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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 19, 1984)
editorial Denying visas a way to stifle U.S. critics It was another example of what the Reagan administra tion calls “freedom;” the freedom, that is, for the United States government to deny visas to persons critical of U.S. foreign policy. On Saturday, the State Department rejected visa re quests from four Salvadoran women on grounds that they were involved in terrorist activities against the government of El Salvador. The women had sought visas in order to go to Washington, where they were to receive a human rights award on behalf of their group, known as the Salvadoran Mothers’ Committee. The group has been active in seeking the release of Salvadoran political prisoners, and in trying to learn the whereabouts of kidnapping victims. A total of five Salvadoran women were to be given the Robert Kennedy Foundation Human Rights Award in a ceremony scheduled for Nov. 20. Only one of the five women who requested the visas was granted permission to enter the United States. According to the State Department, the other four women were found ineligible to receive visas under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which prohibits aliens from entering the country who are deemed subversive to u.a. national interests. The Salvadoran Mothers’ Committee maintains that the U.S.-backed government of El Salvador is responsible for continued death squad activity, jailings and kidnappings of civilians in that country. The Reagan administration claims that the four women were denied visas because they ad vocated acts of violence to oppose the government of El Salvador. The hypocrisy of this allegation is apparent, however, when compared with the recent disclosure of a CIA handbook for use by the “contras”, a U.S.-supported rebel group fighting to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. The handbook, which was written and published by the CIA, advocates the “selective use of violence” to destabilize Nicaragua and encourages the “neutralization” of key Nicaraguan leaders. It is also worth noting that several months ago, Roberto d’Aubuisson, the leader of El Salvador’s ultra-conservative ARENA Party, was given a visa to enter the United States. According to human rights groups including Amnesty Inter national, Americas Watch; and the Catholic Church of El Salvador, d’Aubuisson is considered a leader of the death squads in El Salvador. Under the Immigration and Na tionality Act, d’Aubuisson was not considered a threat to U.S. interests and therefore allowed to enter the country. The four Salvadoran women who were denied visas on Saturday were not the first to be targets of the selective en forcement of laws under the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Others denied visas include Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez; writer Carlos Fuentes; Irish activist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey; Hortensia Allende, the widow of former Chilean president Salvador Allende; and Ruben Zamora, diplomatic spokesman for the Democratic Revolutionary Front of El Salvador. Like former Grenadian diplomat Dessima Williams, those who have recently been denied visas are critics of the Reagan administration. Williams was arrested at Howard University on Oct. 25 after speaking out against the U.S. in vasion of Grenada. The INS claimed that her visa was in valid. At the same time, visas have been given to persons who support Reagan’s foreign policy, regardless of whether or not they advocate acts of terrorism. Most noteworthy are the leaders of the contras, who use Miami as their political base in their self-proclaimed efforts to overthrow the govern ment of Nicaragua. Reagan says that the United States is a free country. His definition of “free,” however, includes the government’s freedom to prevent foreign critics of the Reagan administra tion from entering the United States as invited guests of universities and other independent organizations. emerald The Oregon Daily Emerald is published Monday through Friday except during exam week and vacations by the Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing Co., at the University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. 97403. The Emerald operates independently of the Universi ty with offices on the third floor of the Erb Memorial Union and is a member of the Associated Press. General Staff Advertising Director Susan Thelen Production Manager Russell Steele Advertising Sales: Laura Buckley, Tim Clevenger. Jen nifer Fox, Marcia Leonard, Rick Martz. Nancy Nielsen, Laurie Nobel, Roberta Oliver, David Wood. Production: David Bryant, Kelly Cornyn, John Dorsey. Stormi Dykes, Julie Freeman. Kathy Gallagher, Dean Guernsey, Susan Hawkins, Kirk Hirota, Ross Martin, Karin McKercher, Lauri Neely, Kelly Neff, Curt Penrod, Tamye Riggs, Michele Ross. Peg Solonika, Tim Swill inger, Colleen Tremaine, Eileen Tremaine, Hank Trotter. Classified Advertising » Controller Rose Anne Raymond Jean Ownbey Editor Managing Editor News Editor Editorial Page Editor Photo Editor Sports Editor Sidelines Editor Entertainment Editor Assistant Entertainment Editor Night Editor Michele Matassa Mike Sims Michael Kulaga Costas Christ Michael Clapp Brent De La Paz Sheila Landry Kim Carlson Mike Duncan Michael Kulaga