Subject: U.N. Lead Embargo Drives Iraq to Point of Collapse
U.N.-led embargo drives Iraq
to point of collapse
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
At the mid-September meeting of the United
Nations Security Council, the Permanent Five members, as
expected, pushed through an extension of the four-year-old
embargo against Iraq. As expected, Russia, China, and
France voiced dissenting views, expressing their interest
in resuming trade with Iraq. Yet all three, predictably,
acquiesced in the end to the dictate of the U.K. and U.S.
delegations and declined to make use of their veto rights.
What was {unexpected} in the U.N. session was the
meeting which French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe@aa held
with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz on the
sidelines. Although Baghdad's leading diplomat had
reportedly met French officials discreetly during visits
to Paris this year, this is the first time that a
high-ranking member of the French government has publicly
met with him. Juppe@aa told the French press that he thought
the international community should take into consideration
progress made in Iraq's compliance with U.N. resolutions.
He added that he thought ``immobilism'' on the part of the
U.N. would only push Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to
``intransigence.''
The French foreign minister's de facto call for
lifting the embargo marks the first time a member of the
Permanent Five has openly broken ranks. Behind the scenes,
however, intensive diplomacy has been carried out with the
Iraqis by Russia, China, France, and Turkey, aimed at
defining bilateral trade deals, to be implemented as soon
as the sanctions are lifted. Last June, the French signed
a contract in Paris with an Iraqi delegation headed by the
oil minister, for reconstruction of the Nahr Umar oil
field, and for exploitation of other oil reserves.
Following a visit to Baghdad by German parliamentarian
Hans Sterken in June, Bonn also discovered that while it
was scrupulously adhering to the embargo, every other
major European and Asian country had been packing
industrialists off to Iraq to restore trade ties,
effectively cutting out the Germans.
The boldest initiative in this direction was taken by
the Russians, who announced just prior to the U.N.
Security Council meeting, that they had signed an
ambitious $10 billion agreement with Iraqi Trade Minister
Mohammad Mehdi Saleh during a visit to Moscow. According
to the Sept. 11 {Jordan Times,} the oil-for-technology
deal will have Russia help build steel, methanol, and
other industrial facilities, including rebuilding the oil
industry hit by the war. A plan to repay Iraq's old $7
billion debt to Russia was also reportedly worked out.
Publicizing the deal is tantamount to announcing
Russia's intentions to buck the Security Council's
fanatical commitment to the blockade. Russian Foreign
Economic Relations Minister Oleg Davydov was quoted
saying, ``There is nothing that bars the exchange of
bilateral trade, as Russia is exporting some equipment to
Iraq, including combine harvesters.'' Davydov told
reporters that the deal could be implemented immediately.
Around the Security Council gathering, reports
circulated that Rolf Ekeus, of the U.N. Special
Commission, had ascertained Iraq's compliance with all
resolutions concerning the dismantling of weapons of mass
destruction. Thus, it was a matter of ironing out the
technical details related to long-term surveillance
procedures. The Arab press reported that Tariq Aziz would
extend his visit to New York, precisely to work out such
details. It would seem that the stage had been set for the
Security Council to relent, at least designating a time
frame within which the surveillance procedures should be
tested.
The counteroffensive to these hints toward relaxing
sanctions was not slow in coming. The most vitriolic
attack issued from the pen of Kenneth Timmerman, a former
staffer on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and
author of {The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq,} who
has led a journalistic crusade against Iraq since 1990.
Timmerman's piece, which appeared in the {Wall Street
Journal} on Sept. 28, snarled that Juppe@aa had lent precious
political support to Iraq. He continued, detailing the
behind-the-scenes deals which Iraq's former trade partners
have worked out over the past months. Timmerman's argument
ran, that although the eager trade partners claimed to be
stimulated by economic interest, in reality they were
gearing up to re-arm Saddam Hussein, thus endangering all
neighboring nations in the region. Timmerman's
recommendation was clearcut: ``Continue with sanctions
until Saddam has been truly defeated.''
At the same time, the British Broadcasting Corp.
