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 librarian observed that no public official, “including President
Duarte” (the civilian figurehead for the junta at the time) “ever
condemned what happened or proposed some sort of retribution.” 52
Another exercise of “the army’s key role in reform,” in the rhetoric of the
Human Rights Administration.
The commitment to destroy the national culture by violence was, of
course, not an innovation of the campaign carried out under the Carter-
Duarte auspices. Predecessors include the Nazis, the neo-fascist
National Security States that spread through much of Latin America
since the Kennedy Administration, and Pol Pot, among others.
In November the political opposition was murdered, terminating the
possibility of independent political activity and thereby helping to clear
the ground for what the US press would describe as “democratic
elections.” The killings were condemned here, and the facts were
partially reported, but the strong evidence that government security
forces carried out the operation was omitted or downplayed. 53
Meanwhile, the independent media were eliminated by bombings and
terror, another prerequisite for “free elections” to legitimate the client
regime. The editor and a journalist of one paper were found with their
bodies hacked to pieces with machetes, and the second independent
paper closed after three attempts to assassinate the editor, threats to his
family, occupation of the offices by armed forces, and the arrest and
torture of staff members. The Church radio station was repeatedly
bombed, and shortly after Reagan’s election, troops occupied the
Archdiocese building, destroying the radio station and ransacking the
newspaper offices. 54 As a result of these actions, there is no need for
censorship in El Salvador; Western moralists may rest easy,
concentrating their ire on censorship in Nicaragua, under attack by the
US, where nothing remotely comparable has occurred.
On October 26, 1980, Archbishop Romero’s successor, Bishop