A REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK
OF THE SALVADORAN WAR
By Lars Palmgren
This article has been translated from the February issue of the Swedish magazine ETC. It has been somewhat abridged for reasons of space and some slight changes have also been made in order to retain continuity.
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TEGUCIGALPA--Lieutenant Haverman was smiling. It was not a pleasant smile. But there was no doubt that the muscular movement visible across his square face as it appeared above his morning paper was indeed a smile.
Lieutenant John Haverman. I think I learned his name from the boxes that came for him. This was the first time in the weeks since I started seeing him that the expression on his face showed anything other than unrelieved sullenness.
"Damn them Poles, " he burst out. "I said it, didn't I? That's the way they are, them Commies." (This was the time of the Jaruzelski coup.)
This outburst was followed by an almost satisfied sigh. Then, after a few minutes silence:
"'Shit... shame it wasn't them Russians."
Lieutenant John Haverman lived together with nine other American officers in the Eden Boarding House. He had been through all the experiences of the Vietnam war and had gone through a special course in Panama. Now he was a U.S. military advisor in Honduras. I asked one of his companions if he was a tourist. The answer was "no, we're just teachin' a little shootin'."
After that communication was limited to a quick nod in the morning. However, it often happened that the ten American military advisors gathered around a bottle of Flora del Cana rum to drink away their troubles. Their loud talk slipped from comparisons between the whores in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa to their life's work--beating 'them Commies.'
It was the evening of the day that the military took over in Poland. But it wasn't that they were talking about. It was El Salvador.
Lieutenant John Haverman's broad Western American accent spread through the night. It reached up to the terrace where I was sitting. He was interested in another news item.
A UPI dispatch from San Salvador reported that the Salvadoran minister 10 of defense, Colonel Jose Guillermo Garcia, said that his troops had taken the site of the FMLN radio station, Radio Venceremos. Garcia went on to say that the offensive against Morazan that his forces launched on December 1 had been a total success. A hundred, perhaps hundreds of guerrillas, had been killed. The rest had been driven from their positions and were now in headlong flight.
"I was talking with Pete yesterday. He says the heat's on in El Salvador. They've driven out all the 'Commies' and rubbed out a whole lot of them. 11
So, the American military advisors were celebrating. What was disturbing was that this time, Colonel Garcia might not be lying.
A week earlier, in the village of Castelar on the border with El Salvador, "Reina' looked up at the mountain tops on the other side of the river and said:
"When the dogs bark up on Pena Blanca, we know that they're coming down. So, they were, the Salvadoran soldiers were coming down from their mountain-top camps. The people of Castelar looked up at the shadows of the mountains that were already beginning to dissolve in the suddenly falling darkness.
"You can see their flashlights, " someone said.
Most of the people in Castelar were refugees from the town of Acatan in Chalatenango, the Salvadoran province just across the mountains. They had chosen to live with Honduran families who opened their homes to them instead of the refugee camps a few kilometers away in La Virtud.
Some were standing around Reina and looking at the distant flashlights. The fear that haunts all their nights was obvlously beginning to close in on them. These people lived in Victoria's house.
Victoria was more afraid this evening than even two weeks ago, when her husband, Ciro Cruz, was mur-. dered. Yesterday, Victoria was summoned to Captain Moya, commander of the camp in La Virtud. "He told me that if I continued to look for information about Ciro's death, more blood would flow."
The indications were that Ciro Cruz, who worked for the Catholic agency Caritas, was murdered by Honduran soldiers acting on Captain Moya's orders.
But it was not just Captain Moya's threats that frightened Victoria this evening. In the morning a group of ten Salvadoran soldiers had come into La Virtud. Quite openly, under the eyes of the inhabitants, they went right to the military headquarters next to the church and talked with Captain Moya.
What had they talked about? That was the question that was bothering Victoria. "Were they coming over to kill us all? " There was an attempt to inject a reassuring note. "They have never come to Castelar, " Reina said. It was squelched, "There has to be a first time."
There was another disturbing sign. Yesterday evening, Radio Venceremos had been on the air only a quarter of an hour. It reported that the military had launched their biggest offensive yet in Morazan and that the station would discontinue its broadcasting for a time for "technical reasons,
This morning, two Salvadoran Fighters swept in over Castelar, flying in a wide circle toward La Virtud. They came back and flew low over the mountains to the other side of the river. Then two muffled but powerful explosions were heard.
