No More Learning

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42 MANUFACTURING CONSENT ?
could freely report. Almost every murder ofthe Latin American victims was carried out by official or paramilitary forces in crimes that were never investigated or prosecuted under law, and were on occasion even subject to active official cover-ups (as we describe below in connection with Romero and the four churchwomen). Only in the case of the four murdered American women, in El Salvador, was there sufficient pres- sure to force some kind of investigation and legal process. As we will see, this legal process was barely noted by the mass media (in contrast with their intense interest in the Popieluszko trial), and the press did not comment upon or explore the significance of the fact that there was a relatively serious trial in "totalitarian" Poland, while state murders were being carried out on a daily basis without any investigations or trials of the murderers in a number of countries within the U. S. sphere of influence called "fledgling democracies. "
2. 1. 2. Coverage of the Popieluszko case
Jerzy Popieluszko was an activist priest and a strong supporter of the Solidarity movement in Poland. In an effort to eliminate or intimidate him, members of the Polish secret police abducted him on October 19, 1984. He was beJ3ten, bound, and gagged, and eventually thrown into a reservoir. His body was found several days later. In the furor that ensued, the police directly involved in the killing were quickly identi- fied and were eventually tried and given stiff jail sentences. As we have seen, the level of attention given to the case in the United States was very great. The quality of coverage was also extremely well designed to score political points, and contrasts sharply with the quality of coverage of unworthy victims.
2. 1. 2(a). Fullness and reiteration ofthe details ofthe murder and the damage inflicted on the victim. The coverage of the Popieluszko murder was notable for the fullness of the details regarding his treat- ment by the police and the condition of the recovered body. What is more, these details were repeated at every opportunity. The condition of the body was described at its recovery, at the trial when the medical evidence was presented, and during the testimony of the perpetrators of the crime. 6 At the trial, the emotional strain and guilt manifested by the police officers were described time and again, interspersed with the description of how Popieluszko pleaded for his life, and evidence of the
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 43
brutality of the act. Numerous unflattering photos of the policemen on trial were presented, adding dramatic detail in support of the image of police viciousness. In the courtroom, the guilty police sit, one with "a nervous tic on the right side of his face [that] caused his dark mustache to twitch uncontrollably," with "tear-filled testimony [that] gave the trial some of its most dramatic moments" (Time~ Feb. I8, I985). The police weep openly or bow their heads in the face of the grisly evidence. Popieluszko himself was humanized, with descriptions of his physical characteristics and personality that made him into something more than a distant victim. 7 In sum, the act of violence and its effects on Popie- luszko were presented in such a way as to generate the maximum emotional impact on readers. The act was vicious and deserved the presentation it received. The acts against the unworthy victims were also vicious, but they were treated very differently.
2. 1. 2(b). Stress on indignation, shock, and demands for justice. In a large proportion of the articles on the Popieluszko murder there are quotations or assertions of outrage, indignation, profound shock, and mourning, and demands that justice be done. Steady and wholly sympa- thetic attention is given to demonstrators, mourners, weeping people, work stoppages, masses held in honor of the victim, and expressions of outrage, mainly by nonofficial sources. The population "continues to mourn," "public outrage mounted," the pope is deeply shaken, and even Jaruzelski condemns the action. The net effect ofthis day-in-day- out repetition of outrage and indignation was to call very forcible attention to a terrible injustice, to put the Polish government on the defensive, and, probably, to contribute to remedial action.
2. 1. 2(c). The search for responsibility at the top. In article after article, the U. S. media raised the question: how high up was the act known and approved? By our count, eighteen articles in the New York Times stressed the question of higher responsibility, often with aggres- sive headlines addressed to that point. s A number of articles bring in a Soviet link ("Lawyer Seemingly [sic] Implies a Soviet Link in Slaying of Priest" Uan. 31, 1985]), and Michael Kaufman, of the Times, twice manages to drag in the plot to kill the pope, which the U. S. press, led by the New York Times, had been trying to tie in with the Soviets and Bulgarians. 9 These links to the Soviet Union and the Bulgarian Con- nection are established by finding someone who says what the reporter and his paper want to dredge up--in no case was there a trace of
supportive evidence.