(BBC) announced the publication of a new CIA report,
issued by agency chief James Woolsey. In it, the U.S.
intelligence agency warned that Iraq, despite U.N.
occupation and search-and-destroy operations over the last
four years, still possessed huge supplies of weapons of
mass destruction. The London {Times} on Sept. 28, reported
that Woolsey was ``concerned that Iraq has more than 7,000
nuclear scientists and engineers, the largest pool of
scientific and technical expertise in the Arab world.''
The question that must be posed is, why the fanatical
adherence to the embargo policy on the part of the
British, their U.S. allies in the Bush camp, and their
vehicle, the U.N.? If Iraq has complied with all U.N.
resolutions (over 20 have been passed), its weapons
production facilities have been shut down and will be
monitored, and its economy is on the verge of breakdown,
why continue with the embargo? The answer usually given by
the sanctions lobbyists such as Timmerman, is that ``Saddam
must step down.'' Yet, such lobbyists would acknowledge in
private that even if the Iraqi President were to be
replaced, that would not suffice; what is sought is an
overthrow of the Baath Party regime {and the policies
which go along with it.}
To fully grasp the true strategic aim behind the
aggression in the Persian Gulf war and the embargo, one
must review highlights of the history of modern Iraq's
successful attempt to establish a model of
industrialization for the developing sector. It is only in
this light that concern about Iraq's ``7,000 nuclear
scientists and engineers, the largest pool of scientific
and technical expertise in the Arab world,'' makes any
sense at all.
- Iraq's economic success story -
At the time of the 1958 revolution, when a coalition
overthrew the British puppet monarchy, Iraq was an
oil-based economy, with a manufacturing sector limited to
10% of the Gross National Product (GNP). Most of the
country's labor force was engaged in labor-intensive
agriculture, and private capital was concentrated in
trade, land, speculation, and the service sector.@s1 The
social and political institutions of the country were
modelled on those of the colonial power Great Britain, and
they were designed to protect British interests, if
necessary through military intervention.
The creation of an independent state, therefore,
involved institutional reforms, primary among them the
land reform, which divested the British party of their
economic interests. In 1963, after a nationalist and
Baathist coalition came to power, certain economic
changes were introduced, which were to further divest
British-allied interests and bring major components of
Iraq's productive potential under dirigistic control. In
1964, banks, insurance companies, foreign trade, and
certain key industries were nationalized. Yet, at the same
time, the role of private capital and private industry was
not penalized or diminished; on the contrary, it continued
to control 70-80% of trade and manufacturing.
The relationship between the private and the public
sector, which was to become a key factor in Iraq's
astounding development over the next decades, was defined
by a mutually beneficial process. The state would define
and finance projects, especially in infrastructure, which
private industry, particularly small and medium-sized
concerns, would carry out on a contract basis. The
construction industry, called upon to provide housing and
schools, was the best example. Between 1963 and 1969, the
number of private construction companies grew from 3,557,
employing 27,095 workers, to 5,009, with 40,046 workers.
But the same principle applied as well in foreign trade
and other sectors which were dirigistically controlled.
The nationalization of the Iraq Petroleum Company
(IPC) in 1972 under the Baath Party government which had
taken power in 1968, was a turning point in economic
development. Through it the government not only
established true independence, and sovereignty over the
natural resources of the country, but also controlled oil
revenues and their deployment for infrastructure
development.
Even before nationalization, as oil revenues grew, so
did state expenditures, especially for soft
infrastructure, such as public health and education (see
{{Table 1}}). The numbers of employed in large industries
grew correspondingly (see {{Table 2}}). But it was with
nationalization that the Baath strategy of infrastructure
development took off. Oil production increased
dramatically, with investments into technology and
expansion of capacities. Oil production grew from 1.322
million barrels per day (mbd) in 1965 to 2.262 mbd in
1975; the immense increase in revenues due to the
post-1973 oil price rise went to the benefit of the state,
which reinvested them in infrastructure, and to the
population, whose per capita income soared (see {{Table
3}}). This translated into increased buying power for an
internal market which was expanding in its production of
consumer goods.
