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Clint \ \ VOL. 7, NO. 1 PRING 1985 STAFF Co-editors David Milholland Jim Blashfieid Lenny Dee Design and Production Jim Blashfieid Production Assistants David Milholland, Sharon Niemcyzk Ad Production Stacey Fletcher Bill Fletcher Beverly Wong Camerawork Laura DiTrapani Typesetting Archetype, Marmilmar Cindy Shumock, Sherry Swain Ad Sales—Portland/Eugene Lenny Dee, Anne Hughes Dru Duniway, Neil Street Sandy Wallsmith Ad Sales—Seattle Joe Racek Proofreaders Theresa Marquez, Betty Smith Contributing Artists Tim Braun, Andrew Larkin Stephen Leflar, Henk Pander Liza von Rosenstiel, Marly Stone Steve Winkenwerder, Matt Wuerker Contributing Photographers Eric Edwards, Arun Nevader Printing Tualatin-Yamhill Press Development Lenny Dee Editor-on-leave Peggy Lindquist Thanks Linda Ballantine, John Bennett Ed Carpenter, Stephanie Denyer Sheila Gallagher, Tyra Lindquist Paul Loeb, Melissa Marsland Laurie McClain, Lola Maria, DNA John Wanberg, Sue Widder Charlotte Uris The Clinton 500 EDITORIAL When Ronald Reagan unveiled his Strategic Defense Initiative—immediately dubbed Star Wars—in March of 1983, it seemed outlandish enough to be passed off as incipient senility. And after a few months of discussions, its cost (incalculable, but estimated by proponents to be many hundred billions), doubts as to its true effectiveness and its heavy impact on precarious arms control and power-balance relationships appeared to bring about its early demise. Yet the Reaganauts have more staying power than they’re often given credit for, and Star Wars once again became a political reality as the Democrats suffered their electoral debacle. The past few months have brought the proposal back full force, with important allies being forced to endorse the concept (Prime Minister Thatcher) or reject it (President Mitterrand), long before it had been dealt with by the U.S. Congress. Even the creators of science fiction found their numbers split between proponents such as Robert Heinlein and adversaries like Isaac Asimov. Soon after the Reagan announcement, a blue-ribbon group which included former President Carter, and such eminent cold warriors as Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, Cyrus Vance, Maxwell Taylor and W. Averell Harriman, was formed to oppose it. They declared that it “would bring about a dangerous new phase of the nuclear arms race.” Since every one of these gentlemen had presided over the expansion of our nuclear arsenal, what was it they feared? Though the Reagan “revolution” was successful in implementing a good deal of its economic agenda within the first year in office, one deep-seated item begged greater development. Defense Secretary Weinberger stated it succinctly to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 1, 1984: “If we can get a system which is effective and which we know can render their weapons impotent, we would be back in a situation we were in, for example, when we were the only nation with the nuclear weapon and we did not threaten others with it.” Not since the early Eisenhower era has the U.S. been able to claim unchallenged global supremacy—Pax Americana. But this was short-lived, as the U.S.S.R. suddenly unveiled its own atomic force. Since that time, each power’s nuclear and technological breakthroughs have been hastily echoed by the other’s. Recent arms control agreements were designed to bring about a perpetual impasse—Pax Atomica. Conceived as though such agreements are unnecessary encumber- ances, Star Wars offers the potential of “once-and-for-all” overpowering Russia both technologically and economically. It is a race that promises visions of grandeur to our President—obsessed with being number one. The Star Wars proposal isn’t completely novel. Our space program has been largely a defense operation from its inception. Hundreds of satellites with military missions currently circle our globe. The Administration has plans to deploy 112 ASAT’s (anti-satellites weapons) beginning in 1987. Even this fledgling ASAT program skirts perilously close to violating the existing ABM treaties between the two nations, while offering an opening wedge for further space program development. But the Reagan Star Wars’ announcement portends a much greater leap forward. The Pentagon’s top scientist, Richard DeLauer, stated that the prospects for ultimate success with Star Wars are dependent on breakthroughs in eight key technologies, each “equivalent to or greater than the Manhattan Project.” An early version of Star Wars encouraged us to imagine an “Astrodome” of protection over our entire population, or at least over our major cities, while later announcements have indicated the protection might be designed solely for hardened silos. No version discounts the expense of the project, all intended to intimidate and bankrupt our opponent while offering a bonanza of spending for defense-minded scientists and companies. Each nations has nearly 10,000 nuclear warheads targeted against the other or major allies. A single warhead is sufficient to destroy Nagasaki several times over. And given the history of U.S.-Soviet confrontation, for each Star Wars’ advance, there would be concomitant response, in increased numbers of warheads, decoys or related technological developments. The Union of Concerned Scientists recently published The Fallacy of Star Wars, a book which outlines the large array of obstacles any space technology would have to confront: “To defend U.S. society totally, then, attacking missiles must be intercepted soon after they leave their launch sites or while they are traversing space. Interception means the delivery of a blow to the enemy powerful enough to disrupt it in some way. This is precisely where the constraints of geometry and physics enter, for it is only in science fiction that unlimited amounts of energy can be transmitted over arbitrarily large distances against a tiny target moving at great speed.” In summary, to be successful, Star Wars must supercede several immutable laws of nature and basic scientific principles—the force of gravity, the earth’s rotation and the den sity of the atmosphere—and must devise TABLE OF CONTENTS ^over Matt Wuerker Guatemala—Inside the Ixil Triangle Arun Nevader (with Michael Richards).......................4 Lorenzo Valencia’s Salon Politique Catherine Lord ..............................8 It’s the Thought that Counts Christina V. Pacosz ........................12 Garfish, Chili Dogs and the Human Torch— A Remembrance of Richard Brautigan Keith Abbott ................................. 