FREE ESSAY ON EL SALVADOR

EL SALVADOR

Much of El Salvador's problems come from a long time ago, mostly beginning in the 1930's.
From the 1930's until about the 1960's and 1970's much of the problem in El Salvador was
about the land and the economy. From the 1960's and 1970's through 1992 most of the
problems consisted of battles between government and opposition groups and basic denial
of human rights. It's through this time that religion begins to play a role in the
problem of El Salvador. It's during much of the late 1970's and early 1980's that many
people of El Salvador lost their lives. In the following text I will discuss more
thoroughly in detail the problems of land, economy, government, and human rights in El
Salvador.
It was in 1932 popular unrest from peasants and land workers made a collapse in the
coffee market sending us them into a worldwide depression. At this time General
Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez was in power and he responded to this depression with fire
and bloodshed. This slaughter cost thirty thousand peasants their lives. La Matanza,
Spanish for massacre, is one of the biggest massacres in El Salvador. The uprising was
blamed on a party known as the Communists Party and was started because of low wages. The
leader, Agustin Farabunduo Marti, was arrested and executed for supposedly setting it up.
A historian from the massacre describes the event as follows:
Almost of the rebels, except the leaders, were difficult to identify, arbitrary
classifications were set up. All those who were found carrying machetes were guilty. All
those of a strong Indian cast of features, or who dressed in a scruffy, campesino
costume, were considered guilty. To facilitate the roundup, all those who had not taken
part in the uprising were invited to present themselves at the comandancia to receive
clearance papers. When they arrived they were examined and those with the above mentioned
attributes seized. Tie by the thumbs to those before and behind then, in the customary
Salvadoran manner, groups of fifty were led to the back wall of the church of Asuncion in
Izalco and against that massive wall were cut down by firing squads. In the plaza in
front of the comandancia, other selected victims were made to dig a massive grace and
then shot, according to one account, from machine guns mounted on trucks. In some cases,
women and children reused to leave their menfolk and shared their fate. 
Today's Guerillas fight under the banner of the Farabundo Marti Front of National
Liberation, also known as the FMLN, which officially started in 1979. Still today the
FMLN exists, but I'll get to them a little later. General Martinez set a pattern for a
military-oligarchical control of the country that lasted for the next fifty years. This
meant that only presidents came from military ranks. 
After WWII, the economy of El Salvador improved slowly. Industrialization and an urban
class working class took shape. Most of this occurred because of the Alliance for
Progress, which developed in the 1960's. Also after WWII, the constitution of El
Salvador, which was started in 1886, was reinstated in amended form. An organization
called ORDEN was created. This was a Salvadoran security squad, which quickly grew to
more than eighty thousand members. They were basically used as an elaborate system of
internal espionage. The election of 1972 led to the death of about one hundred people.
Napolean Durante, a Christina Democrat, and Guillermo Manuel Ungo, ran together basically
expecting to be president and vice-president. They fought for human rights and social
justice and an end to forty years of military dictatorship. But fraud by the military mad
them lose the election. It was in March that protesting about the fraud of the election
led to the deaths of the hundred people. After this happened Durante and many other
political leaders were captured and tortured. In the years to come many other guerilla
groups began to form. The FPL formed in 1970 from a group of university students that
came from the PCS. Next the ERP and then the FARN formed. The FARN formed from an ERP
splinter group in 1975. These groups differed in military and political strategy, for
instance the ERP used sabotage and acts of terrorism while other groups were more into
building popular support. In 1974 the FAPU formed which consisted of urban workers. The
next year the BPR developed and was combined of peasants. And finally in 1978 the LP-28
was set up with the basis of this organization being from the slums of San Salvador. Soon
after the development of these organizations they decided to join forces. This left us
with the FAPU and the FARN, the BPR and the FPL, and the LP-28 with the ERP. After all
this growth the government of Colonel Arturo Armando Molina, under the pressure from the
U.S. attempted to counter this growth by enacting a limited agrarian reform, supported by
a government favored peasant organization. It was called the UCS and claimed 100,000
members and received much support from the U.S. In 1977 there was another stage of fraud
that put Carlos Humberto Romero in office, but he wasn't to stay in office lone. Two
years later a group of young military officials removed Romero from presidency. 
Sometime during all this Oscar Romero was brought in to be the Archbishop. This is when
religion actually comes into play. Romero was basically brought into office because other
government officials didn't think that he would be a person to make many changes, so
basically they felt that they would be able to run all over him and do whatever they
felt. You see, the government sees Romero as a quite person and they don't feel that he
will take any actions towards the things that are going on. But this is when they find
out differently. Romero was a very religious person. He is a priest of the Catholic
tradition. This is what most of the population of El Salvador is, although nearly
ninety-seven percent of Salvadorans are of Cristina faiths. Protestant groups have grown
to be about twenty percent of the population. The night of his election he had communion
and there were lots of supports and suddenly the National Guard came in and started
yelling orders. They told people who wanted to leave, to leave. Then they opened fire.
Once the onslaught had ceased, there was a calculation of about sixty people killed. Not
long after this night his best friend, who was also a priest with him, would be killed.