Had the military started a new offensive against Chalatenengo? The questions increased. But in the evening, they all merged into one. "Are they coming to kill us all?" They didn't come.
They didn't come that night. But they were nearby. The night was an inferno of gunfire. By the sound of breathing, you could tell that no one slept. But no one talked either. "They" were near. Already before dawn, everyone was up. While we were eating by bonfires and waiting for the sun to come up, Dona Angelica said:
"If only those Americans hadn't gotten involved, If they had only left us in peace, everything would have been over by now. We could live in peace and work."
The people didn't want us to go. The moment we were ready to leave, a report came that Salvadoran soldiers had crossed the border at La Cuesta and were on their way here. In entering Honduras, they had immediately killed another Caritas worker. The fear in Castelar would be even greater this evening. The two American priests who replaced us as "night watchers" in Victoria's house • could do nothing about that.
So, in one respect, Colonel Jose Guillermo Garcia and his Honduran cohorts had been successful. Fear had taken root among the Salvadoran refugees and among the Hondurans who sympathized with them.
Spreading fear was a conscious strategy. The aim was to "persuade" the refugees and, along with them, the international aid workers, journalists, the observers, the watching eyes, to move back to the new camps at Mesa Grande far from the border. Then, the frontier area would be left free for more extensive coordinated military actions beyond the view of any watching eyes.
This operation was started right after the arrival of Lieutenant John Haverman at the end of July. Had this success been followed up with gains in Morazan as well? The boisterous noises that emanated from the vicinity of Lieutenant John Haverman's bottle of rum suggested that. Had Colonel Garcia really spoken the truth when he said that the offensive was a "total success?"
No answer could be found in Tegucigalpa. There was no way to go to Morazan, The only thing left to do was go to San Salvador. As I left, Morazan in the distance seemed like a picture postcard--silent, unmoving across the almost empty savanna.
SHADOW PLAY IN THE SALVADORAN CAPITAL
San Salvador was decked out for Christmas. The military press office was closed for the holiday. No responsible officer could be found. But the ruling Christian Democracy Party had called a special conference. Over the entrance to the party's central headquarters was a banner saying: "The First Peaceful Revolution in Latin America." The party's own armed guards moved in the shadows behind the iron gates. After a half hour's checking of press credentials: "Sorry, you can't go in."
Official San Salvador seemed to want to shut its eyes to the war. No statement by officials, not even about the "victorious offensive in Morazan. The papers more than before described the manifestations of the war as a matter of ordinary criminality.
About Morazan, they wrote that "the remaining subversives" had begun to fight among themselves. On the offensive, there was nothing. Only the English language journal News Gazette published a picture of a truck-column soldier "on his way home after the victorious offensive in Morazan. " No, official San Salva-
What the Americans want this election for is to legitimize the government so that they can send in more military and economic aid. It was not someone from the FDR or the FMLN who offered this analysis. It was the lawyer Rene Fortin Margana, leader of Accion Democratica, one of the five bourgeois opposition parties, who said this.
"They have framed an electoral law to guarantee a Christian Democratic victory, " he explained. To telling criticism from him and other bourgeois figures, the Christian Democrats and the junta offered only the reply that these rival parties were corrupt, power hungry, and had a history of totalitarianism.
(DR)
They were all telling the truth, in what they said about each other. The electoral law was rigged. The other parties, like the Christian Democrats were corrupt and power hungry, and those that had any history at all had one marked by totalitarianism. The most striking thing, however, was that the debate, despite the publicity given to it, was like a shadow play.
No one understood it. No one paid any attention to it. No one was concerned about it. The debate had nothing to do with reality.
Even in San Salvador, where the junta's control is most effective, it was hard to find anyone outside of the party apparatuses and the corridors of power who treated the election and the discussion around it as anything other than a conundrum.
The reality was the war. If the
So, in San Salvador also I could find no answer to the question of whether there was any basis for Colonel Garcia's proclamations of victory•
It took thirty-five hours traveling, spread out over three nights, to get a definite answer. But then I found out the truth and it was resounding and ever more powerful. I found it as we were nearing the heart of the Eastern Front--The Frente OrientalFrancisco Sanchez-Morazan.
THE TRUTH
Colonel Garcia's claims were false.
Immediately after our arrival, Padre Rogelio Poncell, a Belgian priest who has lived a long time in El Salvador, began a New Year mass for the heroes and martyrs who fell in the struggle for freedom. It was broadcast by Radio Venceremos, which had resumed regular broadcasting some days before.