The key to the entire process was that development
projects, whether domestic or in Third World countries,
were financed by oil revenues and implemented through
private enterprise. For certain big industrial projects,
such as complete plant complexes, foreign companies were
brought in. In the 1970-75 period, these contracts were
worth 682.4 million Iraqi dinars, and in the following
five-year period, grew to 7,134.3 million dinars. This is
the period in which Iraq became a major trading partner in
the region for European and Japanese advanced
technologies. Between 1974 and 1976, some 50% of Iraq's
imports were in capital goods.
Most of the large Iraqi industrial concerns which
emerged to take on infrastructure projects, were
capital-intensive industries, requiring financing in
dimensions which only the state could afford. State
investments became predominant in the 1972-82 period, yet
at the same time, private capital investment continued to
grow at a steady pace; turnover and employment in both
grew in parallel (see {{Table 4}}). Between 1973 and 1974,
investments in all sectors of the economy increased three-
to fourfold. Small enterprises, including family companies
employing only a few people, also benefitted from the
increased expenditures of the state. Between 1974 and
1976, the turnover of these small companies almost
tripled, and the number of workshops increased from 26,332
to 37,669. In 1977, the private sector employed about
130,000, as compared to 105,700 employed by the state
industrial sector. The construction sector, 93.8% of which
was in private hands in 1982, boomed, as the demand for
factories, housing, schools, and hospitals increased.
During the Iran-Iraq war, the government continued to
function as a motor for the domestic economy, and indeed
passed legislation to further enhance the ability of the
private sector to participate in productive activity.
Thus, laws passed in 1982-83 raised the ceiling on private
sector investment from 200,000 to 2 million Iraqi dinars
for limited companies and to 5 million dinars for
corporations. Simultaneously, state-promoted credit was
made readily available through the Industrial Bank,
subsidies were available for raw materials, and machines
could be imported tax free. Furthermore, fiscal policy
encouraged productive investment. Contractors could either
buy machines or lease them from the state at favored
rates, and use them for projects. Usually the state would
pay the contractor 40% of the value of the contract at the
outset, facilitating rapid implementation and privileging
capital-intensive enterprises.
This also held true in the agricultural sector, where
capital-intensive chicken farming, dairy farms, animal
breeding, and so on expanded. Successive land reforms in
1970 and 1975 took holdings of large landowners and
divided them up for distribution or leasing to hundreds of
thousands of farmers. Due to the availability of hard
currency from oil revenues, Iraq tended to rely heavily on
food imports, but reversed this when the Iran-Iraq war
brought home the need for food self-sufficiency. In 1983,
another farm law was passed, giving any citizen the right
to lease unlimited amounts of land from the Agriculture
Ministry, for 5 to 20 years, at low rates. Independent
farmers had recourse as well to credits from the
Agricultural Cooperative Bank.
Iraq's extensive trade with European and Japanese
industries for high-technology capital goods, which had
integrated its economy into that of the advanced sector,
began to suffer during the Iran-Iraq war, when wartime
inflation hit the currency. This took a toll on
infrastructure projects, as well as on payments to foreign
trade partners. Massive foreign indebtedness to finance
the war followed. Still, government policy continued to
stimulate private industrial investment internally through
credit and fiscal measures.
The eight-year war against Iran dealt a heavy blow to
Iraq's economy, but did not destroy it. Despite the $60-80
billion foreign debt burden incurred, the country picked
up its development projects. During the war, it had built
new pipelines through Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to reroute
oil deliveries which were blocked by the hostilities.
Following the war, it set about reconstructing destroyed
infrastructure, continuing the successful policy of
state-financed projects carried out by the public and
private sectors.