16 The Day After WWIII (an excerpt) Edward Zuckerman ........................21 1976—Soon I Shall Be Released Sharon Doubiago...........................26 Broken English—Three Stories Jason Patt.....................................30 Ad Index ............................................ 29 The Clinton St. Quarterly is published in both Oregon and Washington editions by CSQ— A Project of Out of the Ashes Press. Washington Address: 1520 Western Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101, (206),682 2404; Oregon address: P.O. Box 3588, Portland, OR 97208, (503) 222 6039. Unless otherwise noted, all contents copyright© 1985, Clinton St. Quarterly. a way to make lasers and X rays effectively penetrate hardened missile shields, moving at great speeds, all within such extremely brief periods and against such great numbers that the advantage would still lie with the attacker. As proposed, this defense would not be able to detect or intercept Cruise missiles, which fly low enough to escape even radar detection for up to several thousand miles, thus leaving our European and Asian allies completely exposed. Submarine- launched missiles would be exceedingly difficult to intercept. Star Wars can also be seen as a bluff, a terrifying chip which thoroughly destabilizes already strained relations. As the only nation that has to date employed atomic weapons, the U.S. cannot pass itself off as innocuous. And the Soviet Union, encircled by adversaries, finds itself feeling backed into a corner, despite the fact we are far from implementation of any part of the Strategic Defense Initiative. U.S. allies have little reason to be overjoyed, for Star Wars appears to offer them little or no protection. Hamburg’s Die Zeit stated in January that “if no steps are taken to prevent the militarization of space, any hope for an end to the arms race is unrealistic.” Many commentators have suggested that Star Wars is likely to bring about the effective end of the NATO alliance. The struggle for us here is even graver, for the Reagan forces have effectively tapped into the fears and fantasies of the American people—to be at once safe and in control of world events—this nation of “manifest destiny.” The Reagan “revolution” is playing live on small and large screens, in video parlors, classrooms, homes and offices, across the nation. Though perhaps it will be possible to curtail or eliminate Star Wars through traditional political means, the problem is much larger. We need to reach the American people on the same turf—live and in color—with images of an alternative that offers visions of peace and partnership on the world scene. May the force be with us. DM Clinton St. Quarterly 3
X * I GUATEMALA k INSIDE THE ; :k<AlX IL i TRIANGLE J PHOTOS AND STORY BY ARUN NEVADER (WITH MICHAEL RICHARDS) communities in Guatemala's Quiche province. All of them were built by the Guatemalan Army. Heading north from the capital city, we traveled overland 100 miles to the mountainous Ixil Triangle. Here we discovered for ourselves what we had expected. Nearly every dwelling and public building in the Ixil (pronounced ee-sheel) region outside of the main population centers of Nebaj, Chajul, and Coat- zal was burned. What had once been fertile and productive agricultural countryside has now become a wasteland. It is the war zone, where civilization ends and counter-insurgency begins. From 1981 to 1983, the Guatemalan Army adopted scorched-earth and search-and-destroy tactics to effectively eliminate a growing revolutionary movement that began in the Ixcan lowlands of Quiche. Thousands of civilians were systematically killed as the army moved through the region burning houses, crops and livestock. As one senior military commander in the area justifyingly told us, “The guerrillas are to the people as the fish are to the sea. If we cannot catch the fish, we will dry up the sea.” Tens of thousands fled their homes into the remote mountain woods. Only recently have they begun to come out of hiding. The army has declared some areas “safe” for repopulation. Refugees returning to the area are placed in one of these zones or model villages, where they are re-oriented into a new social framework. We visited Acul, the army’s showcase model village just a few kilometers north of Nebaj. At the military command overlooking the village, we were given an army guide who escorted us through the area. Rows of wood-frame houses lined the new streets. There was an alien order to the grids of mill-finish aluminum roofs, as if this entire scheme had been imported from some foreign boom-town manufacturer. Acul had all the makings of a new society, even if it sat in the middle of an ecological moonscape. The new street signs defined the new order—Avenida Reconstruction or Calle Los Patrulleros. Children were everywhere, the army kept a low profile. There was a roadside tienda, where villagers could buy sodas, batteries, gum, soap—the basics. The army oversees several agencies responsible for bringing water, electricity, roads, health care, experimental agricultural 4 Clinton St. Quarterly
plots, and craft industries to the new community. At one facility men and women produce blankets on handmade looms. All of the work in Acul has a new ideological underpinning. Blankets, for example, have nationalist slogans woven into the textile commemorating the beginning of the new society. Counter-insurgency war in Guatemala has taken a psychological turn. Now that the bond between the people and the guerrillas has been shattered by the shock tactics of phase-one counter-insurgency, the army now hopes to win the hearts and minds of the Indian population with its new phase-two plan—economic redevelopment and political indoctrination. The brutal efficiency of the army’s search-and-destroy policy has left the Ixil civilian population in a state of cultural confusion and crisis. People who were at one time sympathetic to rebel causes, now blame the guerrillas for their suffering, even though they acknowledge that the army dished it out. The Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP) did in fact make some disastrous mistakes following the overthrow of Somoza by the Sandinistas in 1979. They mistook Guatemala’s powerful military force for an anemic Nicaraguan National Guard. According to refugee testimony, the rebels made military promises to the highland Indians that could not be kept. When the army moved into the region, the rebels were forced to retreat as the number of civilian deaths