Breakin'
See Page 1B
Oregon daily
emerald
Friday, May 11, 1984
Eugene, Oregon
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Volume 85, Number 153
House approves aid
bill for El Salvador
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
Democratic-controlled House
gave Pres. Ronald Reagan a
significant victory on military
aid to El Salvador Thursday,
voting to grant the assistance
under conditions attacked as
too lenient by some but which
supporters defended as
realistic.
Voting 212-208, the House
adopted a Republican foreign
aid amendment authorizing
$120 million in emergency
security assistance for El
Salvador and other Central
American countries and impose
relatively easy conditions on fur
ther Salvadoran aid.
Adoption of the COP pro
posal will provide guidelines for
a House-Senate conference
committee meeting next week
to consider a $61.7 million
emergency appropriation for
the Salvadoran military approv
ed last month by the
Republican-controlled Senate.
The measure also authorizes
enough military aid for Central
America in the fiscal year begin
ning Oct. 1 to meet the ad
ministration's request for $132.5
million for El Salvador. The first
half would be available if the
president told Congress that the
Salvadorans were making pro
gress in human rights and other
reforms. The rest would require
a second presidential report and
be subject to congressional
disapproval within 30 days.
Most of the Democrats on the
House Foreign Affairs commit
tee backed a proposal that
would block two-thirds of the
funds unless Congress found
the Salvadorans had curbed
death squads and begun
negotiations with left-wing
guerrillas to end the country's
civil war.
Speaking against the
Republican amendment, Rep.
Stephen Solarz, D-N.Y., told the
House, "Leaving the determina
tion up to the president alone
virtually guarantees that the cer
tification will be made
regardless of the realities in El
Salvador."
Responding to Reagan's
televised warning Wednesday
night that the aid is needed to
stave off an expected Cuban
backed offensive against the
Salvadoran regime, Solarz said,
"The American people do not
want any more Cubas in Central
America, but neither do they
want any more Vietnams."
Taking note of Solarz'
remarks, Rep. Ike Skelton, D
Mo., said comparisons with
Vietnam were "a mistaken way
of looking at this very, very dif
ferent situation; El Salvador is in
our front yard."
House Minority Leader Robert
Michel, R-lll., supported the
Republican proposal, saying,
"These conditions are realistic.
They can be met. El Salvador is
the sick man of Central
America. If we impose stringent
conditions, we may bring about
a crisis rather than a recovery."
As the House began debate
on the Central American provi
sions of a $10.5-billion global
foreign aid measure, House
Speaker Thomas O'Neill, D
Mass., said only 185 of the
chamber's 268 Democrats were
standing fast against the
Republican move.
O'Neill said Pres. Reagan was
"very effective" in his televised
plea for his Central American
policy but that the tide was
already running against the
restrictions proposed by the
Democrats, which would de
mand reforms by the
Salvadoran government.
In his speech Wednesday
night, Reagan complained that
during the past four years, Con
gress has only provided half of
the military aid requested for El
Salvador. He argued that
without his aid package, the
country would be powerless
against a Cuban-backed guer
rilla offensive he said is ex
pected in the fall.
Hart stops downtown
at 11 a.m. Saturday
Democratic presidential can
didate Sen. Gary Hart of Col
orado will speak at the fountain
on the Eugene mall at 11 a.m.
Saturday.
Hart's short stop in Eugene is
part of his four-day visit to
Oregon that also includes stops
in Portland and Salem.
Hart is the only major
Democratic presidential can
didate scheduled to come to the
state.
After his recent primary vic
tories in Ohio and Indiana, Hart
will again face former Vice Pres.
Walter Mondale and the Rev.
Jesse Jackson in the contest for
Oregon's 50 delegates.
The Oregon and Nebraska
primaries are both scheduled
for Tuesday.
Sen. Gary Hart
Photo by Mit hael Ciapp
Salvadoran citizens Marta Benavides and Secondino Ramirez claim that the recent presiden
tial elections in El Salvador are nothing more than a showpiece designed for the U.S Congress
and public.
Salvadorans say problems
not simple to solve, explain
By Brooks Dareff
Of the Emerald
A student in Room 104 Condon asks the
young Salvadoran if Jose Napoleon Duarte, the
newly elected president of El Salvador, will br
ing reforms to his country. Duarte, a Christian
Democrat, speaks of talking to the opposition,
while Roberto d'Aubisson, his opponent,
would simply crush it.
It is an easy question to answer, but not to
explain.
"Elections is not the issue," says Secon
dino Ramirez, a U.S. representative for the
Human Rights Commission of El Salvador.
"Elections for us means death — we don't even
pay attention to it."
Turning to the rest of the class, Ramirez
dismisses Sunday's presidential run-off elec
tion as a showpiece, designed more for the
consumption of the U.S. Congress and public
than for the emancipation — even limited
emancipation — of the Salvadoran people.
"Duarte," he says, anticipating Pres.
Ronald Reagan's speech Wednesday night on
Central America, "has a better image to sell to
the U.S. people to get more aid."
To an audience accustomed to the relative
civility and sanctity of U.S. elections, Ramirez'
words — which go on to recount how the
military has fixed several elections and
massacred scores of indignant voters — must
seem as foreign as the Spanish the Salvadorans
speak.
And so, Ramirez says, he understands if
Americans are incredulous about Salvadorans'
skepticism about their elections — it is what
the Reagan administration is counting on and
what he, Ramirez, is working against.
“For you it is hard to understand what
repression means, what oppression means,"
he says.
Ramirez and Marta Benavides, a
Salvadoran Baptist minister who was also on
campus Tuesday, say they try to educate — and
enrage — U.S. audiences. They say reaching
the American public about the human rights
violations in their country — over 50,000
civilian non-combatants killed since 1979 — is
their hope of bringing pressure to bear on the
U.S. government. Without U.S. support, they
say, the death squads would not exist.
“The best of our people are being killed,"
says Benavides, former assistant to Oscar
Romero, the outspoken archbishop slain in
1980 while giving mass. “These are people that
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