You’re wasting your cash, U.S. told

Press, 27 April 1983, Page 8

You’re wasting your cash, U.S. told

NZPA-Reuter San Salvador Leftist guerrillas have dismissed Reagan Administration moves to bolster El Salvador’s United Statesbacked Government with more military aid as a “useless waste of funds.” The rebel Radio Venceremos said that no amount of military aid could save the Salvadorean armed forces from its inevitable defeat and would only add to the suffering of the people.

In a broadcast on the eve of President Ronald Reagan’s appearance tomorrow before a special session of Congress to press for an extra SUS6O million (?NZ9O million) in military aid for El Salvador, Radio Venceremos said: “Remember, we are not alone in this war. You yourselves will be digging your grave if you interfere.” Guerrillas have launched a new drive in recent weeks to topple the Right-wing Government. About 40,000 people have been killed in the Central American State since the civil war began in earnest in 1980.

In Washington an influential United States congressman, Clarence Long, returned from a visit to El Salvador and said that approvaJSgf the extra military

aid would hinge on Mr Reagan’s appointing a highlevel El Salvador peace negotiator. He described El Salvador’s Army as a “wet noodle,” saying that it required intensive training to turn it into an effective fighting force. Mr Long, chairman of the House of Representatives foreign operations appropriations sub-committee, which can veto all or part of Mr Reagan’s extra aid request, spent two days in El Salvador talking to Government leaders. He said on returning to Washington yesterday: “My theory is, you’re not going to get any kind of (peace) agreement unless the guerrillas feel they have to come to the conference table. “In other words, you need not only a carrot but a stick. And the stick’s got to be more than a ‘wet noodle,’ which is what it’s been in the past.” Before leaving San Salvador, the little country’s capital, he said he was convinced that the guerrillas would be unable to topple the Government even if the extra aid was not forthcoming. A more likely scenario, he said, was a Right-wing .military coup followed a

bloodbath which would destroy all chances of finding a peace solution in El Salvador.

Earlier yesterday, the White House said that the situation in Central America was critical and that Mr Reagan would urge Americans to support his policy of opposing Marxism there.

Mr Reagan will address a joint session of congress tomorrow in a bid to reverse cuts voted by a Congressional committee in military aid to El Salvador and to defend his view that Nicaragua and Cuba are backing Left-wing guerrillas in Central America.

The White House Deputy Press Secretary, Mr Larry Speakes, said that there was a critical situation which justified Mr Reagan’s decision to make a rare appearance before a joint session of Congress, normally convened only in an emergency or to hear a Presidential state of the union address.

Mr Speaßes said that a shipment of arms said by Brazilian authorities to have been on the way to Central America on four Libyan planes which had stopped to refuel in Brazil last week, “is only the tip of the iceberg in a campaign to exploit poverty and instability.”