THE FAILURE OF U.S. CENTRAL AMERICAN POLICY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606250007-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: November 25, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606250007-7
ARTICLE AP EARED
ON IF .
BALTIMORE SUN
25 November 1983
opinion ? Commentary
The Failure of U.S. Central American
Policy
By Wayne S. Smith
T HE Reagan administration's Central
American plicies are failing - and
failing not because of Congressional re-
strictions, as Mr. Fred C. Ikle, the under-
secretary of. Defense, would have us be-
lieve, but because they are poorly con-
ceived.
We have legitimate interests and securi-
ty concerns in Central America, but in
terms of protecting those interests and ad-
vancing our security objectives, we could
accomplish far more through imaginative
and effective diplomacy than through the
tactics followed so far by the administra-
tion - that is, the bumbling "secret" war
in Nicaragua and the ill-fated efforts to
force a military solution in El Salvador.
Yet, the speech given here [to the Balti-
more Council on Foreign Affairs] on Sep-
tember 12 by Mr. Ikle suggests that we can
expect no change. He emphasized that
what we seek is a full military victory, and,
apparently, he would have us eschew ne-
gotiated solutions. If that is indeed the
course the administation has charted, then
the stage is set for a full-scale foreign poli-
cy disaster....
Mr. Reagan's critics, by and large, are
not suggesting that we abandon Central
America. I certainly am not. Quite the con-
trary. No, the point is that the president's
policies are not working; they seem to lead
only to sterile conflict without accomplish-
ing our goals. Other options are available
-- options which might more effectively
advance U.S. interests and objectives at
less cost and with fewer risks. Yet, those
options have not been seriously explored.
Mr. Ikle told you on September 12 that
the Reagan administration's Central Amer-
ican policies haven't been given a chance,
that Congress had denied them the means
to succeed. With all due respect to Mr.
Ikle, the facts simply do not bear out such
a statement. The policies are failing, yes. If
they were working, then three years after
they were implemented we should see some
progress, some sign of improvement in the
situation. Rather than that, we see that the
situation obviously has worsened. The war
is going badly in El Salvador. Tensions in
the whole region are at an all-time high.
And rather than getting rid of the Sandin-
istas, our "secret" war, while harassing
them, has helped them rally popular sup-
port. On balance, it may have helped them
more than it has harmed them. In any
event, it has accomplished nothing in
terms of U.S. goals.
The administration's policy failure
cannot be blamed on the Congress. Despite
the Bo And- shlneki amendment, the ad-
ministration has pursued its "secret" war
against Nicaragua without restraints. The
ongress has given it funds to o just
about anything it wanted. It has provided
as many arms to the contras, sent as many
CIA ad isorA to organize and train them,
end organized as many air raids and acts of
sabotage as it wished. To what avail?
And while many Congressmen - in-
deed, many Americans - expressed con-
cern over the dispatch of thousands of
troops and major fleet units to Central
America for "maneuvers," this in no way
prevented the White House from doing it.
It sent as many troops as it wished and ma-
neuvered to its heart's content.
Nor is Congress to blame for the lack of
progress in El Salvador. It has pared back
appropriations requests. That is a normal
part of the budgetary-process. It has also
- to little avail - tried to get the adminis-
tration to use the leverage this assistance
should give us to move the Salvadoran gov-
ernment toward cleaning up its human
rights record and making other needed re-
forms.
But the Congress has not by any means
denied needed assistance. The war is cer-
tainly not going badly in El Salvador be-
cause of any shortage of arms and ammuni-
tion. One might almost make the opposite
case, that the more assistance we give the
Salvadorans, the less effectively they seem
to fight...
[W]ith millions of dollars in aid, mili-
tary advisors and other forms of support,
the Salvadoran armed forces are barely
holding their own - if they are. I would
not draw from that the conclusion that
the way to insure the defeat of the Salva-
doran armed forces is to give them unlimit-
ed assistance. On the other hand, I cannot
resist the observation that the mote arms
we give them, the more formidable become
their adversaries, for a significant percent-
age of these arms are either captured by
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C-PT .
the guerrillas or sold to them by venal Sal-
vadoran officers. It is no exaggeration to
say - and one must keep one's sense of
humor in saying it - that we, not the
Cubans, are the guerrillas' principal arms
supplier....
Mr. Ikle complained on September 12
that the Reagan administration has been
unjustly accused of introducing an East-
East element to the conflict in Cental
America. As the Soviets are giving military
assistance to Cuba and to Nicaragua, he
said, the East is already there. There is an
element of truth in that, but he misses the
central point which is that to portray the
conflict in Central America essentially as a
matter of East-West struggle, and the vio-
lence there as a matter of Soviet/Cuban
agression, is to take it out of context. A
more realistic appraisal suggests that the
conflict is essentially indigenous. It emerg-
es from decades of fiercely repressive gov-
ernments, grinding social injustice and eco-
nomic underdevelopment. The challenge
we face in Central America is far more
complex and requires subtleties of ap-
proach beyond the unsophisticated "good-
guys-versus-the-commies" attitude of the
administration.
For one thing, such an attitude discour-
ages negotiations (which, are the key to
reducing tensions). It also makes it ex-
tremely difficult to appeal to the many
non-Communist components of the opposi-
tion in either El Salvador or in Guatemala.
After all, if the United States treats the sit-
uation as a case of Soviet/Cuban aggres-
sion, it will tend to view as Soviet/Cuban
allies all those who oppose U.S.-backed re-
gimes. This serves to cut the United States
off from the moderate, democratic ele-
ments that are its natural partners.
On the other side of the coin, addressing
the situation in an East-West context en-
courages a skewed perception of the re-
pressive governments that have encour-
aged revolutionary turmoil by neglecting
the welfare of their people. Rather than
seeing them as the agents of instability, the
Reagan administration tends to viepv them
as valued allies in a common 'struggle
against the Red Hordes.... ;
Now, it must be asked, how does the
Reagan administration expect to. end [a]
civil war (short of military victory) without
addressing its principal causes? Hbw; for
example, can it expect the oppositibn i0 lay
down its arms and participate in a.palitical
process so long as the death squads.coptin-
ue to operate with impunity and therg are
massive violations of human rights' And
there are. There has been no improvement
in that area at all. Over 30,000 Salvadorans
have been tortured and murdered by'these
right-wing death squads. Not a single per-
son has ever been convicted for -these
crimes.... -
In El Salvador, we tolerate death
squads. In' Guatemala,- we have -become
identified with a series of the most murder-
ous regimes -on the face of the earth ; re-
gimes which have slaughtered tens of thou-
sands of their own citizens - which have
committed atrocities that make the Sabra
and Shatila massacres in Lebanon look like
child's play. When President Reagan said
Rios Montt, the then president of Guate-
mala, was a man of integrity who had eim-
ply been given a bum rap by the. U.S.
media, and when the president now ,seeks
military assistance for the new military re-
qime in Guatemala, he makes a mockery of
his claim that we are defending "freedom
and democracy" in Central America.
Wayne S. Smith is a senior associate of
the Carnegie Endowment for Internation-
al Peace. The above material was excerpt-
ed from a speech he gave to the Baltimore
Council on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.
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