return we expect them to guarantee stability, which means holding power by whatever means necessary for the promotion of a favorable investment climate, even if it means exterminating the population, as it has come to mean in Salvador. The military, who always admired “Generalissimo Franco,” and are encouraged in their anti-communist crusade, grow paranoid and genocidal. Soldiers tossed babies into the air near the Sumpul River last summer for target practice during the cattle-prod roundup and massacre of 600 peasants. Whole families have been gunned down or hacked to pieces with machetes, including the elderly and newborn. Now that the massacre and the struggle against it have become the occasion to “test American resolve,” the Salvadorean military is all too aware of the security of its position and the impunity with which it may operate. Why would a peasant, aware of the odds, of the significance of American backing, continue to take up arms on the side of the opposition? How is it that such opposition endures, when daily men and women are doused with gasoline and burned alive in the streets as a lesson to others; when even death is not enough, and the corpses are mutilated beyond recognition? The answer to that question in El Salvador answers the same for Vietnam. Ill W e were waved past the military ” guard station and started down the highway, swinging into the oncoming lane to pass slow sugarcane trucks and army transports. Every few kilometers, patrols trekked the gravel roadside. It was a warm night, dry but close to the rainy season. Juan palmed the column shift, chainsmoked and motioned with his hot- boxed cigarette in the direction of San Marcos. Bonfires lit by the opposition were chewing away at the dark hillside. As we neared San Salvador, passing through the slums of Candelaria, I saw that the roads were barricaded. More than once Juan attempted a short-cut but, upon spotting military checkpoints, changed his mind. To relieve the tension he dug a handful of change from his pocket and showed me his collection of deutschmark, Belgian francs, Swedish ore and kroner, holding each to the dashboard light and naming the journalist who had given it to him, the country, the paper. His prize was a coin from the Danish reporter whose cameras had been shot away as he crouched on a rooftop to photograph an army attack on protest marchers. That was a month before, on Jan. 22, 1980, when some hundred lost their lives; it was the beginning of a savage year of extermination. Juan rose from his seat and slipped the worthless coins back onto his pocket. Later that spring, Rene Tamsen of WHUR radio, Washington, D.C., would be forced by a death squad into an unmarked car in downtown San Salvador. A Salvadorean photographer, Cesar Najarro, and his Carolyn Forche’s first book, Gathering the Tribe, was published as part of the Yale Younger Poets Series in 1976. She has subsequently been awarded many honors, including Guggenheim and NEA fellowships. The Country Between Us, her second book of poems, has just been published by Harper and Row. The preceding article appeared previously in the American Poetry Review. Concerned People I he El Salvador Initiative Coalition is a Portland-based group of people * concerned about U.S. involvement in El Salvador. The Coalition membership includes representatives from the Catholic Church, unions, community organizations, student groups and concerned individuals. The Coalition is petitioning to put an initiative on the November ballot for Multnomah County which would demand a halt to all military aid to El Salvador. There will be a kick-off rally at 10 a.m., April 10, at O’Bryant Square (SW 9th and Washington). The rally will be followed in the eveDrawing by John Norris Cronica del Pueblo editor would be seized during a coffee break. When their mutilated bpdies were discovered, it would be evident that they had been disemboweled before death. A Mexican photojournalist, Ignacio Rodriguez, would fall in August to a military bullet. After Christmas an American freelancer, John Sullivan, would vanish from his downtown hotel room. Censorship of the press. In January 1981, Ian Mates would hit a land mine and the South African TV cameraman would bleed to death. In a year, no one would want the Salvador assignment. In a year, journalists would appear before cameras trembling and incredulous, unable to reconcile their perceptions with those of Washington, and even established media would begin to reflect this dichotomy. Carter policy had been to downplay El Salvador in the press while providing “quiet” aid to the repressive forces. Between 1978 and 1980, investigative articles sent to national magazines mysteriously disappeared from publication mailrooms, were oddly delayed in reaching editors, or were rejected after lengthy deliberations, most often because of El Salvador’s “low news value.” The. American inter-religious network and human rights community began to receive evidence o f .a conscious and concerted censorship effort in the United States. During interviews in 1978 with members of the Salvadorean right-wing business community, I. was twice offered large sums of money to portray their government favorably in the American press. By early 1981, desk editors knew where El Salvador was and the playdown policy had been replaced by the Reagan Administration’s propaganda effort. The right-wing military cooperated in El Salvador by serving death threats on prominent journalists, while torturing and murdering others. American writers critical of U.S. policy were described by the Department of State as “the witting and unwitting dupes” of communist propagandists. Those who have continued coverage of Salvador have found that the military monitors the wire services and all telecommunications, that pseudonyms often provide no security, that no one active in the documentation of the war of extermination can afford to be traceable in the country; effectiveness becomes self-limiting. It became apparent that my education in El Salvador had prepared me to work only until March 16, 1980, when, after several close calls, I was urged to leave the country. Monsignor Romero met with me, asking that I return to the U.S. and “tell the American people what is happening.” Do you have any messages for [certain exiled friends]?” “Yes. Tell them to come back.” “But wouldn’t they be killed?” “We are all going to be killed — you and me, all of us,” he said quietly. A week later he was shot while saying Mass in the chapel of a hospital for the incurable. ning by a benefit at the East Avenue Tavern — Wild Oats will be performing. The El Salvador Initiative Coalition needs your support. 