I am grateful to you, Sir, for allowing me to raise this matter tonight and, indeed, I am grateful to the Minister of State for being here. After many years of strife, killing, hardship and suffering a ceasefire was finally arranged between the Government of EI Salvador and the FMLN. That ceasefire came into effect on 1 February last and is being monitored by UN forces. Under the terms of the New York peace accord which led to the ceasefire the nature and structure of the Salvadoran military and security forces are to be altered significantly and reduced substantially during the course of the next two years.
The chairmen of the United States Senate sub-committee on foreign operations and on western hemisphere affairs, Senators Leahy and Dodd, are, it seems, of the view that Congress is prepared, in the light of the new situation, to delete any new funds for the El Salvador military aid account from the US fiscal provision. El Salvador urgently needs funds for humanitarian purposes and for the much delayed process of restructuring and reconstructing a shattered economy in which many thousands of families have been displaced. As I understand it, there is a disposition in Congress in Washington to channel all of the funds originally earmarked for military aid in 1992 into the new fund for transition to peace to be used in support of the implementation of the peace agreement, including the demobilisation of combatants on the Government side and on the part of the FMLN. Against that background I find it impossible to understand the Bush administration's proposal to grant further military aid to the Government of El Salvador amounting to $35 million for 1992 and $40 million for 1993, with the possibility that $28 million in unallocated aid from previous exercises might also be provided for military aid.
Since 1980 successive administrations in the United States have channelled $1.1 billion of military aid into El Salvador. Those funds have supported widespread oppression and have resulted in slaughter and suffering in that country throughout that period. It is surely time for the United States' administration to accept the fact that its Central American policy has been wholly misguided, that it has been inimical to human rights and obstructive of the emergence of viable democratic systems in the area. Bearing that in mind, I would invite the Minister and the Government to support my case to oppose any further US military aid to the Government of El Salvador, to put those views forthrightly to the US administration at the earliest possible moment and to seek support for them among our partners in the United Nations.