hit staggering figures, with estimates well over fifty thousand. That the guerrillas are fighting for social change and the self-determination of their people doesn’t seem to mean much to Ixil Indians now hoping just to survive. At least not for the present time. The army is filling the void it has created with promises of economic development and protection. They are fueling this “new beginning” with a major infusion of money and technical assistance in the area. Many inhabitants of the model villages feel complacent about their new life, even though they now find themselves under the complete control of the military. A controlled society and a forced participation in a civil patrol/defense program is for now a more acceptable existence than the alternative—living on the run with the guerrillas. Population control is the ultimate end to phase-two counter-insurgency. Well-trained by United States and Israeli personnel, the Guatemalan Army now understands that it can control the population by manipulating the food supply and the labor market. Much of the army’s success should be credited to Israel, the major weapons supplier to Guatemala. Since the midSeventies, Israel has provided the Guatemalan Army with a wide range of sophisticated military hardware. Central America Report (December 14,1984) details the type of aid Guatemala is currently receiving: all-terrain Arava planes, Galil assault rifles, Uzi submachine guns, bazookas, 81mm mortars, grenade launchers, RBY-MK light tanks, Dabier patrol boats and hundreds of tons of light arms and ammunition. Beyond the arms supply, the Israeli Tadiran company has reportedly installed a computerized telecommunications system in Guatemala with a military electronics and transmission school. During 1983-84 the army began producing ammunition in a factory operating in the department of Alta Ver- apaz, set up with the assistance of the Israeli Eagle Military Gear firm. During the Rios Montt regime, in 1982, Israel apparently provided the Guatemalan Army with the models for strategic hamlets and civil defense patrols. A Guatemalan military official was quoted as saying, “Many of our technicians have been trained in Israel. The kibbutz and moshav models are very much a part of our spirit.” We walked the town at our own pace with our army escort, Corporal Gutierrez. There was little or no show of weapons. Things changed when we reached the village perimeter. Gutierrez reached into his pocket and pulled out a hand grenade. This was standard practice when A BLISTERING AFTERNOON SUN KEPT DROPPING BEHIND A HEAVY WINDSWEPT FOG. AT THE 9000-FT. ALTITUDE THERE WAS NO CERTAINTY IN THE ELEMENTS, AS IF THE GODS WERE WELCOMING US TO A BLACKNESS IN THE SOUL OF THIS COUNTRY. Clinton St. Quarterly 5
reaching the edge of town. He made it clear to us that the countryside is by no means secure, even if the surrounding hills are completely defoliated. No one is permitted to live outside the model village area, giving the army a tactical advantage in the hills. There is an impressive new road that links the model villages of Acul and Tzal- bal with the larger center of Nebaj. The Guatemalan Army Engineer Brigade is responsible for the project. They are using heavy equipment to carve a road along the steep, severely-eroded mountainsides. In order to complete the road quickly, the army is using modern construction technology instead of relying on the physical labor of local civilians, as it has in other communities. Progress is substantial. Road construction from Tzal- bal began in February and already extends about four kilometers. There are serious problems with washouts caused by heavy rains and defoliated hillsides. Plans are to extend the road to Barrillas, Huehuetenango, through the burned-out Ixil communities of Palob and Sumal, which are also slated to be recontructed into model villages. Because there are few civilians working on the road construction, the guerrillas who remain in the hills are constantly har- rassing the army brigade construction crew with gunfire. At times the harrass- ment has been crushing. Salquil lies 12 kilometers north of Tzal- bal. We left for this remote hamlet with a civil patrol at 7:00 a.m. A squad of six soldiers joined us on the new army road and took us down the valley to the Rio Sichel. The terrain got rugged as soon as we left the road. We descended a few hundred feet to the riverbed. No one liked being down by the river any longer than it took to cross the rocks. An ambush was very possible. Earlier in the morning, the squad had exchanged gunfire with guerrillas. We stopped well above the danger zone, about 150 feet beyond the riverbed. Here we would wait for the patrol from Salquil to take us there. Civil patrol members took defensive positions along the hillside, and the soldiers sat with us at the lead. We waited and talked for two hours. We fought off the ants and learned about the Galil rifle, the Israeli-made standard issue in the Guatemalan Army. We talked with Miguel, the squad leader, about the mountain war and asked if they had managed to capture any subversives. “Oh yes,” he said. “We've gotten a whole bunch. The population too. Refugees. Each time we go out we take maybe 50 or 60 away from them. You know, the ones who have helped them by working.... Well, this is what we’re living. We’ve got to take the population away from them. That way they don’t get any help from the people. Because the people are the ones who feed them and all that. These people are foolish. All the people from around here. They’re always with the guerrillas, you know. But other people, like those from the Oriente or the coast, those don’t. It’s very rare that you’ll find people there with the guerrillas. Only in the province of Quiche.... Well, maybe they don’t understand. It’s very easy to fool them. But yes, we have taken away much, much of the population. And then when we take them, we do an investigation. And they talk. And then they take us and show us where the other family members are. Right?” Miguel got on his radio to find our escort. He told us that the trip from the river to Salquil would be grueling. The next seven kilometers would be straight up and done quickly. The escort finally arrived. We were surprised to see thirty soldiers. We had expected half a dozen. They were heavily armed with automatic weapons, grenades and mortars. We left the civil patrol behind and started our ascent to Salquil. The trail was a vertical plane from the river to what seemed to be the heavens. We hiked quickly, in total