Force or Reason

Several months before he was killed along with five other Jesuits and two women on November 16, 1989, Father Ignacio Martin-Baro said in a video-taped interview that he considered the U.S. solidarity movement responsible in large part for the fact that he and his Jesuit colleagues in El Salvador were still alive.

In that lies the encouragement and the challenge for us.

In tragic irony, the Jesuits at the university in San Salvador -- representing a voice of reason and dialogue -- had their brains ripped apart by high-caliber automatic gun-fire. Their Oscar Romero Center for Theological Reflection was the target of a sustained military attack lasting more than 30 minutes, as neighbors attested.

It is inconceivable that the U.S.-sponsored Salvadoran military, which had the campus completely surrounded and secured, could have been unaware of the entry of a large, well-armed group of uniformed men and oblivious to the barrage of gunfire.

The Jesuits were massacred because they took seriously the Latin American church's option for the poor and the Jesuits' official mission to serve faith and promote justice. They also risked death by calling for a negotiated political solution of the conflict.

The Far Right, eager to obliterate not only the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) but the entire civic and political opposition, felt that the Jesuits, especially Father Ignacio Ellacuria, president of the university, might be able to move the government toward negotiations. Thus they acted on the old slogan of the 1970s: "Be a patriot, kill a priest. "

In Nicaragua, the United States is also helping to thwart a political solution of the long conflict. While proclaiming its concern for free and fair elections, the Bush administration is not only giving millions to the main anti-Sandinista candidate but continues to fund the contras, who have sharply escalated their violence in recent months. In October, with the voter registration process in full swing, the contras brutally ambushed and murdered 19 young military reservists as they returned home from registering.

Peasants in remote rural areas can have little confidence that their ballot will be secret. The contras' message to people in the central mountains, where the contras can move rather freely, is twofold: To the Sandinistas and those considered pro-Sandinista, participation in the electoral process could be fatal; to the rest of the voters, the message is to vote for opposition candidate Violeta Chamorro. To the nation as a whole, the contras' message is: A Sandinista victory means endless war.

This mixture of terrorism and electioneering was brought out most clearly in November when Chamorro named Alfredo Cesar her chief adviser. Cesar, formerly a civilian director of the contras, had taken amnesty a few months before and returned to Nicaragua to participate in the political process as a leader of the Social Democrat Party, a member of the right-wing UNO coalition.

In November a Honduran daily published what was reportedly a letter from Cesar to Enrique Bermudez, the Somocista military chief of the contras. Cesar urged closer coordination of Bermudez' military efforts and UNO's electoral tactics. Though Cesar denied having written the letter, UNO's political directors removed him from the board. Chamorro responded by naming him her chief adviser, apparently undaunted by his connections with the contras.

OVER THE YEARS THE United States has tried to get rid of the Sandinista government by military methods and by sabotaging the economy. Resultant economic distress is now the main factor working against the Sandinistas. But since many observers are still predicting a Sandinista victory, the United States chooses to let the contras practice terror and intimidation to help UNO's chances. The United Nations' chief observer of the electoral process, Elliot Richardson, gave October's voter registration process high marks, noting that the main danger to the electoral process was coming from contra violence.

In both Nicaragua and El Salvador, U.S. power is coming down on the side of force and terror rather than reason and political settlement. While the Bush administration proclaims itself a champion of democracy, it is still clubbing Central America with the big stick.

People of faith in both countries remain committed to the peaceful resolution of problems and the building of a new society. In Nicaragua the Christian base communities are analyzing the different parties and platforms and helping others to understand the democratic process.

In El Salvador Father Jose Maria Tojeira, the provincial of the Central American Jesuits, expressed Christian hope and commitment when he said in his homily during the funeral for his slain brothers: "They have not killed the Central American University; they have not killed the Society of Jesus in El Salvador." The congregation also expressed its determination by giving a two-minute standing ovation.

Our hope is that the brutal, brazen massacre of the Jesuits and the two women will reveal the true nature of the Salvadoran regime, which has produced thousands of unphotographed victims in the last decade, and that this unmasking will result in an end to U.S. military assistance to that government. At the same time, Congress should insist that the contras be demobilized as a fighting force, in keeping with the Central American presidents' agreements, so that Nicaragua's electoral process can develop peacefully.

Joseph E. Mulligan, S.J., was a Jesuit from Detroit who worked at the Central American Historical Institute in Managua, Nicaragua when this article appeared.