HUNTER College, NYC, NY
jhammond@hunter.cuny.edu
San Salvador, December 12, 2008
Dear John:
Probably you don’t remember me, but we met in the eighties, I imagine in New York. Or was it in México, Managua, or San Salvador, on a fact finding mission of yours? You did fact finding back then, didn’t you?
Doesn’t matter. But we met. You being a left wing scholar supporting revolutionary causes in Latin America, me being a German writer turned Salvadoran guerrilla visiting the U.S. to seek support. I was Paolo Martin back then and worked out of the N.Y. based El Salvador Video Project.
Don’t worry, John, I also forgot about you. Until I found your name in the long list of American scholars subscribing an obscure document named ‘OPEN LETTER FROM U.S. ACADEMICS ON SALVADORAN ELECTIONS’ recently published by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
I single you out because you are the only one out among the more than hundred academics signing that letter I happen de know or remember to know personally. That’s why I’m answering you and not Noam Chomsky who I would imagine receives too much fan post from Latin American revolutionaries to be able to read my letter of dissent.
Somebody has to tell you guys that the war we fought in El Salvador is over. We laid down our arms in 1992, and so did the death squads. We were not defeated, as you probably know. We were strong enough to negotiate the dissolution of death squads, security forces and counterinsurgency battalions before we laid down arms. We were not stupid or suicidal. There have been some political killings committed by both sides in the last 16 years, but very few and isolated. The last ones I know of were committed by a FMLN activist taking an M15 to an opposition rally and shoot two police officers, ironically both of them from families known to have supported the guerrillas during the war.
Somebody also has to tell you guys to be more careful before signing letters. All of you are scholars. Last time I checked, scholars are people who investigate, people who know how to keep critical distance from their sources. Just because organizations like CESPAD (Foundation for the Study of the Application of the Law) or the legal department of the Archbishopric of San Salvador say so, we don’t have a resurgence of right wing death squads in El Salvador. Why don’t you do what scholars are supposed to do and investigate before making and publishing politically biased misjudgments like you did in the Open Letter?
Of course we have a serious violence problem in El Salvador. We have gangs killing peaceful neighbors. We have gang members killing members of rival gangs. And we have vigilante groups and police officers killing gang members. Not to talk about narco induced violence. What we don’t have is a serious problem with political violence, because both right and left wing parties know that it would be political suicide to support or tolerate political violence.
Somebody has to tell you guys that the FMLN you knew and supported during he war doesn’t exist anymore. That was an alliance of all different kind of leftist movements, and that’s why it was so strong and couldn’t be defeated. That alliance doesn’t exist anymore, even though part of it managed to keep the name and the flag of that once glorious movement.
Today’s FMLN will probably tell you that who is writing you this letter and half of the ex guerrilla commanders and fighters have become traitors who have sold out to the right and to imperialism. As a scholar and as a progressive person you should be cautious with that kind of name calling. People have been executed by their comrades for less than that.
Even if your sources would never admit it, there is a left in El Salvador opposed to what today is called FMLN. As there is in Nicaragua a left opposed to Daniel Ortega and in Venezuela a left opposed to lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez.
Just because the FMLN candidate says so, doesn’t make it true that there is an electoral fraud in the making in El Salvador. Maybe the FMLN is going to win the elections, maybe not. There are a lot of reasons for Salvadoran voters to end 19 years of ARENA government. There are also a lot of reasons for Salvadoran voters to keep the FMLN out of power. For the majority, this is a very difficult decision.
For the FMLN candidate, who is supposed to be a moderate, to travel the world saying that the only way to keep him from winning is by fraud, is a very dangerous and irresponsible thing to do. For American scholars and progressive intellectuals to repeat it without any kind of fact checking, is simply embarrassing.
You are right to be concerned about El Salvador – and you have the right to say so clear and loudly. Some of your arguments are valid, others are very irresponsible and misleading, especially what you say about political violence in El Salvador.
Some of you guys aren’t able or willing to see political violence when it’s hitting the people next to you, like in Nicaragua or Venezuela. How dare you not speaking out about politically motivated violence committed by the FSLN in Nicaragua – and at the same time repeat FMLN propaganda about death squads in El Salvador? How can you call yourself a scholar and a leftist being so blind to authoritarianism when it comes from the left?
Never will I forget the solidarity and the support we received from thousand of intellectuals in the US when we were fighting our war for democracy, social justice and self determination in El Salvador. That’s why I can’t help but dissent when I read intellectually and politically unsustainable open letters like the one you signed without knowing what you talking about. Dear John Hammond, in the name of the common cause we discussed one day more than 20 years ago, don’t do that to yourself. Don’t do that to the left.