silence. If one of us fell behind, a handful of soldiers would fall back, urging us on. Evidence of the earlier days appeared along the path—rural dwellings now burnouts, farmland cut down into wasted fields. Nobody anywhere, except for a single farmer we saw along the way. He was tending a field with a few tufts of corn, working low to the ground with a machete. A soldier dropped back to observe him as we passed. That he could be part of an ambush crossed everyone’s mind. The platoon halted. Starting with the point man, Children in army-control Tzalbal assembled to sing the Guatemalan National Anthem. the patrol counted off by passing consecutive numbers back to the rear which stretched about 200 feet down the trail. We came up one number short. The count was repeated. They had miscounted. We continued upward, too exhausted almost to let the fear of taking our last step get the better of us. We made it to the top in two hours and could see our destination in the far distance. The new town of Salquil is strategically located on a saddleback hill about one kilometer northwest of the old town center. As we approached we could see the burned-out shells of the old town church, the auxiliary municipal building, the charred frames of other dwellings that stood nakedly as a testament to a darker period in Salquil’s history. The physical evidence is disappearing quickly, since refugees living here scavenge the ruins for possible construction materials. Our physical exhaustion gave way to a quiet marvel at what lay before us. Clusters of straw and cornstalk huts dotted the peak in the distance. A blistering afternoon sun kept dropping behind a heavy windswept fog. Everything felt extreme. At the 9000-ft. altitude there was no cerTHE MAN WITH THE BAD HANDS I t was raining as in the Old Testament, an Indian farmer reminded us when we talked to him in Tzalbal. He believed in the Apocalypse, and that it was happening now. Another man invited us into his house to talk. We noticed the scar on his face. It stretched from the right corner of his mouth about three inches horizontally across his cheek. His hands were bad too. “Our house is no longer there,” he said. “Everything was burned." “Who burned it?” we asked. “The soldiers, because the soldiers would pass by and see that no one was living in these houses. And just like that, the shots came. The guerrillas would shoot at the soldiers, and the soldiers would think that we were the guerrillas. And that’s why they would burn the houses. Well, when they burned the houses what were we to do? Where were we going to live? Under the rain? Under the sun? When the soldiers began to slash down our cornfields, what were we going to eat? But when we came here, we came to learn the truth, that the subversives misled all the people.” “When the people died, who was doing the killing?” “Well,” he said, “there were a lot of people the soldiers killed because they fled. Suppose, let’s say, if the people were hiding in some ravine, and the guerrillas were shooting at the soldiers, and the soldiers were shooting back at the guerrillas and dropping bombs, then the people who were around the area had to die. Many people died at the hands of the soldiers, and the guerrillas too. Many people died because of hunger also. People no longer had medicine or food. Women and children had nothing to eat. And sickness, there was no medicine for that. There was nothing. People were living in the bushes. All the vital things were gone. People got thinner and thinner. Many died. Many came into town very sick. Oh, how they suffered. “The guerrillas would wait for the soldiers by the rivers. Sometimes, they would kill them. Many soldiers were killed in the hamlets—-everywhere. And then afterward, more soldiers would come, very angry. When the soldiers thought that we were the ones giving food to the guerrillas, that’s when they decided to kill us. There were four helicopters that came down over on Chabuk, my village behind that mountain. Thirty-two people died, 32 just like that. Quickly. But that was just one hamlet. Then the helicopters moved on to another hamlet. Who knows how many died there? “I think it’s because of the subversives, it’s because of them. They said, ‘You people, don’t worry. We are here to defend you. When the soldiers come, we are going to battle them. And they will either die here, or will have to retreat. You will be able to continue your lives in tranquility. Then we’re going to the town, and we’ll kill all the soldiers there. And then little by little, we’re going to do this until we arrive at the capital city. And then we’re going to finish with all of theni. And the government is going to be thrown out—the soldiers, the foreigners, the rich people. We are going to throw them all out. We are Indians, and we have to know our own country, our own land, Guatemala!' We believed them.” tainty in the elements, as if by some subtle weather game, the gods were welcoming us to a blackness in the soul of this country no outsider had ever before witnessed. We had finally reached the front line in this war. Unlike Acul or Tzalbal, there were no government pretensions for Salquil. The army had no one to impress here. Why they allowed us to make the trip, we were never quite sure. T h e army established its small garrison at Salquil in January of 1984. The de- stacamento there is maintained by 100 soldiers. The garrison sits high above the village, where guards can easily observe activity and protect the military installation from guerrilla attack. .50-caliber machinegun bunkers guard the perimeter. The surrounding hillside is lined with rows of sharpened wooden spikes that lace the few patches of corn. When we entered Salquil, we were brought directly to the garrison, a mountain tree fort dug into the peak with great expertise. Tunnels and trenches criss-crossed the pine-covered camp. The trees growing inside the garrison were the only ones standing for as far as one could see. Everything else had been cut down. We were brought to the Commanding Officer’s headquarters—a grass hut with thatched roof and mud floor. Inside the cook had a fire set up under two old machetes and a pair of empty steel ammunition boxes. The company first lieutenant greeted us. We sat at the hand- hewn table and talked about the war. The platoon commander who brought us into Salquil joined us. Before long, he pulled a Sony short-wave pocket radio from his fatigue coat, and the conversation turned to Miami. Miami was a fantastic place, they thought. We listened to the news