THE EL SALVADOR RIGHTS CAMPAIGN BEGINS TO FADE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000707170013-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: August 6, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-0
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
6 AUGUST 1982
The El Salvador
Rights Campaign
Begins to Fade
"We've won," said an administration
foreign policy aide wryly after the El Sal-
vador hearing this week. "We've suc-
ceeded in making the issue of human
rights in El Salvador boring."
It was hard to fault his judgment.
The administration has just made a de-
termination that the Salvadoran govern-
ment is making progress in human rights,
and thus qualifies for more U.S. aid. Last
week the House Foreign Affairs Committee
held a lively hearing to examine the certi-
fication.
This week the drama moved to the Sen-
ate, where the Foreign Relations Commit-
tee staged its own hearing on the issue.
Here the press coverage was leaner. Most
of the Democratic senators-Biden, Sar-
banes, Cranston-didn't show up to see the
administration's witnesses.
The most important event of the day
was that Bianca Jagger was in the audi-
ence. She was working on the problem of
Central American refugees, she said in a
throaty voice. And "beyond the refugees,"
she went on, she was interested.in "the Im-
plications of the U.S. military presence" in
the region.
Ms. Jagger and the rest of us got to lis-
ten to exchanges between senators and ad-
Capital Chronicle
by Suzanne Garment
ministration officials that went something
like this:
Sen. Paul Tsongas to Assistant Secre-
tary of State Elliott Abrams: To the ques-
tion "What are we doing there?" you made
the statement that we are basically trying
to support the center against the extremes.
It's difficult to figure out who the extremes
of the right are.
A: I would define the extremists as I Since the mid-1970s, the left has em-
those who are attempting to use violence to ployed human rights issues to beat up on
achieve their goals. the right, and in El Salvador the left
Q: So you'd have to be to the right of thought it had found itself a ripe and typi-
(Constituent Assembly President Roberto) cal target.
D'Aubuisson to be considered an extrem- But two sorts of events Intervened to
ist? top this particular bandwagon. First, of
A: You'd have to be engaged in mur- course, came the Salvadoran election: It
der; you'd have to be working against, decisively repudiated the guerrillas and
rather than in, the political system. suggested that this time the U.S. govern-
And a little later on: ment may not have backed the wrong
Sen. Christopher Dodd to Assistant Sec- moral horse. Most foreign policy interest
retary of State Thomas Enders: Who do groups on the right or the left really can't
you think is really running El Salvador to, mobilize their energy for .more than one
day? big issue at a time; the elections made the
A: El Salvador is run by a coalition El Salvador issue seem like a good one to
government. They all interact; it is a plu- drift away from.
ralist government in which there is no one Second. the administration knew how to
.single individual who dominates all the expiolt this situation. It grabbed for the
rest. That was the kind of government we high moral ground. The State Department
tried to foster. produced a certification report that was
Q: Who's running the country, Tom? full Of charts. tables of evidence, graphs
This was pretty tame stuff. There were tabulating the accusations made by both
no direct confrontations: There were none friendly and unfriendly human rights
of the usual suggestions that the Reagan to label Athdeir ddeecrsionntcertify El Salva.
administration's El Salvador policy was dor as anything more enthusiastic than a
cruel, dishonest or both. "close cal.." They did not give their oppo-
Rep. Gerry Studds came to the House nents any easy targets for outrage.
El Salvador hearing last week backed by a In fact the Reaganites took the offen.
resolution he was sponsoring to declare the slue, arguing that the certification process
administration's certification null and is a distinctly unsatisfactory way to make
void. He had already gotten 84 of his fellow our aid decisions. All these tactics together
congressmen to sign it. By this week his severely depleted the fund of high dudgeon
luck had changed, and he was able to push needed to launch a successful attack.
The administration did not win a flashy
the total only up to 97. victory in El Salvador. But it did give n oo-
Former U.S. Ambassador to El Salva- lice that human rights policy is not going
dor Robert White, now a professional critic to be such an easily available cudgel in the
of the administration's policy toward that hands of whichever side in the political de-
j country, m last week to accuse the CIA bate can summon up the more convincing
r illlegitito interference in Salvadoran case of moralistic rage.
ejections on the grounds that the agency
aa8 provided equipment like t e invisible
system a was used to prevent voting
rau . this week or e
had not found any appreciable audience.
El Salvador was once a matter of burn-
ing concern to the administration, the me-
dia and a whole collection of foreign policy
and civil rights organizations; now it at-
tracts major attention from just a few con-
gressmen and their attendant special-inter-
est groups. The rapid change tells some-
thing about the way human rights has been
used in Washington and about its limita-
tions as a weapon of partisan warfare.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000707170013-7