Senate panel puts tight curbs on Salvador aid

Press, 13 May 1981, Page 9

Senate panel puts tight curbs on Salvador aid

NZPA-Reuter Washington

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted yesterday to impose strict curbs on continuing American military aid to El Salvador over the objections’of the Secretary of State (Mr Alexander Haig).

But in an acknowledgement of . the Administration’s aim to forge a new friendly relationship with the Argentine Government of President Roberto Viola, the committee avoided putting bindug conditions* on resuming arms aid and sales to Argentina. The two actions, both taken by 11-1 votes, came as the committee drafted a foreign aid bill for 1982. The El Salvador aid limits were similar to those voted last week by the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, which is also working on the aid bill. The amendment,_ proposed

by a Connecticut Democrat, Christopher Dodd, would require an aid cut-off and withdrawal of American military advisers from El Salvador unless the President certifies at six-month intervals that:

— The Salvador Government is making substantial progress in controlling violations of human rights and has achieved substantial control over elements of its security force; and, — The Salvadorean Government is making continued progress in implementing economic and political reforms, is committed to holding early free elections and has shown willingness to negotiate with opposition groups which have renounced military or paramilitary activity. Fifty six American miliS advisers are in El Sal>r and the Reagan Administration proposes $26 million in military aid next year. In a letter to the commit-

tee, Mr Haig warned that Salvadorean guerrillas would conclude from the amendment that they could force an end to American aid by stepping up the level of violence. •

He said that imposing rigid requirements would seriously limit President Ronald Reagan’s ability to deal with situations such as that in El Salvador.

The committee chairman, Charles Percy, acknowledged pressure from electors on the American involvement in El Salvador, saying responsible Americans needed : assurances to be able to support the Administration’s policies there. “In this kind of a case we (the senators) are really on the firing line,” he said. In another letter to the committee, Mr Haig strongly opposed attaching conditions to lifting the 1978 ban on American arms sales and military aid to Argentina, imposed because of violations of human rights.

He said the Administration sought the ban’s repeal because of the strategic need for some military sales to Argentina. The bafr was an example of a double standard on human rights in which other violators were not penalized. He said rights problems still existed but that there had been significant improvements in the situation.

An amendment proposed by Senator Claiborne Pell stated that before the ban could be lifted the President would have to -certify to Congress that the Argentine Goverment had made every effort to account for the more than 3000 persons who disappeared after being seized during security crackdowns.

The panel adopted a bipartisan substitute proposal merely requiring a report that Argentina had made significant progress on rights, with particular attention to the issue of the missing persons. ,