coming from Tegucigalpa. There was a report about the U.S. military installing a new spy center along the Honduras-Salvador border. We listened to Guatemala City Top 40, the Civil Patrol National Anthem, lots of white noise. We waited for the captain to arrive. We were surprised to find these soldiers so friendly, so normal. We had heard of the infamous shock troops, the butcher battalions that had come through here in 1982. They wore white aprons and carried machetes when they came through a village like this qne. We heard reports of civilians being hacked to pieces, human bonfires, babies being used as target practice, disemboweled pregnant women— death as a terror tactic. The kind of killing required of these earlier soldiers demanded a certain mind-set that no longer fits the situation in Salquil. The Army is now concerned with resettling the countryside. Hired killers in uniform have been replaced with crack troops who are both well-trained and highly disciplined. They are all ladino (non-lndian) with the exception of one or two indigenous soldiers—drafted to help in communication with the Ixil Indians. Their advanced military training is essential to fight the remaining elusive guerrillas, but more importantly, they are apparently not as abusive to the civilian population as the earlier soldiers. Most of the 2,000 people living in Salquil were inhabitants of the old town. In August of 1982, survivors, who had been living like animals in the hills, trekked down to Nebaj under the leadership of an evangelical pastor gamed Tomas. They remained in the refugee settlement known as La Pista, or Ak Tzumba! for almost a year and a half before the army resettled them here. Then the army began adding new refugees to the settlement. Some came voluntarily, but more often they were routed from the hills by the army and civil patrol units. There is a basic pattern to army pacification of this region. First a garrison is established in hostile guerrilla-controlled territory. Then patrols are sent to rout out civilians hiding in the hills. At the time of our visit, civil patrol units from Tzalbal were sweeping the hills around the Salquil area. The army couldn’t rely on the Salquil men. Either they were too weak from malnutrition to go on the difficult patrols or army commanders were not fully convinced of their loyalty. The army has complete control over the movement of people in Salquil, even though the area is surrounded by guerrilla territory. No one leaves or enters the model village without the army knowing it. Villagers who travel this route must present legitimate reason for doing so, and soldiers often accompany larger groups traveling between Tzalbal and Nebaj. We heard most of this from the captain after he arrived. A small, thin, almost delicate man, he seemed to be an odd choice for a post like Salquil. He could have been a librarian, if he wasn’t already the leader of an elite combat company. He was educated and spoke very clearly. He lied only when forced to. We asked him what a 15-foot pit was doing in the middle of the garrison. He told us a bunker had caved in. We all knew it wasn't a bunker and that it had another purpose. We knew the army had ways to make people talk. This hole in the ground was a water pit used on civilians under interrogation. They would stand waist-deep in water for as long as it took them to talk. He took us on a walk around the camp. We walked to the edge and looked out across the valley. He pointed to the cornfields tended by the “uncommitted” Ixil Indians, the corn that feeds the “enemy.” It was also the only corn around. The captain encouraged us to go down into the village and talk with the people. I t didn't take long to hear about the food supply once we left the garrison and walked freely throughout Salquil. Much of 6 Clinton St. Quarterly
the food that goes to feed the refugees comes from forays into guerilla-controlled land. Only the day before we arrived did the first shipment of food appear from the Committee of National Reconstruction (CRN)—six months after Salquil was established. The few supplies that make it come overland on the backs of Indians from Tzalbal. The army offers no airlift assistance. The walk is by no means an easy one. Starvation in this community cameras away. A soldier approached us shortly thereafter. He spoke deliberately, telling us that photographs of the de- stacamento were strictly forbidden. Was it his job to tell us this? We heard no such request of command from the officers. We weren’t going to make an issue of it. An uneasiness overcame us. Perhaps we were overextending our welcome. If we stayed in Salquil, there was nothing left for us to do except take part in an army * SOARING HEART WHAT HAD ONCE BEEN FERTILE AND PRODUCTIVE AGRICULTURAL COUNTRYSIDE HAS NOW BECOME A WASTELAND, IT IS THE WAR ZONE, WHERE CIVILIZATION ENDS AND COUNTER-INSURGENCY BEGINS. has little in common with the sort of famine in Ethiopia. Although entirely possible, full-scale land cultivation runs contrary to practical counter-insurgency policy in the Guatemalan highlands. The army keeps arable farmland unplanted for two reasons. If the land is barren there is no food or shelter for the guerrillas. Secondly, the army uses hunger as a control mechanism over the rural population. The scorched-earth policy is not just a brutal act of retribution exacted on the civilian population to even the score for numerous army deaths. As one military commander told us, the Guatemalan Army is winning a “war of hunger.” We spoke with an old man who had recently come out of the mountains with the civil patrol. “Over there,” he said, “behind that mountain, we were refugees over there. Yeah, perhaps for 8 months. Every time the soldiers would come, they would frighten us. And then we’d have to flee into the mountains. The patrols would come from Nebaj first, and that’s how we would come in with them. We came in with the civil patrol. We were afraid to come in with soldiers, because everyone says the soldiers kill.... And then they came, and they burned everything. The houses, the corn—the soldiers burned everything since there were no owners.” The effects of counter-insurgency are most severe on people living in an area like Salquil. There are no roads linking them with the outside world, and they are living in actively-contested territory. Besides widespread malnutrition, there are many medical needs not being met. Although there is an army nurse dispensing limited medications for diarrhea and dysentary, there are no antibiotics