Why U.S.-Backed Governments Murder Church Workers

On November 16,1989, the world was stunned by the murder in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter. Americas Watch testified to Congress that the Jesuits were murdered by members of a U.S.-trained elite unit (the Atlacatl Battalion) with a long history of human rights violations.

Missing from most discussions of who ultimately is to blame for the Jesuit murders is acknowledgment that the U.S. government is actively and consciously targeting progressive church workers as enemies. As part of its broader strategy of warfare against the poor called "low-intensity conflict," our government is at war against liberation theology and against churches that seek to empower the poor. Whether or not agents of the U.S. government ordered the massacre of the Jesuits, the United States is morally and practically responsible for their deaths and those of numerous religious workers.

There are five unpardonable sins committed by Third World governments or social change movements: reclaiming a sense of national dignity, exercising political power outside the control of economic elites, redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor, building alliances with progressive churches around common agendas to empower the poor, and developing a military independent of U.S. control.

The United States is determined to punish those guilty of one or more of these sins by using a flexible array of weapons within its low-intensity conflict arsenal. If Christians are complicit in such sins by challenging political and economic injustices or by forming alliances with groups that share similar goals, they too will be targets of U.S. warfare.

The basic problem confronting the United States in Third World settings is maintaining the disparity between its wealth and the poverty of others on whom its wealth depends. George Kennan, as head of the State Department's planning staff, stated in 1948: "We have about 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its populations....Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity."

U.S. strategists see vital U.S. interests under attack throughout the so-called Third World. "As the leading 'have' power," U.S. Gen. Maxwell Taylor stated, "we may expect to have to fight to protect our national valuables against envious 'have nots.'" In other words, the poor must remain poor and limit their consumption if we are to continue our pattern of wasteful consumption.

U.S. low-intensity conflict strategy is designed to preserve the disparity between the affluent or opulent few and the impoverished majority. Such disparity gives rise to social turmoil in many Third World countries, and the church is not insulated from such turmoil. U.S. policies reward or punish Christians and churches depending on whether they help maintain or challenge this disparity. For example, conservative Catholic leaders such as Cardinal Obando y Bravo in Nicaragua, right-wing fundamentalist sects, and TV evangelists such as Jimmy Swaggart and Pat Robertson receive direct and indirect support from the U.S. government.

One major form of indirect support is that they are not persecuted by U.S.-backed governments. This helps explain the success of their evangelization efforts. People consciously or unconsciously learn that confining one's faith to the realm of personal piety is much safer than a faith that leads one to confront unjust social structures.

Other segments of the Catholic and Protestant churches experience constant persecution at the hands of U.S.-backed governments. Repression is targeted against Christian groups that have undergone a fundamental transformation of faith in light of the life experiences of the poor.

A "colonial theology" that justifies economic exploitation by admonishing the poor to obey authority, accept poverty as God's will, and wait patiently for a heavenly re-ward is challenged by a liberating theology that stresses the dignity of the human person, poverty as an offense against God and humanity, the sinfulness of unjust social structures, God's promise of liberation to the poor, and the example of Jesus in living out faith to its ultimate consequence.

THE U.S. WAR against liberation theology and progressive Christians is part of its broader war against the organized poor who are seeking to restructure the unjust societies in which they are living. In 1980, the Council for Inter-American Security (commonly referred to as the Committee of Santa Fe) produced a policy paper that defined the Reagan administration's agenda in Central America and beyond. Central America was "our strategic backyard" and the "soft underbelly of the United States" where international communism was acting through surrogate forces, including the churches.

"U.S. foreign policy must begin to counter...," the report stated, "liberation theology as it is utilized by the 'liberation theology' clergy....Unfortunately, Marxist-Leninist forces have utilized the church as a political weapon against private property and productive capitalism by infiltrating the religious community with ideas that are less Christian than communist."

Countering liberation theology often means a brutal war of intimidation against Christians involved in working with the poor. The experience of a Christian lay leader in El Salvador, "Ramon," is typical. In order to discourage Ramon's religious activities, the Salvadoran military took his son, peeled off his skin, cut off his testicles, and hung his body on a cross. "Our crime," Ramon told me, "is to be poor and ask for bread....Without land we cannot plant. There is no work....And so we demonstrate. But to speak of justice is to be called a communist, to ask for bread is subversive."

The war against progressive Christians and churches is a strategic priority for the U.S. military and its allies. Secret documents leaked from a 1987 meeting of the Conference of American Armies places the persecution of the churches in context. Signed by military commanders from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and the United States, the documents portray liberation theology as a fundamental enemy that must be countered through continental security measures that include the coordination of military intelligence and operations.

THE UNITED STATES IS CONFRONTING a series of low-intensity conflicts,conflicts that are low-intensity relative to the violence traditionally associated with nuclear or conventional wars, throughout the Third World. Low-intensity conflict also refers to the strategy by which the United States defends its "vital" interests. The persecution of progressive churches is part of this strategy.

It is an Orwellian term. The murder of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, the blood of the Jesuit priests, the deaths of more than 70,000 Salvadorans over the past 10 years, and the destruction of neighboring Nicaragua remind us that low-intensity conflict causes high-intensity pain.

