Content warning: depictions of wartime conditions and human rights violations.
The Dodd Center for Human Rights hosted a screening of the 1985 award-winning documentary “Witness to War” about the human rights violations during the civil war in El Salvador on April 1.
Afterwards, a conversation commenced between Charlie Clements, the focus of the film, Deborah Shaffer, director of the film and Scott Wallace, professor of journalism.
Director of the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute Kathryn Libal introduced David Richards, associate professor of the political science department and affiliate of the Human Rights Institute, who introduced Charlie Clements.
Charlie Clements is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and a human rights activist who defied orders and refused to fly more missions during the Vietnam War. As a result, he was put in a psychiatric ward. After being discharged, Clements pursued his doctorate and applied his medical knowledge abroad, going to El Salvador during the civil war to help injured and dying civilians.
The film began with a reading of Clements’ diary. In El Salvador, Clements noted the statistic that “25% of all children die from malnutrition causes.”
Clements said that at first, they used gauze to treat wounds, but after there were crackdowns on gauze, they used mosquito netting as a substitute. When mosquito netting was restricted, they used diapers. It was noted that a woman was murdered for transporting diapers.
Clements remarked that he went to El Salvador “because [he] feared that another Vietnam War was going to happen.” He recounted the story of a woman who was nine months pregnant and gave birth with her leg wounded from grenade shrapnel.
An El Salvadorian woman said she and others didn’t trust Clements at first because they thought he was a “gringo” or a “yanqui,” but after he started to tend to the injured, he won their trust. For example, he treated a baby with medicine and vitamins after telling the mother not to lose faith.
There was a startling piece of footage where men armed with rifles were pushing people, including children, towards a car. A cameraperson was hiding behind something and filming the act.
Footage was then shown of anti-Vietnam War protests at colleges. Clements recounted a quote by former President John F. Kennedy about how people shouldn’t think about what their country can do for them but what they can do for their country.
After going to a psychiatric ward for not complying with Air Force policies and not facilitating the Vietnam War with more missions, Clements said, “I was told I was going to get strapped down and get an injection if I don’t cooperate.”
They weaponized mental illness diagnoses to oppress Clements. “I made a personal commitment to nonviolence,” said Clements. After leaving the psychiatric ward, Clements went to medical school in 1980.
Another El Salvadorian woman remembered how her husband was murdered, while food sources and hidden stock were destroyed, burned and killed. Even an avocado tree was chopped down so people couldn’t eat from it.
Children were murdered, and some of their bodies couldn’t be located. The movie ended with a quote about how someone said that there was a violence of the spirit by watching your children die of malnutrition.
The audience was made aware that there was a display with artifacts in the Dodd Center’s reception room that also appeared in a slideshow presented before the movie was screened.
The film’s Oscar-winning ceremony was then played for the audience.
Next, a promotional video for the 2027 Charlie Clements Digital Archive sponsored by the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute was shown. The digital archive includes Clements’ diary written in El Salvador. “The diary was a catalyst for other memories,” he said in the video.
The archive was described as “remnants of a life of activism” and a way to understand how policies change. He also said that being an activist takes a toll on your family. There was a self-care focus in the archive, which is rarely seen in archival projects. Clements ended the video by saying, “You can never go wrong with being kind to someone.”
Then, there was a conversation between Clements, Shaffer and Wallace, who was the moderator. Shaffer said “I wouldn’t be a filmmaker without the Vietnam War” since it radicalized her into anti-war activism.
She then remembered how an article about Clements in the New York Times was removed. When she was working with CBS News, they weren’t interested in covering Clements’ story.
Clements said the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front was seen as a legitimate combatant by Mexico and France. He also remembered how customs gave him trouble for having medicine in his backpack.
Clements said, “I hoped the movie would be about El Salvador” because he wanted the war to end. Instead, Clements recounted, “The film made me a movie star.” He was also accused of being a communist.
Wallace said, “Vietnam weighed a lot on our generation.” Shaffer said, “There was a lot of idealism in America in the 1950s.” She also said her friends were drafted into the war and were either killed in action or their lives were in danger.
Clements said that just being a college student made you exempt from the draft, leaving poor people at a disadvantaged.
A student in the military asked Clements what it was like getting an Article 15 disciplinary action, to which Clements replied, “We need honorable people in the military.” Former President Richard Nixon said there were no soldiers in Laos, but Clements said he lied.
In an interview with Clements, when asked what his life was like after his work in El Salvador, he said that he was also involved in trying to stop the Iraq War. He also recalled the genocide in Guatemala.
He said that 80 million protestors didn’t deter the government from the Iraq War, but he also said, “I think that when we learned to organize and create pressure on elected officials. That’s how we make policy changes.”