rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (06/15/91)
NEWS SYNTHESIS ON EL SALVADOR for TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 1991 A Special Service of SALPRESS Today's Topics: U.S. SENATE MOVE TO PRESSURE CRISTIANI EVICTED SAY THEY WILL MOVE IN AGAIN BUSES PARKED IN PROTEST U.S. SENATE MOVE TO PRESSURE CRISTIANI A bill to reduce military aid to El Salvador by 50% will be introduced into the U.S. Senate today. The bill, sponsored by Senator Christopher Dodd, will affect the 1992 aid proposal and $180 million of past aid that has not yet been delivered to the Salvadoran military. Dodd explained that the bill is intended to pressure the Cristiani government and army into a greater seriousness toward ending the nation's 11-year war situation. According to the legislation, all military aid would be suspended if the government does not "professionally and thoroughly" prosecute four high-profile human rights cases; the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests and two women; the 1980 slaying of two U.S. agrarian reform advisors, the 1988 army massacre of ten peasants in San Francisco, San Vicente province; and the Halloween, 1989 bombing of the FENASTRAS union headquarters that killed ten labor activists and injured 30 others. Dodd sponsored last year's proposal to retain half of 1991 aid, which won the support of 75% of the Senate. EVICTED SAY THEY WILL MOVE IN AGAIN Fifteen landless peasants who have been waging a hunger strike in a San Salvador church called off their fast today on the twelfth say of their protest. The fasters and supporters recently organized themselves into the Committee for Defense of the Evicted, and yesterday 200 of them decided to return to the Amulunga hacienda from which they were driven on June 4. "All these peasants have no where to go and so there is no alternative but to retake that property," said Nelson Urrutia, spokesperson for the newly formed committee. Before being evicted from the hacienda in Santa Ana province, the squatters had planted 62 acres of corn and vegetables. Until then, the Amulunga property had lain fallow. The hacienda take-over was one of 38 to occur since the beginning of the year. The occupations have brought authorities and landless rural families into conflict. The peasants demand that the government buy up and distribute the unused properties as it has said it would do. The Cristiani administration insists the peasants obtain the land through legal channels and has threatened and used force against the squatters. An estimated 350,000 rural families are without land while 150,000 properties lay in disuse, according to farm worker association data. BUSES PARKED IN PROTEST Only 20% of El Salvador's buses were on the road yesterday, as drivers parked their vehicles to protest the government's failure to resolve their grievances over high operating costs and low profits. The leader of the drivers' association, Hector Bonilla, said the transportation stoppage is "indefinite and progressive" and will end when President Alfredo Cristiani responds to the group's demands, first put forth eight months ago. In the afternoon, urban and inter-city buses in the northern, southern and eastern-central areas of the country joined in the protest, according to Bonilla. "We're paying decontrolled prices on replacement parts, tires, and lubricants," he complained, pointing out that the government will neither subsidize public transportation nor authorized fare increases. Riders now pay the equivalent of five cents on the dollar for a bus ride in the capital. - 30 - NEWS SYNTHESIS ON EL SALVADOR is a special service of SALPRESS, available Monday through Friday. For more details on information included in this summary, contact SALPRESS: 011-525-705-6532 (fax) or 011-525-592-2184 (voice). ** End of text from cdp:reg.elsalvador **