InterAmerican
Commission
on Human Rights, Civil and Legal Rights in Guatemala (1985), p.
Manufacturing Consent - Chomsky
.
," Report of a Mission to Guatemala by the
354 NOTES TO PAGES 73-80
NOTES TO PAGES 81-89 355
British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, October 1984; Americas Watch, Civil Patrols in Guatemala (New York: AW, 1986).
84. Amnesty International, Guatemala: Massive Extrajudicial Executions in Rural Areas under the Government of General Efrain R? os Monu, October II, 1982.
8S. According to State Department testimony ofJuly 20, 1981, "We need to try a new, constructive policy approach to Guatemala . . . " (quoted in Americas Watch, Guatemala Revisited: How the Reagan Administration Finds "Improve- ments" in Human Rights in Guatemala [New York: AW, 1985], p. 4).
86. Quoted in Americas Watch, Guatemala Revisited, p. S.
87. See Amnesty International, Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder, p. 8.
88. Americas Watch, Guatemala Revisited, p. 6.
89. State Department 1984 Human Rights Country Report, quoted in Ameri- cas Watch, Guatemala Revisited, p. IS.
90. Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder, p. S.
91. While this is true almost without exception for news articles, there were perhaps a dozen Op-Ed columns in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and some letters, in the period 1980-86, that criticized Guatemalan state terrorism; some of these were harshly critical of U. S. policy.
92. A few of the opinion pieces cited in the previous note did discuss the U. S. role.
93. "Requiem for a Missionary," August 10, 1981.
94. The documents include the following four put out by Amnesty Interna- tional: Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder, February 1981; "Disappearances": A Workbook, 1981; Guatemala: Massive Extrajudicial Execu- tions in Rural Areas under the Government of General Efrain Rios Manu, Oc- tober 1982; "Disappearances" in Guatemala under the Government of General Oscar Humberto Mej? a V? ctores, March 1985. We also included six studies by Americas Watch: Human Rights in Guatemala: No Neutrals Allowed, Novem- ber 1982; Guatemala Revisited: How the Reagan Administration Finds "Im- provements" in Human Rights in Guatemala, September 1985; Liule Hope: Human Rights in Guatemala, January I984-January I98S, February 1985; Guatemala: The Group for Mutual Support, 1985; Civil Patrols in Guatemala, August 1986; Human Rights in Guatemala during President Cerezo's First Year, 1987.
9S. This letter is reproduced in Americas Watch, Human Rights in Guatem. ala: No Neutrals Allowed, November 1982.
96. For a full discussion of the last of these murders, that of Marianela Garcia Villas, on March IS, 1983, see Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, Demon- stration Elections: U. S. -Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador (Boston: South End Press, 1984), pp. x-xi.
97. Quoted in Americas Watch, Guatemala: The Group for Mutual Support,. I984-I98S, p. 2 (hereafter, AW, Mutual Support).
98. Council on Hemispheric Affairs, News and Analysis, April 26, 1986, p. 222. 99. McClintock, American Connection, vol. 2, p. 83.
100. AW, Mutual Support, p. 3.
101. "Bitter and Cruel," British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, October 1984.
102. AW, Mutual Support, p. 8.
103. Ibid. , p. 7.
104. An open letter of November 15, 1984, quoted in AW, Mutual Support,
P? 24?
lOS. AW, Mutual Support, pp. 24-2S.
106. Ibid. , p. 36. This was, of course, a complete fabrication. What Mejia
Victores is referring to is an investigative body that he established, manned
and that, predictably, gave the government a clean bill of health.
107. Ibid. , p. 38.
108. Ibid. , p. 41.
109? Two very terse exceptions should be noted: On April 13, an article on the case mentions that Gomez was tortured; and one on April 19 notes that his tongue was cut out. No details whatsoever were provided about the murders of Godoy de Cuevas and her brother and son.
I10. Aswewillseeinthenextchapter,thenewciviliangovernmentdidnothing to stem the army assault on the civilian population; but as we might also expect, the optimism of the press on the promise of the new civilian adminis- tration was not followed up with reports on what actually happened.
III. As we pointed out earlier, the U. S. press entirely ignored the administra- tion's refusal to allow one of the EI Salvador "Mothers of the Disappeared" to come to speak in the United States. See note 10, above.
lI2. This press release was featured in an "Urgent Action" memo of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA, dated October 3, 1986.
