In the case of the Vietnam election of 1967 and the EI Salvador
elections
of 1982 and 1984, the purpose of the elections was not merely to placate the home public but also to mislead them on the ends sought.
Manufacturing Consent - Chomsky
Their hope for survival and success rested, in part, on the fact that the chief of state, Mejia Victores, was being built up by the Reagan administration as another "reformer," and the Rea- gan-Mejia Victores team was trying to establish the appropriate "image" to induce Congress to loosen the purse strings.
GAM also had support within Guatemala from Archbishop Penados del Barrio and other church groups and lay persons, although few felt able to speak up in the system of unconstrained state terror.
Internationally, GAM received significant political support from progressive and humanitar- ian political parties and human-rights groups.
Thirty members of the newly organized GAM held a press confer- ence in Guatemala City in June 1984, denouncing the disappearances and calling on the government "to intervene immediately in order to find our loved ones. " In the latter part of June, and again in early August, masses were held in the Metropolitan Cathedral to express concern over the fate of the disappeared, with the initial services held by the university rector, Meyer Maldonado, and Archbishop Penados. A thousand people attended the August mass. On August I, the group first met with General Mejia Victores, at which time he promised to investigate the disappearances. In ads placed in the major newspapers on August 8 and 9, GAM put his promises on the public record. Subse- quently the group began to call attention to the government's failure to follow through on the August 1 promises, and they moved gradually to other actions. In October 1984 they sponsored a march and mass for the disappeared at the cathedral-the first mass demonstration in Guatemala since May I, 1980 (at which time protestors were seized on the streets and an estimated one hundred were assassinated, or disap-
peared).
82 M A S U F A C T U R IN G C O N S E N T
The organization continued to grow, from the initial handful to 225 families in November 1984 and then to 1,3? 0 in the spring of 1986. Most
of the members were women, a large majority peasant women from the countryside. They were persistent. After initial petitions, requests, meetings, and marches, they began to make explicit accusations and "publicly charge elements of the national security forces as directly i responsible for the capture and subsequent disappearance of our family . , members. "I04 They asked for an investigation, an accounting, and jus-
tice. They appealed to the constituent assembly and began regular 1? protests in downtown Guatemala City, banging pots and pans and, on . occasion, peacefully occupying buildings.
Nothing, of course, was done in response to the GAM demands. The assembly had no powers anyway, but was too fearful even to pass a resolution of support. The military rulers toyed with GAM. In public, with the press on hand, Mejia Victores would say, "I don't want to shirk responsibilities and something has to be done. " But when the press was not there, he said, "It seems as though you are accusing me-and we don't have them [the disappeared]. " "You have them," we said. "We don't have them," he replied. lOS The military rulers were getting an- noyed, and phone threats, letters of warning, and open surveillance intensified. Two days after the exchange between Mejia Victores and GAM, the tortured bodies of two disappeared associated with GAM members showed up, one placed in front of his house with his eyes
gouged out and his face barely recognizable.
In a television interview on March 14, 1985, Mejia Victores said that
GAM was "being used by subversion, because if they have problems, solutions are being found, and they have been given every advantage to [solve these problems]. "106 A spate of newspaper headlines followed, stressing government warnings and allegations that GAM was being manipulated by subversives. In mid-March, General Mejia Victores was asked on television what action the government would take against GAM. He replied, "You'll know it when you see it,"107
On March 30, 1985, GAM leader Hector G6mez Calito was seized, tortured, and murdered. (The six policemen who had come for him were themselves assassinated shortly after his death. )108 He had been burned with a blowtorch, on the stomach and elsewhere, and beaten on the face so severely that his lips were swollen and his teeth were broken; his tongue had been cut out. Then, on April 4, another leader of GAM, Maria Rosario Godoy de Cuevas, her twenty-one-year-old brother, and her two-year-old son were picked up, tortured, and murdered. Her breasts had bite marks and her underclothing was bloody; her two-year-
old son had had his fingernails pulled out.
On grounds of newsworthiness, the murders of the two GAM lead- ers, along with the brother and the child of one of them, would seem to deserve high-order attention. Their bravery was exceptional; the villainy they were opposing was extraordinary; the justice of their cause was unassailable; and the crimes they suffered were more savage than those undergone by Popieluszko. Most important of all, these were crimes for which we bear considerable responsibility, since they were perpetrated by clients who depend on our support, so that exposure and pressure could have a significant effect in safeguarding human rights. On the other hand, the Reagan administration was busily trying to enter into warmer and more supportive relations with the Guatemalan mili-
I tary regime and, as we described earlier, was going to great pains to put the regime in a favorabJe light. A propaganda model wouJd anticipate that even these dramatic and horrifying murders would be treated in a low-key manner and quickly dropped by the mass media-that, unlike Popieluszko, there would be no sustained interest, no indignation capa- ble of rousing the public (and disturbing the administration's plans).
These expectations are fully vindicated by the record.
Table 2-3 compares media coverage ofthe Popieluszko case with that of the murders of the GAM leaders. It is immediately obvious that the treatment is radically different in the two cases. The GAM murders couldn't even make "the news" at Time, Newsweek, or CBS News, The New York Times never found these murders worthy of the front page or editorial comment, and we can see that the intensity of its coverage was slight. The first report of the quadruple murder was on April 7, 1985, in a tiny item on page 5 of the paper in which it is mentioned that the body of Maria Rosario Godoy de Cuevas was found in her car in a ravine, along with the bodies of her brother and her young son. In neither this item nor any succeeding article does the Times provide details on the condition of the bodies, or mention that the two-year-old
child had his fingernails tom OUt. I09
In other respects, too, the Times articles, all written by Stephen
Kinzer, generally employ an apologetic framework. That is, they don't focus on the murders-who the victims were, the details of the vio- lence, who did it, why, and the institutional structures and roots of organized murder of which these are an obvious part. With Popie- luszko, these were the issues. Kinzer has little or nothing on the details of the GAM murders and very little on the victims and the experiences that brought them to GAM, and the question of who did it and what was being done (or not done) to bring the murderers to justice he hardly considers. Kinzer takes it for granted that the murders were committed by agents of the state, but he doesn't say this explicitly, or discuss the
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 83
TABLE 2-3 ~
?
Mass-Media Coverage of Worthy and Unworthy Victims (2):
A Murdered Polish Priest versus Two Murdered Officials ?
>
"
c
> n
of the Guatemalan Mutual Support Group
"
c
NEW YORK TIMES
TIME and NEWSWEEK
CBS NEWS
? o
"
n
No. of No. of o Articlest Column page Editorials Artides CoI~ news evening Z
Front- Inches articles
'?
inches No. % of
row I
programSI news
" "
z
No.
% of row I
No. '" of No. row I
% of No. row 1
% of row 1
No. % of row I
No. % of No. row I
% of row I
V ictinu
l. lerzy Popicluszko,
murdered on
Oct. 19, 1984 2. H~ctor Orlando
G6mez and Maria Rosario Godoy de Cuevas, murdered between Mar. 30 and Apr. 6, 1985 (along with a child, who was tortured)
78 (l00) 1183. 0 (100) 10 (100) 3 (100) 16 (tOO) 313. 0 (100) 46 (100) 23 (100)
5 (6. 4) 80. 0
(6. 8)
Th" media c. . . . verage is for "0 IR_. . . . . . . nth p<=,;nd fro. . . 'he ,im" of . he fiT" rcp. . . . " of 'he vic. . . . . . '" ,Ii. appear,,,,cc 0< . -nurdcr.
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 85
background, or provide a framework for evaluating the case. He looks "objectively" at the scene, quoting some of the GAM survivors in brief and rhetorical statements that are offset by quotes from the generals: they approved the formation of GAM (an ambiguous half-truth); they appointed an investigating committee that "found no evidence of secret detention centers in Guatemala" (no mention of the composition of the committee, no counter-evidence, and no mention of issues they may have overlooked-like disappeared who are murdered); and they deny any responsibility for the murder of Godoy, her brother, and her son, who they claim to have been victims of an auto accident. If Kinzer had given the details of the victims' injuries, this lie would have been exposed as such, and further questions would have suggested them- selves.
In article after article, Kinzer repeats that the Mejia Victores gov- ernment has pledged to return to civilian rule shortly, which helps deflect attention from the ongoing killing and its causes, and from the GAM murders under discussion; he also does not tell us just what "civilian rule" would mean in a terrorist state in which, as he knows, the effective rulers would be the same military forces. Ho In the Popie- luszko case, once it was established that the police had committed the murder, the media spent a great deal of space discussing the police apparatus and police methods, as well as attending to the responsibility of the people at higher levels for the murder. Kinzer doesn't discuss these questions at all. The structure of the Guatemalan murder ma- chine and how it works would make a good Story, and numerous details of its operations were available, but this did not fit the government agenda and the Times format. Similarly, the role of Mejia Victores in the murder of the GAM leaders-recall his warnings just prior to the murders, and consider his virtually unlimited discretionary power to murder or protect the citizenry-is ignored. But once again, the links to the top in the case of unworthy victims do not fit the propaganda format. Kinzer does a nice job of making the GAM murders seem to be part of the natural background-regrettable but inevitable, part of the complex inheritance of a troubled country, and possibly, it is hoped, to be rectified when the new civilian government takes power.