Throughout its rapid development process over the
last two decades, Iraq understood its commitment to
technologically advanced industrialization as both a model
and a motor for unleashing the same process throughout the
Arab world, and the developing sector. Thus, from the
1970s in particular, it extended credits for
infrastructure projects to many Third World countries. In
1979, at the Havana conference of the Non-Aligned
Movement, Saddam Hussein introduced a proposal which aimed
at maintaining the pace of industrial investment in
non-oil-producing countries, despite the effects of the
1973 oil price rise. He argued that since developing
countries were being forced to pay higher oil prices,
funds otherwise destined for development were being
diverted. To alleviate this, he proposed that Iraq provide
interest-free loans to those countries, in the amounts
which had been diverted to oil payments, and that they be
earmarked for infrastructure development. He further
proposed that the advanced sector countries pool resources
to replicate the same principle on an international scale.
Iraq's function as an economic motor for developing
countries was largely dependent on its role as a
science-driver. In order to effect the rates of economic
growth which it achieved, it was necessary simultaneously
to build up hard infrastructure and basic industries, and
to educate the population to master the technologies which
an advancing economy assimilated. In 1976, Iraq passed a
law for compulsory and free education. A national,
compulsory literacy campaign, which engaged all government
agencies, brought literacy to the entire population under
the age of 55. Teacher training programs were given top
priority and modern methods, with wide use of computer
technology, were introduced. Primary emphasis was placed
on educating a broad layer of scientists, engineers,
technicians, teachers, doctors, and so on, through
graduate study abroad as well as through institutions of
higher learning in the country itself. This process, too,
was viewed as something to be exported.
Iraq had 12 contracts with other Arab countries for
exchange of teachers and books, and 35 separate agreements
supported 100 educational institutions. These included
Iraqi teachers travelling to Morocco and Algeria; 400
teachers were sent to Yemen to help in the Arabization
process, extending the literacy campaign to other parts of
the Arab world. Missions were undertaken for further
contacts with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Niger, Malaysia, and
many other countries. Two thousand teachers were sent
abroad on these projects, and over 15,000 scholarship
students from abroad studied in Iraq. One million books
per year were printed in Iraq for Yemen before the war, 2
million for Somalia, 500,000 for Tunisia, and tens of
thousands of books were loaned out to other countries.
Included among these were religious texts, which were
donated. Iraq provided funds for the establishment of
religious and educational institutions abroad, including
48 schools for Iraqis abroad. Iraqi scholars attended
hundreds of conferences, and, as a member nation of
Unesco, participated in 400 symposia and courses. Among
Iraq's projects to support Arab countries to develop their
own educational programs, were the Arab Encyclopedia and
Arab Atlas projects. Iraq provided financial support to
offset deficits and build Unesco headquarters in Arab
countries. All this was prior to 1990.@s2
- Embargo policy: enforced entropy -
Against this background, the true character and
intention of the Persian Gulf war and embargo can be
identified. The scenario, candidly announced by a Bush
administration official to be to ``bomb Iraq back to the
Stone Age,'' ran as follows: Bomb major infrastructure, to
cripple the functioning economy; stop the flow of oil
revenues, to block the process of reinvestment; and stop
all technological imports, to bring the technological
level of the economy to a standstill. These three measures
were to suffice to hermetically seal an economic and
social process which had been integrally linked to the
most advanced parts of the world economy. Once thus
isolated, it must rely on internal resources to survive.
Then, prevent food, medical equipment, and medicine
from supplying the population, so as to unleash a
degenerative process which George Bush would call
``downbreeding'': as nutrition levels decline, parallel to
the quality and availability of health care, the
population will become weaker, both physically and
intellectually. Deny access to educational materials,
including the most important--ideas--by isolating the
nation culturally, and thus drive down education
standards. Qualified personnel in all fields, deprived of
the means to apply their knowledge in society, will seek
alternatives abroad. Expert medical personnel will become
rare, and less qualified personnel will be the teachers of
tomorrow's doctors. Ban scientific research to prevent a
generation of ``7,000 nuclear scientists and engineers''
from emerging.
Then, circulate counterfeit currency inside the country to
devalue it, while black market conditions
emerge as a desperate attempt to circulate goods and make
money. Continue psychological warfare through rumor
campaigns, that the embargo will be lifted, just prior to
each U.N. Security Council meeting; then invent new
conditions for the lifting of sanctions. Continue
hammering away at the notion that ``Saddam Hussein is to
blame,'' to alienate the population from its government.
