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Ofra Bikel looks at the politics and people of El Salvador that the U.S. lends support to.

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00:01Major funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
00:06Additional funding is provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide.
00:13Tonight on Frontline, a look at a troubled land, El Salvador.
00:18We're certainly doing better than Salvador has done over the past 50 years.
00:23Free elections are now underway, but the only choice is the right wing.
00:27And will it really be the United States who decides the outcome?
00:31The election is good insofar as the results are the ones wanted by the US President's Administration.
00:38The Reagan Administration spends millions fighting communism here.
00:42Is it a captive in El Salvador?
00:54From the network of public television stations,
00:56A presentation of KCTS Seattle,
00:59WNET New York,
01:01WPBT Miami,
01:03WTVS Detroit,
01:05and WGBH Boston.
01:08This is Frontline.
01:15Good evening, I'm Judy Woodruff.
01:17El Salvador is in the midst of national elections.
01:20The country is also at war.
01:22A leftist guerrilla movement has chosen violence as the way to bring about a revolution there.
01:27El Salvador has also become the testing ground for US policy in Central America.
01:33The stakes are seen to be high.
01:35Earlier this year, the Kissinger Commission called the guerrilla movement a direct threat to US security interests.
01:42It recommended dramatic increases in military and economic aid.
01:47That's what the Reagan Administration wants from Congress.
01:50More money for aid and more arms to fight communism.
01:54But at the same time, we want El Salvador to move towards democracy.
01:59This winter, Frontline sent producer Afra Bikel to El Salvador.
02:04Bikel is a distinguished filmmaker.
02:07Born in Israel, educated in Paris, she has lived in the United States since 1960.
02:13She has made films around the world.
02:15Her latest films are joined by a common theme, the meaning of democracy.
02:20In El Salvador, she says, she did not try to deal with the Salvadoran left and its political solution or with military strategy.
02:30Rather, she has tried to come to grips with the impact of US policy and our concept of democracy on the lives of the people of El Salvador.
02:39She calls her film essay, Captive in El Salvador.
02:44Revolución, muerte!
02:46Revolución, muerte!
02:47Venceremos!
02:48Unidos para combatir!
02:50Hasta la victoria final!
02:52Viva la Revolución Cubana!
02:54Que viva!
02:55Long live the Cuban Revolution, they shout.
02:58Venceremos!
03:00This is not Cuba.
03:02This is El Salvador.
03:04And this is jail.
03:07Israel Children's movement inthe entire turmoil.
03:08They say of death and victory, of the glory of the revolution.
03:32Political prisoners and their relatives and their soldiers are śm Launch city!
03:34Political prisoners and their relatives stage a Marxist rally
03:38in the jail of one of the most right-wing countries of Central America.
04:04They call for peace, justice and liberty.
04:09It's what everybody wants for El Salvador.
04:13Democracy and liberty.
04:19It's election time in El Salvador.
04:34And this day, with pride,
04:43the President of the Republic of El Salvador.
04:49Where we came, not to search for war, but to look at life.
04:56To see the people whose lives have somehow become intertwined with ours.
05:03For better or for worse.
05:08This is a country whose very existence depends on us, on the United States.
05:14And so we came to see what it is that they do for themselves
05:19and what it is that we are doing for them.
05:24And when the war, which will help them fight, is won,
05:30what kind of a world will we have saved for their children?
05:45Colonel López Nuila, the chief of police, is known as one of the country's strongmen.
05:49But he was friendly and gave us good advice.
05:56I make one recommendation.
05:59If you want to capture the reality of this country,
06:02don't talk to government officials or to organized groups.
06:06Talk to the people. This is where you'll find the truth.
06:10But talk to the people that is where the truth is.
06:13Hi, how are you?
06:15What do you think of your government?
06:16What do you think of your government?
06:17What do you think of your government?
06:19Better not to think about it at all.
06:22We can't say very much.
06:25The government?
06:37What a difficult question.
06:40What do you think of your government?
06:43No comment.
06:46No comment.