In an attempt to gain support abroad, two of the remaining leaders of GAM, Nineth de Garcia and Herlindo Hideo de Aquino, traveled to Europe in March and April 1986, after the inauguration of the elected civilian president, Christian Democrat Vinicio Cerezo. One of their most important messages was that killings and disappearances had not abated at all during the first three months of Cerezo's presidency, and that the death squads had actually reappeared and were active in
86 MANti"FACTti"ltING CONSENT
Guatemala City. Because of ill health, Nineth de Garcia canceled her visits in Washington, D. C. , and flew directly from Europe to Chicago, where she was scheduled to receive the key to the city from Mayor Harold Washington. As she went through customs in Chicago, how- ever, the officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service searched, interrogated, and harassed her for two hours, one of the customs officials calling her a subversive and a Communist. They also seized literature she carried and threatened to deport her, despite her intended brief stopover and valid visa. This intimidation had its effect, and Nineth de Garcia flew directly to Guatemala. A friend attended the banquet in her place to accept the key presented by Mayor Washington.
This incident is revealing. It is unlikely that Sharansky or Walesa would be so treated by the INS, but if by some chance they were, the press outcry would be great. I I I When a press conference was held in Chicago by supporters of GAM to protest this outrage, the major media did not attend, and neither the press releases nor the follow-up lener from a congressional group signed by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan could break the silence. The convergence between Reagan administra- tion policy toward Guatemala and media priorities was complete. (Ac- cording to two organizers of the Chicago press conference, full information on this event was given Steve Greenhouse, the New York Times's reporter in Chicago, but not a word about this incident ap- peared in the newspaper of record. )
A press release by the Guatemalan army on September 17, 1986, accused GAM of conducting
. . . a black campaign of falsehood . . . insults and insolence . , directed at the military institution that exceed [the boundaries] of 1 liberty and tolerance for free speech. The army cannot permit the insidiousness and truculence of GAM's maneuvers . . . that at-
tempt to compromise the democratic international image of Guatemala. 112
Although very similar threats preceded the murder of two leaders of GAM in March and April of1984, the U. S. mass media entirely ignored this new information-despite strenuous efforts by GAM, the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, and their allies to elicit pub- licity. As in the past, the unworthiness of these victims remains an essential ingredient in the Guatemalan army's continued freedom to kill.
Legitimizing versus
Meaningless Third World
Elections:
EI Salvador Guatemala Nicaragua
THlRD WORLD ELECTIONS PROVIDE AN EXCELLENT TESTING ground for a propaganda model. Some elections are held in friendly client states to legitimize their rulers and regimes, whereas others are held in disfavored or enemy countries to legitimize their political sys- tems. This natural dichotomization is strengthened by the fact that elections in the friendly client states are often held under U. S. sponsor- ship and with extensive U. S. management and public-relations support. Thus, in the Dominican Republic in I966, and periodically thereafter, the United States organized what have been called "demonstration elections" in its client states, defined as those whose primary function is to convince the home population that the intervention is well inten- tioned, that the populace of the invaded and occupied country wel- comes the intrusion, and that they are being given a democratic choice. l
The elections in EI Salvador in 1982 and 1984 were true demonstra- tion elections, and those held in Guatemala in 1984-85 were strongly supported by the United States for image-enhancing purposes. The
88 MANUFACTliRlNG CONSENT
election held in Nicaragua in 1984, by contrast, was intended to legiti- mize a government that the Reagan administration was striving to destabilize and overthrow. The U. S. government therefore went to great pains to cast the Nicaraguan election in an unfavorable light.
A propaganda model would anticipate mass-media support of the state perspective and agenda. That is, the favored elections will be found to legitimize, no matter what the facts; the disfavored election will be found deficient, farcical, and failing to legitimize-again, irre- spective of facts. What makes this another strong test of a propaganda model is that the Salvadoran and Guatemalan elections of 1982 and
1984-85 were held under conditions of severe, ongoing state terror against the civilian population, whereas in Nicaragua this was not the case. To find the former elections legitimizing and the Nicaraguan election a farce, the media would have had to use different standards of evaluation in the two sets of cases, and, more specifically) it would have been necessary for them to avoid discussing state terror and other basic electoral conditions in the Salvadoran and Guatemalan elections. As we will see, the media fulfilled these requirements and met the needs of the state to a remarkable degree.
In order to demonstrate the applicability of a propaganda model in these cases, we will first describe the eJecrjon-propaganda framework that the U. S. government tried to foist on the media; we will then review the basic electoral conditions under which elections were held in the three countries; and finally, we will examine how the U. S. mass media treated each of the three elections.
3. 1. ELECTION-PROPAGANDA FRAMEWORKS
The U. S. government has employed a number of devices in its spon- sored elections to put them in a favorable light_ It has also had an identifiable agenda of issues that it wants stressed, as well as others it wants ignored or downplayed. Central to demonstration-election man? agement has been the manipulation of symbols and agenda to give the favored election a positive image. The sponsor government tries to associate the election with the happy word "democracy" and the mili- tary regime it backs with support of the elections (and hence democ- racy). It emphasizes what a wonderful thing it is to be able to hold any election at all under conditions of internal conflict, and it makes it
LEGITIMIZllI:G VERSUS MEA:. <ISGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 89
appear a moral triumph that the army has agreed to support the election (albeit reluctantly) and abide by its results.
The refusal of the rebel opposition to participate in the election is portrayed as a rejection of democracy and proof of its antidemocratic tendencies, although the very plan of the election involves the rebels' exclusion from the ballot. 2 The sponsor government also seizes upon any rebel statements urging nonparticipation or threatening to disrupt the election. These are used to transform the election into a dramatic struggle between, on the one side, the "born-again" democratic army and people struggling to vote for "peace," and, on the other, the rebels opposing democracy, peace, and the right to vote. Thus the dramatic denouement of the election is voter turnout, which measures the ability of the forces of democracy and peace (the army) to overcome rebel threats.
Official observers are dispatched to the election scene to assure its public-relations success. Nominally, their role is to see that the election is "fair. " Their real function, however, is to provide the appearance of fairness by focusing on the government's agenda and by channeling press attention to a reliable source. 3 They testify to fairness on the basis of long lines, smiling faces, no beatings in their presence, and the assurances and enthusiasm of U. S. and client-state officials. 4 But these superficialities are entirely consistent with a staged fraud. Fairness depends on fundamental conditions established in advance, which are virtually impossible to ascertain under the brief, guided-tour conditions
of official observers. Furthermore, official observers in sponsored elec- tions rarely ask the relevant questions. 5 They are able to perform their public-relations function because the government chooses observers who are reliable supporters of its aims and publicizes their role, and the press gives them respectful anention. 6
"Off the agenda" for the government in its own sponsored elections are all of the basic parameters that make an election meaningful or meaningless prior to the election-day proceedings. These include: (I) freedom of speech and assembly; (2) freedom of the press; (3) freedom to organize and maintain intermediate economic, social, and political groups (unions, peasant organizations, political clubs, student and teacher associations, etc. ); (4) freedom to form political parties, orga- nize members, put forward candidates, and campaign without fear of extreme violence; and (5) the absence of state terror and a climate of fear among the public. Also off the agenda is the election-day "coercion package" that may explain turnout in terms other than devotion to the army and its plans, including any legal requirement to vote, and explicit or implicit threats for not voting. Other issues that must be downplayed
90 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
in conforming to the government propaganda format are the U. S. gov- ernment's role in organizing and funding the election, the internal propaganda campaign waged to get out the vote, outright fraud, and the constraints on and threats to journalists covering the election.
Another jssue off the government agenda js the purpose of the elec- tion. If its role is to influence the home population, spelling this out might arouse suspicions concerning its authenticity.
In the case of the Vietnam election of 1967 and the EI Salvador elections of 1982 and 1984, the purpose of the elections was not merely to placate the home public but also to mislead them on the ends sought. In both instances it was intimated that an election would contribute to a peaceable resolution to the conflict, whereas the intent was to clear the ground for intensified warfare. Nobody who proposed a peace option could appear as a seri- ous candidate in Vietnam in 1967,7 and as we describe below, there was no peace candidate at all in El Salvador in either 1982 or 1984, although the polls and reporters kept saying that peace was the primary concern of the electorate. This highlights both the fraudulence of these elections and the urgency that the intentions of the sponsor be kept under wraps.
In elections held in disfavored or enemy states, the U. S. government agenda is turned upside down. Elections are no longer equated with democracy, and U. S. officials no longer marvel at the election being held under adverse conditions. They do not commend the army for supporting the election and agreeing to abide by the results. On the contrary, the leverage the dominant party obtains by control of and support by the army is put forward in this case as compromising the integrity of the election. Rebel disruption is no longer proof that the opposition rejects democracy, and turnout is no longer the dramatic denouement of the struggle between a democratic army and its rebel opposition. Now the stress is on the hidden motives of the sponsors of the election, who are trying to legitimize themselves by this tricky device of a so-called election.