With each round of rumors (including those of coup
attempts, atrocities, perceived threats by neighboring
countries, downed helicopters, etc.), you will further
depress the national currency. Aim at ``dollarizing'' the
economy by rendering the dinar worthless.
Without directly triggering it, a social process will
unfold as a consequence of the combined factors above:
Basic values of the society will be undermined and
replaced by others. The ``private sector'' becomes the black
market; social solidarity will be replaced by survivalism.
Intellectual curiosity will be replaced by the fatalistic
belief that knowledge leads nowhere. Pride in one's work
will turn into bitter toleration of labor for a pittance.
The belief in and commitment to progress will be replaced
by despair that conditions will only worsen.
As the embargo moves into its next month, all these
processes are accelerated. The entire economy is
progressively wound down, as the total energy throughput
is radically decreased. Lower nutrition and lower cultural
``consumption'' produce a labor force less capable of
performing advanced tasks; the technological level of the
economy sinks and with it the quality and quantity of
produced goods.
The intention of the sanctions policy is thus to
reverse the direction of economic-social progress which
had been the policy of the Iraqi government over decades,
and to make that change in direction irreversible. The
intention is to so thoroughly subvert and change the
moral, intellectual character of the citizenry, as to
guarantee that even in a post-embargo environment, it will
not be able or willing to pick up the thread of
development cut in 1991.
If this is allowed to happen, the repercussions will
be felt throughout the region and beyond. If Iraq, the
only truly industrial nation in the region which has
followed a moral economic policy, is forced by the
embargo-triggered disintegration process to be turned into
a flea-market economy, with, perhaps, its national
industries, including oil, taken over and privatized
through the intervention of the International Monetary
Fund, it will be a criminal catastrophe. Such an
eventuality would deal the death blow to the very idea of
peace in the region.
But this is clearly the intention. And unless the
sanctions are lifted immediately, a catastrophe of
unthinkable dimensions will appear on the horizon. It is
an illusion to think that the degenerative process created
by the embargo can continue in a linear fashion. There
comes a point at which the entropic process reaches total
breakdown and a qualitatively new situation ensues: mass
epidemics, mass starvation, total economic and social
disintegration--the death of a nation.
The pro-sanctions faction inside the Security
Council and its hired pens like Timmerman are clearly
anticipating that that point of no return is fast
approaching. Thus, the perspective of ``another six months''
is their gamble that within such a time frame, Iraqi
society--and with it the political leaderhip--will
disintegrate. One veto cast by one member of the Permanent
Five could change the situation. It is naive, perhaps, to
think that any one of these nations will act out of moral
determination to expunge the evil that the sanctions
regime represents. The fact is that unless they do, there
will be no Iraq with which to trade.
{{Notes}}
1. Economic data cited here, unless otherwise
indicated, are taken from {Der Irak seit 1958: Von der
Revolution zur Diktatur,} Marion Farouk-Sluglett und Peter
Suglett Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt, 1991.
2. Data on Iraq's education programs are based on
speeches given at the International Symposium of
Non-Governmental Organizations on the Effects of the
Embargo against Iraq, held in Baghdad Sept. 12-14.
>From Executive Intelligence Review V21 #41.
--
John Covici
covici@ccs.covici.com
#2
Subject: Pete Wilson for Child Mutilation: His Signature
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 23:34:11 GMT
Anyone who respects human life and natural law and dares to
say so will soon find herself at odds with the U.S. Establishment.
I refer here only to the lives of people who are already walking, or
at least crawling, around --excluding the abortion controversy for
the time being.
