Peace Activist Writes In Support Of Salvadoran Military

I AM selfishly writing this to protect those I love. If anyone knows who is threatening us, please come forward and let me know.

The people threatening me are "our" people, not someone from another country. They have contacted me by telephone in every city I have been to in the States, though never in El Salvador.

I would die for my country to preserve freedom, as have many. I would die to bring justice to El Salvador.

Many of you vaguely know I have been working with Salvadoran issues since my brother, Mark Pearlman, and Mike Hammer, both U.S. citizens, and Rodolfo Viera of El Salvador were murdered Jan. 3, 1981, by the military and the far right in El Salvador.

They may have killed Mark, but his dream of an equitable El Salvador with justice and a future for all is a debt I have assumed for the rest of my life.

I have been going into El Salvador for nine years and, even with all its problems, I love the country and its people. Even after years of an insurgency that has taken more than 75,000 lives, Salvadorans' dignity, warmth, beauty and pride have survived.

I have battled people in this country and in El Salvador on many issues in those nine years. I have seen the horrors perpetrated by the rebel Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN), the far right, and the military. I have seen the Salvadoran military grow from 12,000 to about 60,000 members through a morally bankrupt foreign policy for which we have to accept full responsibility.

I watched U.S. aid to El Salvador increase while we annually withheld $5 million because of my brother's case. We had confessions, eyewitnesses, and 96 percent of the story put together in the case; yet there was a travesty of justice.

Mark was entitled to and given "internationally protected person" status by the government of El Salvador, a fact that retroactively put that government in violation of international treaties. Yet no justice was produced in the case.

I went after the visas of nine Salvadorans; seven were withheld. One I sought was the previous defense minister. When I requested that his visa be denied, many people stated he was "born again" and easy for us to work with.

It is easy to blame the Salvadoran military for everything. I have done so for 10 years.

At one point, I didn't get to El Salvador for a year and a half because U.S. officials did not feel it was safe for me. Many in El Salvador held me responsible for the 50 percent reduction in military aid to that country. However, before I began to lobby for the cut, I had the Salvadoran Embassy in Washington, D.C., send a fax to President Alfredo Cristiani and Minister of Defense Emilio Ponce outlining the proposal to reduce the aid.

I still believe the Salvadoran people want what we've had: education, hope, future, security, jobs, peace, and the right to dissent.

I've found, after spending three months there this year, that Salvadorans want an army (except for the left and far right, who want sole power). They want an army they can respect - but scaled down from its present size. Less than 5 percent of the people support the FMLN insurgents.

I have talked to the left and the right, the military and the government, the campesinos and the unemployed. While many held differing opinions from what I believed for years, we all agreed that the fighting had to stop, the corruption had to stop, and the judiciary had to function.

The majority were satisfied with the recent decision in the case of the 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests. Of course, the United States attacked the verdict. We seem to feel that if we "gringoize" the rest of the world, it would be a better place.

I must apologize to U.S. Rep. Joe Moakley, chairman of a congressional task force on Salvadoran aid. I understand his frustration. I have been living that frustration for 10 years.

I also attacked Ponce, who had favorably impressed me when we met early in 1986. I don't believe he has lied to me. I attacked because he was an easy target - the military.

But I have a certain flexibility in El Salvador; many Salvadorans consider me one of their own. They don't see me as wanting them to be like us. They accept the fact that I may have made mistakes, but they know I want the best for their country.

As for Moakley, I will battle his report, for the harm it has done to the Salvadoran military is slight compared to what it has done to our relationship with the people and to the peace talks.

No one in this country has a more vested interest than I in seeing the Salvadoran high command take responsibility for its actions; those previously in charge were involved in Mark's death. But things have changed.

I am satisfied that Gen. Ponce was not involved in the Jesuits' murders; otherwise, I would find it impossible to support him. Ponce is able to protect himself, so he will be annoyed with my interference.

I am not questioning Moakley's integrity. Some sources may be the same, some are different. People often tell an official what they think he wants to hear. We've just come to different conclusions.

But neither Moakley nor his task force was in El Salvador when the $10 million FMLN arms shipment was found in San Salvador last August. I met with Ponce within 12 hours after the cache was found. When I saw it, I was sick for three days.

Nor has Moakley's committee talked with Ponce about not wanting another generation growing up in this conflict, or his visions of the future. Nor have they seen the look on Ponce's face when he talks of more per capita amputees in El Salvador by FMLN land mines than in any other country except Angola.

Ponce is a man I trust with my life. He is walking a tightrope, and we've opened a Pandora's box with these accusations. I know that many in the U.S. government view him as close to impossible to work with because he is strong, proud, and not "our man."

I have not changed. I still believe that what is best for El Salvador is, ultimately, best for the United States. I am just trying to reflect what all segments of Salvadoran society have asked me to try to get across in this country.

That I could work with the military shows there have been changes. I decided to fight for conditional military aid to El Salvador in August, feeling that to cut off all aid at this time would make current peace negotiations much more difficult.

So why the threats, why the incidents, why the danger to me and to those I love?

It is not the old monster, the Salvadoran armed forces, that wants to kill me. So whom does that leave? The left, the right, the arms suppliers in this country?

If $50 million in aid is allocated to El Salvador, $35 million comes back into our economy because Salvadorans have to buy U.S., not go to a low bidder. That leaves a wide field. I will be safe when this is published, since I will be in El Salvador.

I also believe those I love will be safe, because there are enough people around the country who have the same information as I do.

The last threat made before I left was, "Do nothing about the Moakley statement; let Ponce hang. We have proven we can get to you at any time, and it is the same with those you love."

That this could happen in this country - in Seattle, my home - is tearing me apart.

Anne Pearlman Morton of Seattle has worked to bring peace to El Salvador since 1981, when her brother, Mark Pearlman, a Seattle attorney, was shot dead with two other men in 1981 in the coffee shop of the Sheraton Hotel in San Salvador.