U.s. Hands Off El Salvador!

Ls | Mexico City protest in support of struggle in E! Salvador Estimates of number participating in January 22 march ranged from 50.000 to 100.000 Once more, the most powerful government on earth has been guilty of genocide, just os it was in Vietnam and in so many other countries. That is the only conclusion you can come to when you consider the current war in El Salvador, for it is the US governments of both Carter and Reagon that have armed to the teeth the Salvadoran military/Christian Democratic junta, its army and associated death squads which were responsible for the deaths of an estimated 10,000 people in El Salvador in 1980.

Against a background of military right wing terror, the revolutionary fighters of the Faribundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) launched a general offensive against the hated junta on January 10 of this year with a call to arms, The US govemment of Jimmy Carter responded by resuming military aid to the junta on Jon 14, aid which had been s uspended ofter widespread popular anger both in the US and elsewhere about the rape and murder of three Americon nuns and a lay missionary on December 2, 1980, by members of the military “security forces".

Whot's more, on January 16, Carter approved an additional $5 million in arms for the junta, incl uding six UHTH ("Husy") helicopters, of the type used by the US ormy in Vietnam along with US advisers. Indeed, the Vietnamese war is further recalled by the use of napalm - like incendiary bombs in El Salvador and the wholesale slaughter of peasants.

Coinciding with the resumption of military aid, the capitalist press hastily reported the defeat of the FMLN general offensive, even claiming that the left wing forces ore losing support, picturing the masses as being indifferent to both sides. While it is quite true that the FMLN has not yet succeeded in overt hrowing the junta ond that the general strike was uneven, this has to be seen in the light of the savage repression carried out by the iunta's forces and allies. In many cases, workers were simply killed for going on strike. What's ore the FMLN proved, its ability to mount a coordinated offensive and to act as a single army operating Freely in the rural areas and capablr of mounting octions virtually ony -where in the country.

Comparison with the final days of the Somozea regime in nearby Nicaragua, in July 1979, however, raises questions concerning both the general strike and the level of US aid to the junta. In Nicaragua, in July 1979, the general strike which paralysed al! the urban centres as well as the massi--> popular port icipation in the anti-Somoza struggle were clearly decisive factors in the victory of the Sandinista Front. A similar 'evel of mass action in EI This in tum raises the questions of the ability of the junta to continie killing peasants and workers and also of how to stop the U.S. aid to the junta.

It is already the stated aim of the new Reagan administration to prop up anti-revolutionary regimes friendly to the U.S. irrespective of how barbaric those regimes may be. In central America today this is interpreted as a green light by all the military dictatorships to step up their murder campaigns against anyone who opposes them or who aspires to a better way of life. This applies also to countries beyond El Salvador in the region. Apart from Nicaragua and perhaps Costa Rica, murder of political activists is commonplace in Central America.

In Guatemala, however, the lasr yeeor has seen a significant increase in the level of organised opposition to the dictatorship of General Romeo Lucas Garcia, inspired by the victory of the Nicaraguan revolution and the Salvadoran struggle. As in El Salvador, police and army units have used cover names - the "White Hand", the "Secret Anti-Communist Army", the "Death Squad" - to hide their murders (a tactic they ‘ve used for about fifteen years). But in Guatemala today various sectoral struggles - trade union struggles, struggles of landless Indion peasants, anti-repression struggles - have begun to move to unify with the formation of the Democratic Front Against Repression (FCDR). Toa lesser extent this process has also begun in Honduras.

That's one reason why U.S. imperialism under Sheriff Reagan is once more giving the go-ahead to mass murder a victory in El Salvador, coming soon ofter successful revol -utions in Nicaragua and Grenado would give an enormous boost to workers and peasants all through Central and South America. It would have repercussions far beyond Central America and would be o giant blow to the monopolists in the world's most rapacious power.

U.S. Imperialism has to contend not only with heroic workers and peasants in Central America but also with problems at home, one of the most significart of these being the suspicion with which it is viewed by millions of working people and youth in the U.S. itself. They remember Vietnam and Watergate. Thus whereas in 1965, the US. could simply