I present below documentary evidence that Governor Pete Wilson
has committed war crimes for which he deserves to hang under his own
practice. He went out of his way militantly to support the murder
and decapitation of Salvadoran children by puppet troops financed and
controlled by the United States Government under the Reagan & Bush
Administrations. I invite all those who seriously object to such
abominations to join together to form a 'Hang Pete Wilson AFTOC*
Committee.'[*='after a fair trial, of course']. I personally favor
attaching the rope to his left foot and cutting him down when he hollers
for mercy, as I have proposed in a program posted elsewhere. The evidence:
On 6 February 1990 I sent around to several score people "An Open
Letter to Local Notables Urging a Warm Welcome for President G.W.H. [sic]
Bush." It began, "What would you do if a militant mass murderer came to
your hometown for a quasi-public appearance ? Why beat around the Bush ?"
It went on to discuss some details of Bush's war crimes in El Salvador,
including his recommendation of the puppet President Alfredo Cristiani as
"a shining example to all of us." I sent copies to many of the political
officials representing my City of San Francisco. Only Senator Pete Wilson
replied. Below I reproduce in full his letter which I received on 12 May,
followed by my rebuttal with the description of the murder and mutilation
of children by agents of the U.S. Government, followed by Senator Wilson's
final answer:
DOCUMENT #1
UNITED STATES SENATE
Washington, D.C. 20510
May 3, 1990
Dear Mr. Womack,
Thank you for contacting me regarding United States policy
towards El Salvador.
Despite nearly a decade of urban violence, village warfare,
and terrorism, the people of El Salvador have courageously demonstrated
their commitment to establishing a solid, representative government
within their nation. In my opinion, then, U.S. policy must focus on
the expansion of native democratic practices as well as a long-term
economic recovery.
Although El Salvador has endured a brutal communist insurrection
resulting in the erosion of social peace, the destruction of several
export industries, and the devastation of the nation's electrical and
transportation systems, a fragile civilian government has conducted
a total of four open elections since 1984. Furthermore, a peaceful transfer
of authority between two democractically-chosen presidents occurred in
June 1989 for the first time since the beginning of the war.
I am hopeful that the ongoing negotiations between the
Salvadoran government and guerilla representatives will produce a
settlement to end the insurgency. But until the communist leadership in
El Salvador renounces the use of violence as a means of achieving political
victory and states a willingness to participate in the nation's democratic
process, the United States must provide the civilian government with
adequate economic and military aid to prevent a totalitarian regime
from taking power by force.
In addition, I strongly condemn the November 1989 slaying
of six Roman Catholic priests and two other individuals during the
ten-day skirmish between the FMLN guerillas [sic] and the Army in
San Salvador. President Cristiani has made progress in his government's
formal investigation by publicly identifying elements of the military
as the perpetrators of this violent crime against innocent non-combatants.
He must go further, however, to guarantee that everyone associated with
the authorization of these executions is brought to justice.
I also think that this tragedy underscores the need for the
Bush Administration not to ignore Salvadoran human rights violations
through a suspension of U.S. foreign aid , but to apply its political
and economic influence in a matter [sic] that will deter and eventually
eliminate terrorism by all regular and irregular forces throughout
the country.
Neither the government nor the military of El Salvador can
claim a perfect record of respect for human rights, and the United States
has properly undertaken several army training and political education
programs in recent years to dramatically reduce "death squad" activity
and increase police protection of basic civil liberties. Yet the
imperfections of a young democracy struggling under siege from a
violent communist assault do not provide a compelling excuse for the
cessation of American aid. The Salvadoran people depend on the United
States to help them restore and develop their homeland. I believe, therefore,
that a termination of the U.S. program on behalf of El Salvador would
amount to an abdication of our responsibility to a people so tired of
war and so anxious for a stable and free nation.
Thank you once again for expressing your views.
Sincerely,
Pete Wilson {signature}
PW:pm
DOCUMENT #2
Mr. Pete Wilson 13 May 1990
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Sir,
Please accept my earnest congratulations for finally responding
to my letter to you of 5 February concerning U.S. war crimes in
El Salvador. On 12 May I received your answer dated nine days earlier.
Do you usually take three months to reply to your constituents' comments
on urgent issues ? Incidentally, did you mean to say "manner" rather
than "matter" in the last paragraph on the first page ?