Most important, the agenda of factors relevant to appraising an election is altered. From the stress on the superficial-long lines and smiling faces of voters, the simple mechanics of election-day balloting, and the personalities of the candidates-attention is now shifted to the basic parameters that were off the agenda in the sponsored election. As noted by Secretary of State Shultz, "The important thing is that if there is to be an electoral process, it be observed not only at the moment when people vote, but in all the preliminary aspects that make an election meaningful. " Spelling this out further, Shultz mentioned explicitly that for elections to be meaningful, "rival political groups" must be allowed "to form themselves and have access to people, to have the right of
,
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIO:-;S 91
assembly, to have access to the media. "8 These remarks were made apropos of the 1984 Nicaraguan election. No congresspersons or media commentators raised any question about whether these criteria should perhaps be applied to the Salvadoran or Guatemalan ejections sched- uled during the same year.
In brief, the government used a well-nigh perfect system of Orwel- lian doublethink: forgetting a criterion "that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, . _. draw[ing] it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed. "9 It even acknowledges this fact: a senior U. S. official told members of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) observing the Nicaraguan election:
The United States is not obliged to apply the same standard of judgment to a country whose government is avowedly hostile to the U. s. as for a country like El Salvador, where it is not. These people [the Sandinistas] could bring about a situation in Central America which could pose a threat to U. S. security. That allows us to change our yardstick. to
But while a government may employ a blatant double standard, media which adhere to minimal standards of objectivity and are not them- selves part of a propaganda system would apply a single standard. Did the mass media of the United States follow a single standard in dealing with the elections in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, or did they follow their government's agenda in order to put the Salvadoran and Guatemalan elections in a favorable light and to denigrate the one held in Nicaragua?
3. 2. BASIC ELECTORAL CONDITIONS IN EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, AND NICARAGUA, 1982-85
All three of these countries, in which elections were held in the years 1982-85, were in the midst of serious conflict: Nicaragua was being subjected to regular border incursions by the U. S. -organized and sup- plied contras. ? 1 Salvador was in the midst of a combination civil conflict and externally (U. S. ) organized and funded counterinsurgency war. Guatemala, as we noted earlier, had evolved into a counterinsur-
92 MASUFACTURING CONSENT
gency state, with permanent warfare to keep the majority of Indians and other peasants in their place, and violent repression was structured into the heart of the political system.
Despite the common feature of ongoing conflict, however, electoral conditions were far more favorable in Nicaragua than in El Salvador and Guatemala, for several reasons. First, and crucially important, in the latter countries, at the time of the elections the army was still engaged in mass slaughter ofthe civilian population, with the toll in the tens of thousands in each country and the killing often carried out with extreme sadism. Nothing remotely similar was true in Nicaragua. These facts, which are not controversial among people with a minimal concern for reality, immediately establish a fundamental distinction with regard to the electoral climate. In countries that are being subject to the terror of a rampaging murder machine, supported or run by a foreign power, electoral conditions are fatally compromised in advance, a point that the media would recognize at once if we were considering the sphere of influence of some official enemy. ll
A further-and related-distinction was that the ruling Sandinista government was a popular government, which strove to serve majority needs and could therefore afford to allow greater freedom ofspeech and organization. The LASA report on the Nicaraguan election notes that their program "implies redistribution of access to wealth and public services. The state will use its power to guarantee fulfillment of the basic needs of the majority population. " The "logic of the majority," the report continues, also implies the involvement of "very large num- bers of people in the decisions that affect their lives. "12 Qualified ob- servers conclude that the Nicaraguan government pursued this logic, although this fact is excluded from the free press. After citing the World Bank's observation that "Governrnents . . . vary greatly in the commitment of their political leadership to improving the condition of the people and encouraging their active participation in the develop- ment process," Dianna Melrose, of the charitable development agency Oxfam, states that "From Oxfam's experience of working in seventy-six developing countries, Nicaragua was to prove exceptional in the
strength of that Government commitment. "13 The Salvadoran and Guatemalan governments, by contrast, were ruled by elites that had been struggling desperately for decades to avoid the very kinds of reforms the Sandinistas were implementing. Extreme repression was the longstanding method of control of the majority in EI Salvador and Guatemala, with vigorous and unceasing U. S. support. The aim of this repression was to keep the populace apathetic and to destroy popular organizations that might lay the basis for meaningful democracy. The
LEGITlMIZl~G VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 93
Sandinistas were engaged in mobilizing the majority and involving them in political life, which they could afford to do because their programs were intended to serve the general population.
A third factor affecting electoral conditions was that in El Salvador and Guatemala the conflict was internal, and violence against the ma- jority was integral to the struggle. In Nicaragua, the conflict was one involving an externally sponsored aggression that had very limited internal support. The Sandinistas could appeal to nationalist senti- ments, easily mobilized against Yankee-organized terrorism. The Sal- vadoran and Guatemalan governments could hardly do the same-the Salvadoran government especially had to contend with a negative na- tionalist reaction to obvious foreign (i. e. , U. S. ) domination and manipu- lation of its affairs, a fact that reached the level of absurdity when Duarte, visiting Washington in the fall of 1987, made himself an object of ridicule throughout Latin America by promptly kissing the American flag. While the Sandinistas did increasingly crack down on internal supporters of the contras as the conflict intensified, by the standards the United States usually applies to this region dissenters were dealt with remarkably benignly in Nicaragua. 14 In El Salvador and Guatemala, the ruling elites could not afford such toleration, and repression by large- scale terror had long been institutionalized in these states.
A fourth factor making for a more benign electoral environment in Nicaragua, paradoxically, was U. S. hostility and the power ofits propa- ganda machine. Every arrest or act of harassment in Nicaragua was publicized and transformed into evidence of the sinister quality of the Sandinista government in the free press of the United States. Mean- while, as we described in chapter 2, the Guatemalan and Salvadoran regimes could indulge in torture, rape, mutilation, and murder on a daily and massive basis without invoking remotely proportional atten- tion, indignation, or inferences about the quality of these regimes. In the context, the Nicaraguan government was under intense pressure to toe the mark, whereas the U. S. satellites were free to murder at will without serious political cost.
Let us examine briefly how El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua compared in the individual categories of conditions of a free election, before we turn to the media treatment of these issues.
3. 2. 1. Free speech and assembly.
In El Salvador, the right to free speech and free assembly was legally suspended under a state-of-siege order of March 7, 1980. Decree No.
94 MANUPACTURI~G CONSENT
507 of December 3, 1980, essentially destroyed the judicial system, permitting the armed forces to hold citizens without charge or evidence for 180 days. Under these rulings, in the thirty months before the March 198~ election, and prior to the 1984 elections, many thousands of civil- ians were seized, imprisoned, tortured, raped, and murdered outside of legal processes for alleged "subversive" actions and thoughts. The state of siege was lifted in early 1982 solely for the six parties contesting the election, and it was lifted entirely ten days before the election for all Salvadorans-although, unfortunately, the citizenry was not informed of this fact until after the election was over and state-of-siege condi- tions were reimposed. IS The practice of exposing mutilated bodies for the edification of the citizenry became institutionalized in the early 1980s in EI Salvador. We described in chapter 2 the difficulty the U. S. government had in getting underlings jailed, tried, and convicted for the murder offour American citizens, even under intense U. S. pressure. The people ofEl Salvador had no protection whatsoever from the state terrorists, apart from that afforded by the guerrilla army in the regions under their control. The threat of extreme violence by the state against dissident speech was acute in El Salvador in 1982 and 1984, and was incompatible with a free election.
