The Legacy Project: El Salvador Report

February 5: Report from El Mozote, El Salvador: Massacre

The scope of a government's domestic obligations should be clear enough. A serviceable constitution should spell things out where common sense fails, though even the best of them leave ample wiggle room for creative political wonkery.

Defining the scope of foreign policy - and the qualities of good foreign policy - is a much more challenging endeavor. On its surface, the key requirements are deceptively simple: protect Americans and American interests at home and abroad.* But, America has people and interests in every country; how extensive and exhaustive should our policies be? And, how invasive?

What should be the guiding philosophy? Protect Americans at all cost, regardless of how negatively other countries are affected? Permit extensive military action in other regions with an equivalent commitment to rebuilding afterwards? Focus on long-term sustainability, even to the detriment of short-term needs? Uphold high moral standards in all of our affairs, even if this brings significant financial or strategic losses? Or, minimize our engagement outside of our borders to the greatest extent possible?

There are compelling arguments to be made for all of these, but frequently one must be pursued at the expense of the others. So, how do you decide?

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I'm not sure where I am or where I'm going. Fortunately, a strange man with a machete has volunteered to lead me through this maze of footpaths, with no other humans to be seen, en route to El Mozote. As we walk, I outline my obituary in my mind, while taking pictures of myself, my guide (as discretely as I can), and my passport. If he turns upon me, my last act will be to swallow the memory card; that way, no matter how disfigured or dismembered I end up, identification should still be possible.

Fortunately, the planning proves unnecessary, as he deposits me safely in El Mozote. There's not much to it: a small church, a market, a well, a guard post, and a handful of houses. More homes undoubtedly spread out beyond sight but, regardless, this is a very modest spot. If anything, this spurs to mind summer camp - I crane my neck to spot log cabins, horseback rides, and other assorted frontier paraphernalia.

Instead, it is the site of a massacre. A whole town obliterated in one searing, brutally efficient evening.

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The presidential transition from Carter to Reagan represents one of the most dramatic swings in foreign policy philosophy in American history. Carter favored dialogue and compromise; above all else, he was driven by a commitment to human rights, not just in America but in all countries. Reagan was more than willing to employ the heavy hand and deal with shady characters if doing so would help bring down the Evil Empire.

The broad brushstrokes of history have not been kind to Carter, whose term has been smeared with one defining word: malaise. Reagan, meanwhile, is credited with steering America back from those precipitous cliffs and overseeing the collapse of Soviet Russia and the Berlin Wall.

A critical component of Reagan's campaign - and one often under-stated in assessing his presidential legacy - is his work in Central America. Marxist movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador were perceived as profound threats - new entryways for communism into the Americas - and so close to home! By Reagan's time, Nicaragua was, to some extent, a fait accompli. The Sandinistas were in power and preparing to roll out reforms. Regardless, the Reagan administration worked to destabilize and undermine their rule by arming and training a small dissident group, the Contras.

In El Salvador, history had not yet been written. While the FDR/FMLN guerrillas ravaged parts of the country, a non-Marxist government remained in power. But, its hold on the nation grew more tenuous with each passing day. Significant assistance was badly needed.

Reagan and the US would come through. Over the course of the war, the US provided over $1 billion in military aid and $3 billion in economic aid (some estimates go as high as $6 billion in combined aid). To El Salvador. This was a line in the sand: communism shall not pass.

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Around one side of the church in El Mozote is a lovely garden, with roses and other flowers. Having grown accustomed to the greens, browns, and yellows of El Salvadoran scenery, this is a particularly striking spot, all the more unexpected in such a small place. "This," says Sara Chiquipaz, "is where they exhumed the bodies of the children."

When the crack military battalion, Atlacatl, stormed El Mozote on December 11, 1981, it quickly divided the men, women, and children, moving them to different locations. The children were placed in the church's "convent." As would be repeated in Rwanda a decade later, this offered no protection. The children's names and ages line the bottom of the mural that fills the church's right side, flanking the rose garden. Many are counted in months, not years.

