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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1983)
‘Continual persecution’ Doctor tells of horrors in El Salvador By Michele Matassa Of the Emerald Salvadoran doctor Rafael Barrera stopped in Eugene Tuesday to tell media represen tatives about health problems caused by El Salvador’s civil war. Speaking through a translator, Barrera, on a tour of the West Coast, said he represents the El Salvadoran medical union COPROSAL, which works “within the framework” of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, a group op posing the right-wing government in El Salvador. Medical union workers see many health problems in refugees, and those problems are “especially obvious and moving in children because they have been the witnesses of the rape, murder and torture that their parents have been victims of,” Barrera said. Barrera and his co-workers try to give basic health care to all people affected by the war, but the Salvadoran government’s "continual persecution” prohibits any professional work within El Salvador, he said. Barrera has worked out of Nicaragua as an exiled doctor for two years. If the doctors give guerrilla fighters assistance, “we run the risk of being the object of direct repression from the government,” he said. “We have suffered deaths of colleagues that have been violently executed because they offered their services to the opposition,” Bar rera said. The national army often enters state hospital surgery rooms to prevent opposition fighters from receiving treatment. In one case, Barrera and other medics were removing a bullet from a patient’s ab domen and were separated physically from the patient by an armed group. The group “machine-gunned the patient that we were try ing to save,” he said. “Situations like this are quite frequent in hospitals," he said. Although the medical union serves people of all political persuasions, Barrera said he sympathizes with the revolutionary front. Me is traveling through the United States to tell Americans of his country’s problems and clear up misconceptions. He says he is here "to converse, to have dialogue with the American people, to explain to them what is happening in El Salvador, to clear up or contradict the enormous quantity of lies that have been told about this conflict, especially in the last few days, including those from Pres. (Ronald) Reagan.” Barrera said one lie is that the El Salvador conflict is the result of an East-West buildup. He said the conflict is caused by the country’s structural conditions. To counter those "lies,” COPROSAL is looking to the American people for support, Barrera said. "For us the American people are extremely important in a matter of opinion," he said. “And we believe that if we can achieve an end to American military intervention, the Salvadoran conflict can be brought to an end more quickly and with less cost to human life.” The medical union workers believe “there is a profound difference between the Reagan administration and the beliefs of the American people,” he said. Barrera said the Reagan administration is working against itself by supporting the right wing regime in El Salvador. "I have the impression that what the American government is looking for is to pro tect its traditional sphere of influence,” he said. But the U.S. government is “counter productive to the objectives that they are seek ing" because its aid to El Salvador’s govern ment is “polarizing the opinion of Central American peoples.” Student earns Moscow grant University News Bureau The end of college will be more than a diploma, cap and gown for Jennifer Sunseri — it means the opportunity to study in the Soviet Union. "I’ve been working for three years to get to this point,” says Sunseri, a University Rus sian and international studies senior who was awarded a grant last month to study Rus sian at the Pushkin Institute in Moscow. “It is truly the culmination of my college career,” she says. Sunseri is one of four University students and 26 U.S. students accepted for the four-month exchange. The pro gram is sponsored by the American Council of Teachers of Russian. Despite what one program official describes as “quite rigorous” competition, Sunseri was also accepted for an exchange program in Len ingrad, but selected Moscow because it c: fared a larger grant and more opportunities for exploration. “I won’t be studying with Russian stude.its, but all my teachers will be Russian, and all the classes will be taught in Russian,” says Sunseri, who hopes to work as an interna tional consultant or translator when she returns in Decem ber. WUN landscape plan to be discussed The West University Neighborhood group will review a final copy of tne proposed “Woonerf” plan at its monthly meeting Thurs day at 7:30 p.m. in the WUN Center, 1458 Ferry St. “Woonerf” is a Dutch landscape planning concept that balances the automobile traffic with pedestrian traffic, says Marshall Landman, WUN director. The city of Eugene has designated a Com munity Development Block Grant to help imple ment the plan in the West University Neighborhood. 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