to fight serious infections among many children and adults. Most of the many shelves in the village infirmary were empty. By late afternoon the fog had completely overtaken the hilltop. It brought with it a wet, chilly mountain air. Everybody had a fire going. We listened to a roomful of Indians singing their evening Catholic service. Then walking back to the garrison above, we met the captain. He was leaving immediately for Nebaj patrol. That was an unnecessary risk we chose not to pursue. We decided to leave that morning. An army platoon would escort us back to Tzalbal. The return trip passed quickly. We made it back to the road by noon. Army engineers advanced with D8 earth-movers and heavyweight Caterpillars. An army combat escort filled out the construction convoy with massive tandem-axle troop transports to back up the road crew. The platoon commander read our minds instantly. Could we hitch a ride with one of the convoy trucks back to Tzalbal? “No,” he said. It was much safer to walk, he thought. His thoughts proved prophetic. Two weeks later, the Engineer Brigade lost seventeen soldiers in a guerrilla attack on that road. Salquil is a model village in formation. It is also a classic counter-insurgency success. The guerrillas and their support base were devastated by a brutally effective scorched-earth policy during the Lucas Garcia and Rios Montt regimes. Then the army sought to nucleate the surviving population in strategic hamlets that could be further expanded into model villages. We spoke with the senior army commander of Quiche province. For him, it is a lamentable fact that for centuries the Ixil Indians had been virtually abandoned by the rest of Guatemalan society and its government. This, he claimed, is why the guerrillas were able to persuade the people to join them. Now that the civilian population has been wrested from the guerrillas, he feels that the Ixil Indians are finally embarking on a new development phase. This Guatemalan commander is not alone in viewing the matter from an urban perspective. Indeed the army program is almost identical with the policies of reduction and congregation used to forcibly nucleate the indigenous people here after the Spanish Conquest nearly 450 years ago. The reasons for doing this now are the same as they were then. Apart from the obvious military advantages, the aim of the model village program is to ur- "WE'VE GOT TO TAKE THE POPULATION AWAY FROM THEM. BECAUSE THE PEOPLE ARE THE ONES WHO FEED THEM AND ALL THAT. THESE PEOPLE ARE FOOLISH. THEY'RE ALWAYS WITH THE GUERRILLAS." with a patrol. We continued on to his hut to have dinner with his lieutenants. The captain’s table was quite complete. There was salt, chilis, instant milk, sugar, hot sauce, coffee. The cook fixed us a meal of white rice with chilis, black beans, scrambled eggs with onions, stacks of fresh tortillas, avocados, dried pork rinds, orange Tang and coffee. We slept at the garrison that night in a tiny hut near the perimeter. The second lieutenant reminded us that if we needed to leave our hut during the night to pee, we had better let it be known very loudly—or we’d probably be shot. Morning broke. We waited for the sun to rise before leaving the hut. We had the opportunity to walk the destacamento grounds unattended. There were few soldiers around. There was an edginess in the air that day. Maybe it was our own faltering sense of security that struck us, but we felt markedly less comfortable with the captain gone. We hastily took several photographs and decided to put our banize the Indians, to “civilize” them, to bring them into the fold of a larger national system. In the context of counter-insurgency, the model village program is seen as a temporary solution to the problem of Indians living in dispersed settlement—as they have done for the last 1500 years. Whether this policy is temporary or permanent, the Guatemalan Army can never hope to win the hearts and minds of the Ixil Indians by obliterating their race or incinerating their countryside. A senior army spokesman told us that the model village program is designed to prevent the rural population from “living in the mouth of the wolf” and to “provide protection.” We can only ask—protection from whom? Or ask the army base commander in Nebaj. He will recall for you what the Americans did to their own Indians. Arun Nevader and Michael Richards of Berkeley, California visited both Guatemala and El Salvador last year. This is their first story in the CSQ. Clinton St. Quarterly Buying a bed is not like buying a car or a boat or a coat. 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LORENZO VALENCIA'S V Clinton St. Quarterly But in many ways for Lorenzo it is the best of times. He works at a travel agency. His degree wafe in art, and he has a few good drawings to show for it, but there A NUCLEAR LOVE STORY By Catherine Lord Illustrations by Liza von Rosenstiel ometimes when the planes fly very close overhead they make a slow, sonorous blare, and Lorenzo trembles a little and thinks: this is it, the final clarion, the last blast, the storm before the eternal calm. Lorenzo lives too near the airport. once it was sonic booms, now it’s nuclear bombs he worries about. He reads the newspaper too much. He suffers Black Box Syndrome. He writes the local chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility—asks them, is there a cure? But before he receives a reply, he hears one of them on the radio, Dr. Gremlin, who gutturally describes the futility of evacuation plans and the President's civil defense program, in a way it excites Lorenzo; thinking he will live to die from it gives him a chaotic pleasure. was no money in that. Painting, traveling, isn’t it all the same, Lorenzo reasoned, and so he went to work for a travel agency while there were still jobs. Now Lorenzo helps travelers secure passports, understand visa regulations, learn foreign currency and exchange, select wardrobes for tropical climates, meet health requirements and custom regulations, insure their baggage and bodies, obtain traveler’s checks and letters of credit, rent cars, see sights, request vegetarian and kosher meals on the plane. Lorenzo pays his annual dues to the National Association of Travel Organizations; he studies the history of travel. In 1841 Thomas Cook, an Englishman, invented the guided tour. Cook escorted English gentry on camels past the pyramids of Egypt, on carnages through the narrow streets of gay Paris, on gondolas past the ancient castles nestled on the banks of the Rhine. And now, in 