: The argument has sometimes been used that much of the violence in Central America has been carried out by right wing death squads who are isolated from the normal functioning of the security forces. In this regard, it is useful to recall the testimony of the Salvadorean army captain which was made before the US House Appropriation Sub-Committee in April 1981. Captain Faillos testified as follows:
It is a grievous error to believe that the forces of the extreme right, or the so-called death squads operate independently of the Security Forces. The simple truth of the matter is that the death squads are made up of members of the Security Forces and acts of terrorism credited to the squads, such as political assassinations, kidnappings and indiscriminate murder are, in fact, planned by high ranking military officers and carried out by members of the Security Forces.
It is sometimes hard to grasp the dimension of the human tragedy which lies behind these types of statistics. However, on March 13 of this year, one woman was killed in El Salvador. She was somebody who was well known to many Members of this House — Marianella Garcia, cofounder of the El Salvador Human Rights Commission. Her death deprives Latin America of one of its most brilliant and fearless campaigners for human rights.
I first had the privilege of meeting Marianella Garcia at a Council of Europe Colloquium on Human Rights in Latin America held in Madrid in September of 1981. Subsequent to that, I organised a meeting with 22 representatives of Dáil Éireann on a visit by her to Dublin. I had an opportunity to study, at first hand, the method of work carried out by her commission when she briefed me and other members of the Inter-Parliamentary delegation prior to our visit to El Salvador in January 1982.
Marianella Garcia came from a well-to-do family and had established herself as one of the country's most promising criminal lawyers by the time political disappearances began to cause disquiet in 1977. She was a member of the Salvadorean Parliament and of the Christian Democratic Party. She was a professional woman from a privileged Salvadorean home. She gave up this life of ease and luxury to struggle against repression in her own country. Marianella travelled frequently to Europe to give testimony to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights about the disappearances and violence that went on in El Salvador. She had survived several attempts on her life, including one in 1978 when her home was bombed and a year later her car was fired on in broad daylight in San Salvador.
In 1979, while defending two young political prisoners in court, as she left the courtroom she was picked up by the National Guard who, acting on the advice of one of the judges, who was unable to deal with her competence in the court, had her interrogated in an attempt to intimidate her. However, she persisted with her work, meticulously following up every reported case of corpses which appeared on the rubbish heaps of San Salvador and endlessly presenting writs of habeas corpus on behalf of the families of disappeared persons. Marianella was finally forced to flee to Mexico early in 1981 after her name was published on a “death list” which was handed out to the national press in El Salvador by the military. From Mexico, she took over the international dimension of the Human Rights Committee's work, travelling to many countries and presenting the information which had been made available to her commission. It was Marianella's desire to fulfil that task with complete accuracy that led directly to her death. During recent months, there has been growing evidence that the military in El Salvador have obtained from some source chemical agents, including napalm, and are using them against the civilian population. Because two of the Human Rights Commission's best workers had disappeared last August, the commission were having difficulty in gathering the necessary evidence in such a way that it could be presented to the UN Human Rights Commission. Marianella took the decision in mid-January to go back into El Salvador to document the growing incidence of refugees with burns and blisters which would show the use of chemical agents.
Marianella Garcia was killed by the military some time between the evening of 13 March and 14 March, 1983, as she interviewed a group of 20 refugees in a camp some 25 km outside San Salvador, the capital. The details of her body injuries have led many organisations to believe that she was tortured before being killed. She had several bullet wounds in her head, part of her left arm was blown away, there were dozens of deep lacerations all over her body and both her legs were broken. The military of El Salvador issued a statement that Marianella Garcia had been killed when she was leading a guerrilla group. To those of us who knew this respectable, dedicated and meticulous lawyer who had steadfastly refused to join any of El Salvador's opposition organisations, this claim is as ridiculous as her murder was revolting. It seems strange to all of us who knew her that Marianella Garcia should herself have become yet another victim of the brutality in El Salvador.
One thing can be said with almost total certainty and that is that no-one will ever appear in court or be sentenced for the murder of Marianella Garcia. The judicial system in El Salvador and, indeed, in Guatemala is totally ineffective. Those members of the official security and parliamentary forces responsible for the torture, disappearance and assassination of tens of thousands of Salvadoreans have never been prosecuted or sentenced in court.
