cries@mtxinu.COM (10/14/89)
/* Written 3:48 pm Oct 13, 1989 by cries in ni:cries.regionews */
/* ---------- "ElSal: I'view Roberto D'Aubuisson" ---------- */
EL SALVADOR: "WHICH HUMAN RIGHTS ARE WE VIOLATING?"
INTERVIEW WITH ROBERTO D'AUBUISSON - ARENA
(cries.regionews from Managua October 13, 1989
Roberto D'Aubuisson is a name which is legend in El
Salvador's current brutal history. Death squad leader,
mastermind behind the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar
Romero, and behind-the-throne manipulator of the
presidential power of Alfredo Cristiani; D'Aubuisson has all
that and more said about him. This charismatic chieftan of
the ARENA party also used to be a member of the officer
corps of the El Salvadoran Armed Forces and is still
referred to by many in his party as "The Major".
His political style earned him celluloid immortality in
Oliver Stone's film "Salvador". He is still in the spotlight
as evidenced by his capacity for crowd control at ARENA
rallies such as the Cristiani's inauguration last June.
There, D'Aubuisson had to give a sign in order to calm down
his foot-stamping, cheering followers so that the newly
elected president could give his speech.
What he thinks and says appeals to many on the right in El
Salvador. His current of right-wing nationalism runs
diametrically opposed to the trend towards a politically
negotiated solution to the conflict in his country.
Interview conducted by Leo Gabriel (APIA). Published in the
Managua daily "El Nuevo Diario" on October 1, 1989.
********************
**Q. Do you think the talks in Mexico are the start of a
negotiated solution between the ARENA government and the
Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN)?
**A. I'm really pleased that the Farabundo Marti is
interested. This confirms for us that now there's no support
from any socialist country for these groups that have taken
up arms in order to take power. It was with this in mind
that President Cristiani offered a national proposal for
peace and liberty to the Farabundo Marti in his campaign.
And now a peace commission has been formed that will hold an
on-going dialogue with the Farabundo Marti. Dialogue has
always been held with other forces, that's to say with the
political and union forces.
**Q. How necessary is the dialogue in order to alleviate the
economic crisis El Salvador is suffering due to the war?
**A. This crisis in the national budget (of which 30% is
spent on defense and very little on health and education) is
because of Mr. Carter, the peanut-making expert. It wasn't
enough for former president Jimmy Carter to hand over Iran
and Nicaragua. He wanted to hand us over, too. He wanted to
see governments in Latin America, even communist ones, so
long as the United States had the economic power. He made
all of Latin America poor.
In El Salvador's 1979 budget, 80% went towards investment
and 20% to salaries. Now, 90% goes to salaries and 10% to
investment. Thank you very much, Mr. Carter. He sponsored
the fall of Somoza and he sponsored the coup here in 1979,
the same year. And so with all those measures and reforms
[made since the coup], we stopped producing.
**Q. But you received economic and military aid all those
years...
**A. US aid comes, but with conditions. When the coup
happened in 1979, the Farabundos didn't exist. There were
three or four terrorist groups going around kidnapping and
murdering, but the honorable and Most Reverend Jimmy Carter
put Guillermo Ungo in as president of the governmental
junta.
Ungo was president for three months. With all the
government's money and apparatus, he made the Farabundo
Marti and he made the FDR [Democratic Revolutionary Front].
After three months, he left the presidency to become
president of this attack that was going to take power by
violence. When Ungo surrendered power, the United States
brought in Napoleon Duarte and made him president of the
junta.
It was a good strategy, very good, because the Christian
Democrats had been allied with the communists, and taking
out Ungo and putting in Duarte divided the socialist and
communist forces. Being in power made the Christian
Democrats feel so happy that they abandoned their communist
allies, and when the Farabundo's launched the final
offensive in January 1981, they launched it against the
Duarte government.
**Q. And also against the death-squads organized by the
right...
**A. We weren't mixed up in this soup, in this fiasco. We
didn't know what was happening. A year before, Duarte and
Ungo had been together, but then Ungo is attacking Duarte,
Duarte's attacking us politically, and look, we didn't know
what was going on. But in their propaganda they said that we
were the death squads. So, we organized the ARENA party and
in 1982 I won the first election after the democratic
process began.
This is what surprised the United States the most. They were
sure the Christian Democrats were going to win, but the
right won.
**Q. With you at the head of ARENA?
**A. They entrusted me to be the number one figure. They
launched another attack against me when they saw that we had
won, when they saw that it didn't matter to the Salvadoran
people that they said we were the death squads. So they
played another card, saying D'Aubuisson killed Archbishop
Romero. They organized this propaganda while I was president
of the Constituent Assembly because presidential elections
were coming up in 1984.
