, the government's
propaganda
agenda in a demonstration election.
Manufacturing Consent - Chomsky
Tbe average rate of killings of civilians in the thirty months prior to the 1982 election was approximately seven hundred per month.
Many of these victims were raped, tortured, and mutilated.
All of this was done with complete impunity, and only the murder of four American women elicited-by dint of congressional pressure-any kind of legal action.
Even William Doherty of the American Institute for Free Labor Devel- opment-a longtime supporter of U.
S.
policy in El Salvador-asserted before a congressional committee that there was nO system of justice operative in that country.
while Leonel Gomez, a former land-reform official in E1 Salvador.
told the same committee a bit later that state
terror had put the population in a state of <<fearful passivity. "56
In Guatemala, too, the endemic fear based on years of unconstrained and continuing army violence was a dominant fact of national life.
According to Americas Watch, writing in early 1985,
Torture, killings, and disappearances continue at an extraordinary rate, and millions of peasants remain under the strict scrutiny and control of the government through the use of civil patrols and "model villages! ' Guatemala remains, in short, a nation of prison- ers. 57
106 MANUFACTURING CONSENT ,
The law group described Guatemala in 1985 as "a country where the greater part of the people live in permanent fear. "s8
In the case of Nicaragua, we repeat the central fact that differentiates it from the U. S. client states: in 1984 its government was not murdering civilians. 59 The main fear of ordinary citizens in Nicaragua was of violence by the contras and the United States.
Our conclusion is that the fifth condition for a free election was met in Nicaragua, but not in EI Salvador and Guatemala. And our overall finding is that neither Et Salvador nor Guatemala met any of the five basic conditions of a free election, whereas Nicaragua met some of them well, others to a lesser extent.
3. 3. THE COERCION PACKAGES IN EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, AND NICARAGUA
As we noted, in the U. S. government's sponsored elections, voter turn- out is interpreted as public support for the election and its sponsors. In disapproved elections (here, Nicaragua), this frame is abandoned, and voter turnout is either ignored or declared meaningless because of limited options or coercive threats by the authorities. But the question of coercive threats should clearly be raised in all cases where this is a potential problem. As we have just described, the elections in ? 1 Salva- dor were held under conditions of military rule where mass killings of "subversives" had taken place and a climate of fear had been estab- lished. I f the government then sponsors an election and the local mili- tary authorities urge people to vote, a significant part ofthe vote should be assumed to be a result of built-in coercion. A propaganda model would anticipate that the U. S. mass media make no such assumption, and they did not.
In El Salvador in 1982 and 1984, voting was also required by law. The law stipulated that failure to vote was to be penalized by a specific monetary assessment, and it also called on local authorities to check out whether voters did in fact vote. This could be done because at the time of voting one's identification card (ID, ddula) was stamped, acknowl- edging the casting of a vote. Anybody stopped by the army and police would have to show the ID card, which would quickly indicate whether the individual had carried out his or her patriotic duty. Just prior to the March 1982 election, Minister of Defense Garcia warned the popula- tion in the San Salvador newspapers that the failure to vote would be
LEGITIMIZI~G VERSUS MEANINGLESS THUD WORLD ELECTIONS 107
regarded as an act of treason. And in the 1984 election, "Advertising by the government and military prior to the elections stressed the obliga- tion to vote rather than the freedom to vote. "60 Given the climate of fear, the voting requirement, the ID stamp, the army warning, and the army record in handling "traitors," it is evident that the coercive ele- ment in generating turnout in Salvadoran elections has been large. This is supported by queries made by independent observers on the reasons why Salvadorans voted. 61
In Guatemala, as in ? 1 Salvador, voting was required by law; nonvot- ers were subject to a fine of five quetzales ($1. 25). Also, as in El Salvador, newspaper ads sponsored by the army assened that it was treasonous to fail to vote or to vote null or blank. 62 The law group reported that "many" people expressed fears that nonvoting would subject them to reprisals, and after the military threats in the week before the election there was "a widespread belief that failure to vote would be punishable by more than the five-quetzal fine stipulated by law. "63
In Nicaragua, while registration was obligatory, voting was not re- quired by law. Voter-registration cards presented on election day were retained by election officials, so that the failure to vote as evidenced by the lack of a validated voter credential could not be used as the basis of reprisals. 64 Most of the voters appeared to LASA observers to be voting under no coercive threat-they did not have to vote by law; they were urged to vote but not threatened with the designation of "traitors" for not voting; there were no obvious means of identifying nonvoters; and the government did not kill dissidents, in contrast to the normal practice in El Salvador and Guatemala.
In sum, Nicaragua did not have a potent coercion package at work to help get out the vote-as did the Salvadoran and Guatemalan gov- ernments.
3. 4. EL SALVADOR: HOW THE U. S. MEDIA TRANSFORMED A "DERANGED KILLING MACHINE" INTO THE
PROTECTOR OF AN INCIPIENT DEMOCRACY
In reporting on the 1982 Salvadoran election, the U. S. mass media closely followed the government agenda. The personalities of the can- didates, the long lines waiting to vote, alleged rebel disruption, and
L
lo8 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
"tumout" were heavily featured. 6s As Jack Spence pointed out, "every media outlet, particularly the networks, cast the election-day story in a framework of voting in the midst of extensive guerrilla violence at polling places. "66 Warren Hoge and Richard Meislin, of the New York Times, repeated day after day that the rebels were threatening disrup- tion, Hoge asserting that "The elections have taken on a significance beyond their outcome because leftist guerrillas mounted a campaign to disrupt them and discourage voters from going to the polls. "67 This is a precise statement of the government's propaganda frame. But Hoge and Meislin never once cited a rebel source vowing disruption, and nobody else did, either. On election day no voters were killed or polling stations attacked, and the general level of rebel military activity was below average. In short, the disruption claims were falsifications of both plans and election-day results, but as they fit the patriotic agenda they were given prominence, repeated frequently, and used to establish the
contest between the forces of good and evil. 68 At the election-day dose, Dan Rather exclaimed, "A triumph! A million people to the polls. " Rather did not regard it as a triumph that the Sandinistas got 700,000 people to the polls-a higher proportion of the population, and without a voting requirement. The propaganda frame of the government gave turnout high importance in the Salvadoran election but none in the Nicaraguan election, and Rather followed like a good lap dog.
Neither Rather nor any other media analyst on or before March 30, 1982, noted that voting was required by law in E1 Salvador, and nQt Qne mentioned the warning by the defense minister, General Guillermo Garcia, in the San Salvador newspapers that nonvoting was treaso- nous. 69 The basic parameters were entirely off the media agenda. The destruction of La CTonica and El Independiente and the murder of twenty-six journalists prior to the election were unmentioned in dis- cussing the election's quality and meaning. 70 The army and its allies had been killing civilians on a massive scale in ? 1 Salvador, for many months before (and into) March 1982. Would this not create a climate of fear and, in conjunction with a state of siege, somewhat encumber free debate and free choice? The point was rarely even hinted at in the mass media.
Could candidates run freely and campaign without fear of murder? Could the rebels qualify and run? After all, if it was a civil war, the rebels were clearly the "main opposition. " Again, the mass media played dumb. They pretended that this exclusion was not important, or that it represented a willful boycott by the rebels rather than a refusal based on conditions unfavorable to a (ree election and a blatantly
t<
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANISGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIO:,,>'S 101}
stacked deCk. Neither the March 1981 death list nor the Gutierrez statement that the FDR would not be permitted to run were mentioned by the mass media in our sample. They never once suggested that the election plan was to create an electoral environment of extreme coer- cion and bias in which the rebels could not run, and then use this for the dramatic game of disruption and triumphant turnout. That the military agreed to the election because it couldn't lose was never sug- gested by these media.
The role of the army was summarized by Warren Hoge in the New York Times:
Is the military playing any role in the election? Members of the military are not allowed to vote, and the armed forces are pledged to protect voters from violence and to respect the outcome of the contest. 7 1
We may note that the army's mass killing of civilians and systematic destruction and demobilization of virtually all popular organizations in El Salvador over the preceding thirty months, which bears on what Secretary of State Shultz referred to as the "preliminary aspects that make an election mean something," is not part of the army's "role" for Hoge and the Times. Roge repeats the Salvadoran army's pledge, not only taking it at face value, hut never suggesting that it (and the election itself) was meaningless in a terror state where the "main opposition" was off the ballot and only the war parties were able to field candidates. In the propaganda framework, the security forces of client states "pro- tect elections";72 only those of enemy states interfere with the freedom of its citizens to vote without constraint.
As noted earlier, observers and reporters in El Salvador all agreed that the populace was most eager for an end to the war, and government propaganda even stressed that voting was an important vehicle to tbat end-the public was urged to substitute "ballots for bullets. " But no peace party was on the Salvadoran baUot. And after the election was over, the war went on, and the death squads continued to flourish. This is in accordance with the hypothesis that the real purpose of the elec- tion was to placate the home population of the United States and render them willing to fund more war and terror. It is a poor fit to the hypothe- sis that the people of EI Salvador had a free choice. An honest press would point up the failure of the election to substitute "ballots for bullets. " The mass media of the United States did nOt raise the issue.