From this point on, Romero decides that he is going to stop all these acts of violence
and terrorism. There are many times when Romero put his life on the line. Finally the
repression groups have had enough with Romero disobedience that he is assassinated. Oscar
Romero was killed on the 24 of March while saying mass. I'm not sure which group the
killer came from, but he entered the back of the church and took his shot and killed
Romero. Before the assassination occurred, the people involved drew straws to determine
who would be the lucky person. After the shot was fired the man fled in an awaiting car
and was never apprehended. At Romero's funeral security forces opened fire on all the
people who attended the funeral. 
On November sixth the junta was supposed to formally dissolve the organization ORDEN.
This was based on all the many cases of human rights abuse. But no effective measures
where taken to disband the squad and continued to operate. Since they weren't disbanded
ORDEN continued to go on with many of the tortures and killings as they did before.
Another massacre known as the massacre of Monte Carlo involved the assistance of ORDEN.
Amnesty International gives this account on the night:
On the night of 7 April 1981 when more than 20 people, including several youths ewer
taken from their homes in San Nicolas de Soyapango, a suburb to the east of San Salvador,
by a group of men, some of them in uniform, and were later found dead. On 9 April,
Amnesty International called on the government of El Salvador to open an investigation in
to this incident. Initially, Salvadoran authorities claimed that the victims had dies in
an armed confrontation with the police, but residents of the are insisted that some of
those who did had been shot on the spot, while others were taken from their homes by the
Treasury Police, and their bodies were found later. Some of the bodies found elsewhere
had their hand bound, an act totally inconsistent with the official explanation that the
victims had died in a shoot-out with the police. Later, however, both Salvadoran and U.S.
officials said that individual units of this security force had apparently been involved,
and U.S. officials stated that Salvadoran and U.S. officials were cooperating to
investigate the incident. 
Throughout the eighties there were still many tortures and deaths that took place. One
that made many headlines in 1980 was the death of four US churchwomen. Basically the
women were picked up, sexually abused, and beaten to death after leaving the airport.
This was done by members of the National Guardsmen. After the bodies of the women were
found, U.S. military and economic aids were shortly suspended. In 1984 on May 25, five
men former of the National Guard were convicted. This was the first time for members of
security forces had been convicted of a crime.
In 1981 there was, what seems to be, the most popular massacre at El Mozote. El Mozote is
in the country of Morazan. This was a battle in which American trained Atlacatl Battalion
entered the village of El Mozote and murdered hundred of men women and mostly children.
Their most infamous way of death was by decapitation. Commander Domingo Monterrosa
commanded the soldiers of the Atlacatl Battalion. Domingo was known for his skills for
survival and pure soldier abilities, and being a natural leader. His group of soldiers
were the nastiest group people had heard of. In some reports, people said that these
soldiers would shoot at anything that moved. Whether it be animal or human. They would
take the blood of animals and smear it all over their faces. They would cut open the
bellies of animal and drink their blood. To celebrate their graduation they collected
dead animals from the sides of the roads, boiled them together into a bloody soup and
chugged it all down. Then they stood at full attention and sang, full throated, the
unit's theme song:
We are worriers!
Warriors all!
We are going forth to kill 
A mountain of terrorists!
Slowly they make their way through the northern part of Morazan. They basically just kill
everyone. This whole area was infected with guerillas so the only way to get rid of them
all was to clear out the whole damn place. Five years after the massacre, many people
come in to clean the place up and to sift their way through all the rubbage to see what
they can find. There were approximately one thousand lives lost. 
Up until about 1992, there were many deaths and what not that took place. In 1992 the
FMLN and government signed an agreement to cease unnecessary deaths. As of today, I'm not
sure what is going on with the country. I take it that there is not much terrorism
anymore. 
I think that there needs to be more intervention from the U.S. in order for El Salvador
to get where it needs to be in terms of government and economy. There should be some kind
of deal that businessmen can make. There are many products that we can use from them, so
I think that there could be some kind of arrangement made. Other than that I don't really
know what to say. 
Now I'm going to present a dialogue between myself and Professor Rafael Carias. 
Me: Hello Rafael, thank you for meeting with me today. How you doing?
Him: Well I'm glad to be here, and actually I'm doing quite well, thank you for asking.
Me: Well the purpose of my inviting you here is to find out a little about you life and
what things were like in El Salvador during the 1970's and 1980's. So I'll guess I'll
start out by asking when you were born how you were brought up and anything else you'd
like to share?
Him: I was born in 1957 in a small town outside of San Marcos. My family and I grew up in
very poor living conditions. We had to work very hard just to get enough money for food.
Much of the time we went without shoes or most items that I now take for granted. It was
a very hard life for anyone to live. 
Me: So how, if they did, did things change once you got a little older and went out on
your own? 
Him: Well when I was in my late 20's, I was able to take over the fields that my father
had grown many crops in. So I took over on the farm. Soon after that I went to school and
then to college and finally I ended up being a professor at the University. This enabled
me to make more money than I had ever had in my life, but there were actually some very
hard times. They didn't really have anything to do with money or anything like that. It
was more of the problems with the government.
Me: So what exactly was going on with the government at that time?