The reading from the Gospel According to Saint Luke was preceded by a reading of the poem "The party": "...if you do not come ready to give your heart and your life, don't bother to come...
The need to be prepared to give your life in the struggle for the liberation of the poor and the oppressed was the theme of Padre Rogelio's New Year sermon.
"That is the great, unparalleled heart of our Christian faith..."
At the end of the service, the traditional "Peace be with you, " was followed by the slogan: "We Swear That We Will Win!''
Through the singing of the crickets, we could hear the noise of the motors that supply electricity to Radio Venceremos.
THE GUERRILLA COMMANDER'S
STORY Just after midnight on New Year's morning seemed an impossible time for an interview. But Jorge Melendez, Comandante Jonas, commander of the Eastern Front, was ready to offer his time. He is perhaps thirty, bearded, dark brown eyes, broad shouldered, sturdy.
"The enemy needs a military and political victory to lend their electoral farce some credibility, " he
"So they threw more than ever before into this offensive. The plan was drawn up--that is officially acknowledged--by a group of American advisors specially sent here. Every day for a month, they prepared the way for the offensive with as well as the placing of measuring devices and information gathering apparatuses."
dor did not want to talk about the war. war's existence was not denied en-
It wanted to talk about the elections on March 28 for the Constituent
Assembly. Naturally, there is no question of the resistance fronts, the
FDR and FMLN, taking part in them.
tirely, the parties' spokespersons sidestepped the question by saying:
"That's the military's affair." But
I the military was "closed for the holidays."
The New Year's night was warm and damp. People stripped to their shorts were baking tortillas. The mood was peaceful. People were laughing and chatting.
cal equipment. They had helicopters., ious, many of them members of var-
Comandante Jonas was tired, but he spoke in a thoughtful well-orga-
"We knew that they were preparing a major offensive, and we knew that their objective was to silence Radio Venceremos and disorganize our forces. They cannot crush us, they know that. What they wanted to do was disorganize us and neutralize our offensive capacity. So, they sent in their best troops... I don't mean the best in a good sense but the militarily most experienced and hardened--the Atlacatl Brigade (trained by the American advisors), the cavalry squadrons, the paratroopers, and certain battalions of the national and rural police forces. In all, about 4, 000 men were involved, plus helicopters and Fight-
Maravilla interrupted, saying that when the invasion began, copters the junta has, flew in low in a group from one place to another to direct their forces: "It was like that scene in Apocalypse Now, you know."
"Yes, " continued Comandante tions. Some of them escorted unarmed columns, while others were organized to attack the enemy from various points. This part of the operation was also successful.
"We kept 'los Cuilios on the move constantly. But we were also successful in extending the operation zone so widely that the enemy found it difficult to find any targets. In some cases, they spent a whole day attacking a hill where no position had been set up."
"We estimate that the enemy suffered sixty-two casualties, eighteen dead and the rest wounded. We took six casualties, including only one death. Moreover, we captured a lot of weapons and ammunition."
Carrying off such an operation was far from easy. It meant leading columns of up to 1, 000 persons, including many women and children, through the darkness of night to secure places. It meant silent marches in absolute blackness and lying quiet in hiding places during the day. In one column, a woman gave birth to a child. It meant overcoming exhaus-
They had inexhaustible supplies of ammunition-- cannon, grenade launci ers, advanced radio equipment.
Our forces had achieved a considerable military capacity."
"But, " he stressed, "the most important thing is that our combatientes have a higher morale than the enemy. They have the support of the people, while 'los Cuilios' are despised by the people. We know what we are fighting for. Los
You could see the truth of what he was saying just by looking around. Almost all the people there came from villages around Morazan, They were poor farmers and agricultural workers, or sons and daughters of the poor rural working people. Some were workers from the cities. A few were students. But it was a whole
The assurance they all showed was an illustration of what Comandante Jonas said. Their local roots gave them a knowledge of the terrain, the mountain stairways, all the thousand ways of avoiding the enemy.
"We knew what they were plan- tion and fear. It meant trusting those ning, and we prepared our defense outside the enemy's range of operations. In a way, the enemy's concentrating troops here was an advantage for us. We could go on the offensive in other places."
In fact, while the junta's offensive was underway, units of the FMLN carried out a successful attack on the military camps in three of the biggest towns in the area covered by the Francisco Sanchez Eastern Front-Usulutan, San Miguel, and La Union.