Time, Newsweek and CBS News played the same game of aggres-
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44 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
sively ralsmg questions about "Hints of a Contract from the Top" (Time) and "Keeping the Lid on Murder" (Newsweek), and Time raised questions about possible Soviet involvement as well as the Bulgarian Connection.
2. 1. 2(d). Conclusions and follow-up. The New York Times had three editorials on the Popieluszko case. In each it focused on the responsi- bility of the higher authorities and the fact that "A police state is especially responsible for the actions of its police" ("Murderous Po- land:' Oct. 30, 1984). It freely applied words like "thuggery," "shame- less," and "crude" to the Polish state. The fact that police officers were quickly identified, tried, and convicted it attributed to the agitation at home and abroad that put a limit on villainy. This is a good point, and one that we stress throughout this book: villainy may be constrained by intense publicity. But we also stress the corresponding importance of a refusal to publicize and the leeway this gives murderous clients under the protection of the United States and its media, where the impact of publicity would be far greater. 10 The Times also fails to note the con- trast between murderous Poland and murderous EI Salvador-in the latter country, no murders of Salvadorans by the security forces or the death squads connected to them have ever resulted in a trial. The absence of such a comparison, as well as the failure of the Times to produce an editorial entitled "Murderous El Salvador," illustrates how a serviceable terrorism is protected in a propaganda mode. II
2. 2. RUTILIO GRANDE AND THE UNWORTHY SEVENTY. TWO
As shown on table 2-1, the unworthy seventy-two on Penny Lernoux's list of martyrs were subject to a grand total of eight articles in the New York Times, one in Newsweek, and none in TimeJ and they were never mentioned on CBS News in the years of index coverage (1975-78). A total of seven names on the Lernoux list were mentioned in the eight Times articles, and two different ones were discussed in Newsweek, which means that sixty-three of the murders were blacked out entirely in these important media vehicles. None of the eight articles in the New York Times had any details or dramatic quality that might evoke sympa- thetic emotion. They described the murders as remote events in a distant world (see the Times's description of the murder of Michael
WORTHY AND U/<;WOR1HY ViCTIMS 45
Jerome Cypher, in table 2-2). But that is a matter of editorial choice. The drama is there for the asking-only the press concern is missing. 12
TABLE 2. 2
The Savageries Inflicted on W orthy and Unworthy Victims, as Depicted in the New York Times
WORTHY VICTIMS
Jerzy PopielWJzko, a Polish priest, murdered on October 19, 1984,
(I) Account al finding of body: "The sources who saw the priest's body on Tuesday, said it was badly bruised, indicating he had been beaten after he was kidnapped on a highway near the town of Torun. The autopsy also showed that Father Popiduszko had been gagged at Ihe mouth and apparently tied with a rope from neck to feel so that if he struggled he would strangle himself, they said. The sources said they could not confirm repons quoting members of the slain priest's family as saying he had suffered injuries to his jaw and skull" (Dec. 29, 1984).
(2) Account at trial of murderers: "The film showed clearly that the priest's bent legs were tied to a noose around his neck in such a way that ifhe straightened them he would be strangled. The rope binding his hands had evidently come loose in the water. Several gags had also worked free and lay covering his clerical collar and the front of his cassock. From his legs hung a sack of rocks that, according to earlier testimony, had been carried all over Poland for the week that [he three assailants were pursuing [he priest. When the cameras were trained on the priest's face, the narration by a police officer at the reservoir declared that 'there are clear signs of beating. ' This was con- firmed by medical evidence offered Thursday by Dr. Maria Byrdy, a pathologist, who said Father Popieluszko had been struck more than a dozen times with a club" Gan. 26, 1985).
UNWORTHY VICTIMS
MichaelJerome Cypher. an American priest murdered in Honduras.
"The bodies were found in a dynamited well on an eastern Honduran estate . . . " Guly 19, 1975). Note: There was no arrest or trial.
Jairru Alcina, a Spanish priest ofthe Catholic Action Workers movement, following his arrtst in Chile:
"Several days later a body with 10 bullet holes in the back was found in the Mapocho River. A Spanish consul identified the body as that of Father Alcina" (Oct. 1, 1973). NOle: There was no arrest or trial.