In Guatemala, similarly, during 1984 and 1985, and for many years before, the actions of the armed forces against alleged subversives was entirely outside the rule of law. Thousands were seized, tortured, and killed without warrant and without any individual right to hearing or trial. As in EI Salvador, mutilation and exposure of the tortured bodies became commonplace in the late 1970S and the 1980s. 16 The courts were dominated by the military, as the latter would simply not execute or obey a court order of which they disapproved, and the jUdges were not inclined to challenge the military for reasons of dependency or fear. Even Viscount Colville of Culross, the special rapporteur of the UN General Assembly who has been a notorious apologist for the Guatema- lan regime, after pointing out that over eighty members of the judiciary, court staff, and legal profession had been murdered in the early 1980s and that many others were threatened, says that "Such events make their mark and cannot quickly be mitigated. "17 Two illustrations of the lack of court autonomy may be noted here: in May 1983, Ricardo Sagastume Vidaure, then president of the supreme COUrt, was simply removed by military order for attempting to bring military personnel under the jurisdiction of the legal system. IS On July 19, 1984, Colonel Djalmi Dominguez, head of public relations for the army, told the newspaper Prensa Libre that the army wouldn't tolerate its members being taken to court on any chargesY~
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEA:';INGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTlO:-lS 95
In the early 1980s, following the mass killings and village destruction of 1980-83, vast numbers of peasants were resettled in "model villages" and other places under army control, and over 800,000 males were made obligatory members of civil patrols with military functions under close army surveillance. According to the British parliamentary group that visited Guatemala in 1984, "The civilian patrol system is imple- mented by terror, and designed also to sow terror. . . . People who do anything out of the ordinary come under immediate suspicion and are taken by the patrols to the army's desracamienro. Interrogation will be done by the army, but the killing of murdered suspects [is] often by the civilian patrols. "2Q Bishops Taylor and O'Brien, representing the Roman Catholic Bishops' Conferences of Scotland and England-Wales respectively, reponed after their visit to Guatemala in 1984 that
The civilian population is under almost total control by a heavy army and police presence throughout the country, which we were able to observe. There is also a nationwide network ofcivil defense patrols, military commissioners and informers, and <<model vil- lages" serving in some cases as internment camps for the Indian population from the areas of conflict. Much of Guatemala resem- bles a country under military occupation. One of our informants summed up the situation by saying that the military had estab- lished a system of "structural control. "21
The InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, following an on- site visit in May 1985, also found that freedom of speech and assembly did not exist in Guatemala:
The right of assembly and freedom of association, considered in Articles 15 and 16 of the American Convention, are also restricted and curtailed, because existing security measures in the Develop- ment Poles and the strict supervision of the Civil Defense Patrols inhibit residents from taking part in any social, ideological. cultu- ral or other assemblies or associations. All such meetings, when they do occur, are subject to surveillance, supervision and control by the authorities, so they do not enjoy the freedom implied by such rights. 22
Public demonstrations were permissible in Guatemala during the 1984-85 elections, with three days' advance notice and approval of the military authorities. In the Guatemalan context, however, this grant of rights was not meaningful. The delegation of the International Human
96 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
Rights Law Group and the Washington Office on Latin America noted that whatever the election guarantees,
the military and civil defense patrols and the climate of fear also made it difficult for many Guatemalans to organize and assemble. One local observer said that years of terror and oppression against local organizations had demobilized the whole rural population: "Four CUC [peasant league] members were killed in this village alone. Now it would be very difficult to organize any kind of group. " Civil patrols, police and army checkpoints on highways, and the need for travel permits for residents of the model villages impeded free movement. In the rural areas the civil patrols dis- couraged gatherings because people feared being reported. 23
It was noted by many observers of the Guatemalan elections that although the big issues in that country were land distribution and reform and human rights, no political candidates discussed or ad- vocated either land reform, or restructuring the military and forcing an accounting of tens of thousands of "disappearances. " One Christian Democratic adviser explained to the law group that "We Christian Democrats haven't raised such issues because this isn't the moment to start a confrontation with either the army or the private sector. "24
In short, despite the "momentary improvement in the conditions of free speech" that occurred during the election campaign, Guatemala did not meet the first condition ofa free election. The rural masses were under army discipline and traumatized by mass killings and the absence of any vestige of rule of law, and the candidates were unable to raise openly the fundamental issues of the society.
Free speech and rights of assembly were constrained in Nicaragua in 1984 by social pressures and threats and by a state of siege that had been terminated some six months prior to the November 1984 election. Very important differences existed, however, between the Nicaraguan constraints and those prevailing in El Salvador and Guatemala. Most important, in Nicaragua the army and police did not regularly seize alleged subversives, and torture and murder them. Mutilated bodies have not been put on public display as a part of the system of public education. What the law group called the "constant, overt political terror" in Guatemala, based on "numerous documented massacres of whole villages," and what the former Salvadoran official Leonel Gomez called the state of "fearful passivity" prevalent in EI Salvador, did not apply to Nicaragua. In Nicaragua, in 1984, dissidents were able to speak
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANI:-IGLESS THiRD WORLD ELECTIONS 97
freely without fear of murder, and the LASA group noted that "Every member of our delegation was approached at least once by an irate citizen as we walked around Managua and other cities. Several of these encounters turned into hea:ted arguments between the individual who had approached us and passers-by who joined the discussion. . . . These people did not feel intimidated. "25
Freedom of assembly in Nicaragua was somewhat limited by harass- ment, but, once again, it was not ruled out by state terror, as was the case in EI Salvador and Guatemala. The LASA delegation examined in detail the charges of Sandinista harassment of opposition-group meetings and found them largely unfounded, concluding that the con- testing parties "were able to hold the vast majority of their rallies unimpeded by pro~FSLN demonstrations. . . . "26
Our conclusion is that the first basic condition of a free election was- partially met in Nicaragua, but was not met at all in El Salvador and Guatemala.
3. 2. 2. Freedom of the press.
In ? 1 Salvador, the only substantial newspapers critical of the govern- ment, La Cronica del Pueblo and El Independiente-neither by any means radical papers-were closed in July 1980 and January 1981, re- spectively, the firSt because its top editor and two employees were murdered and mutilated by the security forces, the second because the army arrested its personnel and destroyed its plant. The church paper and radio station were repeatedly shut down by bombing attacks, No paper or station representing the principal opposition has been able to operate except clandestinely. Over thirty journalists have been mur- dered in ? 1 Salvador since the revolutionary junta took power, An intensified campaign against the press occurred just prior to the 1982 election. On March 10, a death list of thirty-five journalists was cir- culated by a "death squad," and on March 18 the mutilated bodies of four Dutch journalists were rel:overed. 27 None of the murders of jour- nalists in El Salvador was ever "solved"-they were essentially murders
carried out under the auspices of the state.
In Guatemala, forty-eight journalists were murdered between 1978
and 1985,28 and many others have been kidnapped and threatened. These -killings, kidnappings, and threats have been a primary means of control of the media. As in EI Salvador, nobody has yet been ap- prehended and tried for any of these crimes, which must be viewed as
I
?
98 M A N U F A C T U R IN G C O N S E N T
murders carried out by the state or with state approval. There are no papers or radio or television stations in Guatemala that express the views of the rebels or the majority Indian population or the lower classes in general. "At most, the variants reflect shades of strictly con- servative thinking. "29 Given the extreme climate of fear, and threats for stepping out of line, even the conservative press is cautious and engages in continuous self-censorship. All the central topics that should be debated in this terrorized society are carefully avoided. 30
In Nicaragua, once again, there have been no reported deaths of journalists by state terrorists, nor even threats of personal violence. In 1984, the majority of the fifty-odd radio stations were privately owned, and some of them provided their own news programs; four other inde- pendent producers supplied radio news programs without prior censor- ship. Foreign radio and television from commercial and U. S. propaganda sources broadcasting from Costa Rica, Honduras, and else- where were of growing importance in 1984. 31 Two of the three newspa- pers were privately owned, one supportive of the government but critical of specific programs and actions, the other violently hostile. The latter, La Prensa, which represented the small, ultraconservative mi- nority and supported the contras and a foreign-sponsored invasion of the country, was allowed to operate throughout the 1984 election, al- though it was censored. The censorship still allowed the paper to publish manifestos of opposition groups and a pastoral letter critical of the regime. No comparable paper has been allowed to exist above- ground, even briefly, in El Salvador and Guatemala.
There is no doubt that the media in Nicaragua have been under government constraint, with censorship and periodic emergency con- trols that seriously encroached on freedom of the press. 32 It should be noted, however, that Nicaragua is under foreign attack and in a state of serious warfare. John S. Nichols points out that under the U. S. Espionage Act of 1917, over one hundred publications were banned from the mails, and hundreds of people were jailed for allegedly inter- fering with military recruitment. Furthermore,
Given that the United States was a relatively mature and homoge- nous political system during World War I and was not particularly threatened by the fighting, the range of public discussion tolerated in Nicaragua during the first five years of the revolution was remarkable. Despite assertions by President Reagan, IAPA, and others that the control of the Nicaraguan media was virtually totalitarian, the diversity of ownership and opinion was unusual for a Third World country, particularly one at war. 33
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 99
Our conclusion is that the condition of freedom of the press necessary for a free election was clearly absent in El Salvador and Guatemala, and that it was partially met in Nicaragua.
3. 2. 3. Freedom of organization of intermediate groups.
Perhaps the most important fact about EI Salvador in the two years prior to the election of March 1982 was the decimation of popular and private organizations that could pose any kind of challenge to the army and oligarchy. As we noted in chapter 2, this was the main thrust of policy of the revolutionary junta from late 1979 onward, and thousands of leaders were murdered and numerous organizations were destroyed or driven underground. The teachers' union was decimated by several hundred murders; the university was occupied, looted, and closed down by the army; organized student and professional groups were destroyed by arrests and killings, and even the peasant union sponsored by the AFL-CIO (i. e. , supporters of the regime) had some one hundred of its organizers and leaders murdered between October 1979 and the elec- tion of March 1982. 34
In Guatemala, too, intermediate organizations such as peasant and trade unions, teacher and student groups, and professional organiza- tions have been regularly attacked by the armed forces since 1954. The process of demobilization of institutions threatening the dominant elites culminated in the early 1980s, when by government proclamation "illicit association" was made punishable by law. All groups "which follow, or are subordinated to, any totalitarian system of ideology" (evidently an exception is made of the Guatemalan armed forces and the national-security ideology) are illicit. Only the armed forces deter- mine when illicitness occurs. If General Mejia Victores finds the GAM mothers to be agents of subversion, they may be killed (see chapter 2). Unions, peasant groups, student and professional organizations have
J grown up periodically in Guatemala, only to be crushed by systematic murder as soon as their demands were pressed with any vigor. The 1984-85 elections followed the greatest era of mass murder in modern Guatemalan history-under the regimes of Lucas Garcia, Rios Montt, and Mejia Victores.
