Tuesday, November 23, 1982
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
v.
Editorial
El Salvador off ers justice for
a price: $61 million in aid
It appears that the Salvadoran govern
ment is getting ready to sacrifice five
national guardsmen for $61 million in
American military aid.
The five are accused of acting alone in
the murders of four American church
women in El Salvador on Dec. 2, 1980.
The women were found raped and shot
in the Salvadoran backwoods, after leaving
the Salvadoran international airport. Their
whits van was stopped by three uniformed
guardsmen who forced the women to
drive to the murder scene where Sgt. Luis
Colindres Aleman and four other former
guardsmen were waiting.
It took an outraged American public
and five months, before the guardsmen
were arrested, and it took another 19
months before their case came to trial.
Last Monday, Salvadoran Judge Bern
ardo Rauda Murcia said there appeared
to be enough evidence to convict the five
for the murders and satisfy the American
cries for justice.
The big question is why would the Sal
vadoran government, which failed to rec
ognize that a crime had been committed
in the first place, hurry along the convic
tions of these five guardsmen?
One reason could be the S61 million in
military aid. It is waiting to be delivered
to El Salvador on the condition that there
is a successful prosecution for the mur
ders. This is quite an incentive to complete
the trial.
Another reason for a quick conviction
could be the evidence cropping up outside
the courtroom that points a finger at a
Salvadoran legislator and a prominent
businessman.
The Salvadoran court ' has refused to
accept the testimony of another former
guard who said he overheard Colindres
Aleman say he was "acting under superior
orders" when he and the other guardsmen
killed the women.
Still another source has linked the
chauffeur of businessman Hans Christ to
the murders. The chauffeur was seen
driving a red pickup truck near the murder
scene the same time the women were
killed. This same source claims to have
heard Christ, who has been implicated
in two other murders, threaten to kill the
women.
These latest accusations begin to involve
some top former national guard officers
close to both Christ and Roberto d'Aubuis
son, a former national guard major who
Viow leads El Salvador's Legislature.
When this evidence is added to the case,
there exists reasonable doubt that the
murderers acted alone in the killings.
The evidence tends to hint at some type of
cover-up.
After reviewing this case, one tends to
question the honesty of the Salvadoran
government in not pursuing these
additional leads in the trial.
Their honesty is an important point,
not only in this trial but also in the fragile
relationship they have with the United
States. El Salvador cannot afford a scandal
at this point when aid from this country
is beginning to trickle once again into the
country. "
The reason this aid was restored in the
first place was because El Salvador adopted
a land reform program that will redistri
bute the country's farmland. They also
agreed to recognize the U.S. Human Rights
Policy.
But knowing that these politicians may
be involved in the murders of the-church-women,
one has to question whether they
will carry out their promised, political
reforms.
Melinda Norris
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Democrats fail to stage palace coup in, elections
Now just a minute.
Hardly three weeks have passed since midterm
elections that were widely regarded as a mixed bag. But
the casual extra-terrestrial guest - dropping in and picking
up the nearest newspaper - might understandably con
clude that the Democrats had just staged a palace coup.
vT Ross Mackenzie
Here's everybody's caricature of a congressman. Mr.
Tip, proclaiming the elections "a disastrous defeat for the
president." Here's everybody's favorite editorial page of
the leftist fringe, The New York Times, thankfully
pronouncing the elections to be proof that " 'liberal' is no
longer a dirty word." Here are everybody's favorite
political kooks - George McGovcrn and John Anderson
(remember them?) - examining the election returns the
way ancient gurus used to examine chicken bones cast on
Ballot-box
In the middle of the kitchen table in Ted Chabasinski's
apartment is a stack of papers and press clippings held
down by a book called "Organizing, Organizing. Organiz
ing." The title is an appropriate centerpiece to this table,
even to his current life.
Chabasinski is the man responsible for organizing
Measure T. On Nov. 2, 62 percent of the voters in
the ground, and finding in them good signs for going for
the presidential gold one more time.
And behold the suddenly trendy political issues. "De
mands" for public-works jobs. "Demands" for a nuclear
freeze. An utterly serious "demand" from House Armed
Services Committee chairman Joseph Addabbo, a New
York Democrat, that we "terminate a couple of big-ticket
weapons systems." ""Demands" for canceling next July's
scheduled tax cut, for hiking payroll taxes as the "only"
way to salvage Social Security, and for more than doubl
ing the federal gasoline tax (from 4 cents per gallon to 9)
as the "only" way to save the nation's roads.