06:50Your husband is Swiss, so she can't give her opinion.
06:54He is from Costa Rica, so he can't give his opinion.
06:57He is religious, so he can't give his opinion.
07:00These things are very delicate to understand.
07:02Another time, maybe.
07:09The police chief's advice wasn't working.
07:11People in the streets of the capital, San Salvador, are friendly.
07:15But they don't talk openly to strangers.
07:19The truth he wanted us to find was elusive.
07:24It's unlikely he would have wanted us to meet Corina.
07:29We met her in the small legal aid office of the Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador.
07:37Her story was simple.
07:39Her husband had not come home for two nights.
07:43When did he disappear?
07:44Tell me exactly what happened.
07:50He left on Wednesday at nine in the morning to go to work.
07:54Her husband was a well-known artist, director of a puppet theater.
07:58He also taught art in high school.
08:05That day, he left home and didn't return.
08:08Were you worried?
08:11Yes.
08:12He's always come home to sleep.
08:15What makes you think your husband has been captured?
08:19I'm not sure, says Corina.
08:23The chief of police had an explanation.
08:26There are people who disappear suddenly from their homes.
08:28No one knows where they are.
08:30Then they reappear in Cuba or in Russia or Nicaragua study.
08:37But it seemed unlikely that Corina's husband had gone off to study.
08:41She came home to their house in the middle-class neighborhood of San Salvador
08:44to find it broken into.
08:50The neighbors said that the army had broken in and searched for three hours.
08:55She was panic-stricken.
09:03She called us.
09:05She wanted to pack some of her things and leave, but she was scared.
09:10She asked if he would come as some sort of protection.
09:13So we came.
09:14And we watched Corina in an hour and a half pick up the pieces of her family life.
09:25There was no time to think or choose.
09:28Her husband's puppets were first.
09:31Then his portrait.
09:44A few dishes.
09:54The refrigerator.
09:56Some children's clothes.
09:59Some books.
10:02Her husband's suit.
10:04A toy.
10:05Once she left the house, she would never return.
10:16Her whereabouts would be kept secret.
10:19It would be two weeks before we heard from her.
10:26The motherland is celebrating.
10:29Freedom is now a reality.
10:35Presidential elections are taking place in El Salvador.
10:39Whatever Americans may think, Salvadorians know quite a lot about elections.
10:44They've had them there for most of this century.
10:47Elections that never had very much to do with the will of the people.
10:53In fact, it is through elections that one can trace the roots of the civil war in this country.
10:59Elections which everyone knew were fraudulent and which drove part of the population in the 70s
11:04to abandon the democratic process and take up arms.
11:09It is all supposed to be different now.
11:12These are our elections.
11:15The second U.S. sponsored elections in two years.
11:19In 1982, El Salvador elected a constituent assembly which wrote into law all the U.S. inspired ideas.
11:26Individual freedom, human rights, justice, land reform and now the law of the land.
11:36The U.S. was pleased.
11:42Ambassador Thomas Pickering.
11:43I would say that we're certainly doing better than Salvador has done over the past 50 years and perhaps better than it's done in the last four years.
11:54The fact is that political parties in this country, which didn't exist in any real way as political parties, are now sitting down.
12:01They've approved an extensive constitution. They've negotiated out tough issues.
12:06They've reached compromises, which is the essence of politics and any democracy.
12:11Agreement on land reform. A very important issue.
12:14One, I think, that too few of the American people know about.
12:18Agrarian reform is the cornerstone of U.S. policy in El Salvador.
12:24The land is what it has all been about.
12:28For generations, 80% of the land belonged to 10% of the people who through the land controlled the country.
12:35They were the agrarian oligarchy.
12:39The other 90% of the farmers were landless or had tiny plots of land from which they could barely eke out a living.
12:45In this coffee-dominated economy, the land reform, inspired and pushed by the U.S., was meant to help the small farmer, to give him a chance to live, so that he would not be swayed by foreign revolutions.
13:01It was farmers like these, the U.S. remembered, who welcomed Castro in Cuba.