Thirty members of the newly organized GAM held a press confer- ence in Guatemala City in June 1984, denouncing the disappearances and calling on the government "to intervene immediately in order to find our loved ones. " In the latter part of June, and again in early August, masses were held in the Metropolitan Cathedral to express concern over the fate of the disappeared, with the initial services held by the university rector, Meyer Maldonado, and Archbishop Penados. A thousand people attended the August mass. On August I, the group first met with General Mejia Victores, at which time he promised to investigate the disappearances. In ads placed in the major newspapers on August 8 and 9, GAM put his promises on the public record. Subse- quently the group began to call attention to the government's failure to follow through on the August 1 promises, and they moved gradually to other actions. In October 1984 they sponsored a march and mass for the disappeared at the cathedral-the first mass demonstration in Guatemala since May I, 1980 (at which time protestors were seized on the streets and an estimated one hundred were assassinated, or disap-
peared).
82 M A S U F A C T U R IN G C O N S E N T
The organization continued to grow, from the initial handful to 225 families in November 1984 and then to 1,3? 0 in the spring of 1986. Most
of the members were women, a large majority peasant women from the countryside. They were persistent. After initial petitions, requests, meetings, and marches, they began to make explicit accusations and "publicly charge elements of the national security forces as directly i responsible for the capture and subsequent disappearance of our family . , members. "I04 They asked for an investigation, an accounting, and jus-
tice. They appealed to the constituent assembly and began regular 1? protests in downtown Guatemala City, banging pots and pans and, on . occasion, peacefully occupying buildings.
Nothing, of course, was done in response to the GAM demands. The assembly had no powers anyway, but was too fearful even to pass a resolution of support. The military rulers toyed with GAM. In public, with the press on hand, Mejia Victores would say, "I don't want to shirk responsibilities and something has to be done. " But when the press was not there, he said, "It seems as though you are accusing me-and we don't have them [the disappeared]. " "You have them," we said. "We don't have them," he replied. lOS The military rulers were getting an- noyed, and phone threats, letters of warning, and open surveillance intensified. Two days after the exchange between Mejia Victores and GAM, the tortured bodies of two disappeared associated with GAM members showed up, one placed in front of his house with his eyes
gouged out and his face barely recognizable.
In a television interview on March 14, 1985, Mejia Victores said that
GAM was "being used by subversion, because if they have problems, solutions are being found, and they have been given every advantage to [solve these problems]. "106 A spate of newspaper headlines followed, stressing government warnings and allegations that GAM was being manipulated by subversives. In mid-March, General Mejia Victores was asked on television what action the government would take against GAM. He replied, "You'll know it when you see it,"107
On March 30, 1985, GAM leader Hector G6mez Calito was seized, tortured, and murdered. (The six policemen who had come for him were themselves assassinated shortly after his death. )108 He had been burned with a blowtorch, on the stomach and elsewhere, and beaten on the face so severely that his lips were swollen and his teeth were broken; his tongue had been cut out. Then, on April 4, another leader of GAM, Maria Rosario Godoy de Cuevas, her twenty-one-year-old brother, and her two-year-old son were picked up, tortured, and murdered. Her breasts had bite marks and her underclothing was bloody; her two-year-
old son had had his fingernails pulled out.
On grounds of newsworthiness, the murders of the two GAM lead- ers, along with the brother and the child of one of them, would seem to deserve high-order attention. Their bravery was exceptional; the villainy they were opposing was extraordinary; the justice of their cause was unassailable; and the crimes they suffered were more savage than those undergone by Popieluszko. Most important of all, these were crimes for which we bear considerable responsibility, since they were perpetrated by clients who depend on our support, so that exposure and pressure could have a significant effect in safeguarding human rights. On the other hand, the Reagan administration was busily trying to enter into warmer and more supportive relations with the Guatemalan mili-
I tary regime and, as we described earlier, was going to great pains to put the regime in a favorabJe light. A propaganda model wouJd anticipate that even these dramatic and horrifying murders would be treated in a low-key manner and quickly dropped by the mass media-that, unlike Popieluszko, there would be no sustained interest, no indignation capa- ble of rousing the public (and disturbing the administration's plans).
These expectations are fully vindicated by the record.
Table 2-3 compares media coverage ofthe Popieluszko case with that of the murders of the GAM leaders. It is immediately obvious that the treatment is radically different in the two cases. The GAM murders couldn't even make "the news" at Time, Newsweek, or CBS News, The New York Times never found these murders worthy of the front page or editorial comment, and we can see that the intensity of its coverage was slight. The first report of the quadruple murder was on April 7, 1985, in a tiny item on page 5 of the paper in which it is mentioned that the body of Maria Rosario Godoy de Cuevas was found in her car in a ravine, along with the bodies of her brother and her young son. In neither this item nor any succeeding article does the Times provide details on the condition of the bodies, or mention that the two-year-old
child had his fingernails tom OUt. I09
In other respects, too, the Times articles, all written by Stephen
Kinzer, generally employ an apologetic framework. That is, they don't focus on the murders-who the victims were, the details of the vio- lence, who did it, why, and the institutional structures and roots of organized murder of which these are an obvious part. With Popie- luszko, these were the issues. Kinzer has little or nothing on the details of the GAM murders and very little on the victims and the experiences that brought them to GAM, and the question of who did it and what was being done (or not done) to bring the murderers to justice he hardly considers. Kinzer takes it for granted that the murders were committed by agents of the state, but he doesn't say this explicitly, or discuss the
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 83
TABLE 2-3 ~
?
Mass-Media Coverage of Worthy and Unworthy Victims (2):
A Murdered Polish Priest versus Two Murdered Officials ?
>
"
c
> n
of the Guatemalan Mutual Support Group
"
c
NEW YORK TIMES
TIME and NEWSWEEK
CBS NEWS
? o
"
n
No. of No. of o Articlest Column page Editorials Artides CoI~ news evening Z
Front- Inches articles
'?
inches No. % of
row I
programSI news
" "
z
No.
% of row I
No. '" of No. row I
% of No. row 1
% of row 1
No. % of row I
No. % of No. row I
% of row I
V ictinu
l. lerzy Popicluszko,
murdered on
Oct. 19, 1984 2. H~ctor Orlando
G6mez and Maria Rosario Godoy de Cuevas, murdered between Mar. 30 and Apr. 6, 1985 (along with a child, who was tortured)
78 (l00) 1183. 0 (100) 10 (100) 3 (100) 16 (tOO) 313. 0 (100) 46 (100) 23 (100)
5 (6. 4) 80. 0
(6. 8)
Th" media c. . . . verage is for "0 IR_. . . . . . . nth p<=,;nd fro. . . 'he ,im" of . he fiT" rcp. . . . " of 'he vic. . . . . . '" ,Ii. appear,,,,cc 0< . -nurdcr.
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 85
background, or provide a framework for evaluating the case. He looks "objectively" at the scene, quoting some of the GAM survivors in brief and rhetorical statements that are offset by quotes from the generals: they approved the formation of GAM (an ambiguous half-truth); they appointed an investigating committee that "found no evidence of secret detention centers in Guatemala" (no mention of the composition of the committee, no counter-evidence, and no mention of issues they may have overlooked-like disappeared who are murdered); and they deny any responsibility for the murder of Godoy, her brother, and her son, who they claim to have been victims of an auto accident. If Kinzer had given the details of the victims' injuries, this lie would have been exposed as such, and further questions would have suggested them- selves.
In article after article, Kinzer repeats that the Mejia Victores gov- ernment has pledged to return to civilian rule shortly, which helps deflect attention from the ongoing killing and its causes, and from the GAM murders under discussion; he also does not tell us just what "civilian rule" would mean in a terrorist state in which, as he knows, the effective rulers would be the same military forces. Ho In the Popie- luszko case, once it was established that the police had committed the murder, the media spent a great deal of space discussing the police apparatus and police methods, as well as attending to the responsibility of the people at higher levels for the murder. Kinzer doesn't discuss these questions at all. The structure of the Guatemalan murder ma- chine and how it works would make a good Story, and numerous details of its operations were available, but this did not fit the government agenda and the Times format. Similarly, the role of Mejia Victores in the murder of the GAM leaders-recall his warnings just prior to the murders, and consider his virtually unlimited discretionary power to murder or protect the citizenry-is ignored. But once again, the links to the top in the case of unworthy victims do not fit the propaganda format. Kinzer does a nice job of making the GAM murders seem to be part of the natural background-regrettable but inevitable, part of the complex inheritance of a troubled country, and possibly, it is hoped, to be rectified when the new civilian government takes power.
