I read with interest the Tribune`s July 10 story about Amnesty International, which reported among other human rights abuses that the number of civilian assassinations in El Salvador (attributed almost exclusively to the military) is up a full 100 percent so far this year, compared to the same period last year.
George Bush, like Ronald Reagan before him, has justified the incredible infusion of unwarranted aid to El Salvador (currently around $60 million monthly) by alleging that ”the U.S. is the Salvadoran government`s ally in building democracy in Central America.”
The amount of aid has increased from almost nothing before 1980 to its present level because each time the human rights situation has supposedly improved, someone from the White House administration would appeal to Congress to increase the level of aid in order to ”materially demonstrate our approval of the Salvadoran government`s positive steps toward democracy and freedom.”
Considering all of our government`s doubletalk with regards to our foreign policy, I`m not surprised that I don`t see anyone from George Bush`s administration running to Congress to request a reduction in aid based on the latest statistics from Amnesty International. I suggest, though, that we reduce U.S. aid to El Salvador proportionally to the increase in their human rights abuses during the last year (by 100 percent), and that we not reinstate it until the human rights situation there drastically improves, military personnel are tried and punished for war crimes, and the thousands of disappeared political prisoners are accounted for.
