E1 Salvador on brink or mass uprising?

Press, 2 April 1980, Page 24

E1 Salvador on brink or mass uprising?

DES CASEY discusses the plight of El Salvador, in Central America, after the murder last month of Archbishop Romero.

The spark that finally exploded last year into a mass uprising in Nicaragua against 40 years of repressive Somoza rule, was' kindled by the assassination of Pedro Chamorro, publisher of the opposition newspaper, “La Prensa.” A similar spark may well have been kindled in another Central American country, El Salvador, where the Roman Catholic Archbishop, Oscar. Amulfo Romero, was gunned down as he prepared to offer mass on March 24. He died soon afterwards. ' Traditionally, as throughout Latin America, the Catholic Church in El Salvador supports the established order. But minorities within the church have been changing that. For example, Jesuit priests in El Salvador’ have been assisting . ordinary people and condemning the wealth and brutality of the ruling elite. In June, 1977, the Rightist group, White Warriors Union,, .threatened to execute 47 Jesuits if they

did not leave the country. They stayed, and some have since joined the list of people detained, tortured and murdered.

Archbishop Romero, while condemning violence in general, announced himself as an outspoken watchdog for justice and for the rights of the poor, thereby making clear where his sympathies lay.

The Archbishop had been in flagrant opposition to the Government, and even though, he had taken a more moderate tone since a new junta came to power last October, he continued to speak -out on behalf of the poor. After a British Parliamentary delegation visited EL Salvador in 1978 to investigate the deprivation of human rights there, 118 British Parliamentarians nominated the Archbishop for the .Nobel Peace Prize. El Salvador has been close to a Nicaragua-like showdown for some time. On October 15,. last year, in the

name of “a new and just society,” a few colonels toppled the repressive regime of General Humberto Romero. In retrospect it would seem to have been little more than an attempt to appease the population. Promising that this was a coup with a difference, the new Government announced future free elections, freedom for political prisoners, and social and land reform. Organisations calling for change, including the 80,000strong Popular Revolutionary Bloc, believe that the structure of land-holding and foreign investment will not be altered; that the harsh conditions of peasants and workers will continue unchanged. The evidence'of the past six months confirms this. Like all the military dictatorships of the past 47 years, the present one represents the upper classes, the landowners, and foreign companies, chiefly from the United States.

Opposition to the Government has a broad base, for the majority have nothing to lose in a showdown except their misery. El Salvador, more class conscious than most Central American

countries, with a population of 4.8 million, is the most densely populated in the region. Three-quarters of the land is held by 10 per cent of the people.. One per cent of the population — mainly the renowmed “fourteen families” of Spanish, Jewish, British and Dutch descent, who, with United States investors, own almost all the coffee, cotton, sugar, phosphates and land — controls the Government.

El Salvador is a country of unemployed (over 35 per cent) and landless people (80 per cent). The average daily factory wage is under $2. Agricultural workers (the peasants), dependent on the seasonal work of the coffee and cotton harvests, earn 30 cents an hour ($2.40 a day). Moves by workers for an increase to 56 cents an hour in July, 1977, were called a “communist conspiracy” by the Defence Minister At the moment, leading elements of the political Right are calling for a “1932 solution” to the current political unrest among the people. Revolutionary activity reached a peak during the international financial crash in 1929. Thousands were unemployed and starved. In January, 1932, a mass uprising of peasants lasted fohr days. By the time the American ship, Rochester, sent to “protect United States interests,” reached El Salvador, Government forces had crushed the revolt leaving 6000 dead. The figure quickly rose to 30,000 during a systematic effort to wipe out all opposition. Overt interference from

the United States Is unlikely at the moment, but the Carter Administration has made clear its support for the Government. El Salvador is a paradise for United States companies. With a huge unemployment pool to draw from, they are able to pay workers 10 times less than they pay American workers. During the current recession in the United States this factor has been used by some companies as a threat to United States workers. The spoken intention is clear — "If you push for higher wages, we are off to Central America, and you lose your job.” El Salvador is on the brink of what some will call a civil war. Many of El Salvador’s people would call it a national war of liberation — a war for freedom from a powerful, wealthy and oppressive elite, and freedom from United States economic, and sometimes political, control. It remains to be seen whether Archbishop Romero’s death will be a catalyst for a mass uprising, or for the advent of renewed repression and the continuance of an extremely unequal distribution of El Salvador’s wealth.