Nor did the experience of 1982 and its aftermath affect the media's
110 M A lI;UF A CTURll'G CONSENT
willingness to follow the patriotic agenda once again in 1984. We will return to this below in a statistical comparison of the New York Times's coverage of the Salvadoran and Nicaraguan elections.
3. 5. "FIRST STEP: GUATEMALA OPTS FOR MODERATION""
The U. S. government was less deeply involved in the Guatemalan elections of 1984 and 1985 than it was in those held in El Salvador, but, as we saw in chapter 2, the Reagan administration went to great pains to put a favorable gloss on the murderous regimes of Lucas Garcia, Rios Monu, and Mejia Victores, and to attempt to reintegrate them fully into the free-world alliance. 74 It encouraged the 1984-85 elections, provided advisory and financial support for election management, and gave pub- lic-relations assistance and sent official observers to help put the elec- tion in a favorable light. There was little effort made to disguise the fact that the purpose of the election, from the standpoint of the Reagan administration and the ruling army, was to alter the international "image" of Guatemala in order to facilitate aid and loans.
With the administration supporting the new look, but without the intensity of commitment and propaganda backup brought to bear in El Salvador, and given the steady stream of reports of ongoing mass murder in Guatemala, a propaganda model would anticipate a media response that put the Guatemalan elections in a favorable light, but with qualifications. There was, in fact, far less coverage than of the Salvadoran election; what there was had a little more "balance," but the apologetic framework was still overwhelmingly dominant.
A telling manifestation of bias was the media's ready acceptance of the Guatemalan elections as meaningful, even though they were admit- tedly for image-malting, in a context of long-standing army rule and massacre, and despite new institutional arrangements in the country- side-the massive relocations of the population,. the "model villages," and the civil-defense patrols-that were, on their face, incompatible with a free election. In an enemy state where an election was held under comparable conditions, it would be designated a meaningless public- relations exercise. 75 In the case of Guatemala, however, the civil patrols and ongoing massacres were rarely mentioned, sources that addressed these matters were ignored, and the overall tone of the news was cautiously hopeful and optimistic. It was the consensus that the 1984
I
election for a constituent assembly was "encouraging" and an impor- tant first step, and that the 1985 presidential election <<ended [emphasis added] more than 30 years of military domination" (Newsweek, Jan. 17, 1986). Dan Rather, on CBS News, reported that Cerezo became Guatemala's "first civilian leader after thirty years of almost uninter- rupted military rule" (Dec. 9, 1985). This is ambiguous, but the implica- tion, directly asserted by Newsweek, is that Cerezo, not the army, rules. Julio Mendez Montenegro was a civilian president from 1966 to 1970, but he did not rule, and he was eventually discredited by the fact that he presided over a huge escalation of army violence. Given the earlier experience, the fact that the generals had made it clear that the civilian
government was "a project" of the military,76 and Cerezo's own ex- pressed reservations about his power, objective news reporting would have been careful about an alleged ending of military rule.
As in the case of EI Salvador, the murderous rule of the Guatemalan generals did not delegitimize them for the U. S. mass media nor suggest any possible justice to the rebel cause. Time noted (Feb. 27, 1984) that a leftist insurgency "poses a permanent challenge to the regime," but it did not inquire into the roots of this insurgency or suggest that its leaders constituted a "main opposition" whose ability to run would be an "acid test" of election integrity (as they pronounced in Nicaragua). Time also did not observe that the regime poses a permanent challenge to the survival of its population. The mass murders of the Guatemalan
state were even semi-justified by the unquestioned need to quell insur- gents-"Much ofthe killing," says Time, "is linked to Mejia's success against the insurgents. " The phrase "linked to" is an apologetic euphe- mism to obscure the fact that Mejia's "success" was based on the mass murder of men, women, and children in literally hundreds of destroyed villages. 17 Mejia has a "mixed record," with the mass murder offset by "improvements in some important areas" (the State Department, quoted by Time). Mejia, says Time, "won support because he has kept the promises he made after seizing power. " Time never explains how it determined that Mejia "won support," or from whom, other than the U. S. State Department. Was the press then free to speak out? Did a system of justice come into being?
In chapter 2 we summarized Americas Watch's demonstration that the Reagan administration made serial adjustments in its apologetics for each successive Guatemalan terrorist general, with a laggeti tacit ac- knowledgment that it had previously been lying. This has no influence whatsoever on Time's treatment of State Department pronouncements as authentic truth-the standard from which other claims may be eval- uated. Thus Time says that "Americas Watch, a controversial group
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS III
II2 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
that is often accused of being too sympathetic to the left, called ~ Guatemala 'a nation of prisoners. ' " Time doesn't independently evalu-
ate the quality of sources-the State Department is unchallenged be-
cause it expounds the official and patriotic truth. Americas Watch is ~ denigrated (and only rarely cited, even with a dismissing put-down) because it challenges official propaganda. Pravda could hardly be more , subservient to state demands than Time in its coverage of demonstra-
tion elections. 78 _ The mass media's sourcing on the Guatemalan election was confined almost entirely to U. S. officials and official observers, the most promi-
nent Guatemalan political candidates, and generals. Spokespersons for
the insurgents-what in Nicaragua would be labeled the "main opposi- tion"-the smaller parties, spokespersons for popular organizations,
the churches, human-rights groups, and ordinary citizens, were essen-
tially ignored by the media. Time, Newsweek and CBS News almost
never talked to ordinary citizens or spokespersons for the insurgents. Stephen Kinzer, in the Times, had only one citation to a rebel source
in several dozen articles on Guatemala during the election periods, although on election day in 1984 he did speak with a number of ordinary citizens (who gave a much less optimistic view than Kinzer's usual
sources).
The restricted menu of media sources flows from and reinforces the
media's propensity to adopt a patriotic agenda. U. S. government offi- cials and observers are always optimistic and hopeful in their state- ments about sponsored elections. The leading contestant politicians are also moderately optimistic, as they have a good chance of acquiring at least nominal power. They do, however, express occasional doubts about whether the army will relinquish power. This allows the election drama to assume a slightly different character from that in EI Salvador, where it was the democratic army "protecting the election" versus the undemocratic rebels who refused to lay down their arms and partici- pate. In Guatemala, the frame was: Will the generals keep their promise to stay in the barracks? The triumph is that they do stay in the bar- racks-a civilian president takes office and now "rules. " The media then quickly drop the subject, so that whether the army really does relinquish power to the civilian leaders is never checked out (just as the "peace" sought by the populace in El Salvador was never considered in retrospect). In Poland, in January 1947, and Nicaragua, in 1984, and in enemy states generally, the focus was on the substance of power, and the extent to which that power shaped the electoral results in advance, as by limiting the ability of important constituencies to run for office and compete effectively. Not so for Guatemala.
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANlllOGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 1I3
If the mass media had enlarged their sources, fundamental condi- tions would have assumed greater prominence. For example, before both the July I, 1984, and December 1985 elections in Guatemala, the Guatemala Bishops' Conference issued pastoral statements that sug- gested in no uncertain terms and with detailed arguments that condi- tions in the country were incompatible with a free election. Its pastoral letter ofJune 8, 1984, focused on the civil-defense patrols as "suscepti- ble to manipulation," and it discussed the disappearances, "insatiable corruption," and the fact that sociopolitical structures are "not capable of promoting the welfare of the whole society. "79 Stephen Kinzer men- tioned this report in a Times news article of July 22, 1984, but his reference is made afler the election of JUly I, and Kinzer did not use it to frame the discussion of electoral conditions and to arrive at an assessment of the quality of the election. Furthermore, his summary of the twenty-seven-page report, that it "denounced torture, electoral
fraud, concentration of wealth and 'massacres of entire families,''' ignores the quite specific critique of the conditions bearing on an elec- tion. Time mentioned this pastoral letter briefly; Newsweek and CBS News never mentioned it.
In connection with the 1985 election, the bishops put forth another powerful statement, once again questioning whether an election can be meaningful in "a situation close to slavery and desperation. "80 They point out that the civil-defense patrols, the "ideology of national secu- rity," and hunger and impoverishment are not conducive to serious elections:
In order that the longed-for results be obtained, there must be not only the freedom at the moment of casting one's vote, but also a whole series of particular social, political and economic conditions which are, unfortunately, not happening in Guatemala. In effect there still persist in Guatemala harsh violence, lack of respect for human rights and the breaking of basic laws. It is a fact that any citizen pressured, terrorized or threatened is not fully able to exercise his/her right to vote or to be elected conscientiously.
This letter was not mentioned in the major media or anywhere else, to our knowledge, although the bishops are conservative, credible, and one of the few organized bodies in Guatemala not crushed by state terror.
There were other dissenting voices in Guatemala-politicians of the lesser parties, union officials, human-rights groups, lawyers, and ju- rists-who spoke out occasionally on the limits to free electoral condi-
II4 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
tions in Guatemala. And there were events of note that threw a power- fullight on the subject. Most of these were blacked out in the U. S. mass media. For example,81 on July 4. 1984, the Guatemalan Human, Rights Commission issued a statement in Mexico saying that the election's meaning should be viewed in the context of three important facts: namely, that the requirements for a meaningful election stipulated by the United Nations in a March 14 statement had not been met; that the left had been excluded from participation in the election; and that 115 persons had been murdered or disappeared in the thirty days prior to the election ofJuly I. This statement, and the facts cited by the commis- sion, were ignored in the U. S. press.