46 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
Archbishop Oscar Amollo Romero, murdered in EI Salvador on March 24, 1980:
"Archbishop Romero was killed by a sniper who gOt out of a red car, apparently stood just inside the door of the Chapel of the Divine Providence Hospital, fired a single shot at the prelate and fled. The bullet struck the archbishop in the heart, according to a doctor at the hospital where the prelate was taken" (Mar. 25, 1980). Nou: There was no arrest or trial.
Maria Rosario Godoy de CUe1UUJ secretary of the Mutual Support Group, murdered in Guatem. ala on April 4, 1985:
"The body of the secretary of the Support Group for Families of the Detained and Disappeared in Guatemala was found Friday in a ravine nine miles south of Guatemala Ci[y, according to a spokesman for the group. The bodies of her brother and young son were also in the car" (Apr. 7, 1985, p. 5). * NOli! : There was no arrest or trial.
Jean Dono'04n, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and MauTa Clarke, four American women murdered in EI Salvador, December 4, 1980:
(1) Account at the finding of the bodies:
"Witnesses who found the grave said it was about five feet deep. One woman had been shot in the face, another in the breast. Two of the women were found with their blood-stained underpants around their ankles" (Dec. 5, 1980). *
(2) Account at the trial of the murderers:
No description was given, although medical testimony was presented to the court; see te:w. :t.
* For details that were not presented in this account, see the accompanying re:w. :t.
The murder of one of the seventy-two, Father Rutilio Grande, was an important landmark in the escalation of violence in El Salvador and in its effect on the newly appointed conservative archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero. Rutilio Grande was a Jesuit, the pastor of Aguilares, and a progressive who helped organize peasants in self-help groups. He was strongly opposed by the local landlords, police, and military commanders, but he was a national figure in the Salvadoran church and was a friend of the archbishop. Rutilio Grande was shot to death, along with a teenager and a seventy-two-year-old peasant, while on his way to Mass on March 12, 1977. According to a church autopsy, the bullets that riddled the priest were of the same caliber as the
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 47
Manzer guns used by the police. "By 'coincidence,' all telephone com- munications in the area were cut offwithin an hour ofthe triple assassi- nation. Police patrols normally active in the region mysteriously disappeared. "13 Archbishop Romero wrote to the president of El Salva- dor, Arturo Armando Molina, urging a thorough investigation, which was promised. A week later, the church having established that it was probably police bullets that had killed the three victims, Romero wrote a harsher letter to Molina, noting the absence of a promised official report and pointing out that comments, "many of them unfavorable to your government," have been made. With continued inaction, Romero threatened to refuse church participation in any official government event unless the murders were investigated and the killers brought to justice. Romero's biographer writes:
Six weeks later, the lawyer chosen by Romero to follow the case reported "an embarrassing and clear indifference toward the in- vestigation on the part of statt:: organizations. " A suspect ordered arrested by a judge was living unconcernedly in El Paisnal, and no one had ordered the bodies exhumed and examined. The bul- lets are still in the graves. l4
Rutilio Grande's murder followed a series of forcible expulsions of foreign clergy by the Molina government and several earlier murders of church personnel. Romero and the clergy deliberated at great length on their course of action in response to this escalation of the violence against them. They tried to get out their messages of concern, but many were not heard because of newspaper censorship. They finally decided to take dramatic action: temporary school closings, and implementation of the previously mentioned threat to refuse to support the government and other power groups on official occasions.
This entire package of murder and church response was hardly lacking in drama and newsworthiness. Yet murder, the confrontation of the desperate church with a repressive state, and the dramatic acts carried out to try to mobilize support in its self-defense were subject to a virtual blackout in the U. S. mass media. The murder of Rutilio Grande was mentioned in Newsweek ("Priests in Peril," Aug. t, 1977), but it never once reached the audiences of the New York Times, Time, or CBS News. This was important in allowing the terror to go on unimpeded. To paraphrase the New York Times editorial on "murder- ous Poland": no publicity and agitation, no containment of terror.