"The offensive tactic in these cities was complemented up here with a tactic that we call diversive resistance, " Comandante Jonas continued. "The essential thing for us was to protect the radio station and the civilian population. With that objective, we followed a tactic based on getting the enemy to advance in the direction that we wanted. We built up positions that gave the impression of wanting to defend, then gave them up one by one. That gave the enemy, the impression that they were gaining. While certain units diverted the enemy in this way, others were positioned to attack the enemy's rearguard in order to lend support to those that were encircled when they
"At the same time, we warned the civilian population to leave their
We grouped them, together with our armed personnel, the radio team, and other units in columns that spread out in various directions from the place to which we were luring the
"Our tactic worked perfectly. After we broke the encirclement, our troops spread out in various direcwho gave the commands, and the commanders being able to trust them-
STRENGTH OF THE RESISTANCE
"It might seem that we functioned like a machine, " Comandante Jonas said. "But it was far from like that. To achieve success required an enormous human exertion. You can see yourself how we operate, and everything that is going on now had to be kept up then too. Food production cannot be stopped. The medical brigades have to remain on the alert, the messengers have to be constantly moving around. This work goes on day and night. Without this enormous human effort, without the human support that it represents, none of this would have been possible. "
Even now at 2:00 a.m. on New Year's morning activity continued. There was radio contact between the various "campamentos, " silent groups moved about, and the military positions had to be maintained. Food production--this rarely involved anything more than tortillas and beans or rice--almost never ceased.
Constantly moving about were the messengers, food carriers, or replacements on their way out into the darkness. And others were coming back. There was the rattle of weapons. People presented themselves. There was a lot of washing of hands. Everyone has to wash their hands before eating their two tortillas and going to sleep where they can find room to lie down.
"After all, " Comandante Jonas
"The enemy forces numbered 4, 000. They had all the techni-
In late December, when the enemy troops started to retreat, the FMLN units retook the areas that had been abandoned. At the same time, a serious attack was launched against the fixed positions that the enemy had established around these areas.
In these attacks, more casualties were inflicted on the enemy, more material was captured, and the FMIN took five prisoners. They were Manuel Antonio Rosales Chavez, a twenty-five year-uld sergeant; Nelson Ernest Hernandez, eighteen, a private; Jorge Francisco Lemus Casillo, eighteen, a private; Jose Alberto Martinez Vallalta, fifteen, a private; and Adalbero Campos, eighteen, a private.
"They grabbed me on the way to school, " Jorge Francisco Lemus said, "They only gave me time to return my books to my mother. " I wanted to desert all the time, " another said, who could barely write his name. "But they caught several deserters, and so I got too scared to
"'They're taking everybody over the age of fourteen, " said Jose Martinez Villalta, who is only fifteen.
The prisoners had seen some of the work of the Atlacatl elite units:
"They told us that they killed 700 guerrillas, " Manuel said, "But later when we came to Mozote, we saw that it was women and children."
The hundreds of guerrillas that the minister of defense, Jose Guillermo Garcia claimed were killed in the offensive were not guerrillas. They were women, children, and old people--unarmed civilians.
Most of them were deeply relig-
They did not ious religious sects.
want to heed the FMLN's warning to evacuate the villages as the offen-
I stood still, I don't know where I
The soldiers were got the strength.
only a few feet away. They started
"Don't you know? Don't you know what they did in Mozote, They said that they would come back." He hurried on.
sive neared.
"They won't do anything to us, " these people said. "We aren't involved. We will stay where God wills, now Captain Ortega wants me to kill and if God wills that we die here, then so be it."
Now as witnesses were starting to stream in the villages were being retaken, the macabre statistics could be tallied up. About 900 persons, most of them women, children, and old people, were murdered by the
We approached Mozote at dawn. There "compas" (companeros) went with us. The countryside was dark. The path led through woods and groves. It reminded me a bit of Vastmanland in Sweden.
As soon as we came close to the
I noticed the smell. The odor of death. Bodies left unburied.
On the right, there was a church, The plaza in front, with its grass and stepping stones, seemed more meadow than market place. Three streets extended in various directions from it.
Mozote must have been a pleasant village. Now there was hardly a house in it left whole. Most of the dead bodies lay under collapsed roofs. Others were hastily buried. In some houses, human skeletons lay over broken beams. Here there was a skull. There chest bones. A shoe with a severed leg. There was audible flutter of wings. The trees were alive with vultures.
