U.S.-Supported Atrocities in Central
America: The New York Times Is Two Decades Late With Its
Editorializing
August 28, 2001
During the 1980's, human rights
groups reported again and again that Guatemalan and Salvadoran soldiers who
were U.S. trained, equipped and financed were committing horrible
atrocities. The mainstream press, among them The New York Times,
mostly ignored these reports.
Indeed, when a rare story in
that newspaper by Raymond Bonner about a massacre in El Mozote, El Salvador
drew angry denials from the White House and other criticism, The New York
Times recalled Bonner from the field. Bonner shortly thereafter
left the paper.
During the latter part of the
1990's, forensic evidence proved that there was, indeed, a terrible massacre
at El Mozote. The existence of widespread human rights abuses as
reported by the human rights groups is now generally accepted, and Bonner is
back reporting for The New York Times.
A recent editorial in The
New York Times, discussing the nomination of John Negroponte to be the
U.S. representative at the United Nations, states that
The Senate must also
establish whether Mr. Negroponte was aware of and made any effort to
prevent the death squad activities of a Honduran Army battalion trained
and financed by the United States.
I'm glad The New York
Times is editorializing this way now. It just galls me that the
newspaper is not required to add a phrase along the following italicized
lines:
The Senate must also
establish whether Mr. Negroponte was aware of and made any effort to
prevent the death squad activities of a Honduran Army battalion trained
and financed by the United States, which death squad activities, this
newspaper must admit, were made possible by our continuing refusal to
report these atrocities at the time they were happening.
I can dream, can't I? |
