#cispes

In 1970 I went to my first anti-war demonstration. I was sixteen and my cousin Michael Ashie (People introduced us as “This is my friend Michael and this is his cousin Michael,” an introduction guaranteed to evoke snickers) invited me to go to Hermann Park not far from where he lived with our grandparents in west Houston.  There were about 40 college-age people sitting in a circle on a hillside.…

Kirsti Nevalainen posted this on December 1, 2014:

The US administration turned to the Unification Church to help probe the loyalty of Americans. Starting in 1981, the FBI cooperated with CARP, Moon’s student organization, during a five-year nationwide investigation of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), a domestic organization critical of Reagan’s policies in Central America.

According to FBI documents the FBI collected reports from Moon’s Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP), which was spying on CISPES supporters. The reports came from CARP members at 100 university campuses around the United States and included commentaries on the purported political beliefs of Reagan’s critics (Boston Globe, April 20, 1988).

One CARP report called a CISPES supporter “well-educated in Marxism” while other CARP reports attached “clippings culled from communist-inspired front groups.” The Globe investigation reported that Frank Varelli, who worked for the FBI from 1981 to 1984 and was coordinating the CISPES probe, said a Special Agent Dan Flanagan paid members of the Moon organization at Southern Methodist University while the Moon activists were raiding and disrupting CISPES rallies.

Every week, a Special Agent (Dan Flanagan) I worked with used to go to SMU to pay the Moonies,“ Varelli said in an interview.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/050108.html

Paranoid McCarthyism, which is associated with witch-hunts, panic and fear of Communism, was resurrected during the Reagan years. The FBI hired and paid CARP members for intelligence gathering and spying on suspected leftist students at university campuses.

Jess Sundin. The People are my Mountains.

  I met my friend Layla’s uncle in Iraq. He was a recently-released prisoner of war in Iran — thin and quiet, still unhealthy and traumatized. This loving family made a meal for us in their home. Their son loved Micheal Jackson. He asked me to moonwalk for him. I did. Most people would say I didn’t, but….I tried. 

All the people we met would say: “We hate your government, not your people.” That…

New Post has been published on http://fsrn.org/2014/03/photo-essay-el-salvador-election/

Photo Essay: El Salvador election

Click on any image to launch the slideshow. Credit & Copyright – CISPES. Listen to Alice Ollstein’s interview with Alexis Stoumbelis, the Executive Director of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.

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The front pages on election day in El Salvador.

A poll workers looks over the voter rolls.

Salvadorans living abroad were able to cast absentee ballots this election.

Women at a pro-FMLN rally.

Raised fists at the FMLN rally.

Outside the hotel where the final vote count took place.

CISPES observer documents a rally by ARENA supporters outside of the hotel where votes were counted.

Sign at pro-ARENA rally reads “Yes to the homeland. No to communism.”

ARENA is a far right wing party that was founded at the height of El Salvador’s civil war.

CISPES election observer speaking to Salvadoran media.

FMLN candidate, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, declares victory.