By Tom Howarth
Hope is an essential word in this election season. But, hope is also a rather loaded word. Clearly those who support John McCain do not hope for the same things as supporters of Barack Obama. Vague calls to hope might suffice in the poetry phase of the campaign but at some point the next President will have to come to grips with that for which the people actually hope.
I cannot speak for all the American people. We are a diverse and divided lot. I can however try to speak for those from communities and churches in the United States who struggled from the 1970′s to the present to bring about peace and respect for human rights in Central and South America.There are those who hope for a reconsideration of American foreign policy covering the last six to eight years. These folks are counted among those who want the United States out of Iraq. But the solidarity community as it is called wants a reconsideration of US policy going back at least to the intervention by the US in Guatemala in 1954 and the overthrow of the Arbenz government. From there we can embark on a journey to such places as Iran, Chile and Vietnam. The pattern was essentially the same. The United States wanted stable governments in order to assure stable markets and access to natural resources. We therefore favored right wing military governments over even the most modest form of democratic progressive reformist governments. We did this in the name of saving the world from communism. Thus all of our dirty wars were deemed good and in the best interests of the poor.
A good place for the next President to start is a good reading of Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer who was the coauthor of Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala.
Our nation had a chance to do this kind of soul-searching in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 but we blew it. We succumbed to fear whipped up by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Watch out they said people around the globe hate us and want to take away our way of life. Historically when America has been confident as a nation, we have done great things but when we act out of our fears we have done terrible things. On that list are the McCarthy terror, lynching after World War I and Watergate.
I can say from ample personal experience that the poor of El Salvador do not hate the people of the US but they do hate the actions of our government. The people of El Salvador also fear the indifference and ignorance of the American people. In the 2004 Vice Presidential debate, Dick Cheney touted El Salvador as a great victory for US foreign policy. Democrat John Edwards let that go by as if it was a 3-0 pitch. Could it be that Senator Edwards feared that to most of the American people El Salvador might be a restaurant or a country they could not find on a map?
The poor of El Salvador do not see US foreign policy as a victory for democracy. They see the triumph referred to by Cheney as a victory for neo-liberal economic policy embraced by the right-wing Arena party that has governed El Salvador since the end of its twelve-year civil war.
It’s about time we learned to address the needs of the people of these lands not the desires of governments alone.
The next President would do well to heed the suggestion made by the Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass), who after the UN Truth Commission reported on human rights abuses in El Salvador, urged that the US establish its own truth commission. El Salvador did this as well as other nations including South Africa. We should also do this unless being rich and powerful means never having to say you’re sorry.
Tom Howarth is the director of the Father McKenna Center that serves the poor and homeless in Washington D.C.