Even Ronald Reagan is joining the chorus. Regarding
the gasoline tax proposal, for instance, he's re examining
his position - suggesting that if we'll just call it a "user
fee" he might go along with it, as he concluded over the
summer that the biggest tax increase in U.S. history was
OK if we would just call it a "revenue enhancement."
Six weeks ago the president said that for the White House
to support an increase in the gasoline tax there would
have to be "a palace coup."
If I recall correctly, it wasn't long ago that Reagan him
self was saying, in effect, that ic had staged a palace coup
- the Reagan Revolution. Indeed, during this year's
campaigns he repeatedly called upon the voters to "stay
the course." If the Republicans and their president now
are to set about accommodating the Democrats, then per
haps we need a palace coup again.
The depletion of liberal Democratic ideas is so severe
that this year the Democrats often conducted filthy
campaigns. They stayed away from issues whenever they
could. They concentrated on the alleged shortcomings of
their Republican opponents. And at every opportunity
they screamed that the Republicans are determined to
junk Social Security.
Yet with the elections over, the Democrats have seized
the rhetorical initiative with a vengeance. Why, you might
think the main message from the election returns was that
practically every voter is begging the Washington pols.
"Please, please, raise my taxes!" And the Republicans
the pitiful, pitiable Republicans - seem at risk of mimick
ing the Democrats' tried agenda being marketed as a
basketful of dramatically new ideas.
Continued on Page 5
bedside
manner offersonly a quick fi
T9 Ellen Goodman
Berkeley, Calif., turned out in favor of Measure T and
banned clectroshotk therapy in their city.
By American standards the initiative was a radical one.
Even by Berkeley standards it was unique. For what is
believed to be the first time, citizens found a specific
medical treatment on the ballot. They voted against the
psychiatric establishment, against authority.
"The essence of the doctor! campaign against us was
to say, "We're DOCTORS, how can you tell us what to
do? You're too iunorant to tell us what to H "
Chabasinski with more than a hint of pleasure at their
comeuppance.
The 45-year-old who works now "off and on" in day
care has good cause for his personal grievance. Chabasinski
didn't learn about shock treatment by watching "One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." At 6 years old. he says, he
was institutionalized and given electroconvulsive treat
ment (ECT). "It took three people to hold me down "
He Wasn't released for 10 years. He hasn't forgotten for
nearly 30 years.
In some ways, Chabasinski is right. This is a battle over
control of treatment, technology, a battle about expertise
professionals and people. The campaign against ECT is not
unlike the campaigns against nuclear plants or nuclear
waste disposal or a dozen other referendum.
As Allen Stone, a psychiatrist and Harvard law pro
lessor, puts it, "There has been for the last 10 years what
I think is a wonderful questioning of author'ty." Yet at
some point questioning turns into wholesale suspicion
and suspicion about expertise turns into the confidence of
know-nothings. "There is an exaggerated fear of psych
iatrists, that they have these science-fiction treatments or
they're doing things totally horrible," Stone said "My
sense is that the public is not well informed about treat
ment. It's hard to be well Informed about treatment."
In fact, in the years since "Cuckoo's Nest" was written,
the years since Chabasinski's childhood was brutalized,
the treatment of ECT has changed into a more benign
procedure. Under controlled conditions, it carries fewer
risks or side effects. Ironically, California already had one
of the most stringent laws regarding ECT and protecting
patients' rights.
Psychiatrist Loren Roth, a University of Pittsburgh
professor and chair of the American Psychiatric Associa
tion's Commission on Judicial Action, says, "Nobody
likes the idea of electricity in the brain. Fin aware of the
public fear, the potential and past misuse. But in terms of
changing severely depressed, mute, catatonic people at a
life-threatening risk it can be a most dramatic, impressive
treatment."
The Berkeley case, suggests Roth, is one of a scries in
which wc face conflicting fights: The fight of a patient to
have a beneficial treatment vs. the right to be protected
from a harmful treatment. The right of an individual to
contract with a doctor for any procedure vs. the right of
the public to regulate procedures.
Continued on Page 5
