Kissinger's message for Salvador people Better dead than rec

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Underlying the concern over El Salvador in Washington and among Central American states is the weakening position of the armed forces — despite their massive American backing.

A succession of substantial and embarassing defeats have brought the destruction of a major bridge and the round of the Fourth Infantry Brigade, as guerrillas have shown growing self-confidence and There is little doubt that given full-scale political and material support, the FMLN guerrillas could defeat the Salvadorean regime.

Socialists in Britain should be actively fighting Henry Kissinger has come up with the goods yet again.This dependable old warmonger brought the world the genocidal US pattern bombing of Cambodia and Vietnam and the Pinochet junta in Chile (after the destabilisation of the reformist Popular Front government of 1970-3)

Now, after six months deliberation together with a "bipartisan" commission set up by President Reagan to investigate US policies in Central America, Kissinger has produced a brutally explicit package of proposals for a massive, sustained and regionwide build-up of American military and economic aid to its bloodstained allies.

Kirkland

The commission incorporated leading Democrat Robert Strauss and Lane Kirkland, President of the AFL-CIO union • confederation - the USA's Len Murray.

On receiving the final report, Reagan went out of his way to applaud the "loyal opposition" of Kirkland in particular, and his acceptance of Kissinger's main line of approach.

Kirkland's name - and thus at least in theory the endorsement of most major US trade unions — is therefore attached to the „une to this sion proposals ese include: * A sixfold increase of $400 million in military aid to El Salvador in 1984-5 - compared to the $64.8 million appropriated already for this year. This fits in well with Reagan's stated intention to seek in any event an extra $176 million between now and September and another $159 million in 1985. * Continued US backing to the murderous gangs of CIA-organised 'Contra' gunmen, currently conducting cross-border raids from bases in Honduras into Nicaragua. Two of the Commissmilitary skill.

That support is plainly being withheld.

movement for solidarity with their struggle. ion's members dissented this recommendation. * Increased military aid to the reactionary Honduras regime to enable it to 'build a credible deterrent" * A resumption of direct US arms sales to the grisly Guate'malan dictatorship - whose wholesale slaughter of peasants and political opponents caused the ban on arms sales by the Carter administration. * A lifting of the 1974 ban on US aid for the training and support of foreign police forces. * A dramatic inerease in economic aid to the region, both from the USA and from international agencies. The commission suggests a figure of $24 billion could be reached by 1990, of which the USA should expect to provide up to half, more than doubling present levels of economic aid to the region. on the cosmetty conditioned attached to the proposals for expanded military aid to the regime in El Salvador. A carefully phrased section suggests that military aid should be tied to progress in human rights 'through legislation requiring periodic reports"

It specifies concern over elections, land reform, a better justice system and a crackdown on the slaughter of civilians by the notorious "death squads" whose victims in recent years total as many as 30,000.

At the end of last year Reagan rejected the previous notion of compulsory, periodic certification of progress on human rights when he vetoed an aid bill for El Salvador which incorporated provisions for such monitoring.

But the Kissinger proposals need not conflict with Reagan's position. One Republican commission member insisted that:

•The language is ambiguous, and people will be able to read it two ways. I do not think it restores the old certification process [whereby Reagan had to declare progress being made] Kissinger however went even further and included a personal "exclusion" notice, declaring (in the language of the royal "We"!):

"We strongly endorse the objectives of the conditionality clause. We are also concerned that the United States extends military assistance to El Salvador above al to serve vital American political and security interests. We hope that both goals can be served simultaneously.

"We wish to record our strong view that neither Congress nor the executive branch interpret conditionality in a manner that leads to a Marxist-Leninist victory in El Salvador, thereby damaging vital American interests and risking a larger war."

In other words, the preservation of the present regime in El Salvador - death squads and all — is preferable in Kissinger's eyes to a left wing victory. Or, in more conventional parlance, "Better dead than red.

For all Kissinger's elaborate caution, the Commission's recommendations do not make an increase in military aid conditional on any 'human rights' progress at all.

one view or the commissio rgues that the USA shoul unconditionally pledge the full increase in aid for a two year period - with any subsequent extension being made conditional on human rights progress: system of proposes a regular rights issues - but beginning only after US aid has reached the recommended level, which is described as sufficient to allow the Salvadorean military to carry out "US-style counterinsurgency"

Collapse

Warning that the recent stalemate in the guerilla struggle in El Salvador is not a stable situation, and that "a sudden collapse [of the regime] is not inconceivable", the whole Commission concurs in the need to boost the armed forces by: * Increasing the number of soldiers: * Increasing their mobility the air and on the ground;

* Providing a larger stock of equipment and supplies; * Improving medical back-up; * Cash incentives to hold on to trained officers.

The argument for this enormous US commitment is couched in the traditional language of imperialism:

"Nicaragua is an indispensable stepping stone for the Cuban and Soviet effort to promote armed insurgency in Central America...

But more important than the fanciful notions of Yuri Andropov's Stalinist police regime promoting "armed insurgency" in the most sensitive area of the US 'sphere of influence' is the probable impact of a US defeat in El Salvador on other oppressed and exploited countries.

*'The triumph of hostile forces in what the Soviets call the 'strategic rear' of the US would be read as a sign of US impotence. It would signify our inability to manage our policy, or exercise our power."

Eroded

Us power to "influence events world wide" would be significantly eroded. On this the two 'sides' of the Kissinger L WU Commission, the Democrats and Republicans, were united.

It seems that the most controversial element of the plan, which might bring its defeat in Congress, is the vast additional expenditure involved: ironically Reagan's strongest critics will be not liberals or leading Democratic contenders for the Presidency, but arch-conservatives, determined to curb the enormous US budget deficit.

Reagan is scarcely likely to shed any tears if the economic aid component of the Kissinger package is whittled down: he was keen above all to secure a political endorsement of his general line of approach and ammunition to back up his appeal for extra military aid. Kissinger's report gives him both.

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