Chapter 3: Legitimizing versus Meaningless Third World Elections
I. See Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, Demonstration Elections: U. S. - Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador (Boston: South End Press, 1984), passim.
2. In the case of the Salvadoran elections of 1982 and 1984, the government relied on the media to play down not only this plan, but also the fact that the rebels were driven into rebellion by decades of refusal of the army to allow any democratic option, and that the rebels could not have participated in the election anyway because they would run heavy risks of being murdered-the five leaders of the political opposition in EI Salvador were tortured, murdered, and mutilated in San Salvador in November 1980.
3. As we pointed out in chapter I, the government and other power groups try to monopolize media attention not only by flooding the media with their own propaganda, but also by providing authentic and reliable "experts" to validate this propaganda.
4. For a model illustration of observer bias and foolishness, see appendix I on the findings of a U. S. official-observer team at the Guatemalan election ofJuly I, 1984.
S? "The observer delegation's mission was a simple one: to assess the fairness, honesty and propriety of the voting, the counting of ballots and the reporting
entirely by government personnel, including the deputy minister of defense . . '
356 NOTES TO P AGES 89-94
NOTES TO P AGES 94-101 357
of final results in the Salvadoran elections" (Senator Nancy Kassenbaum,
Report of the U. S. Official Observer Mission to the El Salvador Constituent Assembly Elections ofMarch 28, I982, Report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 97th Cong. , 2d sess. , p. 2. This agenda does not include considera- tion of any of the basic framework conditions-like free speech and the absence of state terror-that determine in advance whether an election can be meaningful. See the text below.
6. The New York Times even allowed the right-wing Freedom House observers to dominate its reports on the election staged by Ian Smith in Rhodesia in 1979 (articles of April 22 and May II, 1979). Although a brutal civil war raged and the rebel black groups were off the ballot, Freedom House found the election fair. In a rerun held a year later under British government auspices, the black candidate sponsored by Ian Smith who had received 65 percent in the "fair" election got only 8 percent of the vote, whereas the previously excluded black rebels received a commanding majority. Freedom House found the second election doubtful! See Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, appen- dix I, "Freedom House Observers in Zimbabwe Rhodesia and EI Salvador. " 7. Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 71-72.
8. Philip Taubman, "Shultz Criticizes Nicaragua Delay," New York Times, February 6, 1984; Security and Development Assistance, Hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 98th Cong. , 2d sess. , February 22, 1984, p. 83?
9. George Orwell, I984 (New York: Signet, 1950), p. 163.
10. "The Electoral Process in Nicaragua: Domestic and International Influ- ences," Report of the LASA Delegation to Observe the Nicaraguan General Election of November 4, 1984, Latin American Studies Association (Nov. 19, 1984), p. 32 (hereafter, LASA, Report).
II. The U. S. media quite properly condemned in advance the January 1947 elections held in Poland, under Soviet control and with security forces omni- present in the country, although not killing on anywhere near the scale seen in EI Salvador and Guatemala, 1979-87. See Herman and Brodhead, Demon- stration Elections, pp. 173-80.
12. LASA, Report, p. 5.
13. Nicaragua: The Threat of a Good Example? (Oxford: Oxfam, 1986), p. 14. Oxfam's U. S. affiliate also has warm words for the Sandinista effort, stating that
Among the four countries in the region where Oxfam works [Guatemala, EI Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua], only in Nicaragua has a sub- stantial effort been made to address inequities in land ownership and to extend health, educational, and agricultural services to poor peasant families. (Oxfam America Special Report: Central America, Fall 1985).
14. See below, under "Free speech and assembly" (p. 93) and "Freedom of the press" (p. 97).
15. See Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 119-20.
16. See Amnesty International, Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder (London: AI, 1981); Michael McClintock, The American Connection, vol. 2 (London: Zed, 1985).
17. UN General Assembly, Report ofthe Economic and Social Council: Situation
of Human Rights in Guatemala, November 13, 1985, p. 15. On Viscount Col- ville's apologetics, see Americas Watch, Colville for the Defense: A Critique of the Reports of the U. N. Special Rapporteur for Guatemala (February 1986). 18. Guatemala Human Rights Commission, "Report for the 39th General As- sembly of the United Nations on the Human Rights Situation in Guatemala" (New York, 1984), p. 18 (Hereafter, HRC, Report).
19. Ibid. , p. 23.
20. "Bitter and Cruel . . . ," Report of a Mission to Guatemala by the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, October 1984, p. 21.