Consider also the following facts: On May 3, General Oscar Mejia Victores removed Ricardo Sagastume Vidaure from his position as president of the judiciary and the supreme court. On April II, the judiciary had issued writs of habeas corpus on behalf of 157 kidnapped individuals, and Sagastume had protested to Mejia Victores over the difficulty in proceeding against military abuses. On May 4, Acisco Valladares Molina, head of the Populist party, noted that Sagastume had been "fired like a simple subordinate. " On May 8, a communique from the Guatemalan bar association stated that in Guatemala there is no rule of law, as demonstrated by the constant violation of human rights and uncontrolled exercise of arbitrary power. By May 8, at least sixteen judicary officials, including supreme court and court of appeals magistrates, had resigned in protest at Sagustume's removal.
Stephen Kinzer never discussed any of these events, or their mean- ing, in the Times, nor did any of his colleagues elsewhere in the mass media. This is in accord with our hypothesis that in elections held in client states, fundamental electoral conditions, such as the presence or absence of the rule of law, are off the agenda. The point applies to other relevant structural conditions. Thus, while Kinzer occasionally men- tioned the civil-defense patrols, he never described them and their operations in any detail or tied them in with other institutional struc- tures of control, and he failed to relate them in a systematic way to army power. The numerous reports on these coercive institutions and their terrorist role by Amnesty International, Americas Watch, and the Brit- ish Parliamentary Human Rights Group were almost never cited by Kinzer in providing facts relevant to the Guatemalan elections. Al- though the constituent assembly elected in 1984 produced a new consti- tution, K. inzer never once discussed the nature of this instrument, which validated the special army role and structural constraints on freedom of the press.
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 115
Kinzer was reporting news in a way that fit the Times's editorial position and the U. S. government agenda. The Times editorial frame was that "The military, in power for most of 31 years, has honored its promise to permit the free election of a civilian president. "82 Kinzer's news articles of the same period convey the same message--one oft. hem is entitled "After 30 Years Democracy Gets a Chance in Guatemala" (Nov. 10, 1985)-whic. h accurately summarizes the contents, although they contain an undercurrent of reserved final judgment. That central message was false, however, if the basic conditions of a free election were not met, if the army's power remained unimpaired, and if these were confirmed in a written constitution that allows the army freedom from the rule of law and a license to kill without constraint from the nominal "democracy. "83 Kinzer could only convey this false message by ignoring the Sagastume case, the institutional arrangements of the counterinsurgency state, the ongoing murders, and the omnipresent fear-i. e. , the basic conditions of a free election-and by laying stress instead on expressions of hope, orderliness of the election processes, and army promises-i. e.
, the government's propaganda agenda in a demonstration election.
In what must be one of the low points of his journalistic career, in an article of December 27, 1985 ("Guatemala Vote Heartens Nicaragua Parties"), Kinzer even implies that the Guatemala election establishes an electoral model for Nicaragua. He describes a Cerezo visit to Nicara- gua, in which Kinzer features the encouragement Cerezo gives to the dissident parties that perhaps the power of the Sandinistas can be broken by patience (implying that Cerezo had broken the power of the army in Guatemala and was in full command). The article closes with a quote from an opposition figure: "Ortega is now the last President in Central America who wears a military uniform, and the contrast is going to be evident. " Nowhere in the article does Kinzer point out that army power can not be read from whether the head of state wears a uniform, or that the rule of the army in Guatemala has not yet been overcome. He does not refer to the fact that the Guatemalan army has killed tens of thousands of ordinary civilians. Nor does he show any recognition of the fact that the election held in Nicaragua was much
more open than that held in Guatemala. On the contrary, this is a fact that the media, including the New York Times, explicitly and consis- tently deny, in accordance with state imperatives.
As in the case of El Salvador, the U. S. mass media never suggested that the exclusion of the Guatemalan insurgent groups rendered the Guatemalan election meaningless. Kinzer several times mentioned with
u6 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
extreme brevity that the left was off the ballot, but he never asked anybody to discuss the meaning of this in terms of the options available to the various segments of society. As coauthor of an important book on this topic, Kinzer is well aware of the facts. 84 The vast majority of Guatemalans are very poor, and they have been entirely excluded from political participation or representation since 1954. The insurgency grew out of the parlous condition and exploitation of that mass, and the absence of any possibility of a democratic process to alleviate injustice and misery. The ruling army had allowed only parties to run and civilians to hold office who agreed, tacitly or explicitly, to keep off the policy agenda all maners of central concern to the impoverished major- ity. There is no way to measure the strength of popular support for the insurgents, but in light of the fact that they espouse programs well oriented to the interests of the general population and have been able to maintain an insurgency without significant external aid, and that the army response has been a war against virtually the entire rural popula-
tion, the rebel claim to be a "main opposition" would appear to be stronger than that of Arturo Cruz and his upper-class Nicaraguan associates. And if the rebels---or any candidates who would threaten the army and oligarchy in ways appealing to the majority---eannot qualify in a Guatemalan election, is it not essentially fraudulent? This was strongly suggested in both 1984 and 1985 by the Guatemalan Bishops' Conference, but this respectable source, in contrast with Arturo Cruz and Robert Leiken, is blacked out. As with EI Salvador, the election was not evaluated, either in advance or in retrospect, on the basis of whether or not the fundamental requirements of a free election were met. For the U. S. government, the insurgents were not a main opposition, Guatemalan state terror was merely a public-relations inconvenience, and the elections were fair. The mass media's treatment of the Guatemalan election reflected well this government propaganda agenda.
3. 6. NICARAGUA: MEDIA SERVICE IN THE DELEGITIMIZING PROCESS
In contrast with the Salvadoran and Guatemalan cases, the Reagan administration was intent on discrediting the Nicaraguan election, which threatened to legitimize the Sandinista government and thus
. l
LEGITIMIZING VERSeS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIOSS II7
weaken the case for U. S. funding of a terrorist army. The administra- tion had been berating the Sandinistas for failing to hold an election, but the actual holding of one was inconvenient. From the inception of Nicaraguan planning for the election, therefore, the administration began to express doubts about its quality. And just as it devoted itself to creating a positive image of the two client-state elections, so it expended substantial resources to depict the Nicaraguan election in the worst possible light. The media dutifully followed course, as a propa- ganda model predicts.
The mass media failed to call attention to the cynicism of first assailing Nicaragua for failing to hold an election, and then striving to have the election either postponed or discredited. 85 Time even cites the absence of "official delegations [of observers] from the major western democracies" (Nov. 19, 1984), as if this were evidence of something discreditable in the election, rather than as a reflection of U. S. power. There were 450-odd foreign observers in attendance at the Nicaraguan election, some with superb credentials, observing more freely and at greater length than the official U. S. observers in El Salvador and Guatemala. Time and the rest of the mass media paid no attention to them. 86
Stephen Kinzer's use of observers is noteworthy. In the case of Nicaragua, he completely ignored the unofficial observers-many ex- ceedingly well qualified to observe, as we have noted-and he even ignored the official Dutch government team, drawn from the center- right and highly apologetic about atrocities in El Salvador, which observed both the Salvadoran and the Nicaraguan elections and con- cluded that the elections in Nicaragua "were more open than in El Salvador, in the sense that more people were able to take part; that the opposition did not fear for their lives"; and that "the legitimation ofthe regime is thus confirmed. "87 In Guatemala, by contrast, he cited the official observer report in both the 1984 and 1985 elections, despite their great bias and superficiality (see the report discussed in appendix I). In the 1984 Guatemala election, Kinzer did refer to the report of the unofficial Human Rights Law Group that we cited earlier, quoting their statement that the voting process was "procedurally correct," but neg- lecting to note here and elsewhere their numerous statements to the
effect that "the greater part of the population lives in permanent fear" (p. 4), so that "procedural correctness" has little meaning.
With no U. s. -government-designated official observers available in Nicaragua, the media relied even more heavily than usual on U. S. government handouts. It is enlightening to compare this conduited propaganda of the mass media with the findings of foreign-observer
lIS MANUFACTURING CONSENT
teams on the scene in Nicaragua. For the purpose of this comparison, which follows, we will use two such reports. One, that of the Irish Inter-Party Parliamentary Delegation, is The Elections in Nicaragua, November I984. The delegation was composed offOUT individuals, three from right-wing or moderate-right political parties, who spent seven- teen days in Nicaragua at the time of the election. We will also use as a basis of comparison of media coverage the previously cited report of the Is-member delegation sent by the Latin American Studies Associa- tion (LASA), half of whom had had "substantial field experience" in Nicaragua itself. This delegation spent eight days in Nicaragua before the election, traveled in a rented bus, determined their own itinerary, and "spoke with anyone who we chose to approach (as well as numer-
ous people who spontaneously approached US). "88
3. 6. 1. Tone of negativism and apathy
Time magazine hardly attempts to hide the fact that it takes its cues from Washington. It quotes John Hughes, then a public-relations man for the State Department (and previously, and subsequently, a colum- nist for the Christian Science Monitor): "It was not a very good election. . . . It was just a piece of theatre for the Sandinistas. "89 Time follows this cue with a series of denigrating strokes: "The Sandinistas win, as expected. . . . The Nicaraguan election mood was one of indifference. . . . The outcome was never in doubt. . . . Something of an anticlimax" (all in the issue of November 19, 1984). In an earlier article (October 29), Time indulged in the same negative refrain: "A campaign without suspense," voters "too apathetic to go to the polls at all" (this was a forecast dredged up well before the election). In both articles, "fear" was also featured heavily. In the Salvadoran election, Time's tone was different: "There was no denying the remarkable sense of occasion" (Le. , the Reagan administration had a big public-relations investment in the election); "hundreds of thousands . . . braved the threats, and sometimes the bullets, of the Marxist-led [FMLN] to join long serpen- tine polling lines for the country's much awaited presidential elections" (Apr. 9, 1984). 90 In Guatemala too, "Some 1. 8 million voters braved four-hour polling lines, tropical rainstorms and a bewildering array of
political choices to cast ballots in their country's most open and fraud- free elections in more than a decade" ouly 16, 1984). There is never apathy or fear of government force in Time's renditions of demonstra- tion elections.
