“American Taboo” by Philip Weiss

Tue, 20 Jul 2004 20:00:00 +0000

Whenever America -- its citizens, its representatives, its officials -- paves over an injustice with seemingly impenetrable silence, it matters and it matters a lot, because sooner or later what's beneath that silence, in its rise back toward the light, will shake the earth, and by that I mean our humanity itself will be shaken by the disgrace and indignation that good people will feel when the truth is finally known.

On Oct. 14, 1976, a beautiful, vivacious, altruistic 23-year-old Peace Corps volunteer from the state of Washington, Deborah Gardner, died in the island nation of Tonga in the South Pacific, the 11th Peace Corps fatality of that year. What distinguished her death from the other 10, and from every other Peace Corps death before or since, is the fact that Deb Gardner was murdered, savagely hacked to death, by a fellow volunteer, Dennis Priven, then a 24-year-old science teacher from Brooklyn, N.Y.

With his Seahorse diving knife, Priven stabbed Deb Gardner 22 times, and -- here's the point, here's why we're obliged to talk about this 28 years later -- this coldblooded killer walked away from the crime scot-free, aided and abetted by the Peace Corps and the U.S. government and their subsequent coverup of the atrocity. In the aftermath of her slaying, Gardner was treated like garbage, not by the traumatized Tongans but by her own heartless and chillingly naive countrymen, as though her life had no value and her death no meaning.

Salon.com > Bob Shacochis

“American Taboo” by Philip Weiss