Yours, Paolo
Probably you don’t remember me, but we met in the eighties, I imagine in New York. Or was it in México, Managua, or San Salvador, on a fact finding mission of yours? You did fact finding back then, didn’t you?
Doesn’t matter. But we met. You being a left wing scholar supporting revolutionary causes in Latin America, me being a German writer turned Salvadoran guerrilla visiting the U.S. to seek support. I was Paolo Martin back then and worked out of the N.Y. based El Salvador Video Project.
Don’t worry, John, I also forgot about you. Until I found your name in the long list of American scholars subscribing an obscure document named ‘OPEN LETTER FROM U.S. ACADEMICS ON SALVADORAN ELECTIONS’ recently published by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
I single you out because you are the only one out among the more than hundred academics signing that letter I happen de know or remember to know personally. That’s why I’m answering you and not Noam Chomsky who I would imagine receives too much fan post from Latin American revolutionaries to be able to read my letter of dissent.
Somebody has to tell you guys that the war we fought in El Salvador is over. We laid down our arms in 1992, and so did the death squads. We were not defeated, as you probably know. We were strong enough to negotiate the dissolution of death squads, security forces and counterinsurgency battalions before we laid down arms. We were not stupid or suicidal. There have been some political killings committed by both sides in the last 16 years, but very few and isolated. The last ones I know of were committed by a FMLN activist taking an M15 to an opposition rally and shoot two police officers, ironically both of them from families known to have supported the guerrillas during the war.
Somebody also has to tell you guys to be more careful before signing letters. All of you are scholars. Last time I checked, scholars are people who investigate, people who know how to keep critical distance from their sources. Just because organizations like CESPAD (Foundation for the Study of the Application of the Law) or the legal department of the Archbishopric of San Salvador say so, we don’t have a resurgence of right wing death squads in El Salvador. Why don’t you do what scholars are supposed to do and investigate before making and publishing politically biased misjudgments like you did in the Open Letter?
Of course we have a serious violence problem in El Salvador. We have gangs killing peaceful neighbors. We have gang members killing members of rival gangs. And we have vigilante groups and police officers killing gang members. Not to talk about narco induced violence. What we don’t have is a serious problem with political violence, because both right and left wing parties know that it would be political suicide to support or tolerate political violence.
Somebody has to tell you guys that the FMLN you knew and supported during he war doesn’t exist anymore. That was an alliance of all different kind of leftist movements, and that’s why it was so strong and couldn’t be defeated. That alliance doesn’t exist anymore, even though part of it managed to keep the name and the flag of that once glorious movement.
Today’s FMLN will probably tell you that who is writing you this letter and half of the ex guerrilla commanders and fighters have become traitors who have sold out to the right and to imperialism. As a scholar and as a progressive person you should be cautious with that kind of name calling. People have been executed by their comrades for less than that.
Even if your sources would never admit it, there is a left in El Salvador opposed to what today is called FMLN. As there is in Nicaragua a left opposed to Daniel Ortega and in Venezuela a left opposed to lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez.
Just because the FMLN candidate says so, doesn’t make it true that there is an electoral fraud in the making in El Salvador. Maybe the FMLN is going to win the elections, maybe not. There are a lot of reasons for Salvadoran voters to end 19 years of ARENA government. There are also a lot of reasons for Salvadoran voters to keep the FMLN out of power. For the majority, this is a very difficult decision.
For the FMLN candidate, who is supposed to be a moderate, to travel the world saying that the only way to keep him from winning is by fraud, is a very dangerous and irresponsible thing to do. For American scholars and progressive intellectuals to repeat it without any kind of fact checking, is simply embarrassing.
You are right to be concerned about El Salvador – and you have the right to say so clear and loudly. Some of your arguments are valid, others are very irresponsible and misleading, especially what you say about political violence in El Salvador.
Some of you guys aren’t able or willing to see political violence when it’s hitting the people next to you, like in Nicaragua or Venezuela. How dare you not speaking out about politically motivated violence committed by the FSLN in Nicaragua – and at the same time repeat FMLN propaganda about death squads in El Salvador? How can you call yourself a scholar and a leftist being so blind to authoritarianism when it comes from the left?
Never will I forget the solidarity and the support we received from thousand of intellectuals in the US when we were fighting our war for democracy, social justice and self determination in El Salvador. That’s why I can’t help but dissent when I read intellectually and politically unsustainable open letters like the one you signed without knowing what you talking about. Dear John Hammond, in the name of the common cause we discussed one day more than 20 years ago, don’t do that to yourself. Don’t do that to the left.
Yours, Paolo