-
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEAN1NGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 1I9
Stephen Kinzer, in the Times, also took a far less kindly view of the election in Nicaragua than of those in Guatemala, giving enormous attention to election opponents like the U. S. candidate Arturo Cruz (whereas in Guatemala he almost completely ignored the small parties, union protesters, rebels, and human-rights groups), and finding more people voting out of fear than he did in Guatemala, a remarkable discovery given the circumstances in the two countries. 91 He focuses steadily on the Sandinistas' efforts to get out the vote, the fact that the election result is a foregone conclusion, claims of the breaking up of election rallies, and allegations of unfairness and withdrawals by the opposition. As with Time, the voters are "philosophical," "enthusiasm for the election was not universal," and "there was little visible enthusi- asm. " Kinzer did not compare the electoral modalities, range of op- tions, or other basic conditions in Nicaragua and Guatemala (or El Salvador). In short, he discussed different questions in his news report- ing on the elections in Nicaragua and Guatemala, adhering closely to the propaganda frame. n
On the alleged negativism and apathy, both the Irish and LASA delegations noted that voting was not required in Nicaragua and was entirely secret. Therefore, as the Irish delegation pointed out, the low rate of abstention is more meaningful and "invalidates predictions that large sectors of the population were opposed to the election. Further- more, the percentage ofspoiled votes (7. 4 percent) is comparable to any European election in a country with a highly literate population" (p. 7). They also note that
Speaking with one old man, awaiting his turn to vote in a rural polling station, one member of the delegation inquired: "What difference do you see between this and any other election in which you voted? " He replied: "Everything. " "In what way? " He simply shrugged: "Everything is different. "
The U. S. media never located anybody like this old man. The Irish delegation also pointed out that
Some observers from other countries suggested that the people did not appear eI. 1thusiastic as they went to the polls. This is not surprising as people stood in long queues waiting patiently their turn to go behind the curtain to mark their ballot paper. One member of the delegation who had the opportunity to observe voters in the American election just two days later, noted no greater enthusiasm for standing in queues there!
I20 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
It is our belief that the invariable enthusiasm and optimism found by the U. S. mass media in client-state elections, and the apathy and nega- tivism found in elections in states disfavored by the U. S. administra- tion, has nothing to do with electoral realities and must be explained entirely by an imposed propaganda agenda and the filtering out of contrary opinion and information.
3. 6. 2. Ignoring the superior quality of the Nicaraguan election
In the propaganda format, a great deal of attention is paid to the mechanical properties of elections in client states, but not in states
whose elections are being denigrated. This was true in the cases under discussion. Time (Apr. 9, 1984) described in detail the elaborate elec-
toral preparations in El Salvador, the "tamper-proof' procedures, the
use of transparent Lucite ballot boxes, and the indelible-ink marking
and stamping of ID cards. It turned out, however, that the high-tech, computerized voting procedures weren't understood by the population,
more than half of whom were illiterate. At no point did Time, or its
media colleagues, raise any question about the importance ofimproving literacy as a necessary prelude to an election; nor did they suggest that
the Lucite boxes might compromise the secrecy of the vote, or that the stamped ID card might be a coercive instrument helping to explain turnout. I
Nicaragua went to great pains to provide for election secrecy, and ~ for an easy and intelligible system of voting. For one thing, they had
a massive literacy campaign before the election, making electoral
printed matter generally accessible. Both the Irish and LASA delega-
tions mention this as an electoral plus. Nicaragua also put a high
priority on getting a complete registration list and getting the voters registered. The Irish delegation noted that "Recent elections in other
Central American countries such as EI Salvador and Guatemala did not introduce such measures, and there was considerable debate concern-
ing the validity of their registers, which were based on out-of-date
census figures, incomplete official registers of population changes, and
other sources" (p. 5). Nicaragua also deliberately avoided transparent
ballot boxes, ID stamping, and any other mechanism that would allow
the authorities to identify whether or how somebody had voted. LASA
points out that . .
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 121
I
The ballots were also printed on heavy opaque white paper. The contrast with Somoza-era elections is striking. The Somozas used translucent ballots, so virtually everyone assumed that their ballot was not secret. The same problem occurred in the 1984 elections in E1 Salvador, where thin-paper ballots were deposited in trans- parent ballot boxes. The vote in Nicaragua in 1984 was truly a secret ballot (p. 4).
In Nicaragua, also, there was proportional voting, which made it possi- ble for the smaller parties to obtain legislative representation. Parties could also qualify quite easily to participate in the election. In Guatemala, 4,000 signatures were needed to qualify in 1984, a large number and not easy for dissident parties to collect in a society with daily political murders.
Stephen Kinzer and his associates never mentioned these differ- ences. More generally, the substantial merits of the Nicaraguan elec- tions were never contrasted with the procedures in the U. S. client states, a comparison that would have been most revealing and that would have thoroughly undermined the Reagan agenda to which the media were committed in their reporting of the election. Time, as noted, mentions the compromised Salvadoran procedures as if they were meri- torious. The Times mentioned the transparent voting boxes in EI Salva- dor only once (Richard Meislin, on March 25, 1984), repeating without question the official line that the purpose of the translucent boxes was to prevent fraud. Any other possibility is unmentioned. Newsweek and CBS News ignored these matters.
3. 6. 3. Rebel disruption into the black hole; turnout no longer an index of triumph of democracy
In the Salvadoran election, rebel disruption was a central feature of the government's propaganda frame. Because the rebels opposed the elec- tion, voting by the people proved their rejection of the rebels and approval of the army. Turnout was the index of democratic triumph and rebel defeat. As we saw, the mass media followed this frame with- out question. In the case of Nicaragua, the propaganda format was reversed-the rebels were the good guys, and the election held by the bad guys was condemned in advance. Rebel opposition to the
election-and efforts at disruption-did not make voting and a large
122 MAlI;UFACTURING CONSENT
turnout a repudiation of the rebels and approval of the Sandinistas. The U. S. mass media once again followed the government agenda, even though it meant an exact reversal of the standards they had applied in the Salvadoran election. The contras and their supporters urged the public not to vote, and interfered with the election process with at least as much vigor as (and with more killings than) the rebels in El Salvador. Furthermore, voting was more assuredly secret and the citizens were not required to vote, or to have ID cards stamped indicating that they had. And the Sandinistas did not kill ordinary citizens on a daily basis, as was true in the "death-squad democracies. " Thus turnout was far more meaningful in the Nicaraguan election than in the ones held in El Salvador and Guatemala-the public was free to abstain as well as
to vote for opposition parties.
The U. S. mass media disposed of this problem mainly by massive
suppression. They simply ignored the contra-U. S. campaign for absten- tion, waged with threats and attacks on polling places and election workers; and they buried the fact of an effectively secret vote and the right not to vote,93 just as, in parallel, they had inflated rebel disruption efforts in EI Salvador in 1982 and 1984 and buried the voting requirement and other pressures to vote.
Although the New York Times had gone out of its way to focus on the "challenge" of rebel opposition and alleged disruption as giving turnout special meaning in the Salvadoran election of 1982,94 Stephen Kinzer never once mentioned that the cantras attacked a number of polling stations and had issued radio appeals for abstention. 95 For Kinzer, neither these facts nor the U. S. campaign to discredit were seen as posing a "challenge" that made turnout meaningful in Nicaragua.
The Irish delegation pointed out that "The Parties of the Demo- cratic Coordinating Committee [based in the business communityl op- posed the voter registration, and called for a boycott of this process" (p. 5), and it noted that eleven polling stations were closed down by counterrevolutionary activities (p. 7). The public voted in large num- bers "despite the possible dangers involved," which suggested to' the Irish delegation that turnout was significant and "showed how impor- tant the election was to the people" (p. 6). LASA pointed out the various ways in which the "main opposition" called for voter absten- tion, and cited the radio warnings broadcast into the country from Costa Rica threatening that voters would be killed by the contras (pp. 16, 28). LASA also pointed out that "voter turnout was heavy," with "more enthusiasm among voters in low-income areas than in more affluent neighborhoods. " 9 6 Like Time, LASA notes that the turnout did not quite realize the expectations of FSL~ officials, but unlike Time,
LEGIT1MIZISG VERSUS MEANllIiGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 123
LASA points out that the rate of participation achieved "compares very favorably with the rates achieved in II other recent Latin American elections, as well as the 1984 U. S. presidential election . . . " (p. 16). 97
In sum, the two observer reports discuss rebel disruption in Nicara- gua, turnout, and the meaning of that turnout. The U. S. mass media, which had featured these matters heavily in reference to the Salvadoran election-where they fitted the government's propaganda agenda- found them entirely unnewsworthy as regards Nicaragua.