In one house on the outskirts, lay an old woman, naked, her body hunched over, her hands covering her face, as if she were shielding herself from a blow. Her body was almost whole... almost.
The first thing the government troops did when they entered on the evening of December 11 was to steal
Rofina Maya was one of the few villagers who survived. She talked so fast that it was hard to follow her. It was as if she was trying to get through the story so quickly that she would not have to think about it again.
"They put the men up in the church. The women were taken into Alfredo Marquez's house. At 12:00, they started killing the men. In the afternoon, they started on the women. The young ones were taken up on the hill and raped, then shot. They took me out with six others at night. I was lucky. It must have been a miracle of God.
"I hid behind a tree. They didn't see me, even though I was no further away from them than I am from you. I stood still and saw them shoot the lothers, and then burn their bodies.
"I have killed fourteen women and eight men, ' one of them said. kids too. But I won't do that, ' I had to listen to them a whole hour, Another soldier told him that Captain Ortega would kill him if he didn't do what he was told. 'That doesn't matter, ' he said. 'I can kill men and women all right, but I can't kill kids who never did anything.'
"I don't know how I could have stood so still listening to them. It must have been God's will. Then all but two of them left. I heard them starting to kill the children. At the same time, some others shouted that there were good things to take from the houses, and one of the two went off in that direction. He must have found something to take. It was then
Rofina Maya lost her husband and five children that day in Mozote. She is thirty-eight.
"My oldest are all that I have
"They were with the muchachos (young people), so I still
Arambala is a few hours away, near the big road between Gotera and Perquin, the "Calle Negra," as it is called, the "Black Road, " because it is covered with asphalt. The soldiers killed only five of the local people there before the compas drove them away. Arambala is a bigger town. The streets are covered with big paving stones. It is a well ordered, and pleasant village, There is even a telephone.
Eight compas accompanied us. All had FAL rifles, which have greater fire power than a G-3 or M-16. On the Calle Negra, the Cuilios might be lying in ambush, and it was already afternoon. We felt better.
Arambala's streets were full of people as we entered. The compas greeted acquaintances here and there. No one stopped them to discuss with them. Here everyone knows who they are. They have known many of them from childhood.
Despite the crowds on the streets, Arambala had a desolate look. When we came out on the road going to the Calle Negra, we saw why. The people were leaving the village. A dozen of them were wandering up the white gravel road, bundles on their shoulders, bags and children in their hands. Some had their barnyard fowl hanging from their necks.
"What's going on?" I asked. "Why are you going away?"
An old man looked at me, troubled and astonished.
We turned away from the gravel path down a stairway. Soon we would reach the Calle Negra. A week earlier, when we came from another direction, we had been forced to turn back. The Cuilios controlled the road, and it could not be crossed, We could have crossed it before, but at the risk of a clash. However, the FMLN's military tactics call for not "getting involved" in clashes except when you want to and on your own
Then it had been night. Now it was broad daylight, and we had to go a few kilometers on the road itself. The Calle Negra cuts through several densely wooded hills where it is easy to hide. Were there any Cuilios
We went two by two on each side of the road. Suddenly a group of people ran from under the big tree right before a long downhill curve.
"Hey, what's that?" I shouted.
"It's compas, " my companion said reassuringly.
And there stood the whole group of them. Tonio with his reserved smile and confident look. Pepe, the comedian, Chico with the radio transmitter. Aflredo who was almost toothless.. Thirteen people from one of the many campamentos that are strung out across Morazan. They had Chinese bazookas and a couple of captured cannon.
"We hold the Calle Negra now, " said Tonio. "We are waiting for the Cuilios. They will come, but they have not yet dared set foot outside
Then the air was filled with the
"Only commercial traffic, " said Tonio, as three cargo trucks swung around the bend and stopped in front of the compas. Nods of recognition. Exchange of information, The drivers bummed cigarettes from the
Finally, another three nights travel. Back through the other campamentos. By a sugar factory in full production, past the livestock farms, by the new clinic, where the wounded that had followed us on mules and stretchers during the first night's travel had begun to be treated, back through the forests, across the savannas, up the terrifying mountain stairways and the steep slopes, back over the rivers. "Home safe," Mabel had said, an irresistibly lovable person, who had lost her left hand in a bomb explosion.
And so, I went back to the Eden Boarding House in Tegucigalpa, where Lieutenant John Haverman and his buddies were still staying.
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