Abstract

Minority Report

A small but significant element in the gruesome ritual of the U.S. Government is the regular business of certification. Punctually every year, the Administration has to return to the U.S. Congress to testify that, say, the death squads in El Salvador are behaving themselves better; the Turks in Cyprus are showing signs of flexibility, the South Africans are responding well to the constructive engagement treatment. Since the purpose of these reports and testimonials is to obscure reality, and since reality is stubborn, and since the reports have to come out every year, the making of them, or, better, the fabrication of them, has become a minor bureaucratic art form. U.S. President Ronald Reagan wants to modify its Central American policy. Friends are friends. The others are the others. Pursuing this line, Stephen Bosworth, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, told a hearing of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee in 1981 that there had been some positive developments.