21. Bishop Maurice Taylor and Bishop James O'Brien, "Brief Report on Visit to Guatemala," October 27-November 3, 1984, quoted in Americas Watch, Little Hope: Human Rights in Guatemala, January I984-I985 (New York: AW, 1985), p. 25?
22.
InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, Civil and Legal Rights in Guatemala (1985), p. 156. Development Poles are organizational units estab- lished by the army, nominally to foster "development," actually mere conve- nient units for control and surveillance.
23. International Human Rights Law Group, The I985 Guatemalan Elections: Will the Military Relinquish Power? (Washington: December 1985), p. 56 (here- after, IHRLG, Report).
24. Ibid. , p. 61.
25. LASA, Report, p. 27.
26. Ibid. , p. 25.
27. See further, Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 120-21. 28. "Journalists Killed and Disappeared since 1976," Committee to Protect
Journalists (December 1986), pp. 6-8.
29. Council on Hemispheric Affairs and the Newspaper Guild, "A Survey of Press Freedom in Latin America, 1984-85" (Washington: 1985), p. 38.
30. See IHRLG, Report, pp. 59-60.
31. Howard H. Frederick, "Electronic Penetration," in Thomas S. Walker, ed. , Reagan versus the Sandinistas (Boulder: Westview, 1987), pp. 123ff.
32. For a full account of media conditions, see John Spicer Nichols, "The Media," in Thomas S. Walker, ed. , Nicaragua: The First Five Years (New York: Praeger, 1985), pp. 183-99.
33. Ibid. , pp. 191-92. For comparison of media conditions in Nicaragua with those of the United States in wartime and its leading client state, Israel, see Noam Chomsky, "U. S. Polity and Society: The Lessons of Nicaragua," in Walker, ed. , Reagan versus the Sandinistas.
34. For a discussion of this decimation process and a tabulation of murders by group, see Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 121-26.
35? "The Grass Roots Organizations," in Walker, ed. , Nicaragua, p. 79.
36. Ibid. , p. 88.
37? It has often been observed by serious students of American democracy that the relative weakness of intermediate organizations (unions, political clubs, media not under corporate control, etc. ) is a severe impediment to meaningful political democracy in the United States-one reason, no doubt, why voter participation is so low and cynicism about its significance so high.
38. Raymond Bonner, Weakness and Deceit (New York: Times Books, 1984), PP? 278-79?
39. Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 122-24.
40. Enrique A. Baloyra, who argues that there was a real choice, says that people voted "primarily because they wanted to make use of this massive action to urge an end to violence and civil war. " But Baloyra nowhere discusses Duarte's and D'Aubuisson's views on a negotiated settlement of the war, which allows him to convey the erroneous impression that one of them supported a nonmilitary route to ending the violence and civil war (El Salvador in Transi- tion [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982], p. 175).
41. See Dennis Hans, "Duarte: The Man and the Myth," Covert Action Infor- mation Bulletin 26 (Summer 1986), pp. 42-47; Noam Chomsky, Turning the Tide (Boston: South End Press, 1985), pp. 109ff.
42. Weakness and Deceit, p. 205.
43. The top leadership of the Social Democratic party had been murdered in
1980, and its remaining officials fled the country. Only a portion of this exiled leadership returned for the 1985 election.
44. The guerrilla position was that with the army having set up a national control system, military domination had been institutionalized and elections would have no meaning. See "Guerrillas' View of Elections: Army Will Hold Power Despite Polls," Latin America Weekry Report, October 25, 1985, p. II. 45? HRC, Report, p. 7.
46. Americas Watch, Civil Patrols in Guatemala (New York: AW, 1986), p. 2. 47. "EI Senor Presidente? " An interview of Cerezo by George Black in Octo- ber 1985, NACLA Report on the Americas (November-December 1985), p. 24. 48. "In a meeting several months ago with the ultra-rightist organization Amigos del Pais, which allegedly has strong death squad connections, PDCG deputies to the Constituent Assembly pledged that if the party came to power, they would ref~ain from agrarian and banking reforms, investigation into human rights abuses by the armed forces, and any interference in the coun- terinsurgency program" ("Guatemala Votes," Washington Report on the Hemi- sphere, Nov. 27, 1985). Stephen Kinzer also reports on a private meeting between Cerezo and right-wing landowners, in which "he said we all needed each other at this moment . . . " ("When a Landslide Is Not a Mandate," New York Times, Dec. 15, 1985).
