The results of the latest Salvadoran
The incident was politically very da- working on a plan for negotiating with che FMLN attracted a good deal of interest.
Assistant Secretary of State for InterAmerican Affairs, Thomas Enders, proposed a "two-track strategy," according to the Washington Post Service "in which the United States would promote negotiations with left guerrillas there while continuing to support the Salvadoran government's military efforts to suppress the rebels."
The negotiations reportedly would be carried out through a third party, probably the Social Democratic government in Spain.
Enders' proposal was in an internal State Department position paper, and was said to have run into opposition guerrilla offensive Gerry FOLEY The guerrillas January operations seem to have accomplished something like the Tet offensive in Vietnam - that is, make it clear to world public opinion that the government is losing and that there is no way that the guerrillas can be stopped without some drastic change in the terms
At the height of their offensive, the rebels occupied the small city of Berlin in Usulutan province. On February 1, they reportedly destroyed the police and then seized the local
The rebels held the town for four days, retiring only government armed forces
The government hit back with everything it had, at enormous political cost. It used the airpower provided by U.S. imperialism to devastate the city from the forcing the "moderate" archbishop of San Salvador, Monsignor Arturo Rivera y Damas to sound an alarm.
On February 6, the archbishop called on the government to end "indiscriminate bombings." He said that about 250 civilians had been killed in the bombings, although half the population fled when the fighting started. The army treated Berlin like an enemy city.
Agence France-Presse dispatch described the results of the bombing as
"Searching through the rubble, crowds wandering through the streets of a city city...which a few days ago was calm and prosperous, is now nothing but a pile of
What is more, in the rush to smash the rebels in Berlin, some of the U.S. advisors got too far up front. A sergeant was hit by groundfire while flying over the battle area in a helicopter.
maging to Washington. It linked the U.S. directly to a Vietnam-war-style massive terror operation - destroying Berlin to save it. Moreover, this was an
Washington's allies began to look like losers, also raised memories of a not-too-distant past that the U.S. rulers are anxious to
The fact that the wounded sergeant and two other U.S. officers were immediately shipped home, for overstepping the official rule against military getting involved in the fighting, how carefully the Reagan government has to tread.
Washington as of now is afraid of looking like it is getting involved in an escalation, and in fact the Berlin events placed an additional obstacle in the way of stepped-up U.S. intervention.
In the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings the first week in
Connecticut senator Christopher Dodd complained that Washington had given nearly a billion dollars in open military aid to El Salvador and : "What do we have to show for it? The military and political situations are not improving
Dodd's remarks were cited in the February 14 issue of the major U.S. magazine Newsweek, which went on to comment: "But the amount of U.S. aid that would be needed to make a substantial differgovernment's military performance remains staggering."
The news weekly pointed out that U.S. experts in El Salvador itself were showed the coming trend in El Salvador, one frustrated concluded...'Next month, it'll be a town bigger than Berlin,
U.S. advisors wounded - or
In this context, it is not surprising that the disclosure by a Latin-American from Reagan's ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick in particular. Kirkpatrick, an aggressive rightist, is one of the key figures for Reagan's foreign policy.
In fact, the doran military, backed up by Washing ton, to stop the spread of the guerriladministration's inability to rally to represent something of a crisis for
U.S. president's policy colonial peoples. On the is almost certain to divide and demoralize the local rulers, who fear granting any measure of democratic rights to the
At the height of the guerrilla offensive, Guillermo Ungo, leader of the Frente Democratico Revolucionario, a comof the FMLN, visited Paris. Le Monde of February 9 published an interview with him under the line: "We Solemnly Reiterate Our Offer of Negotiations."
Marcel Niedergang, Le Monde's Latin-American expert:
"We are making this offer when our forces are showing on the ground that they have the initiative. We are not making it out of weakness but we think that it is growing number of people in our coun-.
who want peace." "If the military balance is broken tomorrow, it could be too late."
Ungo said that the guerrillas' offensive had ushered in a new phase of the war: "The regular army has no offensive capactions of the guerrilla groups...Equality with the army has not yet been achieved, but we are getting there."
The FDR leader thought Washington would have big difficulties in intervening diplomats high-ranking military officers have just said publicly that the recent big American maneuvers in Honduras have at least proved that nothing serious can be done in the region without the United States. This is true in Honduras, where the maneuvers only served to prepare the way for direct U.S. intervention. It is true in EI
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