The Blindness of Bush

THE Bush administration continues to be blind to the human rights abuses perpetrated by the right-wing regime we support in El Salvador. Even after the arrest of a U.S. church worker in San Salvador earlier this week, the administration unswervingly insists that the battle against communism in El Salvador has priority over the well-being of pacifist American citizens in the region.

The Salvadoran military's arrest last Sunday of Jennifer Jean Casolo was almost spectacularly set up. A graduate of Brandeis University who served as a liason between visiting international officials and political groups in El Salvador Casolo was widely known as a devoted religious worker who played by the stringent political rules. Days after receiving an obscene and threatening phone call, the 28-year-old church worker found herself accused of hiding a huge cache of arms for the leftist guerillas.

Explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition were allegedly uncovered behind her house, in a back yard described as "the size of a postage stamp" by her employer, John Blatz of the Texas-based Christian Education Programs. Moreover, the arms were out-of-date and less sophisticated than the weapons usually used by the rebels.

THE arrest comes at a time when the right-wing government, officially led by President Alfredo Cristiani but increasingly influenced by extreme right-wing politicians and death squads, has come under international attack for the escalation of human rights violations. Since a fierce rebel offensive began two weeks ago, the military and the right wing have responded with violent attacks on human rights organizations and trade union, indiscriminate bombings on poor villages, and harassment of religious workers. The most notorious of recent events was the murder and mutilation of six priests, their cook and her fifteen-year-old daughter at the hands of the military.

While North Americans begin to build a consensus on the need to cut off military aid to El Salvador--aid that now amounts to $1.4 million dollars per day--Cristiani has desperately tried to deflect attention away from the recent abuses. Last week he broke all diplomatic and commercial ties with Nicaragua, which he claims is supplying arms and training to the guerrillas. He also announced his refusal to attend the next round of Central American peace talks, scheduled to be held in Nicaragua.

But the arrest of Jennifer Casolo is Cristiani's trump card. It is an attempt to prove to Bush that even those North Americans who peacefully or silently protest the right-wing government are implicit and explicit supporters of the guerrillas. Cristiani's message applies not only to religious and humanitarian workers in El Salvador, but to all of us here who would like to see the end of U.S. financing of the decade-long civil war.

IT is shameful, but probably not all that surprising, that the Bush Administration has responded to Cristiani's blackmail with an indifference bordering on approval. Our government has obligations to defend arrested U.S. citizens abroad. But last week White House spokesperson Marlin Fitzwater announced: "There are clear indications of her involvement, that's for certain...It's fairly clear that those weapons were found there."

These remarks are reminiscent of Jeane Kirkpatrick's condemnation of the four U.S. nuns raped and murdered by the Salvadoran military in 1980. The nuns, claimed Kirkpatrick, weren't "ordinary" church workers, but "subversives."

Nine years and billions of dollars later, our blindness and ignorance have contributed ot the deaths of more than 70,000 Salvadorans. Now that a U.S. citizen has been virtually taken hostage in El Salvador--if found guilty in a trial, Casola could face up to 25 years in a Salvadoran prison--a little sympathy, not to say defense, might be appropriate. Instead of this, however, the Bush administration has done everything it can to stack the deck against Casola, and in doing so, has bowed again to the mandates of a repressive government.