49. Allen Nairn and Jean-Marie Simon, in their "The Bureaucracy of Death," New Republic, aune 30, 1986), describe the "tactical alliance" between Cerezo and the army, which protected them against any accountability for past ac- tions, in exchange for which the army would allow Cerezo to occupy office. 50. See "Cerezo Adapts to Counterinsurgency," Guatemala, Guatemala News and Information Bureau (May-June 1986).
51. American Watch, Human Rights in Guatemala during President Cerezo's First Year, February 1987. Cerezo argued for not prosecuting the military for old crimes on the ground that everyone wanted to start afresh. But Americas Watch points out that if terrible crimes of the past are exempt from the rule of law, it suggests that Cerezo doesn't have the power to stop further military crimes. "It is a sign that the rule of law has not been established in Guatemala, and that it cannot be established" (p. 4). This point is supported by Cerezo's inaction in the face of a hundred violent deaths a month-many of them political murders by the army-after he assumed office.
52. See Michael Parenti, "Is Nicaragua More Democratic Than the United
States? " Covert Action Information Bulletin 26 (Summer 1986), pp. 48-52. 53. Wayne S. Smith, "Lies About Nicaragua," Foreign Policy (Summer 1987), p. 93. Smith states that Cruz "now says that he regrets not taking part and that his failure to participate in the 1984 elections was one of his major political mistakes. "
54. See LASA, Report, pp. 24-25, 29-31. We discuss this point, and the likeli- hood that Cruz's withdrawal was part of a public-relations strategy, in our treatment below of the media's handling of the Nicaraguan election.
55. LASA, Report, p. 23?
56. Doherty's statement appears in U. S. Policy toward El Salvador, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 97th Cong. , 1st sess. , 1981, p. 290; Gomez's statement is in Presidential Certification ofEl Salvador, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 97th Cong. , 2d sess. , 1982, vol. I, p. 330.
57. AW, Little Hope, p. 1.
58. IHRLG, Report, p. 4?
59. They were being murdered on a regular basis by U. S. -sponsored terrorists entering Nicaragua from Honduras and Costa Rica, however.
60. Rev. Daniel Long and seven other ecumenical group observers, "March 25, 1984, Elections in EI Salvador" (1984, mimeographed), p. 4?
61. Based on conversations with voters, the Long group states that "most people waited these long hours because of their desire to have their cedula stamped and their finger inked to avoid fines for not voting and/or possible reprisals from the government and military. . . . " They note that at many places voting officials stamped the cedulas of those unable to vote because of crowding just so they could leave (ibid. , p. 6).
62. In the July I, 1984, election for a constituent assembly, null and blank votes exceeded those of any party and were a staggering 26 percent of the total. 63. IHRLG, Report, p. 54.
64. This procedure was put into the rules at the request of several opposition parties (LASA, Report, p. 15).
65. The media generally suppressed the fact that the number of voting booths was sharply restricted in 1982, allegedly for security reasons but making for longer lines.
66. "Media Coverage ofEI Salvador's Election," Socialist Review (April 1983),
P? 29?
67. "Salvadorans Jam Polling Stations; Rebels Close Some," New York Times,
March 29, 1982.
68. See further, Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 164-67. 69. Warren Hoge did quote Garcia, but only to suggest an open election: "Without any lies, you can see here what it is that the people want . . . " ("Salvadorans Jam Polling Stations," New York Times, Mar. 29, 1982).
70. Eleven days before the 1982 election, four Dutch journalists were mur- dered by the Salvadoran security forces. The foreign press corps was trooped into the morgue to see the bodies, whose ripped genitals were exposed to media view. This episode-described in the 1984 documentary film In the Name of Democracy-was suppressed in the U. S. mass media, led to no large outcries and generalizations about the qualities of the Salvadoran government, and may have contributed to the remarkable silence of journalists in EI Salvador on the
300 NUTIiS TO PAGES 1011-IIS
NOTES TO PAGES IIS-II8 361
unfavorable media (as well as other) conditions in the incipient democracy. 71. "Salvador Vote: Uncertainty Remains," April 3, 1982.
72. The Times devoted an entire article to the Salvadoran chief of staff's promises that "his troops would provide adequate security for the election of March 25" (1984); Blandon is quoted as saying "I'm giving you the assurance that there will be secure elections for all of the country" (Lydia Chavez, "Salvadoran Promises Safe Election," New York Times, Mar. 14, 1984).
