FROM THE PEACE CORPS, VOICE OF EXPERIENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200700023-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: February 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

, STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200700023-7
- -" '- fl WASHINGTON POST
~ r_' Iy_i 17 February 1985
CCLM& MCCARTHY
murderers and t!.~~....o ar
oppressing the innocent peasants."
~~alp"it the Peace Corps,
Voices or' Experience
p to 4,500 American
, military people have
L descended on Honduras
for another go-round of war
games. The latest excitement in
the hemisphere's second
poorest nation is to be
heightened by armored
personnel carriers and tanks,
neither of which has been
deployed to Honduras. All this
is meant to preserve the peace
in Central America.
It happens that a group of
Americans who once lived in
Honduras, as well as in six
other neighboring nations, have
tried an alternative way of
peacekeeping. They are Peace
Corps volunteers. Recently
they produced a provocative
and timely report, "Voices of
Experience in Central America:
Former Peace Corps
Volunteers' Insights Into a
Troubled Region."
This one-of-a-kind
book-based on 170 responses
to a nine-question survey-is
not another abstract weighing
of foreign-policy pros and cons.
It offers much more: The
recollections of Americans who,
in painful horror, see their work
among the poor of Central
America, and the idealism that
inspired it, being cast aside by
such blights as Honduran war
games and ceaseless shipments
of arms.
The 128-page report, which
was funded by the National
Council of Returned Peace
Corps Volunteers,.is grounded
in the 1961 legislation that
created the agency. The act had
three requirements: Volunteers
were to assist developing
countries, help those countries
better understand the United
States and-in the work of a
lifetime-educate America
about the world's poor. In
1981, President Reagan, in
calling for increased Peace
Corps funding, said that with
more volunteers "Americans
may become more aware of the
needs of the Third World."
The report overflows with
awareness. To start, not one of
the nurses, teachers, foresters,
biologists or other volunteers
says that their host country
would have been better off with
military aid. The pressing
urgency, first, was always for
understanding.
^ A nurse in Honduras (1972-
74): "The United States feels
they are the benevolent big
brother doing good things for
these people. They fail to
realize their money and good
intentions are rarely received at
the local level where needed.
They fail to realize the pride
these people have for their
country."
e A credit-union worker in Gua-
temala (1969-72): "[Americans)
don't know where [Guatemala],
is and don't understand how the
United States has trained,
supplied and encouraged the
Among the 39 respondents who served in El
Salvador, nearly all speak of lawlessness and
violence. The subtle forms were noticeable. A
nutritionist says that "Salvadorans resent the fact
that the majority of their-land is used for producing
export crops. Beef, an excellent source of needed
protein, is sent to the United States for our
consumption while their citizens die of hunger and
malnutrition." Another volunteer, who worked in
the national museum in San Salvador, recalled "that
most young people like Peace Corps volunteers.
[But] some of the young, educated Salvadorans
viewed the agency with suspicion-as a possible
CIA cover. They had the utmost contempt for the
CIA because of its history of support for Latin
American dictators."
One volunteer served as a professor of teacher
education-'from 1977 through 1980. "During the
Carter term there was a change of attitude by the
El Salvador government. "hey murdered a bit
more discreetly. They lied a bit more softly." And
what happened after? "When Ronald Reagan was
elected there was dancing in the streets by the 14
families. Fresh blood was pumped into the sagging
machine."
The first of the volunteers who served in
Nicaragua went there in 1969. The latest left in
1981. The report states: "The Sandinistas appealed
to the international community for economic
assistance. The U.S. government answered by
encouraging an economic boycott and by launching
a 'secret war' from Honduras. Twenty of our 21
respondents feel that the United States should
support the Sandinistas and that the present U.S.
military threat serves only to push them further to
the left."
Some 7,500 Americans have served in the Peace
Corps in Central America. Each volunteer could
have written a book on his or her experiences.
Their words in this report are brief, and at times
they have a tone that sounds excessively leftist.
That, however, is deceptive. The words are neither
left nor right. They are from the center-from the
heart of the issue, which is that the approach of the
Peace Corps is the one that needs to be enlarged,
and all others diminished.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200700023-7