COLLOQUY

THE QUESTION

RESPONSES

BACKGROUND

The argument comparing Robert Stoll with Kenneth Starr was particularly revealing. The attacks on Starr are the classic shoot-the-messenger, ad hominem arguments we were all warned against as undergraduates. They are very personal, and clearly an attempt to suppress facts he's brought to light by slandering the man instead of addressing the issue. That "many scholars" consider this a valid critique of Stoll suggests that their academic standards are questionable.

But that is hardly surprising considering the fields impacted by this revelation. They tend to be - and have been for far too long - dominated by leftists, who seem more interested in pushing an agenda than worrying about the truth. Stoll's contention that "Books like I, Rigoberta Menchú will be exalted because they tell many academics what they want to hear. Such works provide rebels in far-off places, into whom careerists can project their fantasies of rebellion" is all too true. The Guevarist "Myth of the Guerrilla" still endures on college campuses. Unfortunately these people are largely responsible for the simplistic and skewed popular perceptions about Latin America in general, and Central America in particular. Everyone loves Fidel, right? And Che is a secular saint. Hah!

Take El Salvador for example. One of the most treasured myths of the Salvadoran civil war was that the Sandinistas didn't provide arms to the FMLN - the Communist guerrillas - and that the latter supplied themselves by capturing weapons from the Salvadoran Army. I recently read in a textbook that the fact the Communist guerrillas - the FMLN - were largely equipped with M-16s proved that the Sandinistas didn't smuggle arms to them. Actually, the FMLN was equipped with American-made M-16s before the Salvadoran Army, which was equipped with German-designed G-3s in the early '80s. The FMLN got them from the Vietnamese (serial numbers of weapons captured from the FMLN matched those of M-16s left behind in Vietnam) by way of the Sandinistas. In the late '80s a whole series of events occurred which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Sandinistas were smuggling arms - including sophisticated shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles - to the FMLN. After the war Joaquin Villalobos, Commandante of the ERP "tendency" of the FMLN, confirmed during a conference at the Woodrow Wilson Center that Nicaragua served as the FMLN's arms depot. A book titled La Guerrilla Fue Mi Camino recently came out about Cesar Montes, a Guatemalan companero of Menchú's who ran the Sandinistas' arms-smuggling operation into El Salvador (and who also went along on at least one Sandinista commando raid into their neighboring country, but that's another issue). Despite all this (and more) the academic left here in the States, whether through ignorance or design, still repeats - and teaches - this tired, old, disproved propaganda as "fact."

And then there are events such as the massacres by the FMLN at places such as Comalapa, where the locals didn't cooperate with the FMLN and were "sanctioned," and in the Zona Rosa section of San Salvador. Certainly didn't get much publicity, did they? I find that particularly significant in the case of the Zona Rosa. The targets were four unarmed, off-duty US Marine embassy guards. They were not, as the FMLN and its apologists claimed later, "advisors" in any way, shape, or form. The incident occurred in June, 1985. FMLN "urban commandos" pulled up next to an outdoor café and opened fire with automatic weapons. Then they went among the tables and shot again anyone who "looked American." Besides the Marines, they killed two American civilians (Wang computer salesmen) seven other bystanders, and wounded dozens.

Even after this members of our own Congress - such as John Conyers, Robert Kastenmeier and Pat Schroeder - continued to raise money for the FMLN through such organizations as CISPES (which was organized specifically to support the FMLN), justifying such aid as "humanitarian." When serious questions were raised about whether the aid really was going strictly to Salvadoran civilians for actual humanitarian purposes they were ignored. (If the aid wasn't, incidentally, it would have been a clear violation of the Neutrality Act. And the best evidence is, it wasn't.) When the FBI tried to investigate CISPES and find out, the investigation was suppressed by Congress, specifically, the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, which subcommittee included John Conyers, Robert Kastenmeier and Pat Schroeder. In these hearings a CISPES spokesman was allowed to testify - under oath - that "no links" existed between his organization and the FMLN! Henry Hyde proposed that the question should be examined by Walsh as part of the "Iran-Contra" hearings, but his proposal doesn't seem to have left the House. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The pattern of events, I mean. As for the facts, you'll not see them in any textbooks concerning El Salvador. So far as US academia is concerned, the FMLN - and other Central American Communist insurgent groups - are heroes.

This isn't confined simply to Central America or indigenous peoples, either. You may know something about the current flap over Pinochet's arrest in the UK for deportation to, and trial in, Spain. Certain facts are - significantly - missing from the debate. For example, Allende was democratically elected, right? Wrong. Allende got in on a technicality. His coalition received 36% of the vote, versus 35% for his nearest competitor. In such cases, under the Chilean constitution, Congress chooses between the two with the highest plurality of votes. Traditionally they've selected the one with the marginally highest percentage. That's what they did in this case, but they didn't have to. And when Pinochet submitted to a plebiscite, after years of dictatorial rule, he lost but still received 44% of the popular vote. This should be food for thought, but so far as I can tell, isn't even mentioned in any course on the subject (or in the media, for that matter).

I must admit I have a personal angle on this. During a seminar some of these issues came up, and I suggested that application of the Monroe Doctrine during the '70s and '80s was, according to Hans Morgenthau, a policy of "status quo" rather than "US imperialism." I was shouted down by the professor, who then launched into a tirade on the perfidies of Kissinger and Reagan, and the evil US hegemony in the Americas vice the late, lamented, benevolent Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. It was the only time that term he commented negatively on anyone's classroom participation. Before (and afterward) we had to sit patiently through disconnected, gibbering nonsense put out by - among others - an anti-American, Canadian grad student whose bizarre, offensive opinions were treated with great respect. It left a very bad taste in my mouth, and I actually dropped out of grad school for several years because of it.

That some will continue to spring I, Rigoberta Menchú on unsuspecting students I have no doubt. What I would hope is that this revelation will shake things up in the academic establishment, and cause the more thoughtful to develop and teach a more balanced approach to the subject.

But I'm not holding my breath.

-- Michael R. Little, Education Technician, Education Office (posted 1/19, 12:40 p.m., E.S.T.)

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