3.
terror had put the population in a state of <<fearful passivity. "56
In Guatemala, too, the endemic fear based on years of unconstrained and continuing army violence was a dominant fact of national life.
According to Americas Watch, writing in early 1985,
Torture, killings, and disappearances continue at an extraordinary rate, and millions of peasants remain under the strict scrutiny and control of the government through the use of civil patrols and "model villages! ' Guatemala remains, in short, a nation of prison- ers. 57
106 MANUFACTURING CONSENT ,
The law group described Guatemala in 1985 as "a country where the greater part of the people live in permanent fear. "s8
In the case of Nicaragua, we repeat the central fact that differentiates it from the U. S. client states: in 1984 its government was not murdering civilians. 59 The main fear of ordinary citizens in Nicaragua was of violence by the contras and the United States.
Our conclusion is that the fifth condition for a free election was met in Nicaragua, but not in EI Salvador and Guatemala. And our overall finding is that neither Et Salvador nor Guatemala met any of the five basic conditions of a free election, whereas Nicaragua met some of them well, others to a lesser extent.
3. 3. THE COERCION PACKAGES IN EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, AND NICARAGUA
As we noted, in the U. S. government's sponsored elections, voter turn- out is interpreted as public support for the election and its sponsors. In disapproved elections (here, Nicaragua), this frame is abandoned, and voter turnout is either ignored or declared meaningless because of limited options or coercive threats by the authorities. But the question of coercive threats should clearly be raised in all cases where this is a potential problem. As we have just described, the elections in ? 1 Salva- dor were held under conditions of military rule where mass killings of "subversives" had taken place and a climate of fear had been estab- lished. I f the government then sponsors an election and the local mili- tary authorities urge people to vote, a significant part ofthe vote should be assumed to be a result of built-in coercion. A propaganda model would anticipate that the U. S. mass media make no such assumption, and they did not.
In El Salvador in 1982 and 1984, voting was also required by law. The law stipulated that failure to vote was to be penalized by a specific monetary assessment, and it also called on local authorities to check out whether voters did in fact vote. This could be done because at the time of voting one's identification card (ID, ddula) was stamped, acknowl- edging the casting of a vote. Anybody stopped by the army and police would have to show the ID card, which would quickly indicate whether the individual had carried out his or her patriotic duty. Just prior to the March 1982 election, Minister of Defense Garcia warned the popula- tion in the San Salvador newspapers that the failure to vote would be
LEGITIMIZI~G VERSUS MEANINGLESS THUD WORLD ELECTIONS 107
regarded as an act of treason. And in the 1984 election, "Advertising by the government and military prior to the elections stressed the obliga- tion to vote rather than the freedom to vote. "60 Given the climate of fear, the voting requirement, the ID stamp, the army warning, and the army record in handling "traitors," it is evident that the coercive ele- ment in generating turnout in Salvadoran elections has been large. This is supported by queries made by independent observers on the reasons why Salvadorans voted. 61
In Guatemala, as in ? 1 Salvador, voting was required by law; nonvot- ers were subject to a fine of five quetzales ($1. 25). Also, as in El Salvador, newspaper ads sponsored by the army assened that it was treasonous to fail to vote or to vote null or blank. 62 The law group reported that "many" people expressed fears that nonvoting would subject them to reprisals, and after the military threats in the week before the election there was "a widespread belief that failure to vote would be punishable by more than the five-quetzal fine stipulated by law. "63
In Nicaragua, while registration was obligatory, voting was not re- quired by law. Voter-registration cards presented on election day were retained by election officials, so that the failure to vote as evidenced by the lack of a validated voter credential could not be used as the basis of reprisals. 64 Most of the voters appeared to LASA observers to be voting under no coercive threat-they did not have to vote by law; they were urged to vote but not threatened with the designation of "traitors" for not voting; there were no obvious means of identifying nonvoters; and the government did not kill dissidents, in contrast to the normal practice in El Salvador and Guatemala.
In sum, Nicaragua did not have a potent coercion package at work to help get out the vote-as did the Salvadoran and Guatemalan gov- ernments.
3. 4. EL SALVADOR: HOW THE U. S. MEDIA TRANSFORMED A "DERANGED KILLING MACHINE" INTO THE
PROTECTOR OF AN INCIPIENT DEMOCRACY
In reporting on the 1982 Salvadoran election, the U. S. mass media closely followed the government agenda. The personalities of the can- didates, the long lines waiting to vote, alleged rebel disruption, and
L
lo8 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
"tumout" were heavily featured. 6s As Jack Spence pointed out, "every media outlet, particularly the networks, cast the election-day story in a framework of voting in the midst of extensive guerrilla violence at polling places. "66 Warren Hoge and Richard Meislin, of the New York Times, repeated day after day that the rebels were threatening disrup- tion, Hoge asserting that "The elections have taken on a significance beyond their outcome because leftist guerrillas mounted a campaign to disrupt them and discourage voters from going to the polls. "67 This is a precise statement of the government's propaganda frame. But Hoge and Meislin never once cited a rebel source vowing disruption, and nobody else did, either. On election day no voters were killed or polling stations attacked, and the general level of rebel military activity was below average. In short, the disruption claims were falsifications of both plans and election-day results, but as they fit the patriotic agenda they were given prominence, repeated frequently, and used to establish the
contest between the forces of good and evil. 68 At the election-day dose, Dan Rather exclaimed, "A triumph! A million people to the polls. " Rather did not regard it as a triumph that the Sandinistas got 700,000 people to the polls-a higher proportion of the population, and without a voting requirement. The propaganda frame of the government gave turnout high importance in the Salvadoran election but none in the Nicaraguan election, and Rather followed like a good lap dog.
Neither Rather nor any other media analyst on or before March 30, 1982, noted that voting was required by law in E1 Salvador, and nQt Qne mentioned the warning by the defense minister, General Guillermo Garcia, in the San Salvador newspapers that nonvoting was treaso- nous. 69 The basic parameters were entirely off the media agenda. The destruction of La CTonica and El Independiente and the murder of twenty-six journalists prior to the election were unmentioned in dis- cussing the election's quality and meaning. 70 The army and its allies had been killing civilians on a massive scale in ? 1 Salvador, for many months before (and into) March 1982. Would this not create a climate of fear and, in conjunction with a state of siege, somewhat encumber free debate and free choice? The point was rarely even hinted at in the mass media.
Could candidates run freely and campaign without fear of murder? Could the rebels qualify and run? After all, if it was a civil war, the rebels were clearly the "main opposition. " Again, the mass media played dumb. They pretended that this exclusion was not important, or that it represented a willful boycott by the rebels rather than a refusal based on conditions unfavorable to a (ree election and a blatantly
t<
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANISGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIO:,,>'S 101}
stacked deCk. Neither the March 1981 death list nor the Gutierrez statement that the FDR would not be permitted to run were mentioned by the mass media in our sample. They never once suggested that the election plan was to create an electoral environment of extreme coer- cion and bias in which the rebels could not run, and then use this for the dramatic game of disruption and triumphant turnout. That the military agreed to the election because it couldn't lose was never sug- gested by these media.
The role of the army was summarized by Warren Hoge in the New York Times:
Is the military playing any role in the election? Members of the military are not allowed to vote, and the armed forces are pledged to protect voters from violence and to respect the outcome of the contest. 7 1
We may note that the army's mass killing of civilians and systematic destruction and demobilization of virtually all popular organizations in El Salvador over the preceding thirty months, which bears on what Secretary of State Shultz referred to as the "preliminary aspects that make an election mean something," is not part of the army's "role" for Hoge and the Times. Roge repeats the Salvadoran army's pledge, not only taking it at face value, hut never suggesting that it (and the election itself) was meaningless in a terror state where the "main opposition" was off the ballot and only the war parties were able to field candidates. In the propaganda framework, the security forces of client states "pro- tect elections";72 only those of enemy states interfere with the freedom of its citizens to vote without constraint.
As noted earlier, observers and reporters in El Salvador all agreed that the populace was most eager for an end to the war, and government propaganda even stressed that voting was an important vehicle to tbat end-the public was urged to substitute "ballots for bullets. " But no peace party was on the Salvadoran baUot. And after the election was over, the war went on, and the death squads continued to flourish. This is in accordance with the hypothesis that the real purpose of the elec- tion was to placate the home population of the United States and render them willing to fund more war and terror. It is a poor fit to the hypothe- sis that the people of EI Salvador had a free choice. An honest press would point up the failure of the election to substitute "ballots for bullets. " The mass media of the United States did nOt raise the issue.
Nor did the experience of 1982 and its aftermath affect the media's
110 M A lI;UF A CTURll'G CONSENT
willingness to follow the patriotic agenda once again in 1984. We will return to this below in a statistical comparison of the New York Times's coverage of the Salvadoran and Nicaraguan elections.