354 NOTES TO PAGES 73-80
NOTES TO PAGES 81-89 355
British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, October 1984; Americas Watch, Civil Patrols in Guatemala (New York: AW, 1986).
84. Amnesty International, Guatemala: Massive Extrajudicial Executions in Rural Areas under the Government of General Efrain R? os Monu, October II, 1982.
8S. According to State Department testimony ofJuly 20, 1981, "We need to try a new, constructive policy approach to Guatemala . . . " (quoted in Americas Watch, Guatemala Revisited: How the Reagan Administration Finds "Improve- ments" in Human Rights in Guatemala [New York: AW, 1985], p. 4).
86. Quoted in Americas Watch, Guatemala Revisited, p. S.
87. See Amnesty International, Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder, p. 8.
88. Americas Watch, Guatemala Revisited, p. 6.
89. State Department 1984 Human Rights Country Report, quoted in Ameri- cas Watch, Guatemala Revisited, p. IS.
90. Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder, p. S.
91. While this is true almost without exception for news articles, there were perhaps a dozen Op-Ed columns in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and some letters, in the period 1980-86, that criticized Guatemalan state terrorism; some of these were harshly critical of U. S. policy.
92. A few of the opinion pieces cited in the previous note did discuss the U. S. role.
93. "Requiem for a Missionary," August 10, 1981.
94. The documents include the following four put out by Amnesty Interna- tional: Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder, February 1981; "Disappearances": A Workbook, 1981; Guatemala: Massive Extrajudicial Execu- tions in Rural Areas under the Government of General Efrain Rios Manu, Oc- tober 1982; "Disappearances" in Guatemala under the Government of General Oscar Humberto Mej? a V? ctores, March 1985. We also included six studies by Americas Watch: Human Rights in Guatemala: No Neutrals Allowed, Novem- ber 1982; Guatemala Revisited: How the Reagan Administration Finds "Im- provements" in Human Rights in Guatemala, September 1985; Liule Hope: Human Rights in Guatemala, January I984-January I98S, February 1985; Guatemala: The Group for Mutual Support, 1985; Civil Patrols in Guatemala, August 1986; Human Rights in Guatemala during President Cerezo's First Year, 1987.
9S. This letter is reproduced in Americas Watch, Human Rights in Guatem. ala: No Neutrals Allowed, November 1982.
96. For a full discussion of the last of these murders, that of Marianela Garcia Villas, on March IS, 1983, see Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, Demon- stration Elections: U. S. -Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador (Boston: South End Press, 1984), pp. x-xi.
97. Quoted in Americas Watch, Guatemala: The Group for Mutual Support,. I984-I98S, p. 2 (hereafter, AW, Mutual Support).
98. Council on Hemispheric Affairs, News and Analysis, April 26, 1986, p. 222. 99. McClintock, American Connection, vol. 2, p. 83.
100. AW, Mutual Support, p. 3.
101. "Bitter and Cruel," British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, October 1984.
102. AW, Mutual Support, p. 8.
103. Ibid. , p. 7.
104. An open letter of November 15, 1984, quoted in AW, Mutual Support,
P? 24?
lOS. AW, Mutual Support, pp. 24-2S.
106. Ibid. , p. 36. This was, of course, a complete fabrication. What Mejia
Victores is referring to is an investigative body that he established, manned
and that, predictably, gave the government a clean bill of health.
107. Ibid. , p. 38.
108. Ibid. , p. 41.
109? Two very terse exceptions should be noted: On April 13, an article on the case mentions that Gomez was tortured; and one on April 19 notes that his tongue was cut out. No details whatsoever were provided about the murders of Godoy de Cuevas and her brother and son.
I10. Aswewillseeinthenextchapter,thenewciviliangovernmentdidnothing to stem the army assault on the civilian population; but as we might also expect, the optimism of the press on the promise of the new civilian adminis- tration was not followed up with reports on what actually happened.
III. As we pointed out earlier, the U. S. press entirely ignored the administra- tion's refusal to allow one of the EI Salvador "Mothers of the Disappeared" to come to speak in the United States. See note 10, above.
lI2. This press release was featured in an "Urgent Action" memo of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA, dated October 3, 1986.