Low-intensity conflict strategy isn't new, but it has undergone significant revisions. After the Vietnam War ripped apart the nation and caused serious divisions within the military, strategists set out to improve the capability of the United States to intervene in Third World settings. What emerged was a totalitarian-like strategy that integrates economic, psychological, diplomatic, and military aspects of warfare into a comprehensive whole.

Recent interventions have sought to control hearts and minds, not simply hold or win territory. This increases the importance of psychological warfare, including managing terror against civilians, using fundamentalist sects to reinforce conservative ideologies, and targeting repression against progressive churches.

Economic warfare is carried out by giving or withholding aid to reward or punish behavior. An economic embargo helps make Nicaragua's economy scream; the contras fail to defeat the Sandinistas militarily but are highly successful in "wasting the country," their main purpose according to the late CIA director William Casey.

Diplomatic warfare is also strengthened. The United States is now adept at using elections for undemocratic purposes. In the Philippines, Guatemala, Honduras, but most specifically in El Salvador, the United States has used elections as a cover for the dramatic increase of its own power and that of surrogate military forces. At the Conference of American Armies mentioned earlier, the generals demonstrated their contempt for authentic democracy, noting their preference for a "permanent state of military control over civilian government, while still preserving formal democracy."

Vietnam also demonstrated the limits of acceptable carnage. The U.S. people grew weary of a bloody war. The "Vietnam syndrome," a name given to the psychological trauma that made U.S. citizens reluctant to involve U.S. troops in another protracted ground war, became a major preoccupation for U.S. strategic planners.

Low-intensity conflict strategy makes warfare less visible to the people in the United States. U.S. strategists fear our basic decency even as they count on and cultivate our racism. They believe, perhaps with good reason, that we will remain indifferent to most atrocities as long as other non-U.S. and usually non-white soldiers and citizens do the dying in defense of U.S. privileges.

There is no politically costly draft, no direct new taxes to fund a foreign war, and few U.S. soldiers returning in body bags. The emphasis is on quick-strike forces, uses of surrogate troops such as the Nicaraguan contras or the Salvadoran military, and on covert actions of which the Iran-contra affair was merely the tip of the iceberg.

Low-intensity conflict strategy defines the United States as enemy and actively seeks to deceive us. In 1948, George Kennan said that in order to maintain the desired gap between rich and poor, we would need to quit trying to cover our tracks with nice-sounding accolades. "We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization...," said Kennan. "We are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."

Kennan was wrong. Exploitation cloaked in rhetoric about freedom and democracy is far more effective than "straight power concepts." Transferring U.S. psychological warfare experts from foreign to domestic operations is an ongoing feature of low-intensity conflict strategy. Low-intensity conflict not only shatters the bodies of church workers, it also leaves in shambles the body politic of the United States.

NOT ALL CONFLICTS CAN BE addressed within the framework of low-intensity warfare strategy. The massive U.S. military response to the crisis in the Gulf illustrates that when strategic resources such as oil are at stake, the United States will act decisively. More important, some U.S. military leaders have been slow to embrace low-intensity conflict strategy because of their fear of losing power and influence. Low-intensity conflicts, they fear, will not in themselves provide justification for huge military expenditures. The U.S. military response to Iraq's takeover of Kuwait was fueled more by the military-industrial complex's fear of a "peace dividend" in light of changing U.S.-Soviet relations than by any other factor.

However, low-intensity-conflict advocates have much to celebrate. The electoral victory of Violeta Chamorro in Nicaragua's election in February proved the viability of a policy that caused more than $17 billion in damage to a country of three million people.

Creating insurgencies to destroy countries is now a proven pre-electoral strategy. Chamorro's government, with U.S. guidance, is busily reversing revolutionary gains of most benefit to the poor. In El Salvador, managing terror is the most consistent feature of U.S. policy over the past decade. Despite significant protest, the U.S. government continues bankrolling the war.

More broadly, the war against the poor is gathering momentum. Defending "our national valuables" in Third World settings has taken on increased significance in light of U.S. economic decline relative to Western Europe and Japan. A document approved in December 1989 by the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Carl Vuono, titled "Military Operations in Low-Intensity Conflict," describes the Army's new aggressive plans ranging from non-military "nation-building" in friendly countries to fostering sabotage and insurrection against "oppressive regimes."

Refocusing attention away from Europe and the Cold War, the U.S. military is in desperate search of enemies. This is the context in which we must understand the "war on drugs"; and it helps explain why the Army expects to become involved in the Third World "to a greater degree" than ever before.

In a more positive light, the spirit of resistance continues. Many progressive church workers have returned to El Salvador and resumed their work among the poor. In Nicaragua, there is strong organized resistance to dismantling revolutionary gains in land tenure, education, and health care. At home, pressure to end aid to El Salvador continues to build, and a religious fast at Fort Benning, Georgia, has raised awareness of ongoing training of Salvadoran military forces on U.S. soil.

In a recent issue of Sojourners (April 1990), Jon Sobrino reminded us that "you cannot be a believer in God today in this world if...growing oppression and poverty is not your central issue." Churches are being persecuted and popular movements are under attack as a matter of U.S. "low-intensity conflict" strategy. Ultimately, what is at stake for us is the essence and integrity of our faith and our claim to be human beings.

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer lived and worked in Central America for several years, was a frequent traveler to the region. and was the author of War Against the Poor: Low-Intensity Conflict and Christian Faith (Orbis Books, 1989) when this article appeared.