13:05And so, in the first phase of the ambitious land reform, large estates were turned over to peasant cooperatives, under the supervision of a government agency, ISTA.
13:16Don Raul Salaveria has been one of the casualties of the U.S. policy in El Salvador.
13:24He is the oligarch, one of the most powerful landowners in the country, who lost land to the agrarian reform program.
13:31His expropriated farm now belongs to a cooperative of about a thousand farmers who used to work for him.
13:39For generations, this has been a dream.
13:42Now they have been on their own for four years.
13:44They have their own elected board of directors, which pays them according to the work they do.
13:55They don't own the land yet, but they should be able to buy it later on, with their profits.
14:02But they haven't been doing very well, and the pay is meagre.
14:058 to 10 dollars for 15 days' work, at the height of the season.
14:15Soon, there will be no more work, and no more money.
14:24Now we are less well off than before, because Don Raul used to help us, and now we are...
14:29We are not so well off.
14:33Isn't it better, though, I ask, to have your own piece of land?
14:37Ah, no, she says, no.
14:40That, no.
14:43Why?
14:45Because we don't know, we don't have the wherewithal.
14:49What good is it to have a piece of land if you don't have the money to work it with?
14:54Do you have enough to eat?
14:58No, it's not enough.
15:02There's no work here.
15:06We are completely broke. We are suffering. We don't have work.
15:13It's difficult now.
15:16No one gives you anything.
15:19The government, ISTA?
15:20Nothing.
15:23Credit?
15:25Nothing.
15:27When I was with my landlord, I was happy, because everything I wanted, I had.
15:39And today, no.
15:42What is the situation today?
15:44What favor?
15:45No.
15:46Without him, I don't like it.
15:47No.
15:49They all gather to welcome Don Raul when he arrived in his bulletproof car at the house he still owns on the expropriated farm.
16:08There is little doubt that he is still the landlord.
16:15What's gone wrong here?
16:18Why have they done so badly without him?
16:19The answer can be found here, in a shabby little union hall.
16:31These people are members of a peasant organization trained by the AFL-CIO and sponsored by the US government in an effort to head off communism in the countryside.
16:45Their task is to help peasant farmers to make a success of the government's agrarian reform.
17:03But the field workers returned from the cooperatives with reports of how the government itself undermines the very reform it had pledged to carry out.
17:15There is the problem of credit.
17:20When the cooperative farmers apply for credit for seeds, for example, which they must have before the rainy season, the government banks hold up the papers.
17:30So when the money comes, if it comes, it arrives too late.
17:35The rainy season is over, the soil is dry, and the year's crop is lost.
17:40Whatever they do produce, they have a problem marketing.
17:45The cooperative must sell their products to the government at a fixed price.
17:52The government sells it at a profit.
17:55But the profit, she says, does not go back to the cooperative.
17:58So there is no way the farmers can make money.
18:01There is also the problem of access.
18:05The farmers are not allowed to talk to the very people who are supposed to help them.
18:11I am here on behalf of the Salvadorian Peasant Organization.
18:18I would like to offer you our services, which we give to cooperatives.
18:23The farmers look unhappy.
18:24We know that your services are very good, and we would like to have them, right?
18:34But we have been strictly forbidden to associate with you.
18:39Who has issued this prohibition?
18:53It's ISTA, the government.
18:56Only a few weeks before, nine buddies were found a few miles from here.
19:01Buddies of farmers who had attended this union meeting.
19:05So the new cooperatives, isolated and undercut by the government, have no one to turn to.
19:11Some turn to the old landlord.
19:13We are here on behalf of the farmers. We are poor.
19:20We are not happy with the agrarian reform.
19:24We are fighting to have the land returned to you, so we can work for you the way we used to.
19:30Don Raul is gracious. I know that all the farmers want the land to be returned to me.
19:39This could possibly be achieved if you people keep on the pressure.
19:46So they press as best they can.
19:50They make speeches when there are visitors around.
19:54They talk about the good old days, when there was war, and when there was no need to worry about credit.
20:10When it belonged to Don Raul, we didn't know where he got the money to pay us.