Chapter 3: Legitimizing versus Meaningless Third World Elections
I. See Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, Demonstration Elections: U. S. - Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador (Boston: South End Press, 1984), passim.
2. In the case of the Salvadoran elections of 1982 and 1984, the government relied on the media to play down not only this plan, but also the fact that the rebels were driven into rebellion by decades of refusal of the army to allow any democratic option, and that the rebels could not have participated in the election anyway because they would run heavy risks of being murdered-the five leaders of the political opposition in EI Salvador were tortured, murdered, and mutilated in San Salvador in November 1980.
3. As we pointed out in chapter I, the government and other power groups try to monopolize media attention not only by flooding the media with their own propaganda, but also by providing authentic and reliable "experts" to validate this propaganda.
4. For a model illustration of observer bias and foolishness, see appendix I on the findings of a U. S. official-observer team at the Guatemalan election ofJuly I, 1984.
S? "The observer delegation's mission was a simple one: to assess the fairness, honesty and propriety of the voting, the counting of ballots and the reporting
entirely by government personnel, including the deputy minister of defense . . '
356 NOTES TO P AGES 89-94
NOTES TO P AGES 94-101 357
of final results in the Salvadoran elections" (Senator Nancy Kassenbaum,
Report of the U. S. Official Observer Mission to the El Salvador Constituent Assembly Elections ofMarch 28, I982, Report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 97th Cong. , 2d sess. , p. 2. This agenda does not include considera- tion of any of the basic framework conditions-like free speech and the absence of state terror-that determine in advance whether an election can be meaningful. See the text below.
6. The New York Times even allowed the right-wing Freedom House observers to dominate its reports on the election staged by Ian Smith in Rhodesia in 1979 (articles of April 22 and May II, 1979). Although a brutal civil war raged and the rebel black groups were off the ballot, Freedom House found the election fair. In a rerun held a year later under British government auspices, the black candidate sponsored by Ian Smith who had received 65 percent in the "fair" election got only 8 percent of the vote, whereas the previously excluded black rebels received a commanding majority. Freedom House found the second election doubtful! See Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, appen- dix I, "Freedom House Observers in Zimbabwe Rhodesia and EI Salvador. " 7. Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 71-72.
8. Philip Taubman, "Shultz Criticizes Nicaragua Delay," New York Times, February 6, 1984; Security and Development Assistance, Hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 98th Cong. , 2d sess. , February 22, 1984, p. 83?
9. George Orwell, I984 (New York: Signet, 1950), p. 163.
10. "The Electoral Process in Nicaragua: Domestic and International Influ- ences," Report of the LASA Delegation to Observe the Nicaraguan General Election of November 4, 1984, Latin American Studies Association (Nov. 19, 1984), p. 32 (hereafter, LASA, Report).
II. The U. S. media quite properly condemned in advance the January 1947 elections held in Poland, under Soviet control and with security forces omni- present in the country, although not killing on anywhere near the scale seen in EI Salvador and Guatemala, 1979-87. See Herman and Brodhead, Demon- stration Elections, pp. 173-80.
12. LASA, Report, p. 5.
13. Nicaragua: The Threat of a Good Example? (Oxford: Oxfam, 1986), p. 14. Oxfam's U. S. affiliate also has warm words for the Sandinista effort, stating that
Among the four countries in the region where Oxfam works [Guatemala, EI Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua], only in Nicaragua has a sub- stantial effort been made to address inequities in land ownership and to extend health, educational, and agricultural services to poor peasant families. (Oxfam America Special Report: Central America, Fall 1985).
14. See below, under "Free speech and assembly" (p. 93) and "Freedom of the press" (p. 97).
15. See Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 119-20.
16. See Amnesty International, Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder (London: AI, 1981); Michael McClintock, The American Connection, vol. 2 (London: Zed, 1985).
17. UN General Assembly, Report ofthe Economic and Social Council: Situation
of Human Rights in Guatemala, November 13, 1985, p. 15. On Viscount Col- ville's apologetics, see Americas Watch, Colville for the Defense: A Critique of the Reports of the U. N. Special Rapporteur for Guatemala (February 1986). 18. Guatemala Human Rights Commission, "Report for the 39th General As- sembly of the United Nations on the Human Rights Situation in Guatemala" (New York, 1984), p. 18 (Hereafter, HRC, Report).
19. Ibid. , p. 23.
20. "Bitter and Cruel . . . ," Report of a Mission to Guatemala by the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, October 1984, p. 21.
