Charles Clements, 39, is а Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, and, as а С-130 pilot in Vietnam, flew more than fifty combat missions before he became disillusioned with U. S. involvement. Hе later enrolled in the University of Washington School of Medicine, from which he graduated in 1980. Hе also holds graduate degrees in business administration as well as public health. Hе returned to the United States to help found the Salvadoran Medical Relief Fund in Salinas, California. Hіs testimonies before Congress and the American people are an ongoing effort to promote реасе with justice in Central Аmerіса.

Shortly after Witness to War was published, Dr. Clements founded a Washington D.C.-based NGO – Americans for Peace in the Americas. Three years later he moved to Cambridge, MA when the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee hired him as Director of Human Rights Education. During the three years he worked for UUSC he led several Congressional delegations to the region as well as a delegation of Vietnam Veterans. Dr. Clements then worked for an NGO called SatelLife created by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War to create communication links between physicians in the northern hemisphere and those in the global south to address threats such as nuclear war, epidemics, or armed conflicts. Satellite established email for the health sectors in sixteen African countries. Initially using a basketball sized satellite the technology of error correcting modems could carry for more data than the satellite. Dr. Clements returned to New Mexico from where he entered the Air Force with his wife Gigi to begin their family. He consulted for the Pew Charitable Trusts setting up an NGO called WaterWorks that helped low-income communities within the U.S. but along the border with Mexico, which were without running water and sewer. WaterWorks mobilized communities to engage in self-help construction of water and waste water solutions. When the Second Gulf War broke out in 2003, Dr. Clements was hired again by UUSC, but time as CEO. Dr Clements, his wife Gigi, son and daughter moved to Brookline, MA. Dr. Clements was a founding board member of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) in 1986, remained on the board for twenty-years and ain 1997 as President represented PHR at the treaty signing in Ottawa and a week later at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Dr. Clements left UUSC in 2010 and became the Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he also taught human rights courses. He retired from teaching as a full professor at Touro University, CA teaching human rights, public health, and clinical skills in their School for Physician Assistants. He now lives in Maine with his wife Gigi. The Salvadoran Medical Relief Fund raised about $2.5 million over the decades of its existence and after the war devoted much of its resources and volunteers, both physicians and midwives, to training former medics with the FMLN in Guazapa to become certified midwives, who have never charged fees for their services in all these years.

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  • WItness to War: An American Doctor in El Salvador

    WItness to War: An American Doctor in El Salvador

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    WItness to War: An American Doctor in El Salvador

    Witness to War: An American Doctor in El Salvador offers a personal account of Dr. Charles Clements’ year-long mission providing medical care behind rebel lines during El Salvador’s brutal civil war from 1981-1982. Clements, a former decorated U.S. Air Force pilot disillusioned by his Vietnam experiences, transformed into a Quaker doctor committed to non-violence and the principle of “bearing witness”—observing a situation firsthand and speaking truth about power.The book chronicles his harrowing struggle, at times one of only two fully trained physicians, for approximately 10,000 people in a guerrilla-controlled zone, confronting “scenes of almost unbelievable horror” and an “anguished view of the low value on life”. With virtually no supplies, Clements improvised, performing amputations with a Swiss Army knife and suturing with dental floss, all while battling dysentery, malaria, and hunger himself. His narrative is extraordinarily restrained yet both disturbing and gripping.Witness to War serves as a testimony from behind the lines, vividly portraying a conflict of constant aerial bombardments by U.S.-supplied aircraft. Clements’ commitment to medical neutrality, treating any patient regardless of their affiliation, is a central theme, challenging readers to confront uncomfortable truths about U.S. foreign policy and the immense human cost of conflict. This new edition, published decades later, underscores the enduring relevance of imperialism and militarism, urging new generations to reflect on their potential impact on the Global South.

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