Adding Fuel To the Fire

IN A REPORT sent to Congress last week, President Reagan certified that the El Salvador government is making progress on human rights. Such a certification is required every six months as a condition for maintaining U.S. military aid. So now the extreme Right regime is virtually assured of receiving the $25 million in guns it has been earmarked for this fiscal year.

In the past, this paper has made clear its opposition to sending arms to El Salvador, because more guns in an already troubled area can only add fuel to the fire. In El Salvador, negotiation and compromise--tactics that have been continually rejected by the Right but espoused by some Leftists--are the only way to resolve the injustices of history. More U.S. military aid can only run counter to the goal of a fair peace.

But the Reagan report, based as it is on the assurance that the human rights situation is improving in El Salvador, is misleading as well as illogical. Recent reports by independent human rights monitoring groups like Amnesty International indicate that violent abuses by the military have not decreased in the past six months, and indeed may have increased. In addition, the notoriously deficient Salvadoran criminal justice system recently gave two indications particularly noteworthy for Americans that little progress is being made. El Salvador released two Salvadoran officers implicated in the murder of two American land redistribution consultants and reversed a court decision that found several Salvadoran soldiers guilty of the murders of four American churchwomen in 1980.

The United States has the possibility to exert effective and positive leverage on the Salvadoran government with military aid. The threat that such aid will be held back can force the regime in El Salvador to crack down on human rights abuses. But Reagan's certification decision should make it obvious that El Salvador can have its cake and eat it too.