I do entirely agree with your statement that "the people of
El Salvador have courageously demonstrated their commitment to
establishing a solid, representative government." You fail, alas, to
understand that the Salvadoran people are determined that their
government shall represent themselves rather than the U.S. empire,
that is, that it be a true Salvadoran government rather than a mere gang of
foreign-financed fascists. This revolutionary resolution has inspired
them to persevere in circumstances that make Valley Forge look like
Great America.
Your argument in favor of continuing the Reagan-Bush policy of
intervention in El Salvador stands on two legs: The right one dances in
celebration of the puppet regime for allegedly conducting "a total of four
open elections since 1984." The left one kicks mud at the rebel patriots,
calling them 'totalitarian communists.' How does the sword of truth deal
with your shaky limbs ? On 17 February 1980, as you should remember,
Archbishop Oscar A. Romero sent a letter to then President Carter making
an eloquent and detailed plea against against further U.S. intervention by
means of military and other support of the junta. He explained that the
letter was "prompted by the proximate danger that military aid represents
for El Salvador and especially by the new concept of special warfare,
which consists in murderously eliminating every endeavor of the popular
organizations under the allegation of communism or terrorism. This type
of warfare means to do away not only with the men directly responsible
but also with their entire families, who in this view are completely
poisoned with such terrorist ideas and must be eliminated. The danger
is serious." (quoted in the magazine AMERICA, 3/24/'90, p. 289)
The 'fragile democrats' to whom you have already sent some
$ 6,000,000,000 from our pockets answered this letter, of course,
by assassinating the archbishop at the altar. I belabor this notorious
fact only because of your obstinacy in refusing to understand it.
Clearly, you need special help to grasp the situation.
Therefore, I enclose for your benefit a recent article by
the Rev. Daniel Santiago, a Catholic priest working in El Salvador.
He tells of the fate of the family of the peasant Chepe and his wife
Tonita who, until two years ago, lived in the village of Santa Lucia
near the volcano of San Vicente. One day before noon Tonita left her
one-room home to carry lunch to her husband and two sons who were
cutting firewood on the mountain. While she was away the National
Guard came to the village. When Tonita returned, she found this
scene: "Seated around a small table in the middle of her house were
her mother, sister and three children. The decapitated heads of all
five had been placed in front of each torso, their hands arranged on
top, as if each body was stroking its own head. This had proven
difficult in the case of the youngest daughter. The difficulty had
been overcome by nailing the hands onto the head. The hammer had been
left on the table. The floor and the table were awash with blood.
In the very center of the taqble was a large plastic bowl filled
with blood...."(ibid., p. 292)
You wrote to me over a month after this story was published
and modestly denied that your protogees "can claim a perfect record
of respect for human rights." Nevertheless, they show a certain flair
for the theatrical gesture. Now, I ask you, with a script like this
can you see how Father Santiago can write: "During quiet moments,
sitting with the poor and sharing a cup of sweet Salvadoran coffee,
one cannot help but notice that when the guerrillas are nearby,
people are relaxed...But when the National Guard, the Army or the
Treasury police enter a village, the terror is palpable. This is
the inescapable truth of El Salvador. It reduces to ash all other
attmepts to interpret this reality." O say, can you see ?
The good father also saw you hopping along on your right
leg. Do you think he had you in mind when he wrote: "Senators have
announced that the Cristiani government was democratically elected
and so deserves American support. But these Senators do not go home
at election time, round up their local supporters and wipe out the
opposition. This has happened with impunity and regularity in El
Salvador." Well, do you ? Have you asked yourself what you have to
fall back on when known, reliable witnesses so cleanly cut off both
the legs of your argument ? Only your tired butt, really, if you hear
what I'm saying. I again call your attention to the fact that these
refutations of your rhetoric were public knowledge before you wrote.
Imagine a man throwing himself in front of a speeding bus: Like
his walk your talk.