1982, Lorenzo Valencia works for a travel agency called Camels and Castles. He makes enough money to pay his bills and travel. He has his own BMW sports car from Bavaria, Persian rug, cinnabar vases from China, and a blonde girlfriend. Heather, light as a feather, from upstate New York, who paints Lorenzo and knows all his-muscles and their origins intimately and by name. Meather paints Lorenzo in greens and murky blues while he reads to her from the newspaper. A headline reads: REAGAN LIFTS GRAIN EMBARGO ANOTHER YEAR. It’s okay to trade with the Russians. Lorenzo reads an article on the next page. Reagan implores the British not to buy Siberian gas from the Russians. It’s not okay to trade with the Russians. Trade, don't trade. Stop, don't stop. Lorenzo knows just how the President feels. He had read A Tale of Two Cities in college: it was the worst of times, it was the best of times. Sometimes life is just like that, Lorenzo thinks: contradictory. “Listen to this,” Lorenzo says. “Don’t move your arm," Heather instructs him, and she repositions his clavicle in burnt orange. “Governor Fob James of Mobile, Alabama asked that a law suit regarding school prayers be dismissed on the ground that God is not in the legal jurisdiction of Mobile.” “Are you sure you don’t have that backwards?” “What, my arm?" “No, Fob James. Shouldn't it be James Fob?” “It says right here, Governor Fob James.” Heather shrugs her shoulders, then paints Lorenzo's shoulders. “Sounds backwards to me,” she says. "Anyway, I know a little about law suits. My father had a leisure suit once, but mother left it in the dryer too long, and it got all wrinkled. She tried to iron it, but the polyester melted under the heat. Father tried to blame it on the Semites—they have all the oil, and polyester is petrol-based, you see. Still, the last time God was on earth, at least to my knowledge, wasn't it on Mt. Sinai? And I think that’s in a Semitic legal jurisdiction. Maybe they should have their trial there. Lorenzo, please, you know how much trouble I have with hands, now sit still and don’t move!” “The Falkland Islanders are suing the British government for damages suffered when they were driving out the Argentine junta.” “Well, doesn’t that beat all?" “It says here, one person is suing for a jar of jam.” “What kind of jam?" “What difference does it make what kind of jam?" As he turns the newspaper over, Lorenzo wishes Heather were more politically astute. “Don't move, Lorenzo.” She moves down his torso to his loins, where his body is still. “President Reagan got stuck in an
elevator between floors in the White House." "How scary." “Yes, but it gets worse. His aide, the one who carries the black box and follows the President around, wasn’t with him. Do you know what that means?” “Lorenzo, there’s not really a black box.” “Yes there is. It says so right here. And the man who carries it around wasn't with the President. That means that for those few moments while Reagan was stuck between floors, if the Soviets had attacked us, we would have been completely defenseless.” ’'There’s no black box,” Heather repeats. She notices his penis has shifted; he is fully erect, and he is smiling at her, smiling and trembling. The fear rouses his desires. “There is," Lorenzo pleads. “Imagine it." A plane flies close above them, and Heather puts down her brush. She moves to him like wet paint spilling across a canvas she has painted over countless times. Lorenzo, Lorenzo, let down your long hair. Outside and up the hill from Heather's apartment, the Post-ln- telligencer globe slowly pirouettes for Lorenzo. He hopes that when the two papers merge, the large blue map of the earth remains; to Lorenzo, it is as much a part of Seattle as the Space Needle. When Lorenzo arrives at Heather's apartment for dinner, she is painting signs. She has not made any dinner, but she tells him there is beer in the fridge. Lorenzo helps himself to a beer and then stands over Heather, who is sprawled out on the floor, painting “STOP TRIDENT,” red on white. "I’m famished," Lorenzo tells her. “Weil, I'm famished, too," says Heather, “but you know sometimes it’s more important to paint signs than to feed your face.” “You're going to the rally Sunday?” Lorenzo asks. “Yes, and I think you should, too.” “When did you become so political?” “Today,” Heather answers. In her furor she paints “STOOP TRIDENT.” “Now look what you made rr e do, she says when she realizes her error. “But way today?" “Lorenzo, do you know what happened thirty-seven years ago tomorrow?” "Yes, I read the paper. They bombed Hiroshima.” • "We bombed Hiroshima,” Heather corrects him. “I never bombed Hiroshima.” Lorenzo wishes Heather were less politically astute. “Not to protest is to bomb,” says •; >• Heather. .. -B oe ’i- ■ o o “But I wasn’t even born yet when they bombed Hiroshima.” “But you're alive today. And today they—no, we—tested a nuclear bomb just seventy-seven miles northeast of Las Vegas. Nevada." “No one got hurt in the desert there. It's not the same. Heather, my dove, my feather.” ■ c “it shook hotels,” Heather says. “The ground caved in where they blasted the bomb.” She stands and walks to her kitchen table. Lorenzo follows. “And they're not even planning to fill in the hole. There,” she says, pointing to a letter on - - ■ the table. “You can read my letter. The damage is already done, but I thought we a; ’ might as welt make the m ■ • Lorenzo reads the letter Dear President Reagan, I have been to Nevada and I know it is very hot there. There are not enough swimming pools because it is so expensive to dig holes. I know because my brother is an undertaker in y ’ Reno, and he is the only one in his ; ; neighborhood who can afford a swimming pool. If you are going to blast holes in the ground, why don't you put them to good use, and build swimming pools where the ground has sunk in, so people in Nevada who cannot afford • swimming pools can get some enjoy- ‘ ment out of them. Sincerely, Heather Fern McGuire Lorenzo looks out the window. “Maybe we should go out to dinner,” he suggests. Outside, on the globe, he thinks he detects a small hole where Nevada should be. "Sure,” Heather says, grabbing her purse and a small package. “And maybe we should go to the Trident rally tomorrow." On the way to the car, Heather drops a package of raspberry jam, neatly neatly wrapped in brown paper and strapping tape, and addressed to the Falkland Islands Treasury Department, into a mailbox. At the rally. Lorenzo doesn't know most of the songs the protesters are singing. Some of