20:15We didn't care if he had it here or if he brought it from the United States.
20:19He paid us, period.
20:32We had corn, beans, coffee, sugar.
20:36We had clothes. Our children had toys.
20:42Everything was happiness. Today it's sadness.
20:46It's unjust.
20:47I beg, as a poor man, as a hungry man, because I'm hungry, that if we can't have better conditions than the ones we've had for the last four years, then please, please give back the land to Don Raul Salavaria.
21:10This is not what the farmers had in mind in all the years they dreamed of land reform, nor can it possibly be the U.S. vision of how to win the hearts and minds of the people in the war for democracy.
21:28The war has been going on for four years.
21:35It has been written about and publicized in every paper.
21:40Its images known to every TV viewer. A war to fight communism in Central America. It is a war the U.S. finances and will go on financing. A war which must be fought not only with arms, but with human effort. It is a war for the hearts and minds of the people of the country.
22:01San Vicente Province is a famous battleground, won by the army. Now it is calm.
22:16For the moment we are calm. The guerrillas never come.
22:23Or sure they do. They come all the time. They come to do their shopping and they leave, without fear. Without the army. Without nothing, he says.
22:39But this is the army control zone. This was supposed to be the showcase. The example. The example of what U.S. money and Salvadorian might could do.
22:54The plan, launched with fanfare, called for the Salvadorian army to drive out the guerrillas while U.S. aid dollars would revitalize the important region only 30 miles from the capital and bring back its citizens who had fled the fighting.
23:09Almost immediately, the operation was pronounced a success. When we arrived eight months later, the phone lines were down, the city dead.
23:18As for the U.S. aid project, we saw eight men working while others were watching. There was no sign of the army. They may well laugh.
23:29The guerrillas are the one in control. They come and go as they wish. Why aren't the guerrillas afraid of the army?
23:43Well, because the army doesn't come here. They are far away in their headquarters. And to visit a small town like ours, I don't think they have enough love for us.
23:57The guerrillas must have enough love for this little town because they come every single day.
24:10They walk the streets of Santa Clara with self-assurance.
24:18No one seems to worry much about them except an occasional dog.
24:22Life goes on as the guerrillas talk to the people, listening to their problems.
24:35Tony's problem was that he had a stone wall he wanted to tear down. He asked the guerrillas permission,
24:41explaining that the wall was a safety hazard for his children.
24:50Why must you ask the guerrillas permission?
24:52Because they are the ones who come here every day.
24:57They must say if it's good or not. They said that I could do it. It was all right. Did you ask the army's permission? No. Since they're not here.
25:09The guerrillas take their time. They're in no rush. They clown around and they do their shopping.
25:22And Tony, the shopkeeper, and Ricardo, the schoolteacher, explain.
25:32There are divided families.
25:35Cousins.
25:37Brothers too.
25:39One in the army.
25:40The other with the guerrillas.
25:41One in the army.
25:42The other with the guerrillas.
25:43We can't say that what they call communism is the true road which the people should follow.
25:59Because the truth is that we know absolutely nothing about communism.
26:02Whether it's communism or not, the guerrillas make sure their point of view is well presented. They visit, they shake hands, they campaign.
26:17They gather the people in small meetings, says Tony, and they explain why they must destroy government buildings.
26:23They want the government to use the millions of dollars that the U.S. sends them for good things.
26:34Instead of buying arms, they say, they should buy tractors.
26:42And Tony muses about his torn country.
26:45The solution would be, I think, that the two sides come to an agreement to put an end to this violence in which we live.
27:00As far as the elections go, the truth is that of all the parties, I can't really be sure which party is the best one to govern our people.
27:10So what I will do is go to the polling place and vote with my eyes closed.
27:22And wherever the little mark falls, let it fall.
27:25It's election time in El Salvador. It's an election the U.S. wanted and called for.
27:46It's a strange democratic election.
28:01Four of the six candidates are on the right.
28:07Two, by our standards, are moderate or moderate right.