~8 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
2. 3. ARCHBISHOP OSCAR ROMERO
The murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the highest Catholic church official in El Salvador, was "big news," and its political implications were enormous. At the time of his murder, Romero had become the foremost and most outspoken critic of the policy of repression by murder being carried out by the U. S. -supported military government. In his last sermon, he appealed to members of the army and security forces to refuse to kill their Salvadoran brethren, a call that enraged the officer corps trying to build a lower-class military that was willing to kill freely. Romero had been placed on right-wing death lists and received threats from the right wing, which from the beginning had been closely linked to the army and intelligence services. IS Only a few weeks prior to his murder he had written a forceful letter to President Jimmy Carter opposing the imminent granting of U. S. aid to the junta as destructive of Salvadoran interests. The Carter administration had been so disturbed by Romero's opposition to its policies that it had secretly lobbied the pope to curb the archbishop. 16
Romero, in short, was not merely an "unworthy" victim, he was an important activist in opposition to the local alliance of army and oligar- chy and to U. S. policy in El Salvador. The U. S. media's news coverage of the archbishop's murder and its follow-up reflected well his threat- ening role, reaching new levels of dishonesty and propaganda service in their coverage of this and related events.
2. 3. 1. Details of the murder and public response
The details of the Romero murder provided by the U. S. mass media were concise (see table 2-2). While there were expressions of shock and distress, there were very few quotations and expressions of outrage by supporters of Romero. There were no statements or quotations suggest- ing that the murder was intolerable and that the guilty must be found and brought to justice. The New York Times had no editorial condemn- ing, or even mentioning, the murder. It was quickly placed in the larger framework of alleged killings by both the left and the right that were deeply regretted by Salvadoran and U. S. officials.
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 49
2. 3. 2. The propaganda line: a reformist junta trying to contain the violence of right and left
The Salvadoran and U. S. governments contended at the time of Romero's murder that the killing going on in El Salvador was being done by extremists of the right and the left, not by the Salvadoran armed forces and their agents; and that the government was trying its best to contain the killings and carry out reforms. John Bushnell, of the State Department, stated before a House appropriations comminee that "there is some misperception by those who follow the press that the government is itself repressive in EI Salvador," when in fact the violence is <<from the extreme right and the extreme left" and <<the smallest pan" of the killings come from the army and security forces. 17 This statement was a knowing lie,18 contradicted by all independent
evidence coming out ofEI Salvador and refuted by Archbishop Romero on an almost daily basis. 19 In his letter to Carter sent on February 17, 1980, the archbishop pointed out that aid to the junta had resulted in increasing repressive violence by the government, "amassing a total dead and wounded far higher than in the previous military regimes. " And Romero explained to Caner that the idea that the junta was reformist was a myth, that "neither the junta nor the Christian Demo- crats govern the country," but, rather, power is in the hands of the army, serving itself and the oligarchy. 20
What gave Bushnell's statement a certain credibility was the fact that there had been a "reformist coup" by young army officers in October 1979, and liberals and progressives entered the early junta. However, as Raymond Bonner points out,
The young, progressive officers who carefully plotted the coup lost control of it as swiftly as they had executed it. Their ideals and objectives were subverted by senior, more conservative of- ficers who had the backing of [U. S. Ambassador] Devine and the U. S. Embassy in EI Salvador and key Carter administration offi- cials in Washington. 21
The progressive elements on the junta found themselves entirely with-
out power, and gradually exited or were forced out, along with large
numbers from the cabinet and administration. Jose Napole6n Duarte
joined the junta in March to serve as a fig leaf and public-relations
agent of the army, but all those who were not satisfied to serve in that
role departed. 22 I
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Once the old-guard military had seized control from the progressive
