World

Salvador teachers face attack

Repression and violence against El Sal-
vador’s unionized public school teachers
has increased since the coming to power of a
fascist government last summer, a teachers’
representative on a national tour reports.

In the last three months, two teachers
were captured and killed by government
security forces, the union’s office has been
ransacked, and the leader of the teacher’s

union has been told his name is on a hit list, °

said Marta Romero in an interview.

“The government has the conception
that education is a negative thing, because
it’s easier to dominate an ignorant people,”
said Romero, an executive member of the
National Association of Salvadoran Educa-
tors (ANDES).

Education in El Salvador is supposed to
be free, universal and compulsory, but since
the war of liberation began in 1981, succes-
sive governments have starved public edu-
cation through chronic underfunding,
destroyed schools in bombing raids on the
countryside, and forcibly conscripted stu-
dents as young as 13 years into the military.

That situation has worsened with the
election of the ARENA government of
President Alfredo Cristiani, said Romero,
who is meeting with Canadian teachers and
students to establish ties of moral solidarity
with ANDES’ 20,000 members.

An ANDES fact sheet states that 1.3 mil-
lion of El Salvador’s 2.5 million school age
children have no school, that half of the
Central American nation’s 4,000 schools

‘have been bombed or converted to military
barracks, and that illiteracy runs from 55
per cent in urban areas to 95 per cent in the
countryside.

Romero said the government spends only
14 per cent of its annual budget on educa-
tion, and of that, 95 per cent goes to salaries,
leaving virtually nothing for supplies.

“Generally, students have a notebook
and a pen. They have no textbooks, there-

SF Be
MARTA ROMERO ... teachers’ union
fights for education and better working
conditions.
fore they cannot do homework at home,”
she related.

“For this reason, teachers teach accord-
ing to the available resources. Some
teachers will use seeds or rocks to teach
math to the elementary grades.”

The schools that are open are in a con-
stant state of disrepair, lacking sanitary
facilities and drinkable water, Romero said.

El Salvador’s ministry of education stipu-
lates that primary classes contain a min-
imum 35 students, and 50 students per class
is the norm. But that number thins out in
the higher grades, and many areas have
only third or fourth grade levels, the
ANDES leader said.

“Students drop out because families lack
money and the children must go to work at
an early age. Many communities have no
school to attend,” Romero said.

Statistics show that of each 100 first-
grade students in rural areas, only eight
wind up with a ninth-grade education. For
urban areas like the capital, San Salvador,

the figure is 19 of 100 students, she said.

ANDES — the full name is ANDES 21
de Junio — was formed in 1965 with the
task of fighting for a better education for
students and better working conditions for
teachers.

El Salvador’s teachers “continue to
teach, keeping in mind they teach the popu-
lation to think and reflect so they can strug-
gle for change,” Romero, speaking through
a translator, stressed.

“It’s dangerous, but it has to be this
way,” she said, noting that 350 teachers
have been assassinated by government for-
ces and death squads since the union was
founded.

ANDES, a member of El Salvador’s
large trade union central, UNTS (Natiofal
Union of Salvadoran Workers), also stages
street demonstrations, including one that
accompanied a two-day strike Sept. 27-28.
A delegation that marched to Cristiani’s
office to discuss education concerns was
met by riot police.

Romero was forced to flee the country
following the seizure and torture of the
entire national executive in 1981. She
returned to El Salvador in 1986. -

But the repression continues, and 21
ANDES leaders are on a government hit
list, including general secretary Jorge
Morales.

Romero is touring Canada meeting with
students and provincial teacher representa-
tives. Delegations from the B.C. Teachers
Federation make regular visits to ANDES
in El Salvador.

In the country at the invitation of the
umbrella Canadian Teachers Federation,
Romero said her aim is to “create solidarity
with Canadian teachers.”

Despite the intensified repression,
“unions and popular organizations are
more organized than before, and we’re very
optimistic that change will come,” she said.

FIMLN wants peaceful solution ...

The current dialogue between El Salva-
dor’s U.S.-backed government and the
Farabundo Marti National Liberation
Front (FMLN) could be a first step towards
a peaceful solution to the conflict in that
country, the FMLN’s Ottawa-based repre-
sentative says.
Humberto Avaria,
in Vancouver recent-
ly for a conference
sponsored by the
Canadian aid group,
SalvAide, said there
is hope for such a
settlement in light of
“the wave of peace
that is sweeping the
world.” ;
But the economic
and political pro- AVARIA
gram of the fascist National Republican
Alliance (ARENA) government, and an
unconditional aid package of $90 million
from the U.S. Congress, could torpedo the
dialogue and plunge the country into a new
and escalated round of “explosive” warfare,
Avaria warned in an interview.
“The United States and ARENA are
showing signals that they want to continue
the war and isolate the FMLN internation-
ally,” Avaria told participants at the confer-
ence Oct. 21. ist;
| If the economic austerity and privatiza-
‘tion imposed by international bankers con-
-‘tinues, “and you add to this the repression
and civil war, then the consequences can be
"very explosive,” he said. :

_ Since ARENA came to . power, last
‘summer in an election with a very low voter
‘turnout, the party linked to El Salvador’s
death squads has reversed even the mild

land reforms and other economic measures
of the former Christian Democratic
government, Avaria said.

The government has also launched three
major attacks against Salvadoran groups,
including the detention, torture and raping
of some 60 participants of a demonstration
in September by the National Federation of
Salvadoran Workers Union, he reported.

The front’s demands include maintaining
existing reforms, deepening agrarian reform,
investigations into the 1980 assassination of
Archbishop Oscar Romero and of death
squad activities generally, monitoring by
the Organization of American States and
the United Nations of human rights viola-
tions, and constitutional changes granting
the FMLN “a role in the political process of
El Salvador,” Avaria said.

.. ut atrocities continue

A car bomb took the life of the former
leader of the National Federation of Sal-
vadoran Workers Union on Oct. 31, escal-
ating the growing violence against trade
unionists in El Salvador and causing the
union to declare “war” against the ARENA
government.

Former FENASTRAS leader Febe
Velasquez and six other people were killed,
and dozens more injured, when a. car bomb
exploded outside union headquarters at
12:30 p.m., El Salvador time. It followed a
2:15 a.m. bombing outside the office of
COMADRES, the mothers-of-the-disap-
peared organization. Four people, includ-
ing a four-month old infant and a North
American aid worker, were injured.

‘Humberto Centeno, leader of the
National Union of Salvadoran Workers,

.accused Defence Minister Gen. Rafael
Humberto Larios of responsibility for the

bombings. The minister had stated he
would retaliate for a recent attack by the
Farabundo Marti National Liberation
Front on the armed forces’ High Com-
mand. ,
FENASTRAS requests that telephone

calls or faxes be sent to President Alfredo
Cristiani (Fax: 011-503-22-8514; phone:
011-503-71-1555), or U.S. ambassador to El
Salvador William Walker (Fax: 011-503-25-
9984; phone: 01 1-503-26-7100).

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