3-17-08, 11:25 am

In response to the democratic upsurge in Latin America, the Bush administration is targeting for special surveillance and repression US groups who lead public pressure campaigns to end US government intervention in that continent.

One of those groups is the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, or CISPES, an organization formed in the 1980s to block the US government's role in fomenting El Salvador's civil war and the Reagan administration's support for right-wing military groups that caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Salvadorans.

In January, said CISPES executive director Burke Stansbury in a recent interview, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a letter to CISPES ordering it to register as an agent of a foreign government or entity.

The letter contained false and misleading information, Stansbury said. The DOJ essentially accused CISPES of being an agent for the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation, or FMLN, the leading opposition political party in El Salvador which is disliked by the Bush administration.

The letter suggested that 'CISPES had been hired by the FMLN to do its work both fundraising and political campaigning in the United States,' Stansbury stated. The DOJ letter ordered the organization to submit documents such as contracts with the FMLN as part of a registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Stansbury said that CISPES has categorically denied that it has been hired by the FMLN, and that while it has a relationship with the FMLN it is purely based on shared values.

'No such documents exist,' Stansbury noted. 'In fact, there's no basis for the claim. No evidence had been shown.' He added that the DOJ letter referred to an article from the Washington Post, which contained no reference to CISPES, and to some press statements put out by the organization, but none of this points to any contractual link between CISPES and the FMLN.

'Everything they have asserted in this letter is categorically false,' Stansbury emphatically stated.

CISPES has a relationship with FMLN, Stansbury continued, just as it has relationships with El Salvadoran labor unions, women's groups, and campesino organizations. 'But it is by no means a relationship of foreign agency, as they call it,' he said.

Stansbury described the DOJ letter as politically motivated and aimed at suppressing opposition to Bush administration policies.

'I would characterize it as an attempt to focus in on CISPES as an actor in what is playing out as a pretty important political struggle right now in Latin America,' he suggested.

Stansbury referred to the emergence of left-wing and social reform minded administrations recently elected to power in several Latin American countries.

El Salvador figures as part of this equation with its national elections coming up in 2009. The FMLN and its presidential candidate Mauricio Funes, who is currently leading in the polls, have a real chance to oust the right-wing, US-backed ruling party.

'If they were to win,' Stansbury said, 'it would be part of this trend of progressive parties and leaders winning in Latin America.'

Right now, El Salvador is one of the few remaining allies of the Bush administration in Latin America. Losing it would be a major blow to Bush's agenda for that continent, Stansbury opined.

These circumstances and the administration's anxiety about El Salvador's election hint at the political motives behind the letter to CISPES.

'I would suggest that this letter is coming more from the State Department than the Justice Department,' said Stansbury. 'It's a message to CISPES and to the people in this country who would support the self-determination and the progress of these progressive movements in Latin America. It's a message that we should back off and they're going to be watching our actions.'

Stansbury added that his organization will not be deterred and is pledged to continue to educate Americans about the US role in El Salvador and encourage them to get involved in pressuring our government to stop its intervention.

'Our attitude is to continue full force with our solidarity with the people of El Salvador and with the movements that are strengthening there and to not be intimidated by this letter and what it represents,' Stansbury concluded.

Federal harassment of CISPES dates back to the 1980s when the FBI under the Reagan administration developed a network of undercover agents, often members of right-wing and Republican youth groups, to report on the activities of organizations like CISPES.

--Reach Joel Wendland at