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TL LUIEE

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FEATURE

A “popular educator’ from the newly-repopulated village
of San Jose Las Flores poses with his students for the
delegation of Canadians. The mainly untrained teachers
have carried out a campaign to bring basic educational
skills to the people in several areas — and have become
targets of the military for their efforts.

Unified popular
‘movementisolates
Duarte regime
in El Salvador

Continued from page 1

“Suddenly there was a flurry of activity
“and the truck in which we. were travelling
Was occupied by a soldier,” she says. “We
Were taken to the military base at Chalate-
Nango where our passports were confis-
fated and we were told that we would be
taken to San Salvador to the headquarters
Of the Treasury Police — the intelligence
Police who carry out torture.

We Were forced into a truck with auto-
Matic rifles trained on us. In front of us was
another truck with eight to ten soldiers in it
anda machine gun aimed at us,” she recalls.

Nce in the capital, Hayes was successful
‘2 Convincing the soldiers to get an ambu-

’nce for one of the group, Marlie Burton-
Oche, who has suffered a stroke eighteen
months earlier and had become progres-
‘Ively more ill during the four-hour ride to
’an Salvador. Hayes stubbornly persisted
a accompanying her in the ambulance and
Agr Tepeatedly being pushed out by the
Oldier, she was allowed to make the trip.
Nee at the hospital, “I was able to geta
ees who was sympathetic to my frantic
Ysteria, to agree to call someone outside,”
€ Says,
Mutes later, the doctor told the army
the call had been and thus set of a chain
Soldien communication between the

‘ €rs, their commanding officer and the

“asury Police. “As soon as they realized

at People outside knew that we had been

B » they agreed to release us.”

Ut their release didn’t come before some
by eee had already been interrogated
re in. ea8ury Police — and before they

. ‘structed to sign a form stating that

€ , . . .
ene. ad not been intimidated or threa-

€ form was given to them to sign

by a U.S. Embassy official, Mark Schall,
who told them curtly that they “weren’t
welcome in the country” and the U.S.
Embassy “doesn’t like your type.”

Two weeks later, on their return to Can-
ada, an official from the El Salvador
Embassy would insist that they were in a
“forbidden area” at the time — despite the
fact that the delegation had written permis-
sion from the army high command in the
area to visit that village and others in the
region. Se

In fact, Hayes, says, the incident was
likely prompted by interviews that the
teachers had conducted with two campesi-
nos in the village who had been victims of
torture at the hands of the military.

“Only two hours before we arrived, they
had been severely tortured a belts were
placed around their necks, their stomachs
were punched in ... the army cut their hair
and eyebrows and boxed their ears from
both sides until they bled,” says Hayes, who
talked with the two, taking notes on the

hey related.
Sines army found out that we had
talked to them and didn’t want the informa-
i et out,” she says.
Be es the level of repression that even
among the people that Hayes met during
her brief stay in the country, seven have
since become targets of the military. _

“Everyone has been affected by it —
everyone has friend or a family member
that has been arrested or tortured,” she
se Duting the time he was in the country,
Hughes adds, two students were seized by
men dressed in civilian clothes, taken out
and seized — the work of death squads.

' The stepped-up repression and EON
nous increase in tempo of the activities 0

_the death squads has come in direct relation

to the upsurge in unity and popularity of the
people’s movements and the decline in
popular support for Duarte, Hayes and
Hughes note. Today, the main workers
central, the National Centre of Salvadoran
Workers, comprises some 400,000 members
across a broad spectrum of Salvadoran
society, including the members of both
ANDES and AGEUS. Most of the public
activities, demonstrations and strikes, are
organized under its banner.

“Everything is becoming unified — the
women’s groups are now in one federation,
the groups for the disappeared are
together,” says Hayes. “Where there were
many groups before, now there is one.”

Just this year, three major workers’ and
farmers’ organizations, which had been
affiliated with the AFL-CIO organization
in El Salvador, deserted the U.S. group to
join UNTS.

“Everyone you met with, the same
demands were put forward,” says Hughes.
“And everyone you talked to seemed to
exude strength and confidence.”

And it remains that way despite the
repression, he emphasizes.

“Even among the students we met in San
Miguel where there is really heavy repres-

sion, there’s a conviction that if something-

happens to them, there are others ready to
step in and take over.”

Hughes himself took part in a demon-
stration of 20,000 students on July 30 in San
Salvador, held to commemorate the anni-
versary of a 1975 demonstration when 30
students were massacred by the military.
“‘As we approached the presidential palace
and faced the barbed wire fence, there were
some tense moments when we heard the
soldiers drawing back the bolts on their
machine guns,” says Hughes. “But I think
they saw the large contingent of interna-
tional representatives — there were Finns,
Swedes, Costa Ricans as well as the
Canadians — and they backed off.

For education especially, however, the
battle is waged on several fronts, Hayes

notes. The key demand. put forward» by

ANDES, she says, is for an end to the forced
recruitment of school children — the army
regularly invades schools and seizes child-
ren as young as 10 for the army, although
some wealthy parents can buy their children
back.

On a more mundane but no less vital
level, teachers have pressed for funding for
schools. The Ministry of Education has
devoted all funding to the private schools,
declaring this year that the public schools
will receive no money. Most teachers are
not paid at all and are forced to work at
other jobs to survive.

HUGHES HAYES

“More than half the schools in the coun-
try have been closed entirely,” says Hayes.

In the country’s three university camp-
uses — at San Salvador, San Miguel and
Santa Ana — the students central demand
is for a budget, says Hughes, noting that the
demand has become more urgent since the
earthquake last year when several university
buildings were destroyed.

University students also join other
groups in calling for a negotiated end to the
conflict in El Salvador and the election of a
government of national unity in the coun-
try,’ Hughes says. And it is that
demand — which echoes the 18-point
peace plan put forward by the FMLN-FDR
in El Salvador — which unifies the people’s
movement in the country,” Hayes adds.

“Everywhere you go, it’s clear that the
FMLN-FDR is the vanguard,” she says.
“On that there’s just about 100 per cent
consensus.”

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 19, 1987 e 7