Reviews

The United States and Latin
America in the 1990s
edited by Jonathan Hartlyn, Lars
Schoultz and Augusto Varas, Universi-
ty of North Carolina Press, 1992, 328
pp., $39.95 (cloth), $15.95 (paper).
This is a useful collection of essays
from a center-left perspective on
the likely direction of U.S.-Latin
American relations in the coming
decade. Some essays, like the
insightful surveys of the Latin
American Right (by Rosario
Espinal) and Left (by Marcelo
Cavarozzi), offer background
analysis of changes in the conti-
nent that might have a significant
impact on the formulation of U.S.
policy. Others deal with specific
areas of intra-hemispheric policy
concern: debt and development,
trade, democracy and human
rights, the drug trade, the environ-
ment and migration. If the book
has a central theme, it is that
“strategic denial”-the refusal to
allow European powers access to
Latin American markets-from
President Monroe to the present,
has always been the cornerstone of
U.S. policy in the region. From this
perspective, the end of the Cold
War throws traditional policy into
a state of crisis, creating new
dilemmas and opportunities for
policymakers. The policy studies
in particular probably reflect the
thinking of the left wing of the
Clinton Administration.
Western Hemisphere Immigra-
tion and United States Foreign
Policy
edited by Christopher Mitchell, Penn-
sylvania State University Press, 1992,
314 pp., $45.00 (cloth), $14.95 (paper).
These essays examine the connec-
tion between U.S. foreign policy
and immigration to the United
States from Mexico, Central Am-
erica and the Caribbean. The
authors-not surprisingly-find
that U.S. immigration policy is
typically an extension of U.S. for-
eign policy. In an interesting essay
on Cuban immigration, for exam-
ple, Jorge Dominguez discusses
the interplay between Cuban emi-
gration policy and the role of U.S.
administrations in determining that
migration flow over the past three
decades. While the perspectives
reflected in this collection are fair-
ly mainstream-there is no real
debate here-the book does a nice
job of widening the usual context
of discussion.
Stolen Continents: The “New
World” Through
Indian Eyes Since 1492
by Ronald Wright, Houghton Mifflin,
1992, 424 pp., $22.95 (cloth), $12.95
(paper).
Wright takes on the ambitious task
of retelling the history of the
Americas since the fifteenth centu-
ry from the perspective of the
hemisphere’s indigenous peoples.
In Cut Stones and Crossroads: A
Journey in Peru and Time Among
the Maya, Wright wrote scintillat-
ing contemporary travelogue.
Here, he cobbles together a narra-
tive history from post-Columbian
native documents recently un-
earthed by scholars.
Wright focuses on five indige-
nous groups: the Iroquois, the
Cherokee, the Aztec, the Maya and
the Inca. He divides the book into
three chronological sections: the
Conquest, the colonial period, and
post-independence. The earlier sec-
tions make for compelling reading
as Wright weaves together excerpts
from Indian texts, often eerily for-
mal as the writers grapple with the
foreign tongue, and evocative
descriptions of the Indians’ world
view and the destruction wrought
by the Spaniards.
Readers versed in the contempo-
rary history of these indigenous
peoples are perhaps best advised to
skip the last section which deals
with more recent events. Wright
boils down great masses of materi-
al, leaving a desiccated account
heavy on rhetoric and light on
telling detail.
The Making of Social Move-
ments in Latin America: Identi-
ty, Strategy, and Democracy
edited by Arturo Escobar and Sonia E.
Alvarez, Westview Press, 1992,
383 pp., $59.95 (cloth), $18.95 (paper).
The so-called “lost decade” of the
1980s in Latin America saw the
rise of diverse forms of organized
resistance, and an accompanying
outpouring of academic analysis
about the phenomena. Escobar and
Alvarez have assembled some of
the best writing on the subject.
The editors include both articles
which emphasize the construction
of new identity, and those which
are concerned with practical ques-
tions of strategy and democratiza-
tion. The collection has a balanced
representation of authors from
North America and Latin America.
The diversity of forms of collective
action in the hemisphere is reflect-
ed in the case studies, among them
the gay, urban, ethnic and ecologi-
cal movements. Of particular note
is an article joint-authored by four
scholars which tracks the evolving
concerns of the women’s move-
ment as manifested in the region’s
biannual feminist Encuentros.
A Chronicle of Death Foretold:
The Jesuit Murders in
El Salvador
by the Lawyers Committee for Human
Rights, 330 Seventh Avenue, New
York, N.Y. 10001, February 1993,
367 pp., $15.00 (paper).
This is a summary report on the
murder of six Jesuit priests, their
cook, and her young daughter in
San Salvador in November, 1989.