officers in October 1979, it began a general war of extermination against all progressive individuals and organizations in El Salvador. By the end of May, church sources reported 1,844 civilian deaths already in 1980, a figure that reached 10,000 by the end of the year, almost all at the hands of the government. A guerrilla war was forced on the center and left by the policy of unconstrained violence of the Carter-supported government. The government was not centrist and reformist-it was a military regime of the right, closely linked to the terrorist force ORDEN and the death squads, and it used them regularly as proxies. The paramilitary groups were not uncontrollable-they were doing what the army wanted them to do. The paramilitary forces and death squads of EI Salvador had extensive interlocking relationships with the official military and security forces and their U. S. counterparts. There was a revolving door of personnel, close cooperation in sharing infor- mation, funding of the paramilitary groups by the official forces, and a division of labor between them. The paramilitary did jobs for which the official forces wished to disclaim responsibility. 23
Although the paramilitary group ORDEN was formally abolished at the time of the October 1979 coup, ir was secrerly maintained and had a close relationship with the regular military establishment. According to one detailed account,
The reformers had officially abolished ORDEN, rhe old informa- tion network. But . . . military officers suspicious of the young reformers secretly reestablished and expanded much of the old intelligence system into a grass-roots intelligence network that fed names of suspected subversives to military and paramilitary death squads. Four days after the coup, D'Aubuisson said in an inter- view, he was assigned by members of the high command to help reorganize ANSESAL [an intelligence communication network] inside a military compound under the chief of staff's office--out of the reach of civilians in ehe new jUDea. 24
This secret assignment ofD'Aubuisson was confirmed by junta member Colonel Jaime Abdul Gutierrez, and then Deputy Defense Minister Colonel Nicholas Carranza. 25
The U. S. mass media, however, followed the Bushnell fonnula virtu- ally without deviation: there was a "civil war between extreme right and leftist groups" (New York Times, Feb. 25, 1980); the "seemingly well meaning but weak junta" was engaging in reforms but was unable to check the terror (Time, Apr. 7. 1980). The U. S. mass media had fea-
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 5I
tured heavily the reformist character of the revolutionary junta, but they uniformly suppressed evidence of the powerlessness, frustrations, and early resignation of the progressives, and their replacement by civilians willing to serve as "front men" for state terror. Roman Mayorga, an engineer and university professor who had been the unani- mous choice of the original coup ploners, resigned on January 3, I980, along with Guillermo Manuel Ungo "and at least 37 of the highest ranking government officials, including the heads of all government agencies. "26 But for the media, these events never happened, and the junta was still a "weak centrist government . . . beset by implacable extremes" (New York Times editorial, Apr. 28, I98o), not a right-wing government of massacre. Robin K. Andersen points out that
None of the networks reported . . . the final resignation of the junta members. Even CBS, which had reported at length on the appointment of Roman Mayorga, failed to report his resignation, or any of the others. For television news viewers, these political developments never happened. Television news coverage omitted every reference to this all-important political power struggle that could have accounted for the abuses that continued. . . . The civilian lack of control, and even their resignation, had no effect on the way in which the news characterized the junta; it continued
to be labeled moderate. 27
And the Salvadoran government has continued to be "moderate" and "centrist" up to today.
Other media suppressions aided in bolstering the myth of the neutral junta standing between the extreme right and the extreme left. On March 29, I980, the New York Times carried a Reuters dispatch noting the resignation of three high Salvadoran officials, who, according to the article, "resigned last night in protest against the junta's inability to halt violence by leftist and rightist forces. "28 The preceding day, an AP dispatch recorded the same resignations, but without any explanation of the reasons for this. One of the resigning officials, Undersecretary of Agriculture Jorge Alberto Villacorta, issued a public statement say- ing that
I resigned because I believed that it was useless to continue in a government not only incapable of puning an end to the violence, but a government which itself is generating the political violence through repression. . . . Recently, in one of the large estates taken over by the agrarian reform, uniformed members of the security
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52 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
forces accompanied by a masked person pointed out the directors ('jf the self-management group and then these individuals were shot in front of their co-workers. 29
It can be seen from the statement that the reference in the Reuter's dispatch to protest "against the junta's inability to halt violence by leftist and rightist forces" is a gross misrepresentation, and it is evident that an honest transmission of Villacorta's statement would have con- tradicted the propaganda line.