Him: Well everyone feared for his or her life at every second. There were many groups of
people that would just go around killing people or kidnapping and torturing people.
Me: Ar...Are you ok??
Him: Well yes, but I have a story that deals with my family and I one night. It's
something that I wish upon no one.
Me: If you're comfortable I'd certainly like to hear what happened, but only if you're
okay with it.
Him: .....Ok. Well it starts at around 11:00 p.m. on Saturday February 21, 1981, around
six henchmen in civilian dress and five in uniform entered the area where I Lived. They
remained in the street, but when they banged on the door, all that I could think of was
the life of my two-year-old son who was in his crib. When I opened the door the first
thing they did was to hit me, throw me face down and tie my hands behind my back. They
continued to kick me in the back and on the head. When my home was searched they removed
my companion and the child. They blindfolded her and me and put us in a vehicle, along
with certain articles such as the television set. We were taken to the office of the
mayor of San Marcos. There I was not mistreated. Two hours later we were taken to the el
zapote headquarters. There, at 7:00a.m, I was taken away to a room used for torture. When
they removed the blindfold, there were four executioners facing me. They beat me over my
entire body. When they had finished, they lay me face down on a wooden bench, handcuffed
my wrists together underneath it and then bound up my entire body. They attached a wire
to the toe of each foot. When the electricity was turned on and executioner put a towel
over my face so that I could not breathe; if I said something they would disconnect it.
When that got them nowhere, the questions were accompanied by a blow to the stomach. This
went on for more that two hours. They untied me and took me to a sink with my and hands
tied. They forcibly put me under water so that I would lose oxygen. For a few moments, I
thought I was going to die, but I held fast to my convictions. This lasted another two
hours. They removed me from the sink, put me face down, spread my legs apart and inserted
a stick in my rectum. They laughed sarcastically during all of this. I was returned to
the room used for torture and handcuffed to the same bench, the inserted tooth brush in
my rectum and turned it around. Since they didn't get what they wanted form me, they left
me alone for some five minutes. This gave me time to meditate and to hold to my promise
to suffer stoically. When they returned, they had a bottle of acid and they told me that
they would pour it ton me, which they demonstrated with a piece of clothe. They
executioners insisted that I was a high-ranking member of the organization. When they
found that I could mot be made to talk, they pouted acid on my back for the first time.
The pain was incredible. They continued to question me and when I did not reply, they
used a ballpoint pen to mark my body and continued to put acid on me. Then they told me
that they would pout acid in my eyes; one of them opened my left eye and when I saw that
they were going to spill a small amount of liquid o me, I turned over to one side and
struggled with them. They stopped pouting acid on me. Then lieutenant came to interrogate
me, but decided to take me to a cell. There in the cell I heard my small child cry and
talk from time to time. That gave me strength because my young son, too, was experiencing
the bestialities of the dictatorship, together with his mother. At 6:00 p.m. they took me
from the cell to the National Guard. There, the treatment I received was even more
bestial, because upon learning that I was a professor, they tied me up like an object and
kicked me in the chest, head, and back. The electric shocks I received here were as
follows: The first was done by applying electric shocks to the feet intermittently and
for as long as five minutes, and then to the head, with the same frequency. Electric
shocks on a metal bed, where I was tied and handcuffed to the bed; first they removed all
my clothing and wet my entire body. This made the pain worse. All of these torture were
accompanied by questions from a certain female commander, as to whether I knew the places
where we met, who was my chief, where did I keep the propaganda, etc. the day the
International Red Cross arrived they hid me. But the International Red Cross did not
arrive in the morning, as the National Guard had expected, but in the afternoon instead,
so it was that they found me. 
Me: Wow, I'm very sorry you had to experience that. It's amazing that you lived to tell
about it.
Him: well if the International Red Cross would've came in the morning I wouldn't be here
right now. I do consider myself very lucky.
Me: I would say so. So how are things today?
Him: things are much better since I've moved to the states. I still have nightmares of
the incident, but there's nothing I can do about that.
Me: Well I'm glad to hear that things are going better for you. Once again, I'd like to
thank you for meeting with me, and I wish you luck in the future.
Him: Thank you.
Bibliography
Alvarez, Robert. Report on Human Rights in El Salvador. (First Vintage Books, c1982)
America's Watch. El Salvador's Decade of Terror, Human right Since The Assassination of
Archbishop Romero. (New Haven and London: Yale university Press, c1991)
Author. El Salvador's decade of terror: human rights since the assassination of
Archbishop Romero / Americas Watch. (New Haven: Yale University Press, c1991).
Danner, Mark. The massacre at El Mozote. (A Vintage Original, c1993)
El Salvador. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2001. 
http://encarta.msn.com (8 Nov. 2001)(2000 Microsoft Corporation)
Haggerty, Richard. El Salvador: a country study. (c1990).
Human Activists. America. (Video recording San Salvador)
Julia, Raul. Romero. (Los Angeles, cMCMXC Vidmark).
Mainwaring, Scott and Wilde, Alexander. The Progressive Church in Latin America. (Notre
Dame, Indian. University of Notre Dame Press, c1989)