After this gentle critique, let's wind up on a note of partial
agreement. You write that Cristiani "must go further, however, to
guarantee that everyone associated with the authorization of these
executions is brought to justice." Two corrections: Especially in
view of your own record and prospects, you should distinguish more
clearly between execution and plain old murder. Also, the American
people form the proper subject of this sentence, rather than the
too-ridiculous-for-words Cristiani. In view of the flagrant facts,
it would be preposterous to describe you, Reagan, Bush, *et al.*
to date as the intellectual authors of anything but a crime. As your
hired soldiers may well have said to Tonita's littlest girl, get this
through your head: I've had more than enough of this shameless,
shit-brained rubbish about murder squads masquerading as a 'struggling
young democracy.' The voices of scores of thousands of martyrs and
of billions of law-abiding people world-wide are calling on us of the
United States to get it together to punish you and your accomplices
according to the law laid down at Nuremburg.
Do you still firmly believe that the big lie will protect you? Do
you even yet have confidence in the power of Medusa's (the propaganda
MEDia of the USA) electronic curtain and paper walls to hide from honest
eyes your atrocious guilt ? Somehow I remember the title of a movie about
the Nazi extermination camps and the people who made them possible; it was
called NACHT UND NEBEL, "NIGHT AND FOG." I myself during the working week
get up well before dawn and from the cab of my train daily see the rising
sun illuminate the heavens and the earth below. I believe that we humans
be at last on the verge of success in our long and often blind struggle to
unify our species under one planetary consitutional government based on
natural law. Already the glorious rays of eternal peace and harmony begin
faintly to lighten the eastern night. In order to sing the sun of destiny
to rise on this new creation we shall need to join strong voices and clean
hands and to share our clear vision as good children of the Third World
from the Sun, as we formally call our Mother Earth. The message = love.
the time has come, Senator, to stop crucifying the Savior. Do you know
how to say that in Spanish ? Unlike a mere bug in a bucket of blood,
you have a soul with which to feel sorrow and a mind to change. Use it
or lose it, take heed !
I deeply appreciate this opportunity for a frank exchange of
views on this important question. For *glasnost i perestroika*,
Sincerely,
Hal Womack {signature}
DOCUMENT #3
On September 28, 1990 Pete Wilson replied to my second letter by
sending me a second copy of his letter of 2 May, identical save for the
date, including the 'matter' error on the first page.
Did he intend by this seemingly mechanical response to instill in
me a sense of the supposedly overwhelming power of his political machine ?
To try to convey that for me to challenge him on any grounds of law,
spirit or fact --even to protest against mass murder and the cruelest
arrogance-- was as for an ant to challenge a tank ? Obviously he relied on
his allies in the propaganda system faithfully to support him. He could
count on the owners of the San Francisco CHRONICLE, the Los Angeles TIMES,
the television stations and KCBS to help him both to bury the littlest
girl in the woods at night and to pursue the survivors. Quite likely at
this date he had already some kind of advance knowledge of Bush's plan to
manufacture a war in the Middle East in order to boost the Republicans'
partisan political position. So to prove his loyalty to his C.I.A.-
President-Chief and to advance his own career he crafted with the coldest
cynicism his strong statement of support for the U.S. Government policy of
massacre, torture and lies in Central America. Little did he foresee the
meaning of the rise of the Net.
From the safety and comfort of his air-conditioned Senate office,
Mr. Wilson chose deliberately and repeatedly, against explicit advice and
warning, to pull his sharp blade across the tender brown throats of
innocent mothers and their children. Surely we should punish him more
severely for these crimes than the draftee soldiers, themselves acting
under threat of death, who executed the orders of their American-trained
officers. Readers seeking more details should see THE MASSACRE AT EL
MOZOTE by Mark Danner, 1994.
I call on all those who are willing to stand up for human life and
for the rule of law to advise me on how best and quickly we can proceed to
satisfy then Senator, now Governor and convicted-felon-to-be Pete Wilson's
expressed desire "to guarantee that everyone associated with the
authorization of these executions [sic] is brought to justice." I ask
my sisters and brothers in that law which sustains all peaceful folk
to take urgent thought on how we can prevent the people of California
from embarrassing ourselves by re-electing to the Governor's office
this loathsome, snake-hearted murderer of children.
