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

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programs, and the repression of human beings by the systematic use of
terror in ways that are hideous and frightful.” They report killing and
kidnapping of patients and doctors in hospitals, “sometimes even during
surgery”; “since merely notifying the Church and independent humanrights
groups of a relative’s disappearance can jeopardize the whole
family, statistics on disappearances are minimal.” They were shown
“dirty, haggard political prisoners” in “foul, pitch-black steel-barred cells
furnished with only a concrete bench and a hole in the floor for a
latrine,” but were forbidden to speak with them. They report that in July
1982, the Red Cross threatened to leave El Salvador because of human
rights abuses by the armed forces, particularly, “their practice of not
taking prisoners.” The Salvadoran Ministry of Health had suffered a 50%
reduction in its budget during each of the past two years (while capital
flight from El Salvador was almost 2/3 as high as US aid, so that in
effect US aid is a personal subsidy to Salvadoran high society). They
describe horrifying conditions in hospitals as well as the breakdown of
the educational system as facilities were destroyed, many teachers and
university faculty were killed or imprisoned or “disappeared,” or fled
abroad from the terror. Another medical mission at the same time
reported similar conclusions, adding grim statistics and observations
about people living in “subhuman conditions” in a country where “social
organization is considered subversive by the government of El Salvador.”
They express their surprise “to find so little evidence of international
concern for their plight.” 45
A September 1985 report of a delegation of US health
professionals—physicians, nurses, public health professors and others—
“painted a grim picture of a war-ravaged country where countryside
bombing drives children to autism, where hospitals are so ill-equipped
that wounds are sutured with fishing line and where doctors are
captured and tortured for treating persons suspected of antigovernment
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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