them are easy to learn. "Ronald Reagan ain’t no good, send him back to Hollywood." He has heard that one before, but most of the others are alien to him, so he stands next to Heather, who seems to know all the words, and pretends he represents Deaf Mutes for Nuclear Disarmament. He watches a small confrontation to the rear of one of the crowds. "If you had to live in another country, you wouldn’t be hei e today I” a tall, balding man shouts to the crowd. “If you saw how it was in other countries, you'd see why we have to defend this country with those Trident subs!” Lorenzo wonders sadly who the man’s travel agent is. Lorenzo sees his customers before they take their vacations; he hopes most of them have had a better time than the tall, balding man appears to have had. Lorenzo pulls a business card from his jacket pocket and shyly puts it into the man’s angry hand. Then he walks back to find Heather, but she has moved up in the crowd, so he stands helplessly, facing the crowd's virtuous back, feeling like a spare prick at a wedding. When he finally spots her, and tells her he is ready to leave, she tells him she has found a ride home with a group of political artists she has met at the rally." They have no name, she says, but they have a big van. Lorenzo drives home alone in his BMW. I want to go to Kuwait," the man in I Camels and Castles tells Lorenzo. Lorenzo has never planned a vacation in Kuwait for anybody. He suspects the middle-aged man is a terrorist. “Why Kuwait?” Lorenzo asks. "I like to hawk.” ; “It really doesn’t matter to us how you pay for the trip, Mr. Boyd," Lorenzo explains. “Don't worry. I can pay." Mr. Boyd tells Lorenzo. “They have good hawking in i Kuwait, no?" “Depends. What do you want to hock?” “Hawks, of course.” J- ’.“Oh, hawking.” “Yes, that's right." : “Are you aware of what's happening over there right now, Mr. Boyd?” ‘No, I only want to go hawking I don’t care about any Mardis gras or festivities." "It's not exactly Mardis gras time in ; Kuwait, Mr. Boyd.” “I don’t know about this. I only read they have very good hawking there, in Kuwait. - I have read this.” “They have very good oil there, too,” Lorenzo says, but Mr. Boyd only looks at him naively. “Do you read the newspaper, Mr. Boyd?” Lorenzo stands, for effect. “No, I am an ornithologist." “Well, then perhaps you haven't heard...” Mr. Boyd looks up at Lorenzo with anxious eyes, and Lorenzo realizes he doesn't have the heart to tell Mr. Boyd about troubles in the Middle East. “You see, they are having a terrible time with their hawks. They lost quite a few last season, and they have had to impose fierce restrictions on hawking." “Oh. that is very sad " Mr. Boyd shakes his head sadly and stands. 'Well, then I will come back next year, and talk with you about my trip then.” He shakes Lorenzo’s hand and turns to leave. Lorenzo's boss. Mr Quackenbush, who has probably heard their entire conversation glares at Lorenzo from across the room, daring him to lose a customer. “Wait, Mr. Boyd." Lorenzo thinks quickly of a bird he has seen at the zoo. “Have you ever seen a South American screamer?” Mr. Boyd smiles. "Chauna chavaria. They’re a funny bird. I have never seen them in the wild, have you?” “Yes, when I was in South America,” Lorenzo lies. “I would like to see that someday.” “You can, you know. I could arrange it—and for less than half the price of an excursion to Kuwait.” "They’re an aquatic bird, I know, but which part of the South American coast line would you recommend?” To be on the safe side, Lorenzo arranges for Mr. Boyd an excursion to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Brazil, knowing that way Mr. Boyd will cover most of the coast line on both the Pacific and the Atlantic sides. It is a red sign, Meather is painting a SAVE THE WHALES poster when Lorenzo arrives at her apartment for dinner, after work. She is using the same red poster paint she had used for the STOP TRIDENT signs. As he watches her paint, he has a horrible thought: what if the South American screamer is near extinction? Suppose Mr. Boyd never sees a South American screamer? Suppose it was the South African screamer Lorenzo had seen at the zoo? Mr. Boyd could be heading for the wrong continent. He wants to tell Mr. Boyd, “Don’t go. Wait until the problems in the Middle East work themselves out, and then take your trip to Kuwait.” He wishes he could call Mr. Boyd, but Mr. Quackenbush would surely find out. Outside Heather's apartment, below the Post Intelligencer globe, someone has written on a wall nearby, in large black gothic letters, “KEEP SEATTLE A TWO-NEWSPAPER TOWN!” Heather, finished with her poster, douses her paintbrush with running water in the kitchen. Lorenzo has an idea. “Heather, my feather, let me borrow that brush and your poster paint.” “Where are you going?” “I have to leave a message for one of my clients.” Lorenzo finds an old schoolyard, surrounded by a concrete wall, already nearly covered with graffiti. He finds a clean space, below a freshly painted message which reads; IF THE U.S. IS RIGHT, THEN WHY ARE WE SO DEFENSIVE? STOP THE BOMBS! NOW! the same color red as the poster paint in Lorenzo’s hands. The letters from the message are still wet. Lorenzo remembers when he used to deny guilt for one of his childhood crimes, and his mother would say to him, “Lorenzo, if you're telling the truth, if you really are innocent, then why are you so defensive?” Lorenzo wonders if somebody's mother had painted the sign in front of him. Lorenzo opens his jar of paint and positions his brush. He wants to paint, “Don’t go, Mr. Boyd,” but a policeman taps his shoulder before he can touch brush to , concrete. That night, Lorenzo sees Heather’s finished painting of him. He’s jealous of her, jealous that she can live on the salary her part-time job provides her with because she has no need for Persian rugs and Bavarian cars, jealous that she paints' and that she paints so well. He is jealous and resentful and flattered by her rendition, all at the same time. “My legs look disjointed,” is all he can say. His legs seem to dangle thinly from the canvas. He feels like a spider which has been caught in a closed drawer and has narrowly escaped. He wants to crawl into the corner above Heather's bookshelves. Was it a spider or a cockroach that Gregor Samsa became? Lorenzo Valencia, come down from that wall! Heather studies Lorenzo, who stands meekly before her image of him. She scans the length of his body, rests her Clinton St. Quarterly 9
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