21. Bishop Maurice Taylor and Bishop James O'Brien, "Brief Report on Visit to Guatemala," October 27-November 3, 1984, quoted in Americas Watch, Little Hope: Human Rights in Guatemala, January I984-I985 (New York: AW, 1985), p. 25?
22.
InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, Civil and Legal Rights in Guatemala (1985), p. 156. Development Poles are organizational units estab- lished by the army, nominally to foster "development," actually mere conve- nient units for control and surveillance.
23. International Human Rights Law Group, The I985 Guatemalan Elections: Will the Military Relinquish Power? (Washington: December 1985), p. 56 (here- after, IHRLG, Report).
24. Ibid. , p. 61.
25. LASA, Report, p. 27.
26. Ibid. , p. 25.
27. See further, Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 120-21. 28. "Journalists Killed and Disappeared since 1976," Committee to Protect
Journalists (December 1986), pp. 6-8.
29. Council on Hemispheric Affairs and the Newspaper Guild, "A Survey of Press Freedom in Latin America, 1984-85" (Washington: 1985), p. 38.
30. See IHRLG, Report, pp. 59-60.
31. Howard H. Frederick, "Electronic Penetration," in Thomas S. Walker, ed. , Reagan versus the Sandinistas (Boulder: Westview, 1987), pp. 123ff.
32. For a full account of media conditions, see John Spicer Nichols, "The Media," in Thomas S. Walker, ed. , Nicaragua: The First Five Years (New York: Praeger, 1985), pp. 183-99.
33. Ibid. , pp. 191-92. For comparison of media conditions in Nicaragua with those of the United States in wartime and its leading client state, Israel, see Noam Chomsky, "U. S. Polity and Society: The Lessons of Nicaragua," in Walker, ed. , Reagan versus the Sandinistas.
34. For a discussion of this decimation process and a tabulation of murders by group, see Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 121-26.
35? "The Grass Roots Organizations," in Walker, ed. , Nicaragua, p. 79.
36. Ibid. , p. 88.
37? It has often been observed by serious students of American democracy that the relative weakness of intermediate organizations (unions, political clubs, media not under corporate control, etc. ) is a severe impediment to meaningful political democracy in the United States-one reason, no doubt, why voter participation is so low and cynicism about its significance so high.
38. Raymond Bonner, Weakness and Deceit (New York: Times Books, 1984), PP? 278-79?
39. Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 122-24.
40. Enrique A. Baloyra, who argues that there was a real choice, says that people voted "primarily because they wanted to make use of this massive action to urge an end to violence and civil war. " But Baloyra nowhere discusses Duarte's and D'Aubuisson's views on a negotiated settlement of the war, which allows him to convey the erroneous impression that one of them supported a nonmilitary route to ending the violence and civil war (El Salvador in Transi- tion [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982], p. 175).
41. See Dennis Hans, "Duarte: The Man and the Myth," Covert Action Infor- mation Bulletin 26 (Summer 1986), pp. 42-47; Noam Chomsky, Turning the Tide (Boston: South End Press, 1985), pp. 109ff.
42. Weakness and Deceit, p. 205.
43. The top leadership of the Social Democratic party had been murdered in
1980, and its remaining officials fled the country. Only a portion of this exiled leadership returned for the 1985 election.
44. The guerrilla position was that with the army having set up a national control system, military domination had been institutionalized and elections would have no meaning. See "Guerrillas' View of Elections: Army Will Hold Power Despite Polls," Latin America Weekry Report, October 25, 1985, p. II. 45? HRC, Report, p. 7.
46. Americas Watch, Civil Patrols in Guatemala (New York: AW, 1986), p. 2. 47. "EI Senor Presidente? " An interview of Cerezo by George Black in Octo- ber 1985, NACLA Report on the Americas (November-December 1985), p. 24. 48. "In a meeting several months ago with the ultra-rightist organization Amigos del Pais, which allegedly has strong death squad connections, PDCG deputies to the Constituent Assembly pledged that if the party came to power, they would ref~ain from agrarian and banking reforms, investigation into human rights abuses by the armed forces, and any interference in the coun- terinsurgency program" ("Guatemala Votes," Washington Report on the Hemi- sphere, Nov. 27, 1985). Stephen Kinzer also reports on a private meeting between Cerezo and right-wing landowners, in which "he said we all needed each other at this moment . . . " ("When a Landslide Is Not a Mandate," New York Times, Dec. 15, 1985).