3. 5. "FIRST STEP: GUATEMALA OPTS FOR MODERATION""
The U. S. government was less deeply involved in the Guatemalan elections of 1984 and 1985 than it was in those held in El Salvador, but, as we saw in chapter 2, the Reagan administration went to great pains to put a favorable gloss on the murderous regimes of Lucas Garcia, Rios Monu, and Mejia Victores, and to attempt to reintegrate them fully into the free-world alliance. 74 It encouraged the 1984-85 elections, provided advisory and financial support for election management, and gave pub- lic-relations assistance and sent official observers to help put the elec- tion in a favorable light. There was little effort made to disguise the fact that the purpose of the election, from the standpoint of the Reagan administration and the ruling army, was to alter the international "image" of Guatemala in order to facilitate aid and loans.
With the administration supporting the new look, but without the intensity of commitment and propaganda backup brought to bear in El Salvador, and given the steady stream of reports of ongoing mass murder in Guatemala, a propaganda model would anticipate a media response that put the Guatemalan elections in a favorable light, but with qualifications. There was, in fact, far less coverage than of the Salvadoran election; what there was had a little more "balance," but the apologetic framework was still overwhelmingly dominant.
A telling manifestation of bias was the media's ready acceptance of the Guatemalan elections as meaningful, even though they were admit- tedly for image-malting, in a context of long-standing army rule and massacre, and despite new institutional arrangements in the country- side-the massive relocations of the population,. the "model villages," and the civil-defense patrols-that were, on their face, incompatible with a free election. In an enemy state where an election was held under comparable conditions, it would be designated a meaningless public- relations exercise. 75 In the case of Guatemala, however, the civil patrols and ongoing massacres were rarely mentioned, sources that addressed these matters were ignored, and the overall tone of the news was cautiously hopeful and optimistic. It was the consensus that the 1984
I
election for a constituent assembly was "encouraging" and an impor- tant first step, and that the 1985 presidential election <<ended [emphasis added] more than 30 years of military domination" (Newsweek, Jan. 17, 1986). Dan Rather, on CBS News, reported that Cerezo became Guatemala's "first civilian leader after thirty years of almost uninter- rupted military rule" (Dec. 9, 1985). This is ambiguous, but the implica- tion, directly asserted by Newsweek, is that Cerezo, not the army, rules. Julio Mendez Montenegro was a civilian president from 1966 to 1970, but he did not rule, and he was eventually discredited by the fact that he presided over a huge escalation of army violence. Given the earlier experience, the fact that the generals had made it clear that the civilian
government was "a project" of the military,76 and Cerezo's own ex- pressed reservations about his power, objective news reporting would have been careful about an alleged ending of military rule.
As in the case of EI Salvador, the murderous rule of the Guatemalan generals did not delegitimize them for the U. S. mass media nor suggest any possible justice to the rebel cause. Time noted (Feb. 27, 1984) that a leftist insurgency "poses a permanent challenge to the regime," but it did not inquire into the roots of this insurgency or suggest that its leaders constituted a "main opposition" whose ability to run would be an "acid test" of election integrity (as they pronounced in Nicaragua). Time also did not observe that the regime poses a permanent challenge to the survival of its population. The mass murders of the Guatemalan
state were even semi-justified by the unquestioned need to quell insur- gents-"Much ofthe killing," says Time, "is linked to Mejia's success against the insurgents. " The phrase "linked to" is an apologetic euphe- mism to obscure the fact that Mejia's "success" was based on the mass murder of men, women, and children in literally hundreds of destroyed villages. 17 Mejia has a "mixed record," with the mass murder offset by "improvements in some important areas" (the State Department, quoted by Time). Mejia, says Time, "won support because he has kept the promises he made after seizing power. " Time never explains how it determined that Mejia "won support," or from whom, other than the U. S. State Department. Was the press then free to speak out? Did a system of justice come into being?
In chapter 2 we summarized Americas Watch's demonstration that the Reagan administration made serial adjustments in its apologetics for each successive Guatemalan terrorist general, with a laggeti tacit ac- knowledgment that it had previously been lying. This has no influence whatsoever on Time's treatment of State Department pronouncements as authentic truth-the standard from which other claims may be eval- uated. Thus Time says that "Americas Watch, a controversial group
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS III
II2 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
that is often accused of being too sympathetic to the left, called ~ Guatemala 'a nation of prisoners. ' " Time doesn't independently evalu-
ate the quality of sources-the State Department is unchallenged be-
cause it expounds the official and patriotic truth. Americas Watch is ~ denigrated (and only rarely cited, even with a dismissing put-down) because it challenges official propaganda. Pravda could hardly be more , subservient to state demands than Time in its coverage of demonstra-
tion elections. 78 _ The mass media's sourcing on the Guatemalan election was confined almost entirely to U. S. officials and official observers, the most promi-
nent Guatemalan political candidates, and generals. Spokespersons for
the insurgents-what in Nicaragua would be labeled the "main opposi- tion"-the smaller parties, spokespersons for popular organizations,
the churches, human-rights groups, and ordinary citizens, were essen-
tially ignored by the media. Time, Newsweek and CBS News almost
never talked to ordinary citizens or spokespersons for the insurgents. Stephen Kinzer, in the Times, had only one citation to a rebel source
in several dozen articles on Guatemala during the election periods, although on election day in 1984 he did speak with a number of ordinary citizens (who gave a much less optimistic view than Kinzer's usual
sources).
The restricted menu of media sources flows from and reinforces the
media's propensity to adopt a patriotic agenda. U. S. government offi- cials and observers are always optimistic and hopeful in their state- ments about sponsored elections. The leading contestant politicians are also moderately optimistic, as they have a good chance of acquiring at least nominal power. They do, however, express occasional doubts about whether the army will relinquish power. This allows the election drama to assume a slightly different character from that in EI Salvador, where it was the democratic army "protecting the election" versus the undemocratic rebels who refused to lay down their arms and partici- pate. In Guatemala, the frame was: Will the generals keep their promise to stay in the barracks? The triumph is that they do stay in the bar- racks-a civilian president takes office and now "rules. " The media then quickly drop the subject, so that whether the army really does relinquish power to the civilian leaders is never checked out (just as the "peace" sought by the populace in El Salvador was never considered in retrospect). In Poland, in January 1947, and Nicaragua, in 1984, and in enemy states generally, the focus was on the substance of power, and the extent to which that power shaped the electoral results in advance, as by limiting the ability of important constituencies to run for office and compete effectively. Not so for Guatemala.
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANlllOGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 1I3
If the mass media had enlarged their sources, fundamental condi- tions would have assumed greater prominence. For example, before both the July I, 1984, and December 1985 elections in Guatemala, the Guatemala Bishops' Conference issued pastoral statements that sug- gested in no uncertain terms and with detailed arguments that condi- tions in the country were incompatible with a free election. Its pastoral letter ofJune 8, 1984, focused on the civil-defense patrols as "suscepti- ble to manipulation," and it discussed the disappearances, "insatiable corruption," and the fact that sociopolitical structures are "not capable of promoting the welfare of the whole society. "79 Stephen Kinzer men- tioned this report in a Times news article of July 22, 1984, but his reference is made afler the election of JUly I, and Kinzer did not use it to frame the discussion of electoral conditions and to arrive at an assessment of the quality of the election. Furthermore, his summary of the twenty-seven-page report, that it "denounced torture, electoral
fraud, concentration of wealth and 'massacres of entire families,''' ignores the quite specific critique of the conditions bearing on an elec- tion. Time mentioned this pastoral letter briefly; Newsweek and CBS News never mentioned it.
In connection with the 1985 election, the bishops put forth another powerful statement, once again questioning whether an election can be meaningful in "a situation close to slavery and desperation. "80 They point out that the civil-defense patrols, the "ideology of national secu- rity," and hunger and impoverishment are not conducive to serious elections:
In order that the longed-for results be obtained, there must be not only the freedom at the moment of casting one's vote, but also a whole series of particular social, political and economic conditions which are, unfortunately, not happening in Guatemala. In effect there still persist in Guatemala harsh violence, lack of respect for human rights and the breaking of basic laws. It is a fact that any citizen pressured, terrorized or threatened is not fully able to exercise his/her right to vote or to be elected conscientiously.
This letter was not mentioned in the major media or anywhere else, to our knowledge, although the bishops are conservative, credible, and one of the few organized bodies in Guatemala not crushed by state terror.
There were other dissenting voices in Guatemala-politicians of the lesser parties, union officials, human-rights groups, lawyers, and ju- rists-who spoke out occasionally on the limits to free electoral condi-
II4 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
tions in Guatemala. And there were events of note that threw a power- fullight on the subject. Most of these were blacked out in the U. S. mass media. For example,81 on July 4. 1984, the Guatemalan Human, Rights Commission issued a statement in Mexico saying that the election's meaning should be viewed in the context of three important facts: namely, that the requirements for a meaningful election stipulated by the United Nations in a March 14 statement had not been met; that the left had been excluded from participation in the election; and that 115 persons had been murdered or disappeared in the thirty days prior to the election ofJuly I. This statement, and the facts cited by the commis- sion, were ignored in the U. S. press.