In an attempt to gain support abroad, two of the remaining leaders of GAM, Nineth de Garcia and Herlindo Hideo de Aquino, traveled to Europe in March and April 1986, after the inauguration of the elected civilian president, Christian Democrat Vinicio Cerezo. One of their most important messages was that killings and disappearances had not abated at all during the first three months of Cerezo's presidency, and that the death squads had actually reappeared and were active in
86 MANti"FACTti"ltING CONSENT
Guatemala City. Because of ill health, Nineth de Garcia canceled her visits in Washington, D. C. , and flew directly from Europe to Chicago, where she was scheduled to receive the key to the city from Mayor Harold Washington. As she went through customs in Chicago, how- ever, the officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service searched, interrogated, and harassed her for two hours, one of the customs officials calling her a subversive and a Communist. They also seized literature she carried and threatened to deport her, despite her intended brief stopover and valid visa. This intimidation had its effect, and Nineth de Garcia flew directly to Guatemala. A friend attended the banquet in her place to accept the key presented by Mayor Washington.
This incident is revealing. It is unlikely that Sharansky or Walesa would be so treated by the INS, but if by some chance they were, the press outcry would be great. I I I When a press conference was held in Chicago by supporters of GAM to protest this outrage, the major media did not attend, and neither the press releases nor the follow-up lener from a congressional group signed by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan could break the silence. The convergence between Reagan administra- tion policy toward Guatemala and media priorities was complete. (Ac- cording to two organizers of the Chicago press conference, full information on this event was given Steve Greenhouse, the New York Times's reporter in Chicago, but not a word about this incident ap- peared in the newspaper of record. )
A press release by the Guatemalan army on September 17, 1986, accused GAM of conducting
. . . a black campaign of falsehood . . . insults and insolence . , directed at the military institution that exceed [the boundaries] of 1 liberty and tolerance for free speech. The army cannot permit the insidiousness and truculence of GAM's maneuvers . . . that at-
tempt to compromise the democratic international image of Guatemala. 112
Although very similar threats preceded the murder of two leaders of GAM in March and April of1984, the U. S. mass media entirely ignored this new information-despite strenuous efforts by GAM, the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, and their allies to elicit pub- licity. As in the past, the unworthiness of these victims remains an essential ingredient in the Guatemalan army's continued freedom to kill.
Legitimizing versus
Meaningless Third World
Elections:
EI Salvador Guatemala Nicaragua
THlRD WORLD ELECTIONS PROVIDE AN EXCELLENT TESTING ground for a propaganda model. Some elections are held in friendly client states to legitimize their rulers and regimes, whereas others are held in disfavored or enemy countries to legitimize their political sys- tems. This natural dichotomization is strengthened by the fact that elections in the friendly client states are often held under U. S. sponsor- ship and with extensive U. S. management and public-relations support. Thus, in the Dominican Republic in I966, and periodically thereafter, the United States organized what have been called "demonstration elections" in its client states, defined as those whose primary function is to convince the home population that the intervention is well inten- tioned, that the populace of the invaded and occupied country wel- comes the intrusion, and that they are being given a democratic choice. l
The elections in EI Salvador in 1982 and 1984 were true demonstra- tion elections, and those held in Guatemala in 1984-85 were strongly supported by the United States for image-enhancing purposes. The
88 MANUFACTliRlNG CONSENT
election held in Nicaragua in 1984, by contrast, was intended to legiti- mize a government that the Reagan administration was striving to destabilize and overthrow. The U. S. government therefore went to great pains to cast the Nicaraguan election in an unfavorable light.
A propaganda model would anticipate mass-media support of the state perspective and agenda. That is, the favored elections will be found to legitimize, no matter what the facts; the disfavored election will be found deficient, farcical, and failing to legitimize-again, irre- spective of facts. What makes this another strong test of a propaganda model is that the Salvadoran and Guatemalan elections of 1982 and
1984-85 were held under conditions of severe, ongoing state terror against the civilian population, whereas in Nicaragua this was not the case. To find the former elections legitimizing and the Nicaraguan election a farce, the media would have had to use different standards of evaluation in the two sets of cases, and, more specifically) it would have been necessary for them to avoid discussing state terror and other basic electoral conditions in the Salvadoran and Guatemalan elections. As we will see, the media fulfilled these requirements and met the needs of the state to a remarkable degree.
In order to demonstrate the applicability of a propaganda model in these cases, we will first describe the eJecrjon-propaganda framework that the U. S. government tried to foist on the media; we will then review the basic electoral conditions under which elections were held in the three countries; and finally, we will examine how the U. S. mass media treated each of the three elections.
3. 1. ELECTION-PROPAGANDA FRAMEWORKS
The U. S. government has employed a number of devices in its spon- sored elections to put them in a favorable light_ It has also had an identifiable agenda of issues that it wants stressed, as well as others it wants ignored or downplayed. Central to demonstration-election man? agement has been the manipulation of symbols and agenda to give the favored election a positive image. The sponsor government tries to associate the election with the happy word "democracy" and the mili- tary regime it backs with support of the elections (and hence democ- racy). It emphasizes what a wonderful thing it is to be able to hold any election at all under conditions of internal conflict, and it makes it
LEGITIMIZllI:G VERSUS MEA:. <ISGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 89
appear a moral triumph that the army has agreed to support the election (albeit reluctantly) and abide by its results.
The refusal of the rebel opposition to participate in the election is portrayed as a rejection of democracy and proof of its antidemocratic tendencies, although the very plan of the election involves the rebels' exclusion from the ballot. 2 The sponsor government also seizes upon any rebel statements urging nonparticipation or threatening to disrupt the election. These are used to transform the election into a dramatic struggle between, on the one side, the "born-again" democratic army and people struggling to vote for "peace," and, on the other, the rebels opposing democracy, peace, and the right to vote. Thus the dramatic denouement of the election is voter turnout, which measures the ability of the forces of democracy and peace (the army) to overcome rebel threats.
Official observers are dispatched to the election scene to assure its public-relations success. Nominally, their role is to see that the election is "fair. " Their real function, however, is to provide the appearance of fairness by focusing on the government's agenda and by channeling press attention to a reliable source. 3 They testify to fairness on the basis of long lines, smiling faces, no beatings in their presence, and the assurances and enthusiasm of U. S. and client-state officials. 4 But these superficialities are entirely consistent with a staged fraud. Fairness depends on fundamental conditions established in advance, which are virtually impossible to ascertain under the brief, guided-tour conditions
of official observers. Furthermore, official observers in sponsored elec- tions rarely ask the relevant questions. 5 They are able to perform their public-relations function because the government chooses observers who are reliable supporters of its aims and publicizes their role, and the press gives them respectful anention. 6
"Off the agenda" for the government in its own sponsored elections are all of the basic parameters that make an election meaningful or meaningless prior to the election-day proceedings. These include: (I) freedom of speech and assembly; (2) freedom of the press; (3) freedom to organize and maintain intermediate economic, social, and political groups (unions, peasant organizations, political clubs, student and teacher associations, etc. ); (4) freedom to form political parties, orga- nize members, put forward candidates, and campaign without fear of extreme violence; and (5) the absence of state terror and a climate of fear among the public. Also off the agenda is the election-day "coercion package" that may explain turnout in terms other than devotion to the army and its plans, including any legal requirement to vote, and explicit or implicit threats for not voting. Other issues that must be downplayed
90 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
in conforming to the government propaganda format are the U. S. gov- ernment's role in organizing and funding the election, the internal propaganda campaign waged to get out the vote, outright fraud, and the constraints on and threats to journalists covering the election.
Another jssue off the government agenda js the purpose of the elec- tion. If its role is to influence the home population, spelling this out might arouse suspicions concerning its authenticity.
In the case of the Vietnam election of 1967 and the EI Salvador elections of 1982 and 1984, the purpose of the elections was not merely to placate the home public but also to mislead them on the ends sought. In both instances it was intimated that an election would contribute to a peaceable resolution to the conflict, whereas the intent was to clear the ground for intensified warfare. Nobody who proposed a peace option could appear as a seri- ous candidate in Vietnam in 1967,7 and as we describe below, there was no peace candidate at all in El Salvador in either 1982 or 1984, although the polls and reporters kept saying that peace was the primary concern of the electorate. This highlights both the fraudulence of these elections and the urgency that the intentions of the sponsor be kept under wraps.
In elections held in disfavored or enemy states, the U. S. government agenda is turned upside down. Elections are no longer equated with democracy, and U. S. officials no longer marvel at the election being held under adverse conditions. They do not commend the army for supporting the election and agreeing to abide by the results. On the contrary, the leverage the dominant party obtains by control of and support by the army is put forward in this case as compromising the integrity of the election. Rebel disruption is no longer proof that the opposition rejects democracy, and turnout is no longer the dramatic denouement of the struggle between a democratic army and its rebel opposition. Now the stress is on the hidden motives of the sponsors of the election, who are trying to legitimize themselves by this tricky device of a so-called election.
