Cleaning up the g's

Patrick Marnham

San Salvador

The commander of the United States military mission to El Salvador is called Colonel Homer Q. Finkelbaum. (Actually

he is called something else, but I change his name to protect his life.) He is a large, tann- ed, confident man who conducts a weekly briefing for the foreign press corps. This is held in the heavily secured basement of the US embassy. It is a comfortably furnished room. The deep carpet and deep chairs distract one from the bars on the windows and the anti-blast wall which blocks out most of the natural light. When I attended Colonel Finkelbaum's conference recently there were 23 other journalists present, in- cluding six women. There is no shortage of female reporters in El Salvador and most of them seemed to understand the Colonel's strange, military vocabulary more readily than I.

The Colonel lit a cigar, adjusted his horn- rimmed spectacles, leaned back, crossed his legs and exposed the elegant high suede boots which he wore beneath his rather tight pants. 'The Hondurans killed about 40 g's last week,' he said. G's? Ah

Yes, wake up, 'guerrillas', 'guerrilleros% in this room simply 'g's'. 'How did the g's die?' It was one of my female North

American colleagues who asked. 'Same way g's usually die,' replied Colonel Finkelbaum. `G's die trying to defend a fixed position. That's how Che Guevara died.'

This was an interesting example. Before the Colonel arrived I had been told by two

of my female North American colleagues that Finkelbaum had been personally responsible

for the death of the Guevara — who, by romantic legend, went down, guns blazing, in a Bolivian rain forest. There is absolutely no evidence for the truth of this rumour but I thought my female colleagues seemed a little flushed and breathless as they repeated it. Yum-yum, The Colonel continued his seductive list.

'There was a night ambush in San Vicente, Small army units killed 15 g's in a road clearance Sunday. The new airborne

company we trained three months ago had its first kills. Since the unit was freshly

graduated this was a good opportunity for them to get blooded. They did a good job.' The Colonel's idea of a press briefing is to show the Salvadorean army in a good light. Since the army frequently prefers to exercise its skill against unarmed civilians rather than heavily-armed g's, the Colonel's task is not easy. It is made no easier by his

audience, predominantly North American, Who adopt an admirably direct method of questioning.

The previous week the g's had attacked and destroyed an important frontier post,

blowing up the bridge which carried the Pan-American Highway. Had the Colonel heard that many of the soldiers, supposed to be guarding the bridge were absent at the time attending a celebration for 'the Day of the Soldier'? Yes, the Colonel had heard that rumour. Was it true? He did not know. Why were two large American warships an- chored off the Salvadorean port of La Libertad? 'They were landing a female naval lieutenant who had developed an acute appendix.' This explanation caused some mirth. Were they also engaged in a surveillance mission off the Nicaraguan coast? The Colonel had no comment.

Colonel Finkelbaum's task was made even more difficult because he was under fire on two fronts. Most of his audience represented North American liberal opinion. They were concerned to show that the army was losing the war and that it was time to negotiate with the guerrillas. But there was also present Senor Mario Rosenthal, the editor of the English-language, weekly El Salvador News Gazette. Sr Rosenthal is a man of right-wing opinions extreme even by the standards of El Salvador. He speaks English with the speed, volume and accent of the Bronx. He was concerned to show that the army was losing the war and that it was time for some more American military aid. The American military mission to El Salvador is very small. 'I'm working under a 55-man lid,' said Colonel Finkelbaum. 'So why were you down to 37 last month?' growled Rosenthal. 'If I was down to 37 it was because I was out of bread,' growled Finkelbaum.

Rosenthal beamed in triumph, then looked around the room, searching for liberal ap- proval. He received none. Privately Finkelbaum and Rosenthal would probably agree that the g's will never be defeated until the US send in the 82nd Airborne, who would clean the place up in three months. But not even President Reagan is proposing this step at the moment. Until he does so Colonel Finkelbaum has to spend his time pretending to be enthusiastic about an army that will not fight. And Sr Rosen- thal, for reasons of national pride, has to pretend that with just a few more advisers

, or planes or guns,the Salvadorean army will be able to solve the problems of El Salvador.

Since that particular press briefing at least two of its usual weekly audience have died. Colonel Finkelbaum's deputy, Lieutenant-Commander Albert Shaufel- berger, was shot as he sat in his car waiting for a friend outside the Catholic University. He was a victim of a technical hitch. He had lowered the bullet-proof windows of his car because the air-conditioning had failed. He was the head of security for the US military mission. And Dial Torgerson of the Los Angeles Times died on the Honduran- Nicaraguan border when the car he was travelling in was hit by a missile. Mr Torgerson was running a foreseeable risk for a war reporter. But he was very unlucky because he had just been relieved after several years as his paper's Central American correspondent, and he should already have returned to Los Angeles.

The right wing in El Salvador, who are kept in power by US money and US guns, will not mourn either of these US citizens. Before a Salvadorean guerilla group had claimed responsibility for the killing of Lieutenant-Commander Shaufelberger there was speculation in San Salvador that he had been shot by a right-wing death squad, anxious to mark their disapproval of increased US 'interference' in the affairs of their country. And as for Mr Torgerson, he was a member of 'the international press' and so, by right-wing definition, a fellow- traveller.

This is made very clear to foreign jour- nalists in El Salvador when they visit the defence ministry press office to pick up their credentials. Here, where one might ex- pect to find the usual platitudes of public relations, there is instead a notice on the wall which reads: 'Like a voice crying in the wilderness to the foreign media I ask that they should earn their salaries honestly, and that if they must lie they do so about their own coun- tries, but not about El Salvador.' Neither the Salvadorean defence minister nor Colonel Finkelbaum mentioned it, but the Pentagon has subsequently admitted that in the week of that press conference USAF planes were flying from Panama on nightly `reconnaissance missions' over El Salvador. According to a mechanic at their base, the spy planes usually returned with all their ammunition used up. And a US fleet is now in the area.