Associate Editors Administration Higher Education Politics ASUO Student Activities Community Features Michael Doke Michael Hosmar Paul Ertelt Julie Shippen Jolayne Houtz Cynthia Whitfield Lori Steinhauer Reporters: Sean Axmaker, Dave Berns, Dave Carlson, Diana Elliott, Shannon Kelly, Allan Lazo, Scott McFetridge, Lori Stephens. News and Editorial 686-5511 Display Advertising and Business 686-3712 Classified Advertising 686-4343 Production 686-4381 Circulation 666-5511 letters Macho models Our society proscribes a model of masculinity which demands power, strength, com petence, and winning. If you doubt it, look at the models on Dynasty, the A-team, Magnum, and the recent presidential election. Problems arise when males cannot be powerful and compe tent — which is often, or believe they can’t — which is almost always. This creates a need to compensate, and all men do. Some drink, beat wives, abuse children. Some over achieve and cancer eats them, some under-achieve and fall under rolling boxcars. Some drag women into graveyards and rape them. Some, already possessing the power to end all life on earth, want 17,000 more nuclear weapons. And some climb a tower in Austin, Texas, or enter a McDonalds in San Diego, or break into Autzen stadium — and start shooting people. We look for “motives” when the obvious truth screams that our image of macho is impossi ble to fulfill, and all the Mr. T’s and Magnums and Reagans on earth cannot change that. As long as the NRA remains the most powerful lobby in the country, Anderson's will stock laser-equipped assault rifles. Michael Feher wasn’t a freak performing a motiveless act. He was a male cracking and reac ting in a masculine fashion. So long as we ignore the fact that every male in America has his finger on the trigger — or the button — the Fehers will beat/rape/murder us one at a time, or the Reagans will do it all at once. Michael Morrow Psychology The adoptee Can anyone pinpoint the adoptee as someone who, while growing up and as an adult is forced to undergo certain stresses peculiar to her/him simply because she/he was placed for adoption without a future opportunity to come to terms with her/his birthparents? Michael Feher was an adoptee. It is completely wrong to believe adoptees are just like anybody else with “normal pro blems.” Shirley Wilson said Michael “was too covered up”. Why did he not open up to those close to him? Even if the adoptee succeeds at forgetting the fact that his adoptive parents were not the first “significant others” in his life, who is to say what goes on inside this adoptee emotional ly? Female adoptees, inciden tally, make up the overwhelm ing majority of those who search for their birthparents. Any adult who has been given up for adoption as a child or infant and who cannot answer for himself the question “Why did my own mother not claim me as her own; why was I given away without my con sent?” will carry around a lot of hidden anger aimed at the bir thparents. 1 believe Michael Feher’s position as an adoptee contributed to his emotional isolation and to his inability to cope. I appeal to the Oregon State legislature: It is time we gave our serious attention to the psychological stresses and hid den emotional confusion and sense of isolation that the adoptee may unknowingly or unadmittedly experience, regardless of how caring and letters The Emerald will attempt to j ment on topics of interest to the Letters to the editor must hi signed, and the identification of t letter is turned in. The Emerald re length, style or content. letters to the editor should Suite 300, EMU. nurturing the adoptive family has proven to be. Audrey Hoehne English Racial content The Emerald’s and the Register Guard’s complete lack of comment on Christopher Brathwaite’s race and the possibility of his murder being racially motivated shows a pro found ignorance of the patterns and nature of violent racial assaults in the U.S. That Feher should elect to kill Brathwaite, a Black man. given the wide variety of potential targets from his perch in Autzen Stadium, should have at least given the editors of our local newspapers cause to question the racial con tent of Brathwaite’s murder. In the quest to discern any possible motivations for this ‘inexplicable’ act. the possiblity that Feher pulled the trigger of his high-powered rifle only when pointed at a Black man (O’Shea was only shot when he disobeyed Feher’s order to stay in the weight room) must be taken seriously. A full in vestigation of Feher’s racial at titudes and behavior is called for. If evidence of racism is found, a civil rights suit or charges should be filed against Feher’s estate. While unable to give Brathwaite his life back, these actions could serve to em phasize and condemn this latest example of cross-racial violence. Too often violence against America’s minorities is ignored, downplayed, or denied for what it is. The Emerald’s and Register Guard's coverage of this element of Monday’s tragedy continues in the tradition of the media's belittling of or insensitivity to the violence perpetrated upon people of color in our ethnically stratified society. James Salt Sociology policy irint all letters containing faircom LJniversity community. i limited to 250 words, typed and ‘ie writer must be verified when the serves the right to edit any letter for be turned into the Emerald office,