Most important, the agenda of factors relevant to appraising an election is altered. From the stress on the superficial-long lines and smiling faces of voters, the simple mechanics of election-day balloting, and the personalities of the candidates-attention is now shifted to the basic parameters that were off the agenda in the sponsored election. As noted by Secretary of State Shultz, "The important thing is that if there is to be an electoral process, it be observed not only at the moment when people vote, but in all the preliminary aspects that make an election meaningful. " Spelling this out further, Shultz mentioned explicitly that for elections to be meaningful, "rival political groups" must be allowed "to form themselves and have access to people, to have the right of
,
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIO:-;S 91
assembly, to have access to the media. "8 These remarks were made apropos of the 1984 Nicaraguan election. No congresspersons or media commentators raised any question about whether these criteria should perhaps be applied to the Salvadoran or Guatemalan ejections sched- uled during the same year.
In brief, the government used a well-nigh perfect system of Orwel- lian doublethink: forgetting a criterion "that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, . _. draw[ing] it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed. "9 It even acknowledges this fact: a senior U. S. official told members of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) observing the Nicaraguan election:
The United States is not obliged to apply the same standard of judgment to a country whose government is avowedly hostile to the U. s. as for a country like El Salvador, where it is not. These people [the Sandinistas] could bring about a situation in Central America which could pose a threat to U. S. security. That allows us to change our yardstick. to
But while a government may employ a blatant double standard, media which adhere to minimal standards of objectivity and are not them- selves part of a propaganda system would apply a single standard. Did the mass media of the United States follow a single standard in dealing with the elections in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, or did they follow their government's agenda in order to put the Salvadoran and Guatemalan elections in a favorable light and to denigrate the one held in Nicaragua?
3. 2. BASIC ELECTORAL CONDITIONS IN EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, AND NICARAGUA, 1982-85
All three of these countries, in which elections were held in the years 1982-85, were in the midst of serious conflict: Nicaragua was being subjected to regular border incursions by the U. S. -organized and sup- plied contras. ? 1 Salvador was in the midst of a combination civil conflict and externally (U. S. ) organized and funded counterinsurgency war. Guatemala, as we noted earlier, had evolved into a counterinsur-
92 MASUFACTURING CONSENT
gency state, with permanent warfare to keep the majority of Indians and other peasants in their place, and violent repression was structured into the heart of the political system.
Despite the common feature of ongoing conflict, however, electoral conditions were far more favorable in Nicaragua than in El Salvador and Guatemala, for several reasons. First, and crucially important, in the latter countries, at the time of the elections the army was still engaged in mass slaughter ofthe civilian population, with the toll in the tens of thousands in each country and the killing often carried out with extreme sadism. Nothing remotely similar was true in Nicaragua. These facts, which are not controversial among people with a minimal concern for reality, immediately establish a fundamental distinction with regard to the electoral climate. In countries that are being subject to the terror of a rampaging murder machine, supported or run by a foreign power, electoral conditions are fatally compromised in advance, a point that the media would recognize at once if we were considering the sphere of influence of some official enemy. ll
A further-and related-distinction was that the ruling Sandinista government was a popular government, which strove to serve majority needs and could therefore afford to allow greater freedom ofspeech and organization. The LASA report on the Nicaraguan election notes that their program "implies redistribution of access to wealth and public services. The state will use its power to guarantee fulfillment of the basic needs of the majority population. " The "logic of the majority," the report continues, also implies the involvement of "very large num- bers of people in the decisions that affect their lives. "12 Qualified ob- servers conclude that the Nicaraguan government pursued this logic, although this fact is excluded from the free press. After citing the World Bank's observation that "Governrnents . . . vary greatly in the commitment of their political leadership to improving the condition of the people and encouraging their active participation in the develop- ment process," Dianna Melrose, of the charitable development agency Oxfam, states that "From Oxfam's experience of working in seventy-six developing countries, Nicaragua was to prove exceptional in the
strength of that Government commitment. "13 The Salvadoran and Guatemalan governments, by contrast, were ruled by elites that had been struggling desperately for decades to avoid the very kinds of reforms the Sandinistas were implementing. Extreme repression was the longstanding method of control of the majority in EI Salvador and Guatemala, with vigorous and unceasing U. S. support. The aim of this repression was to keep the populace apathetic and to destroy popular organizations that might lay the basis for meaningful democracy. The
LEGITlMIZl~G VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 93
Sandinistas were engaged in mobilizing the majority and involving them in political life, which they could afford to do because their programs were intended to serve the general population.
A third factor affecting electoral conditions was that in El Salvador and Guatemala the conflict was internal, and violence against the ma- jority was integral to the struggle. In Nicaragua, the conflict was one involving an externally sponsored aggression that had very limited internal support. The Sandinistas could appeal to nationalist senti- ments, easily mobilized against Yankee-organized terrorism. The Sal- vadoran and Guatemalan governments could hardly do the same-the Salvadoran government especially had to contend with a negative na- tionalist reaction to obvious foreign (i. e. , U. S. ) domination and manipu- lation of its affairs, a fact that reached the level of absurdity when Duarte, visiting Washington in the fall of 1987, made himself an object of ridicule throughout Latin America by promptly kissing the American flag. While the Sandinistas did increasingly crack down on internal supporters of the contras as the conflict intensified, by the standards the United States usually applies to this region dissenters were dealt with remarkably benignly in Nicaragua. 14 In El Salvador and Guatemala, the ruling elites could not afford such toleration, and repression by large- scale terror had long been institutionalized in these states.
A fourth factor making for a more benign electoral environment in Nicaragua, paradoxically, was U. S. hostility and the power ofits propa- ganda machine. Every arrest or act of harassment in Nicaragua was publicized and transformed into evidence of the sinister quality of the Sandinista government in the free press of the United States. Mean- while, as we described in chapter 2, the Guatemalan and Salvadoran regimes could indulge in torture, rape, mutilation, and murder on a daily and massive basis without invoking remotely proportional atten- tion, indignation, or inferences about the quality of these regimes. In the context, the Nicaraguan government was under intense pressure to toe the mark, whereas the U. S. satellites were free to murder at will without serious political cost.
Let us examine briefly how El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua compared in the individual categories of conditions of a free election, before we turn to the media treatment of these issues.
3. 2. 1. Free speech and assembly.
In El Salvador, the right to free speech and free assembly was legally suspended under a state-of-siege order of March 7, 1980. Decree No.
94 MANUPACTURI~G CONSENT
507 of December 3, 1980, essentially destroyed the judicial system, permitting the armed forces to hold citizens without charge or evidence for 180 days. Under these rulings, in the thirty months before the March 198~ election, and prior to the 1984 elections, many thousands of civil- ians were seized, imprisoned, tortured, raped, and murdered outside of legal processes for alleged "subversive" actions and thoughts. The state of siege was lifted in early 1982 solely for the six parties contesting the election, and it was lifted entirely ten days before the election for all Salvadorans-although, unfortunately, the citizenry was not informed of this fact until after the election was over and state-of-siege condi- tions were reimposed. IS The practice of exposing mutilated bodies for the edification of the citizenry became institutionalized in the early 1980s in EI Salvador. We described in chapter 2 the difficulty the U. S. government had in getting underlings jailed, tried, and convicted for the murder offour American citizens, even under intense U. S. pressure. The people ofEl Salvador had no protection whatsoever from the state terrorists, apart from that afforded by the guerrilla army in the regions under their control. The threat of extreme violence by the state against dissident speech was acute in El Salvador in 1982 and 1984, and was incompatible with a free election.