Even in the cases of those US citizens who have been killed in El Salvador and in spite of intense pressure by the United States Administration for an adequate investigation, there has not yet been a single case of anyone formally sentenced in court for the murders of the four North American sisters, or the two North American land reform advisers who were shot dead in the coffee shop of the Sheraton Hotel in 1981. Regarding the case of the US nuns and the lay missionary, which is of particular interest to us here in Ireland, given that Jean Donovan had studied in this country for over a year, the families of these missionaries have stated publicly in the United States that there has been a consistent attempt to cover up for the high-ranking military officers who were responsible for their murder.
In recent weeks, the Irish papers have carried details of the decision to formally delay the prosecution of five low-ranking members of the National Guard who were arrested in conjunction with the murder of the nuns. If this case seems to be blatant in its disregard for basic justice, then the manner in which the two persons accused of killing the North American land reform advisers is even more bizarre. Both of these were placed under the jurisdiction of the Fifth Penal Court in El Salvador. However, one of the accused, a Captain Avila, disappeared from El Salvador and is reputed to be living in a neighbouring country. The second officer, Lieutenant Lopez, according to the New York Times report of November 4, 1982, is now living in the safety of Miami and two judges have ruled that there is insufficient evidence to try him.
Another result of the violence in both Guatemala and El Salvador is the huge number of refugees and dispossessed people who have been forced to flee from their homes. As we have heard repeatedly, El Salvador is only the size of Munster and has a population of 4,500,000. One million Salvadoreans have been forced to leave their country as a result of the violence.
Half a million of them have left to seek refuge in neighbouring countries living a difficult life as refugees. Their situation has grown more precarious during 1982 as violence has increased in many countries in Central America. The borders of El Salvador have become militarised and many thousands of refugees have been killed trying to escape to the relative freedom of Honduras. This was highlighted for us by the Sunday Times in May of 1980 when they informed us of the murder of 600 Salvadoreans trying to cross the River Sumpul into Honduras.
Moreover, throughout the course of 1982 the International Community, through the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, have been alerted to the serious difficulties facing the estimated 100,000 Guatemalan refugees who have sought refuge within Mexico's borders. The Bishop of Chiapas in Mexico published a pastoral letter in August of 1982 in which he detailed the impunity with which members of the armed forces of Guatemala were able to cross the border and intervene in refugee camps removing innocent civilians who subsequently disappeared and were killed. Accurate statistical data on the extent of the number of displaced people inside Guatemala is difficult to obtain. However, the Guatemalan Bishops have estimated that up to one million persons have been displaced within the country and an additional 200,000 peasants have had to leave Guatemala. This means that one in every seven Guatemalan citizens are denied the basic and most fundamental right to freedom of movement and residence within their own country. As well as the grotesquely difficult life which faces these people, sometimes locked up in camps which resemble military detention centres, and unsure of the plight of loved ones and family members who were lost in the haste to leave, these refugees face an appalling future as no attempts to resolve the fundamental problems of the region are being made.
Any reasonable person might ask what has caused the situation? How is it possible that such murder and wanton killing can take place on such a scale in what are after all relatively small countries? In order to understand the denial of human rights, the political instability in Central America, we must look at the facts of the extreme deprivation of the majority of the population which has characterised that part of the world. The majority of the people in Central America live at subsistence level with their political and economic situation controlled by a small and wealthy élite in many cases backed by a series of governments who maintain their power by the most brutal and repressive measures. Central American countries should be reasonably easy for Ireland's people to understand. Their populations are not dissimilar to ours. The vast majority of the population are Roman Catholics and are closely tied to the land by culture and, of course, necessity.
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua — under Somoza — were considered to be among the most backward and least developed countries in Latin America. About 65 per cent of the population are peasants who economically live at subsistence level intensively working small plots of land and frequently having to seek employment as sharecroppers on large estates in order to survive. A large section of the population of Central America have a very low income indeed, are illiterate, have no means of political participation and live in a state that can only be described as extreme social and economic deprivation. These disparities between the wealthy land-owning elite and the mass of the populations have caused serious political upheaval in Central America throughout this century. In Guatemala, for example, one of the main causes of social injustice is the inequality of land ownership. Land is the key to survival in Guatemala and yet 72 per cent of the country's total land is owned by a tiny 2.1 per cent of the population. Land, therefore, represents a source of wealth and for the majority of the Guatemalan people it is their only means of livelihood.