Consider also the following facts: On May 3, General Oscar Mejia Victores removed Ricardo Sagastume Vidaure from his position as president of the judiciary and the supreme court. On April II, the judiciary had issued writs of habeas corpus on behalf of 157 kidnapped individuals, and Sagastume had protested to Mejia Victores over the difficulty in proceeding against military abuses. On May 4, Acisco Valladares Molina, head of the Populist party, noted that Sagastume had been "fired like a simple subordinate. " On May 8, a communique from the Guatemalan bar association stated that in Guatemala there is no rule of law, as demonstrated by the constant violation of human rights and uncontrolled exercise of arbitrary power. By May 8, at least sixteen judicary officials, including supreme court and court of appeals magistrates, had resigned in protest at Sagustume's removal.
Stephen Kinzer never discussed any of these events, or their mean- ing, in the Times, nor did any of his colleagues elsewhere in the mass media. This is in accord with our hypothesis that in elections held in client states, fundamental electoral conditions, such as the presence or absence of the rule of law, are off the agenda. The point applies to other relevant structural conditions. Thus, while Kinzer occasionally men- tioned the civil-defense patrols, he never described them and their operations in any detail or tied them in with other institutional struc- tures of control, and he failed to relate them in a systematic way to army power. The numerous reports on these coercive institutions and their terrorist role by Amnesty International, Americas Watch, and the Brit- ish Parliamentary Human Rights Group were almost never cited by Kinzer in providing facts relevant to the Guatemalan elections. Al- though the constituent assembly elected in 1984 produced a new consti- tution, K. inzer never once discussed the nature of this instrument, which validated the special army role and structural constraints on freedom of the press.
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 115
Kinzer was reporting news in a way that fit the Times's editorial position and the U. S. government agenda. The Times editorial frame was that "The military, in power for most of 31 years, has honored its promise to permit the free election of a civilian president. "82 Kinzer's news articles of the same period convey the same message--one oft. hem is entitled "After 30 Years Democracy Gets a Chance in Guatemala" (Nov. 10, 1985)-whic. h accurately summarizes the contents, although they contain an undercurrent of reserved final judgment. That central message was false, however, if the basic conditions of a free election were not met, if the army's power remained unimpaired, and if these were confirmed in a written constitution that allows the army freedom from the rule of law and a license to kill without constraint from the nominal "democracy. "83 Kinzer could only convey this false message by ignoring the Sagastume case, the institutional arrangements of the counterinsurgency state, the ongoing murders, and the omnipresent fear-i. e. , the basic conditions of a free election-and by laying stress instead on expressions of hope, orderliness of the election processes, and army promises-i. e.
, the government's propaganda agenda in a demonstration election.
In what must be one of the low points of his journalistic career, in an article of December 27, 1985 ("Guatemala Vote Heartens Nicaragua Parties"), Kinzer even implies that the Guatemala election establishes an electoral model for Nicaragua. He describes a Cerezo visit to Nicara- gua, in which Kinzer features the encouragement Cerezo gives to the dissident parties that perhaps the power of the Sandinistas can be broken by patience (implying that Cerezo had broken the power of the army in Guatemala and was in full command). The article closes with a quote from an opposition figure: "Ortega is now the last President in Central America who wears a military uniform, and the contrast is going to be evident. " Nowhere in the article does Kinzer point out that army power can not be read from whether the head of state wears a uniform, or that the rule of the army in Guatemala has not yet been overcome. He does not refer to the fact that the Guatemalan army has killed tens of thousands of ordinary civilians. Nor does he show any recognition of the fact that the election held in Nicaragua was much
more open than that held in Guatemala. On the contrary, this is a fact that the media, including the New York Times, explicitly and consis- tently deny, in accordance with state imperatives.
As in the case of El Salvador, the U. S. mass media never suggested that the exclusion of the Guatemalan insurgent groups rendered the Guatemalan election meaningless. Kinzer several times mentioned with
u6 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
extreme brevity that the left was off the ballot, but he never asked anybody to discuss the meaning of this in terms of the options available to the various segments of society. As coauthor of an important book on this topic, Kinzer is well aware of the facts. 84 The vast majority of Guatemalans are very poor, and they have been entirely excluded from political participation or representation since 1954. The insurgency grew out of the parlous condition and exploitation of that mass, and the absence of any possibility of a democratic process to alleviate injustice and misery. The ruling army had allowed only parties to run and civilians to hold office who agreed, tacitly or explicitly, to keep off the policy agenda all maners of central concern to the impoverished major- ity. There is no way to measure the strength of popular support for the insurgents, but in light of the fact that they espouse programs well oriented to the interests of the general population and have been able to maintain an insurgency without significant external aid, and that the army response has been a war against virtually the entire rural popula-
tion, the rebel claim to be a "main opposition" would appear to be stronger than that of Arturo Cruz and his upper-class Nicaraguan associates. And if the rebels---or any candidates who would threaten the army and oligarchy in ways appealing to the majority---eannot qualify in a Guatemalan election, is it not essentially fraudulent? This was strongly suggested in both 1984 and 1985 by the Guatemalan Bishops' Conference, but this respectable source, in contrast with Arturo Cruz and Robert Leiken, is blacked out. As with EI Salvador, the election was not evaluated, either in advance or in retrospect, on the basis of whether or not the fundamental requirements of a free election were met. For the U. S. government, the insurgents were not a main opposition, Guatemalan state terror was merely a public-relations inconvenience, and the elections were fair. The mass media's treatment of the Guatemalan election reflected well this government propaganda agenda.
3. 6. NICARAGUA: MEDIA SERVICE IN THE DELEGITIMIZING PROCESS
In contrast with the Salvadoran and Guatemalan cases, the Reagan administration was intent on discrediting the Nicaraguan election, which threatened to legitimize the Sandinista government and thus
. l
LEGITIMIZING VERSeS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIOSS II7
weaken the case for U. S. funding of a terrorist army. The administra- tion had been berating the Sandinistas for failing to hold an election, but the actual holding of one was inconvenient. From the inception of Nicaraguan planning for the election, therefore, the administration began to express doubts about its quality. And just as it devoted itself to creating a positive image of the two client-state elections, so it expended substantial resources to depict the Nicaraguan election in the worst possible light. The media dutifully followed course, as a propa- ganda model predicts.
The mass media failed to call attention to the cynicism of first assailing Nicaragua for failing to hold an election, and then striving to have the election either postponed or discredited. 85 Time even cites the absence of "official delegations [of observers] from the major western democracies" (Nov. 19, 1984), as if this were evidence of something discreditable in the election, rather than as a reflection of U. S. power. There were 450-odd foreign observers in attendance at the Nicaraguan election, some with superb credentials, observing more freely and at greater length than the official U. S. observers in El Salvador and Guatemala. Time and the rest of the mass media paid no attention to them. 86
Stephen Kinzer's use of observers is noteworthy. In the case of Nicaragua, he completely ignored the unofficial observers-many ex- ceedingly well qualified to observe, as we have noted-and he even ignored the official Dutch government team, drawn from the center- right and highly apologetic about atrocities in El Salvador, which observed both the Salvadoran and the Nicaraguan elections and con- cluded that the elections in Nicaragua "were more open than in El Salvador, in the sense that more people were able to take part; that the opposition did not fear for their lives"; and that "the legitimation ofthe regime is thus confirmed. "87 In Guatemala, by contrast, he cited the official observer report in both the 1984 and 1985 elections, despite their great bias and superficiality (see the report discussed in appendix I). In the 1984 Guatemala election, Kinzer did refer to the report of the unofficial Human Rights Law Group that we cited earlier, quoting their statement that the voting process was "procedurally correct," but neg- lecting to note here and elsewhere their numerous statements to the
effect that "the greater part of the population lives in permanent fear" (p. 4), so that "procedural correctness" has little meaning.
With no U. s. -government-designated official observers available in Nicaragua, the media relied even more heavily than usual on U. S. government handouts. It is enlightening to compare this conduited propaganda of the mass media with the findings of foreign-observer
lIS MANUFACTURING CONSENT
teams on the scene in Nicaragua. For the purpose of this comparison, which follows, we will use two such reports. One, that of the Irish Inter-Party Parliamentary Delegation, is The Elections in Nicaragua, November I984. The delegation was composed offOUT individuals, three from right-wing or moderate-right political parties, who spent seven- teen days in Nicaragua at the time of the election. We will also use as a basis of comparison of media coverage the previously cited report of the Is-member delegation sent by the Latin American Studies Associa- tion (LASA), half of whom had had "substantial field experience" in Nicaragua itself. This delegation spent eight days in Nicaragua before the election, traveled in a rented bus, determined their own itinerary, and "spoke with anyone who we chose to approach (as well as numer-
ous people who spontaneously approached US). "88
3. 6. 1. Tone of negativism and apathy
Time magazine hardly attempts to hide the fact that it takes its cues from Washington. It quotes John Hughes, then a public-relations man for the State Department (and previously, and subsequently, a colum- nist for the Christian Science Monitor): "It was not a very good election. . . . It was just a piece of theatre for the Sandinistas. "89 Time follows this cue with a series of denigrating strokes: "The Sandinistas win, as expected. . . . The Nicaraguan election mood was one of indifference. . . . The outcome was never in doubt. . . . Something of an anticlimax" (all in the issue of November 19, 1984). In an earlier article (October 29), Time indulged in the same negative refrain: "A campaign without suspense," voters "too apathetic to go to the polls at all" (this was a forecast dredged up well before the election). In both articles, "fear" was also featured heavily. In the Salvadoran election, Time's tone was different: "There was no denying the remarkable sense of occasion" (Le. , the Reagan administration had a big public-relations investment in the election); "hundreds of thousands . . . braved the threats, and sometimes the bullets, of the Marxist-led [FMLN] to join long serpen- tine polling lines for the country's much awaited presidential elections" (Apr. 9, 1984). 90 In Guatemala too, "Some 1. 8 million voters braved four-hour polling lines, tropical rainstorms and a bewildering array of
political choices to cast ballots in their country's most open and fraud- free elections in more than a decade" ouly 16, 1984). There is never apathy or fear of government force in Time's renditions of demonstra- tion elections.