28:11It's an election where people are buzzed and directed, where voting is obligatory, where all those who represent the left of center are either abroad or fighting or dead.
28:29And it's an election further complicated by the fact that the United States disapproves of the leader of one of the parties.
28:44The party is Arena, the party of the extreme right.
28:47Arena has the best organization, lots of money and dedicated party workers.
29:02It has a good vote-getter, Roberto Dabuisson.
29:06But Dabuisson has a problem.
29:08Liked as he may be by those around him, his name has been linked to death squads.
29:12The U.S. Congress doesn't want him.
29:15After the 1982 election, he formed a coalition which would have made him president.
29:20Salvadorians believe that the U.S. blocked him.
29:23Democratic elections or not, Arena fears it may happen again.
29:28At the home of Hugo Barrera, Dabuisson's running mate, the leading ladies of Arena, explain their party's ideas and principles.
29:43They are quite clear about the stakes.
29:47This is more than an election. It's war, where there can be no compromise.
29:50The Christian Democrats are traitors, and Duarte is a communist.
30:03Their vision of the world is clear-cut.
30:06There are two fronts here, communism and anti-communism.
30:12It's no right or left. It's anti-communism and communism.
30:18And Arena is anti-communist.
30:22And there is nothing in between?
30:25We don't believe in center.
30:28To be in the center is to be nothing.
30:30The Jesuit professor Ignacio Martín Baró, one of the only liberals still alive and talking in El Salvador, agrees.
30:38If not quite in the way, they see it.
30:41As far as I can tell you, I don't think in this country, in El Salvador, we have a political center.
30:47We don't have a political center in this country.
30:49Let's say that you would have to choose in the United States between somebody like Mr. Reagan, like Mr. Wallace, and like somebody from the John Birch Society.
31:11What would you think? Would you have a broad enough spectrum to have a real election?
31:20Well, that's what, in fact, we have here.
31:23People to the extreme right, to the far right, to the right, and to the, maybe, a moderate right.
31:31I'd like to know, when the U.S. say they want a center, what do they mean by center?
31:43We are anti-communist and we are fighting to defend our system.
31:49We know that this election will be decisive for our system, the system of free enterprise.
32:00We won't let communism into our country.
32:06And if Arena doesn't win, if Duarte wins, Arena will win.
32:10But if not, yes it will.
32:14Well then, we'll soon be a country like Nicaragua.
32:21And the U.S. will get the message.
32:24They will have to worry about communism.
32:27They think back with rage at the elections of 1982.
32:32It was a historical day.
32:38An example for the whole world.
32:40All these thousands of people who voted.
32:43And the U.S. did not respect the will of a whole people.
32:50Why do we vote then?
32:53They imposed on us a president who had nothing to do with anything.
32:57So what is democracy for them?
33:02They mocked us.
33:06They slapped our face.
33:09We really believe that for the first time we'll have free elections here.
33:16Professor Martin Barrow does not disagree.
33:18No, what I'm saying is that if you accept the outcome of the election at this moment,
33:29Doubouisson would be the president of this country.
33:33And he is not the president of this country.
33:36Why? Because of the pressure of the United States of America.
33:40And they put a president who could be acceptable for public opinion.
33:44I think that President Magana is a thousand times better than Doubouisson.
33:49I prefer him. I think he's a good man.
33:53But that's not the point. The point is that he was not elected.
33:56So what for to have an election?
33:59The election is good insofar as the results are the ones wanted by the U.S. president administration.
34:05But if they are not, what? What would happen?
34:07What would happen?
34:13From behind the walls of the U.S. Embassy, these criticisms are met with equanimity.
34:19I believe that Salvadorans have a clear choice.
34:23They had that choice in 1982.
34:25They voted for the parties who are now in power.
34:28The ambassador chooses his words carefully.
34:29They have to hide the fact that the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. people are held captive by policies that are contradictory.
34:37El Salvador must look democratic, so that Congress will send more guns to fight communism.
34:44So the standard-bearer of democracy can applaud the democratic proceedings and praise the Salvadorian spirit.