Moreover, the pattern of agricultural production further impoverishes the majority of the Central American people. Large estates are dedicated to export crops of which coffee, cotton, sugar cane and bananas are the most important. Such cash crops demand a large supply of labour. Since the majority of peasants in El Salvador and Guatemala have no land there is plenty of labour available and this also contributes to the very low wages which seasonal workers receive. Most people would be astonished to know that in Guatemala, according to World Bank statistics, agricultural labourers receive an annual wage of £127. The result then of such unequal distribution of land and an emphasis on the export of cash crops at the expense of producing basic food for people has resulted in extreme poverty for the majority of the people in the area.
Hunger and malnutrition are daily problems in Central America. El Salvador for example, has the lowest calorie intake per capita in the entire Latin American Continent. Seventy five per cent of children under five years of age suffer from malnutrition and infant mortality figures are very high indeed. As one might expect life expectancy is considerably lower than it is in Europe. Housing conditions are grossly inadequate. In Guatemala, for example, endemic disease among the poorer sections of the urban population and rural areas is a major problem and results in the fact that 94 per cent of Guatemala's population do not have access to something as basic and simple as running water. The rural population have a lack of medical services which, coupled with poor public health infrastructure, means that few people have on a regular basis any type of even primitive health care.
All of the countries of Central America have compulsory education at primary level. However, the Central American high birth rate means that most countries in the area have up to 50 per cent of their population under fifteen years of age.
Let us turn now to the situation existing inside Nicaragua. I do not think it necessary for me to go over the corruption and excesses of the Somoza period which ended in 1979. The Somozas ran Nicaragua like a personal estate. They grew rich in the low wage export economy of Nicaragua, policed by the National Guard. The family owned farms, businesses and shares not only in Nicaragua but also in neighbouring countries. By 1979, it was estimated that Somoza was worth 500 million dollars.
In the midst of much propaganda and rhetoric about Nicaragua, let us have the facts of what the Sandinistas have achieved and let them speak for themselves. I am quoting now from a bulletin prepared by the London-based Catholic Institute for International Relations which says:
The achievements of the Sandinistas reflect their priorities and support in the country. The poor are both beneficiaries of and participants in the rebuilding of Nicaragua. In a period of approximately eight months the Nicaraguan Government implemented a massive literacy campaign throughout the country which reduced illiteracy from 53 to 12 per cent of the population. This earned Nicaragua the UNESCO 1980 Prize for Literacy. In under three years, 1,258 schools have been built; 464 of these directly by the State and 764 by community efforts with materials donated by the State.
Health expenditure has risen dramatically. The rate of infant mortality has declined significantly as a result of the health campaigns, widespread health education and improved health services. The Government have taken special measures to ensure the availability of basic necessities such as maize, rice and beans and the World Bank recognises that Nicaragua has recovered very rapidly from the war and significantly raised agricultural production for the local market. The Sandinistas have done this by bringing the expropriated Somoza estates into a land reform which has cultivated idle land. Moreover, the Sandinistas have stressed that efficient farmers, regardless of the size of their farm, have nothing to fear. Their priority is to make Nicaragua's land as productive as possible.
Moreover, the economy of Nicaragua is a mixed one. Those of us who have been listening in recent days to the claim that Nicaragua is a Marxist-Leninist State will be surprised to note that 70 per cent of all productive assets remain in private hands — hardly a Marxist State. Eighty per cent of all agricultural production is still in the hands of the private sector, including the important cotton estates which form the backbone of Nicaragua's exports. Through the nationalisation of Somoza's land holdings, the State controls indirectly about 26 per cent of the country's land, but only half of this is cultivated land.
Can many Central Americans then, who are poor and exploited, be blamed for turning to Nicaragua to look for an example of the way forward?
Let us turn now to look at some of the international implications of the Central American situation. One of the ways in which unrepresentative political forces have been able to stay in power in Central America has been through the substantial military and economic aid that has been given to them by successive governments of the United States.
