IWIs\nc*tAr- Dictatorship will
IVIUIlO tt?l . haunt America
Photo by Bob Baker
Human rights activist Amaldo Ramos says Americans will regret
their government’s support of El Salvador's military
dictatorship.
r
By Mike Anderson
Low-income citizens can make their voices
heard through the legislative process, according to
three state politicians who visited the University’s
Bean Complex Saturday.
State senators Margie Hendriksen and Grattan
Kerans and Cynthia Wooten, a Eugene city council
member, discussed problems confronting the poor
and offered advice on how to fight for relief through
the legislative process.
Kerans and Hendriksen both spoke out against
Gov. Vic Atiyeh’s threat to veto the Vocational
Unemployment Benefit Bill. The bill would allow
displaced workers to receive unemployment
By Michele Matassa
Of th* Emerald
The Reagan administration’s aid to the dic
tatorship in El Salvador may lead to global war,
says a Salvadoran human rights activist.
American support is beginning to backfire,
according to Arnaldo Ramos, a U.S. represen
tative from the national liberation front in El
Salvador.
“More and more they become like Frankens
teins," Ramos says. “It’s a monster created by
a scientist, by a coup-calculated scientist from
Washington, and then the monsters turn
against you. Those monsters have killed
American citizens, they will kill American
soldiers if necessary.”
Ramos visited the University Friday to
discuss how the revolution in his country af
fects the United States.
As a representative to this country, Ramos
tries to translate the movement’s process to
the American people.
“Since the government is very clearly oppos
ed to any type of dialogue and is interested in
suppressing our point of view from national
press, our goal more and more is to establish
this dialogue with the American people, going
out and speaking in churches, community
groups, universities,” Ramos says.
“The type of reception we are getting is more
and more not only warm but very interested.
You see, the majority of the people of this
country really are opposed to another type of
Vietnam situation,” Ramos says.
Ramos criticizes the Reagan administra
tion’s willingness to support a government that
is “the antithesis of democracy."
“The United States has neither friends nor
allies in Latin America,” Ramos says. “All they
have are interests like in a business relation
ship. And those interests in Latin America
always have been not how we live or die.”
He says the Reagan administration’s recent
report of improvement in the Salvadoran
government’s human rights record was a
political justification of aid to the country.
“It is becoming more and more apparent that
the U.S. really wants a military solution. Every
step they take contradicts their words,” Ramos
says.
Approximately $800 million in economic and
military aid in three years has accomplished
nothing, he says.
"The country is not closer to peace. You can
hardly even define the country as on the road to
democracy," he says.
Before describing the liberation movement’s
successes and failures, Ramos explained what
the “opposition” is up against.
He says the current government in El
Salvador, which has been in power since 1951,
is the longest-standing military dictatorship on
the entire planet, and is led by a "pathological
killer."
After a 1977 coup, the liberation front was
forced to work underground because the
government attempted to kill the movement’s
major defenders.
For this reason, many supporters hide their
sympathies because they are paralyzed with
fear, Ramos says.
In spite of the danger, the opposition
represents approximately 75 percent of the
population, while about 12 percent support the
“oligarchy,” Ramos estimates.
He says that if the Reagan administration’s
policies continue, a global confrontation could
erupt, involving every woman and child in this
country.
“Don’t forget that the place where the Soviet
Union and the United States came very close to
having a nuclear war was not in the Mideast,
was not in Southeast Asia, was not in Europe
but was in the Caribbean over Cuba.”
Politicians exhort poor to learn to lobbv
benefits at the same time they receive state-fundec
vocational training.
Kerans attacked what he called a “miserabh
attitude toward the people of Oregon." He claimec
that this attitude has led to a reduction in benefit;
when two welfare recipients are living under th<
same roof, forcing many families on welfare to spli
up to maintain their benefits.
To assist people who are put out of thei
homes, Kerans plans to introduce the Emergency
Housing and Shelter Bill.
Hendriksen focused on what she called th<
“feminization of poverty." By the end of the cer
tury, Hendriksen said, "almost all the poor could b
women and children.”
I She said one of the most formidable barriers
confronting low-income women is the sexually
discriminatory notion that women are in the labor
force by choice, not necessity.
Wooten concentrated on how people can have
an impact on federal legislation. She encouraged
Oregonians to utilize their representatives and
senators — Mark Hatfield, chalrer of the Senate ap
r propiation commitee, Jim Weaver and Les AuCoin.
' "Don't worry about not knowing the technical
jargon Just tell the people how you feel."
} Kerans suggested a slightly different approach
for people wanting to make their voice heard in the
» legislature. "Do it with facts and figures, unemo
tionally, (with) direct testimony," he said.
WAIT I Before
you go.
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(they like that in "no man’s land")
Deadline MARCH 10 SEARCH EMU M111 686-4305
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Happy TraHs (Corvallis), Singles Going Steady, (Portland)