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LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEAN1NGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 1I9
Stephen Kinzer, in the Times, also took a far less kindly view of the election in Nicaragua than of those in Guatemala, giving enormous attention to election opponents like the U. S. candidate Arturo Cruz (whereas in Guatemala he almost completely ignored the small parties, union protesters, rebels, and human-rights groups), and finding more people voting out of fear than he did in Guatemala, a remarkable discovery given the circumstances in the two countries. 91 He focuses steadily on the Sandinistas' efforts to get out the vote, the fact that the election result is a foregone conclusion, claims of the breaking up of election rallies, and allegations of unfairness and withdrawals by the opposition. As with Time, the voters are "philosophical," "enthusiasm for the election was not universal," and "there was little visible enthusi- asm. " Kinzer did not compare the electoral modalities, range of op- tions, or other basic conditions in Nicaragua and Guatemala (or El Salvador). In short, he discussed different questions in his news report- ing on the elections in Nicaragua and Guatemala, adhering closely to the propaganda frame. n
On the alleged negativism and apathy, both the Irish and LASA delegations noted that voting was not required in Nicaragua and was entirely secret. Therefore, as the Irish delegation pointed out, the low rate of abstention is more meaningful and "invalidates predictions that large sectors of the population were opposed to the election. Further- more, the percentage ofspoiled votes (7. 4 percent) is comparable to any European election in a country with a highly literate population" (p. 7). They also note that
Speaking with one old man, awaiting his turn to vote in a rural polling station, one member of the delegation inquired: "What difference do you see between this and any other election in which you voted? " He replied: "Everything. " "In what way? " He simply shrugged: "Everything is different. "
The U. S. media never located anybody like this old man. The Irish delegation also pointed out that
Some observers from other countries suggested that the people did not appear eI. 1thusiastic as they went to the polls. This is not surprising as people stood in long queues waiting patiently their turn to go behind the curtain to mark their ballot paper. One member of the delegation who had the opportunity to observe voters in the American election just two days later, noted no greater enthusiasm for standing in queues there!
I20 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
It is our belief that the invariable enthusiasm and optimism found by the U. S. mass media in client-state elections, and the apathy and nega- tivism found in elections in states disfavored by the U. S. administra- tion, has nothing to do with electoral realities and must be explained entirely by an imposed propaganda agenda and the filtering out of contrary opinion and information.
3. 6. 2. Ignoring the superior quality of the Nicaraguan election
In the propaganda format, a great deal of attention is paid to the mechanical properties of elections in client states, but not in states
whose elections are being denigrated. This was true in the cases under discussion. Time (Apr. 9, 1984) described in detail the elaborate elec-
toral preparations in El Salvador, the "tamper-proof' procedures, the
use of transparent Lucite ballot boxes, and the indelible-ink marking
and stamping of ID cards. It turned out, however, that the high-tech, computerized voting procedures weren't understood by the population,
more than half of whom were illiterate. At no point did Time, or its
media colleagues, raise any question about the importance ofimproving literacy as a necessary prelude to an election; nor did they suggest that
the Lucite boxes might compromise the secrecy of the vote, or that the stamped ID card might be a coercive instrument helping to explain turnout. I
Nicaragua went to great pains to provide for election secrecy, and ~ for an easy and intelligible system of voting. For one thing, they had
a massive literacy campaign before the election, making electoral
printed matter generally accessible. Both the Irish and LASA delega-
tions mention this as an electoral plus. Nicaragua also put a high
priority on getting a complete registration list and getting the voters registered. The Irish delegation noted that "Recent elections in other
Central American countries such as EI Salvador and Guatemala did not introduce such measures, and there was considerable debate concern-
ing the validity of their registers, which were based on out-of-date
census figures, incomplete official registers of population changes, and
other sources" (p. 5). Nicaragua also deliberately avoided transparent
ballot boxes, ID stamping, and any other mechanism that would allow
the authorities to identify whether or how somebody had voted. LASA
points out that . .
LEGITIMIZING VERSUS MEANINGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 121
I
The ballots were also printed on heavy opaque white paper. The contrast with Somoza-era elections is striking. The Somozas used translucent ballots, so virtually everyone assumed that their ballot was not secret. The same problem occurred in the 1984 elections in E1 Salvador, where thin-paper ballots were deposited in trans- parent ballot boxes. The vote in Nicaragua in 1984 was truly a secret ballot (p. 4).
In Nicaragua, also, there was proportional voting, which made it possi- ble for the smaller parties to obtain legislative representation. Parties could also qualify quite easily to participate in the election. In Guatemala, 4,000 signatures were needed to qualify in 1984, a large number and not easy for dissident parties to collect in a society with daily political murders.
Stephen Kinzer and his associates never mentioned these differ- ences. More generally, the substantial merits of the Nicaraguan elec- tions were never contrasted with the procedures in the U. S. client states, a comparison that would have been most revealing and that would have thoroughly undermined the Reagan agenda to which the media were committed in their reporting of the election. Time, as noted, mentions the compromised Salvadoran procedures as if they were meri- torious. The Times mentioned the transparent voting boxes in EI Salva- dor only once (Richard Meislin, on March 25, 1984), repeating without question the official line that the purpose of the translucent boxes was to prevent fraud. Any other possibility is unmentioned. Newsweek and CBS News ignored these matters.
3. 6. 3. Rebel disruption into the black hole; turnout no longer an index of triumph of democracy
In the Salvadoran election, rebel disruption was a central feature of the government's propaganda frame. Because the rebels opposed the elec- tion, voting by the people proved their rejection of the rebels and approval of the army. Turnout was the index of democratic triumph and rebel defeat. As we saw, the mass media followed this frame with- out question. In the case of Nicaragua, the propaganda format was reversed-the rebels were the good guys, and the election held by the bad guys was condemned in advance. Rebel opposition to the
election-and efforts at disruption-did not make voting and a large
122 MAlI;UFACTURING CONSENT
turnout a repudiation of the rebels and approval of the Sandinistas. The U. S. mass media once again followed the government agenda, even though it meant an exact reversal of the standards they had applied in the Salvadoran election. The contras and their supporters urged the public not to vote, and interfered with the election process with at least as much vigor as (and with more killings than) the rebels in El Salvador. Furthermore, voting was more assuredly secret and the citizens were not required to vote, or to have ID cards stamped indicating that they had. And the Sandinistas did not kill ordinary citizens on a daily basis, as was true in the "death-squad democracies. " Thus turnout was far more meaningful in the Nicaraguan election than in the ones held in El Salvador and Guatemala-the public was free to abstain as well as
to vote for opposition parties.
The U. S. mass media disposed of this problem mainly by massive
suppression. They simply ignored the contra-U. S. campaign for absten- tion, waged with threats and attacks on polling places and election workers; and they buried the fact of an effectively secret vote and the right not to vote,93 just as, in parallel, they had inflated rebel disruption efforts in EI Salvador in 1982 and 1984 and buried the voting requirement and other pressures to vote.
Although the New York Times had gone out of its way to focus on the "challenge" of rebel opposition and alleged disruption as giving turnout special meaning in the Salvadoran election of 1982,94 Stephen Kinzer never once mentioned that the cantras attacked a number of polling stations and had issued radio appeals for abstention. 95 For Kinzer, neither these facts nor the U. S. campaign to discredit were seen as posing a "challenge" that made turnout meaningful in Nicaragua.
The Irish delegation pointed out that "The Parties of the Demo- cratic Coordinating Committee [based in the business communityl op- posed the voter registration, and called for a boycott of this process" (p. 5), and it noted that eleven polling stations were closed down by counterrevolutionary activities (p. 7). The public voted in large num- bers "despite the possible dangers involved," which suggested to' the Irish delegation that turnout was significant and "showed how impor- tant the election was to the people" (p. 6). LASA pointed out the various ways in which the "main opposition" called for voter absten- tion, and cited the radio warnings broadcast into the country from Costa Rica threatening that voters would be killed by the contras (pp. 16, 28). LASA also pointed out that "voter turnout was heavy," with "more enthusiasm among voters in low-income areas than in more affluent neighborhoods. " 9 6 Like Time, LASA notes that the turnout did not quite realize the expectations of FSL~ officials, but unlike Time,
LEGIT1MIZISG VERSUS MEANllIiGLESS THIRD WORLD ELECTIONS 123
LASA points out that the rate of participation achieved "compares very favorably with the rates achieved in II other recent Latin American elections, as well as the 1984 U. S. presidential election . . . " (p. 16). 97
In sum, the two observer reports discuss rebel disruption in Nicara- gua, turnout, and the meaning of that turnout. The U. S. mass media, which had featured these matters heavily in reference to the Salvadoran election-where they fitted the government's propaganda agenda- found them entirely unnewsworthy as regards Nicaragua.
3.