34:56But the decision as to who will govern them will probably not be left to them.
35:01Too much is at stake.
35:02Of the two leading candidates, Debusson, acceptable to the Salvadorian army, may cause Congress to cut off military aid.
35:12Duarte, acceptable to the U.S., has the ultra-right in business dead against him.
35:18The army doesn't exactly want him.
35:21As for Guerrero, he could get everyone's approval, but he cannot get the vote.
35:26So behind the Razzle Dazzle of election, which further divides the nation, an agreement will have to be reached between the two power brokers, the U.S. and the Salvadorian army.
35:43Whatever the voters say, the reality is that no candidate will enter unless supported by U.S. supplied guns.
35:50And after all the democratic hoopla is over, the power will be where it has always been in El Salvador, in the military.
36:01The military behind a civilian face.
36:08Monsignor Urioste, assistant to the Archbishop of El Salvador.
36:12We have had elections in this country for 50 years, and we didn't have any solution through these elections.
36:18So sometimes I think that never mind if the name of the president is Magana, or is Duarte, or is any other name.
36:27Our experience is that the military are the ones who have the control in this country in every sense.
36:35So after the elections are over, there will be, just as they were before, half a dozen colonels will rule the Salvadorian nation for better or for worse.
36:50Intro. The Salvadoran army is ordering some officers linked to death squad activity into diplomatic exile, as Michael Drudge reports.
36:58Michael Connor, CBS News, Tejutla, El Salvador.
37:02Salvadorians believe the international press is bent on reporting the worst.
37:07It's not necessarily true.
37:08Even as they file their daily dispassionate reports from the hotel in San Salvador.
37:17It's the stark images of Salvadorian reality, picked out and set to American rock, which capture what they may really feel, and what they will share only among themselves.
37:26Music.
37:27Music.
37:28Music.
37:29Music.
37:30Music.
37:31Music.
37:32Music.
37:33Music.
37:34Music.
37:35Music.
37:36Music.
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37:40Music.
37:41Music.
37:42Music.
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37:55Music.
37:56Music.
37:57Music.
37:58Music.
37:59Music.
38:00Music.
38:01Even a puppet show can't escape the reality of life in El Salvador.
38:27Our group, they say, was directed by our beloved Roberto Franco, and it's thanks to him that we can give you a moment of happiness.
38:38Roberto's wife, Corina, has been looking for him for the last three weeks.
38:43She goes from one security force to another, hoping for some news.
38:47A journalist in San Salvador told us that the chances of her husband turning up in the jail we saw, where U.S. congressmen and press can visit, were very slim.
39:03Even as she searched, she knew that there are other jails, which the press never enters, and from which few prisoners emerge.
39:16She was not the only one searching. There are many in the streets of El Salvador.
39:21They always go to the legal aid office at the archdiocese.
39:25We are here again about my son.
39:46It's been seven months that he is gone.
39:53I've looked for him everywhere, and I can't find him.
39:59We have received the answer from the security forces that they don't have him.
40:05He's not there.
40:05How can a person get lost?
40:12A person as well known as my son.
40:18My son was dedicated only to his work.
40:21And he is a pediatrician.
40:25I've looked for him everywhere, and I can't find him.
40:27I feel desperate.
40:29He has three children.
40:31The youngest doesn't even know him.
40:32The eldest child said to me,
40:36No, grandma, we don't want any presents.
40:39We want my father.
40:53I'm desperate for the children.
40:54They asked for him.
40:57I would like to be stronger.
41:00But I can't.
41:02It's not only him.
41:06When you go to the humanitarian organization,
41:08you realize that there's an enormous amount of people who disappear.
41:13Why do they disappear?
41:16Colonel Nicolas Carranza is one of the most powerful men in El Salvador.
41:20Where do they go, those people?
41:22Well, it could happen.
41:24Maybe they go to the United States.
41:27We have found out many cases of people who seem to be disappeared.
41:34And he has gone to the United States.
41:37Maybe some of them go to the guerrilla.
41:39Some of them may be retained for an extortion, for example, or as maybe kidnapped.
