ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 17, 1990                   TAG: 9005170461
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SALVADORAN REBELS REPRESENT THE OPPRESSED

YOU SHOULD be congratulated on your May 6 editorial concerning the stalled probe of the murders of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador. It is an important topic to keep before the public mind, since it is the American people who have sent more than $4 billion in military aid to this brutal government since 1980.

However, the unwritten assumptions behind your editorial ultimately do harm to justice and truth, and to the millions of suffering human beings in El Salvador and Central America.

Twice you repeat the cliche that the military government is fighting "the challenge of Marxist guerrillas." The forces fighting for freedom and justice in El Salvador are no more "Marxist" than the mixed-economic structure of Nicaragua, which your newspaper has also repeatedly called "Marxist-Leninist."

One of the greatest inspirations behind the rebellion in El Salvador is the Christian church. Why do you think the church has been one of the main targets of the U.S.-backed repression?

It is not only these six priests, Archbishop Romero and the four American nuns who were raped and murdered by the death squads; many hundreds of other clergy also have been tortured and murdered in the past 10 years.

The people of Central America are largely Catholic and Christian. Eighty-five percent of them live in unspeakable poverty and misery, in wretched shanties, with minimal food, with no education or health care, watching their children die of infant diarrhea and other preventable diseases.

Meanwhile, 5 to 7 percent of the people in each country own 90 percent of the land and live with incredible wealth and power. In each country in Central America, it is this 5 to 7 percent that is supported by the United States in the dishonest name of "promoting democracy" and "fighting communism."

The Christian majority of El Salvador recognize that Christ came for the poor, the wretched and the oppressed, and not for their wealthy oppressors nor the wealthy Americans who support the oppressors.

In the past 10 years, the American-supported military government of El Salvador has killed 74,00 civilians - 7,000 of whom simply "disappeared" and more than 1 million people have been displaced from their homes.

The rebels represent the people; they represent a poor Christian majority struggling for a life of decency for themselves and their children. For once in our history, Americans should stop supporting the oppressors and begin supporting the cause of peace and justice, and the hope that God's kingdom may someday reign on this sad Earth. GLEN T. MARTIN RADFORD 


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