In Guatemala, similarly, during 1984 and 1985, and for many years before, the actions of the armed forces against alleged subversives was entirely outside the rule of law. Thousands were seized, tortured, and killed without warrant and without any individual right to hearing or trial. As in EI Salvador, mutilation and exposure of the tortured bodies became commonplace in the late 1970S and the 1980s. 16 The courts were dominated by the military, as the latter would simply not execute or obey a court order of which they disapproved, and the jUdges were not inclined to challenge the military for reasons of dependency or fear. Even Viscount Colville of Culross, the special rapporteur of the UN General Assembly who has been a notorious apologist for the Guatema- lan regime, after pointing out that over eighty members of the judiciary, court staff, and legal profession had been murdered in the early 1980s and that many others were threatened, says that "Such events make their mark and cannot quickly be mitigated. "17 Two illustrations of the lack of court autonomy may be noted here: in May 1983, Ricardo Sagastume Vidaure, then president of the supreme COUrt, was simply removed by military order for attempting to bring military personnel under the jurisdiction of the legal system. IS On July 19, 1984, Colonel Djalmi Dominguez, head of public relations for the army, told the newspaper Prensa Libre that the army wouldn't tolerate its members being taken to court on any chargesY~
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEA:';INGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTlO:-lS 95
In the early 1980s, following the mass killings and village destruction of 1980-83, vast numbers of peasants were resettled in "model villages" and other places under army control, and over 800,000 males were made obligatory members of civil patrols with military functions under close army surveillance. According to the British parliamentary group that visited Guatemala in 1984, "The civilian patrol system is imple- mented by terror, and designed also to sow terror. . . . People who do anything out of the ordinary come under immediate suspicion and are taken by the patrols to the army's desracamienro. Interrogation will be done by the army, but the killing of murdered suspects [is] often by the civilian patrols. "2Q Bishops Taylor and O'Brien, representing the Roman Catholic Bishops' Conferences of Scotland and England-Wales respectively, reponed after their visit to Guatemala in 1984 that
The civilian population is under almost total control by a heavy army and police presence throughout the country, which we were able to observe. There is also a nationwide network ofcivil defense patrols, military commissioners and informers, and <<model vil- lages" serving in some cases as internment camps for the Indian population from the areas of conflict. Much of Guatemala resem- bles a country under military occupation. One of our informants summed up the situation by saying that the military had estab- lished a system of "structural control. "21
The InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, following an on- site visit in May 1985, also found that freedom of speech and assembly did not exist in Guatemala:
The right of assembly and freedom of association, considered in Articles 15 and 16 of the American Convention, are also restricted and curtailed, because existing security measures in the Develop- ment Poles and the strict supervision of the Civil Defense Patrols inhibit residents from taking part in any social, ideological. cultu- ral or other assemblies or associations. All such meetings, when they do occur, are subject to surveillance, supervision and control by the authorities, so they do not enjoy the freedom implied by such rights. 22
Public demonstrations were permissible in Guatemala during the 1984-85 elections, with three days' advance notice and approval of the military authorities. In the Guatemalan context, however, this grant of rights was not meaningful. The delegation of the International Human
96 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
Rights Law Group and the Washington Office on Latin America noted that whatever the election guarantees,
the military and civil defense patrols and the climate of fear also made it difficult for many Guatemalans to organize and assemble. One local observer said that years of terror and oppression against local organizations had demobilized the whole rural population: "Four CUC [peasant league] members were killed in this village alone. Now it would be very difficult to organize any kind of group. " Civil patrols, police and army checkpoints on highways, and the need for travel permits for residents of the model villages impeded free movement. In the rural areas the civil patrols dis- couraged gatherings because people feared being reported. 23
It was noted by many observers of the Guatemalan elections that although the big issues in that country were land distribution and reform and human rights, no political candidates discussed or ad- vocated either land reform, or restructuring the military and forcing an accounting of tens of thousands of "disappearances. " One Christian Democratic adviser explained to the law group that "We Christian Democrats haven't raised such issues because this isn't the moment to start a confrontation with either the army or the private sector. "24
In short, despite the "momentary improvement in the conditions of free speech" that occurred during the election campaign, Guatemala did not meet the first condition ofa free election. The rural masses were under army discipline and traumatized by mass killings and the absence of any vestige of rule of law, and the candidates were unable to raise openly the fundamental issues of the society.
Free speech and rights of assembly were constrained in Nicaragua in 1984 by social pressures and threats and by a state of siege that had been terminated some six months prior to the November 1984 election. Very important differences existed, however, between the Nicaraguan constraints and those prevailing in El Salvador and Guatemala. Most important, in Nicaragua the army and police did not regularly seize alleged subversives, and torture and murder them. Mutilated bodies have not been put on public display as a part of the system of public education. What the law group called the "constant, overt political terror" in Guatemala, based on "numerous documented massacres of whole villages," and what the former Salvadoran official Leonel Gomez called the state of "fearful passivity" prevalent in EI Salvador, did not apply to Nicaragua. In Nicaragua, in 1984, dissidents were able to speak
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANI:-IGLESS THiRD WORLD ELECTIONS 97
freely without fear of murder, and the LASA group noted that "Every member of our delegation was approached at least once by an irate citizen as we walked around Managua and other cities. Several of these encounters turned into hea:ted arguments between the individual who had approached us and passers-by who joined the discussion. . . . These people did not feel intimidated. "25
Freedom of assembly in Nicaragua was somewhat limited by harass- ment, but, once again, it was not ruled out by state terror, as was the case in EI Salvador and Guatemala. The LASA delegation examined in detail the charges of Sandinista harassment of opposition-group meetings and found them largely unfounded, concluding that the con- testing parties "were able to hold the vast majority of their rallies unimpeded by pro~FSLN demonstrations. . . . "26
Our conclusion is that the first basic condition of a free election was- partially met in Nicaragua, but was not met at all in El Salvador and Guatemala.
3. 2. 2. Freedom of the press.
In ? 1 Salvador, the only substantial newspapers critical of the govern- ment, La Cronica del Pueblo and El Independiente-neither by any means radical papers-were closed in July 1980 and January 1981, re- spectively, the firSt because its top editor and two employees were murdered and mutilated by the security forces, the second because the army arrested its personnel and destroyed its plant. The church paper and radio station were repeatedly shut down by bombing attacks, No paper or station representing the principal opposition has been able to operate except clandestinely. Over thirty journalists have been mur- dered in ? 1 Salvador since the revolutionary junta took power, An intensified campaign against the press occurred just prior to the 1982 election. On March 10, a death list of thirty-five journalists was cir- culated by a "death squad," and on March 18 the mutilated bodies of four Dutch journalists were rel:overed. 27 None of the murders of jour- nalists in El Salvador was ever "solved"-they were essentially murders
carried out under the auspices of the state.
In Guatemala, forty-eight journalists were murdered between 1978
and 1985,28 and many others have been kidnapped and threatened. These -killings, kidnappings, and threats have been a primary means of control of the media. As in EI Salvador, nobody has yet been ap- prehended and tried for any of these crimes, which must be viewed as
I
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98 M A N U F A C T U R IN G C O N S E N T
murders carried out by the state or with state approval. There are no papers or radio or television stations in Guatemala that express the views of the rebels or the majority Indian population or the lower classes in general. "At most, the variants reflect shades of strictly con- servative thinking. "29 Given the extreme climate of fear, and threats for stepping out of line, even the conservative press is cautious and engages in continuous self-censorship. All the central topics that should be debated in this terrorized society are carefully avoided. 30
In Nicaragua, once again, there have been no reported deaths of journalists by state terrorists, nor even threats of personal violence. In 1984, the majority of the fifty-odd radio stations were privately owned, and some of them provided their own news programs; four other inde- pendent producers supplied radio news programs without prior censor- ship. Foreign radio and television from commercial and U. S. propaganda sources broadcasting from Costa Rica, Honduras, and else- where were of growing importance in 1984. 31 Two of the three newspa- pers were privately owned, one supportive of the government but critical of specific programs and actions, the other violently hostile. The latter, La Prensa, which represented the small, ultraconservative mi- nority and supported the contras and a foreign-sponsored invasion of the country, was allowed to operate throughout the 1984 election, al- though it was censored. The censorship still allowed the paper to publish manifestos of opposition groups and a pastoral letter critical of the regime. No comparable paper has been allowed to exist above- ground, even briefly, in El Salvador and Guatemala.
There is no doubt that the media in Nicaragua have been under government constraint, with censorship and periodic emergency con- trols that seriously encroached on freedom of the press. 32 It should be noted, however, that Nicaragua is under foreign attack and in a state of serious warfare. John S. Nichols points out that under the U. S. Espionage Act of 1917, over one hundred publications were banned from the mails, and hundreds of people were jailed for allegedly inter- fering with military recruitment. Furthermore,
Given that the United States was a relatively mature and homoge- nous political system during World War I and was not particularly threatened by the fighting, the range of public discussion tolerated in Nicaragua during the first five years of the revolution was remarkable. Despite assertions by President Reagan, IAPA, and others that the control of the Nicaraguan media was virtually totalitarian, the diversity of ownership and opinion was unusual for a Third World country, particularly one at war. 33
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 99
Our conclusion is that the condition of freedom of the press necessary for a free election was clearly absent in El Salvador and Guatemala, and that it was partially met in Nicaragua.
3. 2. 3. Freedom of organization of intermediate groups.
Perhaps the most important fact about EI Salvador in the two years prior to the election of March 1982 was the decimation of popular and private organizations that could pose any kind of challenge to the army and oligarchy. As we noted in chapter 2, this was the main thrust of policy of the revolutionary junta from late 1979 onward, and thousands of leaders were murdered and numerous organizations were destroyed or driven underground. The teachers' union was decimated by several hundred murders; the university was occupied, looted, and closed down by the army; organized student and professional groups were destroyed by arrests and killings, and even the peasant union sponsored by the AFL-CIO (i. e. , supporters of the regime) had some one hundred of its organizers and leaders murdered between October 1979 and the elec- tion of March 1982. 34
In Guatemala, too, intermediate organizations such as peasant and trade unions, teacher and student groups, and professional organiza- tions have been regularly attacked by the armed forces since 1954. The process of demobilization of institutions threatening the dominant elites culminated in the early 1980s, when by government proclamation "illicit association" was made punishable by law. All groups "which follow, or are subordinated to, any totalitarian system of ideology" (evidently an exception is made of the Guatemalan armed forces and the national-security ideology) are illicit. Only the armed forces deter- mine when illicitness occurs. If General Mejia Victores finds the GAM mothers to be agents of subversion, they may be killed (see chapter 2). Unions, peasant groups, student and professional organizations have
J grown up periodically in Guatemala, only to be crushed by systematic murder as soon as their demands were pressed with any vigor. The 1984-85 elections followed the greatest era of mass murder in modern Guatemalan history-under the regimes of Lucas Garcia, Rios Montt, and Mejia Victores.