49. Allen Nairn and Jean-Marie Simon, in their "The Bureaucracy of Death," New Republic, aune 30, 1986), describe the "tactical alliance" between Cerezo and the army, which protected them against any accountability for past ac- tions, in exchange for which the army would allow Cerezo to occupy office. 50. See "Cerezo Adapts to Counterinsurgency," Guatemala, Guatemala News and Information Bureau (May-June 1986).
51. American Watch, Human Rights in Guatemala during President Cerezo's First Year, February 1987. Cerezo argued for not prosecuting the military for old crimes on the ground that everyone wanted to start afresh. But Americas Watch points out that if terrible crimes of the past are exempt from the rule of law, it suggests that Cerezo doesn't have the power to stop further military crimes. "It is a sign that the rule of law has not been established in Guatemala, and that it cannot be established" (p. 4). This point is supported by Cerezo's inaction in the face of a hundred violent deaths a month-many of them political murders by the army-after he assumed office.
52. See Michael Parenti, "Is Nicaragua More Democratic Than the United
States? " Covert Action Information Bulletin 26 (Summer 1986), pp. 48-52. 53. Wayne S. Smith, "Lies About Nicaragua," Foreign Policy (Summer 1987), p. 93. Smith states that Cruz "now says that he regrets not taking part and that his failure to participate in the 1984 elections was one of his major political mistakes. "
54. See LASA, Report, pp. 24-25, 29-31. We discuss this point, and the likeli- hood that Cruz's withdrawal was part of a public-relations strategy, in our treatment below of the media's handling of the Nicaraguan election.
55. LASA, Report, p. 23?
56. Doherty's statement appears in U. S. Policy toward El Salvador, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 97th Cong. , 1st sess. , 1981, p. 290; Gomez's statement is in Presidential Certification ofEl Salvador, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 97th Cong. , 2d sess. , 1982, vol. I, p. 330.
57. AW, Little Hope, p. 1.
58. IHRLG, Report, p. 4?
59. They were being murdered on a regular basis by U. S. -sponsored terrorists entering Nicaragua from Honduras and Costa Rica, however.
60. Rev. Daniel Long and seven other ecumenical group observers, "March 25, 1984, Elections in EI Salvador" (1984, mimeographed), p. 4?
61. Based on conversations with voters, the Long group states that "most people waited these long hours because of their desire to have their cedula stamped and their finger inked to avoid fines for not voting and/or possible reprisals from the government and military. . . . " They note that at many places voting officials stamped the cedulas of those unable to vote because of crowding just so they could leave (ibid. , p. 6).
62. In the July I, 1984, election for a constituent assembly, null and blank votes exceeded those of any party and were a staggering 26 percent of the total. 63. IHRLG, Report, p. 54.
64. This procedure was put into the rules at the request of several opposition parties (LASA, Report, p. 15).
65. The media generally suppressed the fact that the number of voting booths was sharply restricted in 1982, allegedly for security reasons but making for longer lines.
66. "Media Coverage ofEI Salvador's Election," Socialist Review (April 1983),
P? 29?
67. "Salvadorans Jam Polling Stations; Rebels Close Some," New York Times,
March 29, 1982.
68. See further, Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections, pp. 164-67. 69. Warren Hoge did quote Garcia, but only to suggest an open election: "Without any lies, you can see here what it is that the people want . . . " ("Salvadorans Jam Polling Stations," New York Times, Mar. 29, 1982).
70. Eleven days before the 1982 election, four Dutch journalists were mur- dered by the Salvadoran security forces. The foreign press corps was trooped into the morgue to see the bodies, whose ripped genitals were exposed to media view. This episode-described in the 1984 documentary film In the Name of Democracy-was suppressed in the U. S. mass media, led to no large outcries and generalizations about the qualities of the Salvadoran government, and may have contributed to the remarkable silence of journalists in EI Salvador on the
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unfavorable media (as well as other) conditions in the incipient democracy. 71. "Salvador Vote: Uncertainty Remains," April 3, 1982.
72. The Times devoted an entire article to the Salvadoran chief of staff's promises that "his troops would provide adequate security for the election of March 25" (1984); Blandon is quoted as saying "I'm giving you the assurance that there will be secure elections for all of the country" (Lydia Chavez, "Salvadoran Promises Safe Election," New York Times, Mar. 14, 1984).
