‘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.
The presentation will include slides and
maps of the proposed improvements.
“This is an opportunity for the whole
neighborhood to respond to the plan,” says
Landman.
Neighborhood residents will be asked to
approve the Woonerf plan, which then will go to
the city public works department for a general
public hearing sometime this summer.
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