At Archbishop Romero's funeral, on March 30, I980, where ma. ny thousands gathered to pay tribute, bomb explosions and gunfire killed some forty people and injured hundreds more. The version of the event provided by U. S. Ambassador Robert White and the Salvadoran gov- ernment was that "armed terrorists of the ultra left sowed panic among the masses and did all they could to provoke the security forces into returning fire. But the discipline of the armed forces held. "3o Joseph Treaster's account in the New York Times quotes Duarte that the violence was from the left. It also quotes a junta statement that the army was strictly confined to its barracks, and Treaster says, "T. here was no sign of uniformed government forces in the plaza before or during the shooting. " No other version of the facts is mentioned. However, a mimeographed statement on March 30, signed by twenty~two church leaders present at the funeral, claimed that the panic had been started by a bomb thrown from the national palace, followed by machine-gun and other shots coming from its second floorY This account was sup- pressed by Treaster and was never mentioned in the New York Times.
In a follow-up article of April 7, 1980, Treaster repeats that on March 30 the junta ordered all military forces into their barracks, and that they obeyed "even though they knew leftists with weapons were pouring into the central plaza. " Treaster asserts this government claim as fact, and he continues to suppress sources and evidence that contradict this government allegation. He also fails to explain why the leftists would indiscriminately shoot their own people paying homage to the arch- bishop. 32
The title of Treaster's article of April 7, I980, is "Slaying in Salvador Backfires on Rebels. " The article reads as follows:
The murder of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero two weeks ago and the killing of30 at his funeral may have benefited, rather than hurt, the ruling civilian-military junta, in the view of many diplo- mats, businessmen and Government officials.
The extreme right is being blamed for the killing of the Arch-
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 53
bishop and the extreme left is being blamed for the shooting and bombing that turned the crowded central plaza into chaos as Archbishop Romero was being eulogized.
"It's not so much that the junta gained," said Robert E. White, the United States Ambassador to EI Salvador, "but that its oppo- nents on the extreme right and left have lost prestige. The net result is a boost in prestige for the junta. "
We may note how the title of the article transforms the murder of the leader of the dissident forces (and then of his followers at the funeral) from a moral issue deserving outrage into a question of political advan- tage, and turns that against the rebels. It would be hard to imagine the New York Times publishing an article on Popieluszko headed "Slaying in Poland Backfires on Solidarity Movement," featuring perhaps the playing up by the official press of demonstrator aggressiveness or vio- lence. Note also how the question of identifying the killer of Romero, and the government's obligation to seek justice, has been pushed into the background. Finally, there is the statement that "the extreme left is being blamed" for the deaths in the plaza. Use of the passive voice allows Treaster to avoid specification of just who is blaming the ex- treme left. He mentions as his sources for the article as a whole "many diplomats, businessmen and Government officials"-he doesn't even pretend to have talked to ordinary Salvadorans or church representa- tives-but his only citation near the statement that "the extreme left is being blamed" is the then-U. S. ambassador, Robert White. By relying only on government handouts and carefully avoiding readily available conflicting evidence and alternative views, the Times once again found the means of applying the usual formula of a deadly right offsetting a
deadly left, with the junta favored by the U. S. government once more placed in the middle-with enhanced prestige!
2. 3. 3. Misrepresentation of Romero's views
As we noted earlier, Romero was unequivocal in laying the blame for the violence in El Salvador on the army and security forces, and he viewed the left and popular groupings as victims provoked into self- defense by violence and injustice. The peoples' organizations, he told Carter, are "fighting to defend their most fundamental human rights" against a military establishment that "knows only how to repress the
54 MANUFACTlJklNG CONSENT
people and defend the interests of the Salvadorean oligarchy. " And in his diilry, Romero completely repudiated the idea that the army was reacting to somebody else's violence-the security forces are instru- ments "of a general program of annihilation of those on the left, who by themselves would not commit violence or further it were it not for social injustice that they want to do away with. "33 Thus Joseph Treaster's statement on the front page of the New York Times that Romero "had criticized both the extreme right and the extreme left for widespread killing and torture in El Salvador" (Mar. 31, 1980) is straightforward lying: Romero never accused the left of torture or widespread killing, he never equated the right and the left, and he was quite clear that the government (an agent of the right) was the primary killer. In this respect, Romero's perception, essentially the same as that
privately conveyed to the press by the U. S. government, was grossly falsified in public by both the government and press. 34
Interestingly, a year later, in an article marking the anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Romero, Edward Schumacher, of the Times, noted that under Romero's successor, Archbishop Rivera y Damas, "the church has moved to a more centrist position in the civil war between the Government and the guerrillas. "35 Of course, if the church now takes a centrist position, as opposed to its position under Romero, this constitutes an admission that the theme played by Treaster and the Times a year previously of an even-handed Romero was a lie (which it was). Is it possible that the Times always finds the church in the middle and is lying one year later as well? The question must remain open, as his successor has been much more circumspect than Romero. The willingness ofthe right wing and the army to murder people like Romero might have affected Archbishop Rivera y Damas's ability to speak his mind freely and forced public caution. The point
does not arise for Schumacher and the Times. 36
2. 3. 4. The loss of interest in responsibility at the top
With Popieluszko, the media tried hard to establish that there was knowledge of and responsibility for the crime at higher levels of the Polish government. Soviet interest and possible involvement were also regularly invoked. With Romero, in contrast, no such questions were raised or pressed.
