." NACLA Report Eupdate update update update E Folk singer Mary Travers sings for the inmates at Mariona men's prison at their request. the hands of the National Police. The Director of the National Po- lice, Colonel L6pez Nuila, is a member of the government's newly appointed Human Rights Commission. He failed to appear at our meeting with that Commis- sion.) It was wrenching to leave these men-fearing they may be pun- ished for having spoken so frank- ly. Bernab4 Recinos, a legendary figure in El Salvador's trade union movement, imprisoned since Au- gust 1980, asks us to hug his wife. We'll be seeing her that afternoon at Ilopango, El Salvador's wo- men's jail. The Road to UauIautan The guerrillas' FM station, Radio Venceremos, had issued a travel advisory the night before, telling civilians to stay off the roads from dawn to dusk. But we are eager to escape the artificial calm of the capital and decide to travel with seasoned journalists to Usulutin, the capital of El Salvador's richest Mar/Apr 1983 agricultural province. White towel flying from the an- tennae of our van, a PRENSA ban- ner taped to its side, we proceed cautiously over a narrow, swaying railroad bridge to cross the Lem- pa River into Usulutdn. A hundred yards down river, the once grace- ful Puente de Oro, El Salvador's most modern suspension bridge, stands as a monument to the skills of the FMLN and the Army's lack of vigilance. It was blown up a year ago and now its remains reach into the river like two giant claws. The two-hour drive to UsulutAn takes us on a road lined with top- pled power lines (the region has been without electricity for two years) and burned-out trucks. One element of the FMLN's strategy is to prevent the government from reaping much-needed foreign exchange revenues from the cot- ton, coffee and cane crops. We are told the guerrillas rarely burn crops in the field, so that farm- workers won't lose their pay. But every truck carrying goods to market is a slow-moving target. We talk with fieldhands on a cotton plantation turned into a co- operative by the agrarian reform. "Life was better when the old patr6n was around," they say. "At least he was rich. Now the banks won't give us credit and the cotton weighs less because we can't buy fertilizer." What are you most afraid of? "The planes," they say, referring to the U.S.-supplied A- 37s used regularly by the Army to bomb guerrilla strongholds. As they leave the fields to go home, the workers walk in a pack along the highway, carrying a big white flag. Our trip to and from Usulutin was uneventful-except for when we paused briefly to wait for a small skirmish up ahead to end. But less than a week after our trip, the rickety railroad bridge was no more. Every town on the highway had been taken over, at least tem- porarily, by the FMLN, and Usulu- tbn was surrounded. 45update . update * update * update A Call for Dialogue If one thing had changed since my last trip to El Salvador, it was that more and more people in what the U.S. government likes to tout as El Salvador's "center," be- lieve that only through dialogue can the war be ended. The call for direct talks between the government, the armed forces and the rebels was issued last October by the FDR-FMLN, El Salvador's united political and armed opposition. Today, it is echoed by the Catholic Church, major trade union federations and even a small minority within the Army. It is clear to everyone willing or able to admit it that the Army is not winning the war; that its morale is low and slipping-partly as a re- sult of the guerrillas' new policy of releasing captured soldiers to the International Red Cross. (A local Army commander told us, "Every released soldier is a soldier lost, not a soldier gained. They've been brain-washed.") It is equally clear that the March 1982 elections did nothing to im- prove conditions or create a cli- mate for peace. We met with trade union leaders representing con- struction workers, public and municipal employees, rural co- operatives and professional as- sociations. Their members are among the 1.4 million said to have voted in the March elections; they now say they were a hoax and that new elections must be preceded by a dialogue with the FDR-FMLN. The word "dialogue" was whis- pered six months ago. It is now the subject of sharp and open debate. "It's humiliating for us to admit it," said a university profes- sor. "But what happens in Wash- ington is more important than what happens here. Without Washing- ton's pressure, there can never be dialogue-or peace." The Commission on U.S.-Central American Relations is a project of the Center for Development Policy. For further information, write to the Com- mission at 1826 18th St. N W., Wash- ington, D.C. 20009.
