Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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the death or disappearance of some 250 people since 1980, though
Honduran human rights activists suspect the involvement of Honduran
security forces, which have taken to the usual practices of our Central
American clients as the US presence and training expanded. Among
those killed were union activists, schoolteachers and others. In
September 1985, a Honduran Army officer who was a leading figure in
a group of military officers who oppose US policy in Honduras was
found murdered under suspicious circumstances near a contra zone in
Honduras; Nicaraguan exiles have been accused of the murder. He had
“charged that the United States was turning a blind eye to abuses in the
military and in some cases perhaps even encouraging them.” According
to a Western diplomat, a Senate aide who knew the assassinated officer
said that if he made public what he knew about the Honduran army and
US policy in Honduras, “it would be deeply embarrassing to the United
States.” 46
The presence of former Somozist National Guard members working
with the Salvadoran security forces was also reported by Captain
Ricardo Fiallos, a former Salvadoran army doctor now in exile, who
testified before Congress that he had treated and examined medical
records of such mercenaries. 47 Since no evidence has surfaced of
Nicaraguans working with the guerrillas, it appears that the only direct
Nicaraguan involvement in violence in El Salvador is under US auspices.
Santivanez also provided detailed evidence concerning the role of
leading figures in the Duarte government, as well as the rightist
opposition, in the state terrorism and coverup, including the killing of
four American churchwomen and the assassination of the Archbishop.
He also described contacts with members of the contra army, who
supplied hit men, and with Guatemalan state terrorists, including
leaders of an ultraright party that was formed with CIA assistance as
part of the 1954 campaign to destroy Guatemalan democracy. These