41:52The only place to seek comfort is the church.
42:05Like the country, it is divided and it has suffered.
42:10But it still dares to speak up for the people.
42:15More than streets clean of election propaganda, we want a nation clean of blood.
42:36Politicians must penetrate with sincerity and courage into the problems of the country.
42:45They must show that they understand the causes of the war
42:49and that they are ready to create the conditions for peace.
43:01The church.
43:05For generations, they only want to have offered comfort to the people of El Salvador.
43:14For generations, it had to be enough.
43:19Lord, have mercy, they sing.
43:23Lord, have mercy on your people.
43:27For a generation now growing up in El Salvador.
43:32Will the Lord's mercy be enough?
43:40This is a refugee camp.
43:42There are more than 300,000 displaced people in El Salvador.
43:45There are several camps in the capital.
43:52Three young girls, Rosenda, Dieciena, and Rubina.
43:57We feel as if we were in jail here, because we don't have freedom.
44:06We feel very bad.
44:11I don't feel free here, because you can't go out.
44:15Outside, there are the death squads.
44:17And they grab you and they make you disappear.
44:21There are many reasons why I don't feel free.
44:22They stand there at the gate, the National Guards.
44:31And they say that those who want to go out are subversive.
44:37Do you know what subversive is, I ask?
44:39I believe that a subversive, they call someone who tells the truth.
44:51Someone who defends his rights.
44:56If someone goes to work on a farm, say.
44:58And there they oppress him.
45:03And they don't give him food.
45:06And if he protests that he doesn't get enough money,
45:09they say that he is subversive.
45:12That he is against them.
45:15But the truth is that they want to oppress him.
45:17They don't want to give him food,
45:19and they don't want to give him enough money.
45:20And so they grow up with their dreams.
45:29Locked up in what is half refugee camp, half jail.
45:34Over a thousand people in a lot the size of a city block.
45:38Old people.
45:40Children.
45:44There are very few men.
45:46Mostly women and children.
45:48They are fed by the local church.
45:58The government regards them as families of guerrillas,
46:01or at least as sympathizers.
46:04And if they are not, they probably will be.
46:10Small families living in cubicles partitioned by rags.
46:14A generation growing up.
46:18There is only me and my brother now.
46:27They have killed my mother.
46:30Four years ago.
46:33She was one of the first who they killed.
46:36Where is your father?
46:39They have killed him.
46:40Who?
46:42The National Guard.
46:43Why?
46:44You never know why.
46:47He was going shopping when they grabbed him.
46:53And they made him disappear.
46:57And your family?
47:00My mother is here.
47:03Well, yes, he was a catechist.
47:06But my father was a lay preacher.
47:09He celebrated the words of the Lord.
47:13For them, that's a crime.
47:16So they came to kill him.
47:23We didn't realize it.
47:24My mother went to buy some food.
47:33And my father was having breakfast.
47:38They encircled the house.
47:41My father wanted to run.
47:42And he ran, like, from here to that wall when they killed him.
47:49Because they followed him.
47:51And they grabbed him and they killed him.
47:54Did you see it?
47:56Yes, I saw it.
47:58Yes.
47:59We were standing nearby, full of fear.
48:11When we went to him, there was a fistful of men.
48:17And they heard him and they killed him.
48:23I feel sad.
48:24It will never be the same as when my father was alive.
48:33We'll never have the education we could have had.
48:38We'll never eat well.
48:40Who will work for us?
48:43Who will come back to us?
48:49Do not be sad that I shall go.
48:52Because I shall not leave you orphans.
48:54You, yourself, says the Archbishop of El Salvador,
48:59know that your practice of religion has met with difficulties,
49:07with bad interpretations,
49:09sometimes with denunciations,
49:11and more than sometimes,
49:14with persecutions.
49:16Today is the Confirmation Day.
49:27Today is the Confirmation Day.
49:31Today, they come of age.
49:34Today, they enter the adult world.
49:40Lord, how can we replace them?
49:45What can we do?
49:45How can we do it?