The report provides detailed
accounts of the crime and the ensu-
ing investigation, presents evi-
Continued on page 48
Vol XXVI, No 5 May 1993
47
Vol XXVI, No 5 May 1993 47IN REVIEW
dence of a carefully orchestrated
cover-up by Salvadoran investiga-
tors, and implicates U.S. officials
both at the embassy and in Wash-
ington in the failure to bring the
perpetrators to justice. This is the
tenth in a series of reports on the
assassination prepared by the
Lawyers Committee for Human
Rights, which also served as legal
counsel to the Jesuits on the case.
Nine suspects were eventually
charged in the case and stood trial
in September, 1991. Two officers
were convicted, including Col.
Guillermo Benavides of the elite
U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion, the
corps found to have committed the
murders. Seven others, including
the confessed triggerman, were
acquitted. In spite of this unprece-
dented (for El Salvador) conviction
of a high-ranking officer in a
human-rights case, the report
alleges that a large number of sus-
pects were not brought to trial,
including Air Force General Juan
Raphael Bustillo, who ordered the
murders after he was flown to El
Salvador from the United States in
a private plane co-piloted by for-
mer CIA agent Felix Rodriguez.
Lt. Col. Manuel Antonio Rivas
Mejia, of the U.S.-created and
financed Special Investigative
Unit (SIU) of the Salvadoran mili-
tary, interviewed Col. Benavides
in December, 1989 in the compa-
ny of three U.S. diplomats. During
Benavides’ subsequent trial, the
court was never provided with a
transcript of this interview. When
Lt. Col. Rivas was himself impli-
cated in the cover-up, the U.S.
embassy protected him against an
indictment.
U.S. officials never provided
investigators with important testi-
mony that a U.S. Army officer
gave the FBI, and interfered in the
trial testimony of another of the
military advisors. A criminal
investigator brought in by the U.S.
embassy concluded that there was
evidence to support the claim that
the murders were the result of a
broad-based conspiracy, but his
report was never made available to
Salvadoran investigators.
The Lawyers Committee report
also provides evidence possibly
linking Vice President Francisco
Merino to the murders. It also
details the active role of the Cris-
tiani government in the cover-up.
Even though the trial and convic-
tion of the two officers was an
important step towards the estab-
lishment of the rule of law in El
Salvador, the case also places the
need for judicial reform in sharp
relief.
In vindication of these findings,
the United Nations’ Truth Com-
mission (investigating human-
rights violations in El Salvador)
found “substantial proof” that
Defense Minister Gen. Rend
Emilio Ponce and other members
of the military high command
ordered the actions taken by mem-
bers of the Atlacatl Battalion. The
U.N. report underscores charges by
Congressman Moakley that U.S.
embassy officials warned Gen.
Ponce that he was a suspect, there-
by giving him time to pressure a
key witness to change his story.
The report also calls for the imme-
diate replacement of the members
of the Supreme Court, and cites
Dr. Mauricio Guti6rrez Castro,
president of the court, for unpro-
fessional conduct.
iGracias! A Latin American
Journal
by Henri Nouwen, Orbis Books,
Maryknoll Press, 1993, 188 pp., $10.95
(paper).
iGracias! is a compilation of the
daily journal entries that the Dutch
priest and theologian Henri
Nouwen made while he lived
among the people of Bolivia and
Peru for six months in an attempt
to carve out a vocation on behalf of
the poor of Latin America.
Drawing heavily on ideas of the
seminal liberation theologian Gus-
tavo Guti6rrez, Nouwen writes that
those involved in liberation strug-
gle in Latin America need to value
and embrace the qualities of soft-
ness and gentleness. Nouwen also
poses a crucial question: what is an
appropriate and effective level of
solidarity for someone outside the
native culture? As a white Euro-
pean protected in many ways from
the disease and deprivation which
is a fact of life for the poor of Peru
and Bolivia, Nouwen asks himself
if he can ever enter into full com-
munity with them.
Nouwen adopts an attitude of
humility and respectful deference.
Again and again he writes that he
has much more to learn from the
people of Peru and Bolivia than
they from him. Nouwen is refresh-
ingly different from historical
Christian missionaries in his insis-
tence that the greatest service he
can perform is not to impose his
agenda onto the communities of
the oppressed, but to receive the
gifts that the people of Latin
America have to give to him and to
the rest of the world. The move-
ment of wisdom, Nouwen writes,
is from south to north.
Nouwen’s occasional Christo-
centrism, one of the few weakness-
es in the volume, is balanced by
his numerous journal entries
affirming the value of indigenous
religiosity. He seems pulled
between the arrogance of the tradi-
tional Catholic missionary agenda
and his own respect and admiration
for the people and their own cul-
tural expressions.
-G. Derrick Hodge
Benedita Da Silva
video by Eunice Gutman, 1990, color,
29 mins, $250 (sale), $50 (rental),
Cinema Guild.
A profile of Brazil’s first black
female member of Congress. The
film includes music, testimonial,
interviews with neighbors and sup-
porters, scenes from the favela, and
campaign footage of her run for
Congress. There is also some frank
discussion of racism in contempo-
rary Brazil.