Many people in Europe, and in the United States, particularly in the Congress and among the Bishops' Conference, have argued that what is needed in each of the Central American republics are negotiated solutions and not military ones. If we take the case of El Salvador, I have to note with alarm the massive increases in US aid over the last three years. In 1980, the US Government gave just under six million dollars in military aid and this had increased to 82 million in 1983. At the same time Congressmen protested that 65 per cent of all military aid going down to El Salvador is taken from emergency funds available to the US President under the Foreign Assistance Act. Senator Barnes of the Congress Sub-Committee on Inter-American Affairs has stated that this is an unnecessary precedent which is being used by the Reagan Administration to avoid a full and democratic debate on increasing involvement of the United States within El Salvador. That has been taken from the Presidential Clarification on El Salvador, volume 1, hearings before the sub-committee on Inter-American affairs of the Committee of Foreign Affairs of which Senator Barnes is chairman.
In particular, it is worth noting some of the important statements that have been made by the Catholic Bishops in the United States in which they criticise the Government's policy. Let me quote an abstract from a letter by Archbishop Hickey, Archbishop of Washington, to the Inter-American Affairs Sub-Committee. He said:
Now, more than ever, we, as Americans, need to encourage a political and economic solution to the massive injustices still current in El Salvador. These are the core of the conflict. If justice and an opportunity for a decent life are assured for the campesinos it would undermine those who desire to prolong the conflict. At their annual meeting in November, the American Catholic Bishops strongly reaffirmed certain principles which they consider are important for the United States policies towards El Salvador. In the face of renewed debate on Capitol Hill they bear repeating: (1) opposition to outside military assistance from any source. The Bishops supported political means (i.e. collaboration with other countries) to ban from elsewhere as they opposed the importation of arms from the United States; (2) support of the call of Archbishop River y Damas for a broad-based political solution to be achieved by a halt to the conflict and constructive dialogue among all parties.
Also, let me quote from Archbishop Roche, in his capacity as President of the United States Catholic Conference. He said:
Internal issues of social justice and human rights are the principal questions in El Salvador. Increasing United States military involvement — our present direction — is not a contribution to redressing these internal questions. It is a dangerous course with a result as potentially damaging to us as it is to Salvadoreans.
It is for these reasons that I would like to call on the Irish Government to play an energetic role in the United Nations to seek a negotiated solution to the problems of El Salvador and also to find ways of stopping the threat to destabilise Nicaragua. Successive Irish Governments have made many important statements at the United Nations and our record on Central America is a good one. Moreover, at its recent session in March of this year, Ireland was elected to the vice-chairmanship of the UN Commission on Human Rights. This places us in an extremely important position as regards work to prevent further violation of human rights in El Salvador and Guatemala and above all to fight for ways of ensuring that the rule of order is applied in both Guatemala and El Salvador.
In my view, the Irish Government should attempt immediately to get a discussion going at the level of the Council of Ministers of the EEC in order to support within the United Nations the initiatives being put forward by the Contadora countries. In this way, we would be helping those democratic civilian governments in Latin America, who are close to the problem and knowledgeable about its impact, to put forward a programme which will guarantee a long-term solution for the Central American problem. Ireland, as a small country, with no vested interest in the conflict, and with a high moral standing within the United Nations and in Europe, is in a unique position to proclaim the urgent need for the creation of new and just social, economic and political structures in Central America.
On the other hand, we must attempt to make some effort to alleviate the terrible distress being suffered by refugees and victims of violations of human rights in the area.
In this regard, I would request our Government to make available from the Emergency Aid Budget, funds to humanitarian organisations who are providing much needed food and medicines for these refugees. Moreover, at the level of the EEC Commission, our Government should urge our representatives to insist that the Commission continue to provide emergency aid to Guatemalan and Salvadorean refugees and that a substantial proportion of this be forwarded through the non-governmental organisations who have the ability to ensure that aid rapidly reaches those most in need.
Finally, in the tradition of Ireland, I reiterate the view that each of the Central American Republics has a fundamental right to self-determination. We who live in free and democratic societies, must work for the establishment of genuine democracies in the area. We must prevent further bloodshed taking place. We must ensure that assassinations, disappearances, arbitrary imprisonment, acts of terrorism, kidnappings and torture and a complete lack of respect of the dignity of the human person be stopped forthwith.