49:49How can we do it?
49:51How do we do it?
49:53How can we do it?
49:54And it's true.
49:55How can we do it?
49:57How can we do it?
49:59How can we do it?
50:02It has been five weeks since Corinna's husband has disappeared.
50:19We were about to leave El Salvador.
50:21I feel bad, very, very bad.
50:34On a Tuesday, you have a home, children, a husband who works, and on a Wednesday, you don't have him.
50:44To feel this impotence, to look for him everywhere, not to find a trace.
50:53Where has he gone?
50:55What has happened to the life he had?
51:00Anguish.
51:03To think that something bad could have happened to him.
51:07That he might be in a very bad situation.
51:12Sick.
51:13Prisoner.
51:16Even dead.
51:19And not to have, how to say it, not to have the certainty that he is alive.
51:27How do you feel without your father?
51:32Sad.
51:36Very sad.
51:38Do you think that he will be back?
51:39Yes, I think he will come back.
51:46Where is he, do you think?
51:52For the moment, we don't know anything.
51:56What do you think?
51:57Now I'm afraid for my children, for all of us.
52:13But I feel the protection of you.
52:16You are the international press.
52:22The international opinion carries a lot of weight for the people who govern here.
52:25But you are leaving, and we stay.
52:31We must go on living like this.
52:33You take down facts.
52:38You will make some journalistic project out of it.
52:43But you are working and you leave.
52:44And we must go on living here, looking for him.
52:50Are you afraid for your security?
52:52Yes.
52:53Yes, I'm afraid.
52:54I'm afraid.
52:56I know that sometimes I look very calm.
53:02I have two children.
53:07One of them already realizes what's happening.
53:10And I can't cry all day.
53:11It depresses him.
53:12But at night, a time of solitude,
53:15I want to cry with the impotence, with the rage of...
53:21Of not knowing where to turn, where to look for him.
53:33Yes, I'm afraid.
53:42El Salvador means the saviour who can save his children.
54:12Our crew couldn't help Corina.
54:27All they could do was alert the U.S. Embassy to her plight.
54:30She is still in hiding.
54:32There has been no word of her husband.
54:34But the larger question is, who will help the people of El Salvador?
54:38The leftist guerrillas are pledged to overthrow the present government.
54:43Their political solutions and their aims are unacceptable to the United States.
54:48The Salvadoran government that emerges from the elections will be dependent on the United States.
54:54But neither the Salvadoran government nor the U.S. can seem to stop the killing.
54:59The problem has been vividly illustrated in the case of Colonel Nicholas Carranza,
55:04who was in tonight's film.
55:05A former high-ranking Salvadoran military official recently charged Colonel Carranza
55:11was an employee of the CIA and also one of those responsible for the right-wing death squads.
55:18Carranza has denied the charge.
55:20Whatever the truth, the central dilemma for American policymakers remains.
55:25Is an all-out war against communism in Central America compatible with our concepts of democracy?
55:32Next week on Frontline, a story of very special young people, student-athletes.
55:40The game, basketball.
55:44The players, two All-American high school stars.
55:48With Derek, this is a grade-A rating.
55:51They're saying he is a kid that we all should take.
55:53He's quick, he's big, he's strong, he's smart, and he's a great kid.
55:55Mooney was one of those kids who was misinformed and misdirected.
56:02He did not graduate with his class.
56:06It's like heroin.
56:07It makes him dream of something that's not a reality.
56:11The question, do we owe them an education in return for their performance?
56:16We call the program Chasing the Basketball Dream.
56:26It is next week on Frontline.
56:28I'm Judy Woodruff.
56:29We'll see you next week on Frontline.
56:59For a transcript of this program, please send $4 to Frontline, Box 322, Boston, Massachusetts, 02134.
57:12Frontline is produced for the Documentary Consortium by WGBH Boston, which is solely responsible for its content.
57:21Major funding for Frontline was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
57:25Additional funding was provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide.
57:33For video cassette information about Frontline, write to
57:36PBS Video, Box 8092, Washington, D.C., 20024.
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