The media did note that Romero opposed aid to the Salvadoran
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 55
junta (which Carter provided anyway), but they failed to convey the depth of his hostility to U. S. policy and the importance of his opposi- tional role (although it was far more threatening to U. S. policy than Popieluszko was to the Soviet Union). The press never mentioned the special emissary sent by Carter to the pope in an attempt to bring Romero into line, or the fact that the head ofthe Jesuit order in Central America was called to Rome, probably in response to this U. S. pres- sure. 3' The media also suppressed Romero's appeal to the military to refuse to kill, a fact that would have made much clearer how strongly opposed he was to the official policies, and how convenient his murder was to the rulers of ? 1 Salvador.
Although Romero was far and away the most important establish- ment figure aligned with the popular movements, the media pretended at first that the affiliation of his killers was a complete mystery. The Washington Post supposed an equal likelihood of a left- or right-wing source, and the Miami Herald noted on March 27 that "Both stood to
benefit from any chaos his death might have created. " (No American paper suggested that Popieluszko might have been murdered by Soli- darity sympathizers to discredit the Polish government. ) This foolish- ness was the minority position-the bulk of the press suggested that the killer was probably a rightist, but of obscure connection. The reliable Duarte suggested that the killing was too professional to be indige- nous-it must have been a contract job from the outside. This view was dutifully repeated by the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and CBS News. 3 8
If, as seemed very likely, the killer was a Salvadoran rightist, or someone in their employ, what was his connection, i f any, with the army and security forces? We saw earlier that the linkages between the death squads and the army were close: there was at least some degree of common command, shared operations, and mutual protection. Could the killer have been a member of the armed forces? Given the links of the army to the paramilitary forces, wasn't it likely that they knew who killed Romero? The U. S. mass media did not raise, let alone press, these questions. When D'Aubuisson's link to the murder became public knowledge, the media failed to make this a big issue, and his close relations to the official forces were not examined and discussed. This is evidence of a propaganda system at work.
Any possible U. S. connection to the crime was, of course, "far out," and could not be raised in the U. S. media. That we don't do this sort of thing is an ideological premise of the patriotic press, no matter what the facts of recent history tell US. 39 But still, the question might have been raised whether the environment that the United States was help-
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56 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
?
ing to create in El Salvador. training and aiding a murderous army whose violence had driven Romero to passionate opposition, made the United States indirectly guilty of the murder? The press never dis- cussed this point either. The Times quotes Secretary of State Cyrus Vance on the murder: "Two weeks ago I wrote the Archbishop and said: 'We share a repugnance for the violence provoked by both extremes that is taking the lives of innocent people. We deplore the efforts of those seeking to silence the voices of reason and moderation with explosives. intimidation and murder. ' " 4 { ) The paper points out that the letter from Vance was in reply to Romero's appeal to cease supplying arms. The article failed to include the gist of Romero's argument, and it did not quote that part ofVance's letter that rejected the archbishop's appeal. The report also did not take note of Vance's serious misre- presentation of the archbishop's position when he says that "We share a repugnance [for] . . . both extremes"; Romero attributed the killings to the army and the right. not "both extremes. " We may note also that while Romero was victimized by the very forces that Vance supported. and Romero's forecasts seem to be vindicated by his own murder, there is no hint in the account of any irony or criticism of Vance and his associates. Here the press cannot plead lack of knowledge. As later conceded, the media knew very well that the security forces were the source of the violence.