12,000 signatures are needed to put the initiative on the ballot. If you are concerned about El Salvador, get involved. The ESIC can use volunteers and financial support. For more information, call the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee at 235-9388. THE APPLICATION, BY M ARK SARGENT EOR RIDER Cycling down Morrison down Salm'on down Montgomery to pad linoleum floors begging for seasonal work — “if you are not a U.S. citizen.’’ Will you begin work at 5 a.m. will you lift 500 pounds of shit above your head will you leap tall buildings will you sling flat latex at dizzying heights and bow down among the gardens of the city? May I please have an application for the position of field nigger. Will you use your legs as a crutch for the state’s vehicle will you make the grass grow will you sing while you work cause you’re so goddamn happy? Are you male or of mixed race? Have you ever been arrested for a felony? Have you ever sodomized a goat? Do you have skill in coaching and encouraging skill development of subordinate employees? Can you keep non English speaking peons in line? Please may I have an application for the position of field nigger. Have you door to doored your pride speaking in ancient Gaelic in order to better understand Hart Crane’s “The Bridge’’? Can you give yourself an enema and will you administer one to those who can’t? Do you mind rubbing shoulders with lepers? Do you know what a geek is, and if so, do you know what to do with one, can you count without using your fingers? Do you have five ygars experience in the editing of religious tracts, how do manuals, undergarment flyers, and execution guides, and if so, why? Can you speak with a brogue or an electric socket or an electrolux floor waxer? DRINKERS NEED NOT APPLY or anyone over 5 foot 2 or possessing more than thirteen hundred and seventy eight freckles (two or more birthmarks okay). TIRED OF YOUR OLD JOB? TOUGH, CAUSE THIS JOB’S WORSE At the completion of the examination process you have the option of feeding your examination papers into the paper shredder or asking for a loaded revolver Can you make the most of the least and the least of the most and the least of the least and the most of the most and anywhere in between? Benefits include: permanent appointment, paid vacation, sick leave, paid health insurance, dental plan, paid life insurance, social security, liberal retirement plan, a lifetime subscription to “People’’ magazine, a written guarantee that you will not die from cancer, and a plot by a babbling brook. Edible Landscapes Plantings of Fruit-Bearing Trees & Shrubs Unusual & Indigenous Herbs & Berries Complete Landscape Services 224-9512 Buy now, Eat later into a spacious double bed with a designer print cover. $125. Other sizes available. We also feature English Cotton flannel sheets, rice paper shades and tatami mats. Northwest Futon Co. Unique Oriental Gifts and Furnishings 3159 Southeast Belmont. Portland. Oregon 97214 503-238-0936 Hours: 11 to 6, Mon.-Wed.; 11 to 7, Thurs.; 11 to 6. Fri.; 11 to 5. Sat. Clinton St. Quarterly 41 Can you grease the wheels, hump the dump, roll with the punches, pick ’em up and lay ’em down, and make yourself invisible when required? Will you relocate and are you familiar with the types of grout used in filling masonry joints, rock fissures, etc.? Are your teeth capped and have you ever used your mouth to stimulate another person of either sex or been stimulated in said fashion? Please read all questions carefully and then attempt to answer them as though you have just received a sharp blow to the head or, if you prefer, an electric shock to the genitals. Can you tell when it’s raining and instruct others in this skill? When James Joyce wrote, “What a zeit for the goths!" was he just kidding? Work involves supervising and, as required, participating in the de-earing of baby rabbits and other furry creatures. Would you object to this? Plaque buildup is considered grounds for dismissal. Can you answer truthfully, will you answer truthfully, do you know what the truth is and, if so, can you manipulate it? Standing in the diffused governmental sunlight, pounding the wood grain desk top screaming, YES, YES, YES to everything, YESYes, I have twenty years experience managing a trout farm! Yes, I can work twelve hours straight without going to the bathroom! Yes, I can talk a gopher out of its hole and convince.it to use rapid transit! Yes, I can recite the alphabet backwards five times in one minute without mistake! Yes, I will bathe regularly and take the blade to the chin and rub the stick under the arm! And yes, yes, I’m willing to give my very soul, if there is such a thing, in dutiful service, in back wrenching effort, in brain wracking torment! Just give me the application, please, before my pen dries and hope dies away and I seep between the cracks in your finely polished floor. The application please! Let me tell you where I’ve been and what I’ve done. My whole life leading to this one magic moment, this position, this occupation! “Field nigger? I’m sorry, that position has been filled. But wait, we do have one opening. Perhaps you’d like to apply for the position of assistant field nigger?"
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