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

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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José Napoleón Duarte has spoken bravely,” Newsday reports, “and has
attempted without much success to move effectively against the
homicidal terror,” for which he has voiced approval, as noted; “Duarte
has had little success in restoring the rule of law” and “has thus far been
unable to achieve any sustained institutional reform,” or in fact, to do
anything but please his friends in the business classes and military, who
applaud his “education.” In a rare and hence important report on rural El
Salvador, Clifford Krauss discusses the village of El Carrizal, which
remains today about as it was 100 years ago, with no potable water,
virtually no electricity, near-universal illiteracy, little land and general
suffering. “Twice in this century,” he writes, “in 1932 and in 1980,
some people in El Carrizal have organized for a better life. And twice,
the army has responded to those stirrings in the hinterland with
repression, killing dozens of civilians.” Organizing in the provinces
“scarred by the [1932] matanza” is virtually “hopeless,” since the
population is terrorized; their renewed attempts in 1980 evoked new
terror, reinforcing the trauma, with 27 shot when peasants attempted to
organize peacefully. From 1980 to 1983, the army returned to the
village once a month, keeping their eye on things and killing five more
people. But now, Krauss reports, with “a moderate government gaining
the upper hand in El Salvador’s civil war” and with Duarte “beginning to
succeed on a national level in checking such military abuses, some 300
residents met here with elected officials to discuss, once again, forming
a co-op and getting such improvements as potable water, a school and a
health clinic.” The result? “An army truck barrelled into the village” and
“the soldiers began asking questions and taking names.” That “served its
purpose.” “The people here are permanently terrorized,” a village
representative of an Indian peasant union said. 75
As always, Krauss’ characterization of the goals and achievements of
the Duarte regime is unsullied by evidence, untroubled by the impressive