They said that if D'Aubuisson wins the presidential
elections, the whole plan they had for us would fall apart.
Nevertheless, I beat Duarte in the presidential campaign: I
won the elections. But the CIA stuck its hairy hands in and
put him in power. Thank God, because today the results have
been better. Now President Cristiani has won completely, and
I would have been an abominable president. They infringed
upon human rights in the area of political rights, but it
doesn't matter.
**Q. The dialogue between the Sandinista government and the
contras is an example for many outside the region. Is it
conceivable that there be a similar dialogue between the
Salvadoran government, ARENA, and the FMLN?
**A. I only want to leave them with a thought that's very
painful for us: the contras are fighting for democracy and
liberty in Nicaragua, whereas the Farabundos carry out their
terrorism in order to impose a totalitarian plan, to break
down democracy. I tell them this because it's inconceivable
that they would want to compare the contras in Nicaragua to
the Farabundos, to say they are just about the same.
However, as the ARENA party, we proposed that the contras
have an option, that they store their arms, not surrender
them, but store them with the [UN] "blue helmets". And that
if [Nicaraguan President] Ortega, good Marxist that he is,
doesn't comply, they could regroup, get their weapons, and
continue applying armed pressure. In the same way, we made
the compromise as Salvadorans that the Farabundos store
their arms with a Sandinista commission if they like, and
that they begin to fit themselves into what President
Cristiani is offering.
**Q. Store the arms where?
**A. Before a commission, for example, of the Sandinista
Front, and then they get involved in the process. There's a
law all ready to be approved and they can get fully
involved. Then, the simultaneity plan came up and the
Sandinistas didn't like it. [At Tela] they only wanted
collaboration in the disarming of the contras, and that
later, in other meetings, the Farabundos could be discussed.
And there come the ideas. They tell me to dive into a pool
with a shark; that the shark swears he's not going to bite
me - I don't believe it. I like to read. I've been in the
military for 20 years and I've read enough about what's
happened to all those who have sat down to negotiate with a
communist. We should do it simultaneously, because then we'd
have mutual responsibilities. We've complied so that the
Farabundos can integrate. Let's see Ortega comply so that
the contras can integrate. Then I would be getting into a
pool with a shark, but I would have a cage and know he's not
going to bite me.
We'd like to see the contras alive so that there's pressure
on the Sandinista government. What guarantees do the Central
Americans have once this pressure doesn't exist? It's an
army of 200,000 armed men and 500,000 in popular militias.
The Sandinistas alone have more tanks, helicopters, and
planes than all the rest of Central America combined. If
[the Sandinistas] didn't have this hindrance of the contras,
who's going to guarantee for us that they won't attack El
Salvador and Honduras?
**Q. International protest against human rights abuses in El
Salvador has increased. What do you think about this?
**A. But which human rights are we infringing upon in my
country? Individual rights? Civil rights? Political rights?
Economic rights? Cultural rights? Just tell me, which right
are we violating? Here, they infringed on our economic
rights when they came to expropriate us in 1980 with the
agrarian reform that brought about our economic crisis. Now,
they're going to know what it really is to carry out a
process of agrarian reform, like President Cristiani is
going to do - a true agrarian transformation.
Rights haven't been violated by anyone here. Political
rights were violated by the United States when the CIA came
to invest 2 or 3 million dollars in the Christian Democratic
Party's campaign. So please, let's leave everything
perfectly clear. A group of foreigners wants a socialist
government here, but the right wins - that tells us
everything. He who criticizes us in this way, even though we
won the vote, I don't believe is democratic anymore. Today
they should support the Salvadoran people because they chose
President Cristiani. Possibly within five years, we're going
to elect a black president and we'll support the black man
because if the people voted for the black man they supported
the black man, so please, understand our ideas.
I'm going to tell the best story I ever heard from a US
reporter about human rights. For two years, he lived in the
border area, near the old Belgian Conga, now Zaire. This
reporter was impressed because a young man from one tribe
was going to marry a girl from the other tribe, and the way
to demonstrate the great union of the two tribes was to
choose another young man to be eaten. The way to demonstrate
the affection of the union, the great coming together of the
two tribes, was to select another kid - boy X - barbecue
him, and eat him. And for their culture, this was the
maximum expression of tribal alliance. We send Amnesty
International to these two tribes and it's capable of
dropping the atomic bomb on them for violating human rights.
The reporter said that human rights must be judged through
the lens of each people's culture.
We entered the dialogue, because we Salvadorans don't want
Marxism, we don't want communism, and we aren't an advanced
people with the culture that you all have to understand
socialism. Possibly within 100 years we'll be at the height
and level of education that you have.
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