2. 3. 5. Murder unavenged-or
trium phant f
The assassins ofArchbishop Romero were never "officially" discovered or prosecuted, and he joined the ranks of the tens of thousands of other Salvadorans murdered without justice being done. But in contrast with Popieluszko, the U. S. mass media seemed quite uninterested in who committed the act or in demanding just retribution.
Subsequently, a great deal of evidence became available showing that Roberto D'Aubuisson was at the center of a conspiracy to murder Romero. On the basis of numerous interviews with Arena party activists and U. S. officials, and examination of State Department cables, investi- gative reporters Craig Pyes and Laurie Becklund claimed in 1983 that D'Aubuisson had planned the assassination with a group of active-duty military officers, who drew straws for the honor of carrying out the murder. 4'l Former ambassador Robert White, who had access to State Department cables and other inside information during his tenure in
WORTHY AND U,,"WORTHY VICTIMS 57
office, also stated before a congressional committee in February 1984 that "beyond any reasonable doubt" D'Aubuisson had "planned and ordered the assassination" of Archbishop Romero, and White gave details on the planning meeting and the subsequent execution of the trigger man to keep him quiet. 42 Further evidence of D'Aubuisson's involvement in the murder came to light with the confession of Roberto Santivanez, a former high official in Salvadoran intelligence. According to Santivanez, the murder of Romero was planned and carried out by D'Aubuisson with the aid of former national guardsmen of Somoza, but "under the protection of General Garcia and Colonel Carranza. "43 Pyes's and Becklund's informants also indicated that D'Aubuisson was a subordinate and political ally of Carranza, who was the number two man in the Salvadoran military until his ouster under U. S. pressure in December 1980. Carranza then moved over to head the Treasury Police. D'Aubuisson also worked with the National Guard's G-2 central intelli- gence office while the guard was headed by General Eugenio Vides Casanova. Pyes and Becklund write that "During the time Vides com- manded the Guard, active-duty military officers working with the G-2 were linked in State Department cables to the March 1980 assassination ofArchbishop Oscar Amulfo Romero. . . . "44 Note that Vides Casanova became minister of defense, the post he still holds, under the Duarte
government.
In short, there was substantial evidence concerning the identity of
Romero's murderers, and there were significant links of the murders to the highest officials of the Salvadoran military establishment. In fact, a judicial investigation in EI Salvador headed by Judge Atilio Ramirez quickly pointed a finger at D'Aubuisson and General Medrano, a U. S. protege in ? 1 Salvador. But Ramirez soon fled the country after several threats and an attempt on his life, and active pursuit of the case in El Salvador ended. In exile, Judge Ramirez claimed that the criminal- investigation group of the police didn't arrive at the scene of the crime till four days after it was committed, and that neither the police nor the attorney general provided his court with any evidence. He concluded that there was "undoubtedly" a "kind of conspiracy to cover up the murder" from the very beginning. 45
Needless to say, Judge Ramirez's testimony was not featured in the U. S. media, nor was the accumulating evidence of D'Aubuisson's in- volvement given significant play. It was back-page material at best, treated matter-of-factly and never put in a framework of indignation and outrage by the use of emotive language or by asking allies of Romero to comment on the evidence, and it never elicited strident demands for justice. To this day one will find no mention of the fact
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z
58 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
that the effective rulers of this "fledgling democracy" are military of- ficers who were closely assoeiated with D'Aubuisson and his cabal and may well have been implicated in the assassination.
After D'Aubuisson was caught in a raid on May 8, 1980, with docu- ments showing that he was planning a coup and with evidence of his involvement in the murder of Romero, he was arrested and faced with the threat of trial and imprisonment. An assembly of the entire officer corps of the Salvadoran army-seven hundred strong-was quickly convened, and demanded his release.