Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!qantel!lll-crg!seismo!harvard!bbnccv!bbncca!rrizzo From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: re: Central American Conflicts: a reading list Message-ID: <1668@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Fri, 10-Jan-86 12:53:23 EST Article-I.D.: bbncca.1668 Posted: Fri Jan 10 12:53:23 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jan-86 17:55:54 EST Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 34 The reading list is weighted in favor of covering guerillas and Sanndinistas (& their abuses) rather than incumbents and contras (& theirs), since that's what I tend to read: I fully believe most, maybe all reports of contra atrocities, and have been aware for years of the barbaric Guatemalan juntas. But these have received much better coverage than revolutionary excesses, and I assume people interested enough to read net.politics for Central American issues follow the press fairly closely on these matters. Thanks for the reference and quotations; any other scrupulous additions to the list are welcome. The US gov't has been atrocious both as a source of information and for its Central American policies, and not just since Reagan took office. Whatever good it's done in terms of chartering real grassroots human rights monitoring and lobbying worldwide, the hypocritical Carter "human rights policy" was at its worse in policy toward El Salvador. Only under intense pressure immedi- ately after the murder of 4 American nuns, & for a scandalously short period of a couple of weeks, did Carter suspend aid to the regime. Otherwise, US military & other aid continued to flow unabated to the junta & the much-compromised Duarte coalition, despite the death-squad slaughter and gov't represions. Still, reliable reports and useful information can be often obtained from otherwise unreliable sources: the DoD analysis of serial numbers of weapons captured from Salvadorean guerillas mentioned in the Julia Preston posting is one of the few pieces of "hard" data we have about Central American conflicts. Cheers, Ron Rizzo