Sara and her parents were out of town on the 11th - a rarity, as the military had assured a distinguished resident of El Mozote that it was a safe spot, who in turn encouraged locals from the surrounding areas to come stay there. These were all civilians, non-combatants; the guerrillas had dispersed as the army moved in. Unfortunately for Sara, the rest of her family was at home. "I lost six siblings and sixteen cousins that night," she says, deadpan.

As is typical of perpetrators of genocide or other high magnitude massacres, the military sought to cover its tracks. The executions were painstakingly thorough and the bodies were dumped in impromptu mass graves. Most of the buildings were leveled. Leading me around town, Sara points out the few surviving structures from that night, all pockmarked with numerous bullet holes. We pass by several pond-like depressions, perhaps 20 feet in diameter and ten feet deep. Atlacatl was well equipped.

All told, somewhere between 733 and 926 people were killed that night.

One survived.

Rufina Amaya managed to slip behind a tree, from which she was forced to listen to the slaughter, including the deaths of her husband and children, all the time fear-stricken that she would be discovered. But, she survived to tell the story - the lone witness to the death of a town.

The El Salvadoran government was quick to deny, as was the Reagan administration. And, though families of those who died in the slaughter believed Amaya's account - her grave lies in the center of town, along side the memorial, and is covered in beautiful flowers - some nagging doubts persisted. It was such an unbelievable story and all of the authorities were denying it. They weren't alone. The New York Times reporter who wrote the first account, Raymond Bonner, was subsequently dismissed from the Times. Media watchdogs resoundingly attacked his report, going only on government-supplied evidence.

"That was the hardest part, all of the doubt," Sara recalls. "And then," in 1992, "the exhumations began." All told, they found 131 children buried alongside the church. The stories were unbelievably real.

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The biggest problem for the Reagan administration in El Salvador wasn't the enemy, it was the ally. Upholding democracy presented nightmares. The left-wing was clearly out of the equation, but the right-wing wasn't much better. The military's favored party, ARENA, was closely linked with death squads and the savage elimination of dissidents. Power in their hands would only exacerbate existing problems. Sadly, the moderates were also a poor choice, politically weak and with the added potential downside of prompting a military coup.

If political matters were tricky, military ones presented a fatal conundrum. As noted, El Salvador's military employed exceptionally brutal tactics, often targeting civilians. But, many believed this was the most effective way to combat a guerrilla force. Often, the US reconciled this dilemma with a don't ask, don't tell policy. As one US intelligence officer noted, "You can't always do business with honorable people. In such cases, the less you know, the better it is."

That almost certainly absolves the US a little too cleanly from affairs in El Salvador, though. Training accompanied funding. Many of the country's elite forces, like Atlacatl, learned much of what they knew from US troops. Including, almost certainly, many things we would prefer to wash our hands of.

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"Can you believe it?" Sara asks. "Most people who visit say they can't believe it happened." "I have an easy time believing the extremes to which governments will go." The Legacy Project may afford one a healthier sense of the power of the human spirit, but it offers little hope in the realm of governance. That's not to suggest that governments are all comprised exclusively of cynical assholes solely focused on self-enrichment at the public teat. Surely, there must be some like that, but I do believe the majority of politicians in the western world* are committed to the public welfare. However, the whats and hows of accomplishing that are elusive.

*I don't mean to suggest that western leaders are equipped with moral advantages relative to those in other parts of the world. My main point is that in most developing countries, assets are so limited that political power provides leaders with incredible financial strength, which they can then use to reward supporters. The greater dispersal of wealth in many western countries ensures that those in government do not have exclusive control over the flow of resources.

The El Salvadoran military believed a powerful message to the civilians in northeastern El Salvador would decisively diminish guerrilla support, a key step in bringing peace to their war-torn country. The US believed that victory in El Salvador would help stop Soviet advances, which would in turn bolster hopes for peace in America and the world. It is easy to write off a thousand lives in a place no one has heard of and no one will see. A small price to be paid for the bounty that lies ahead.

Sara leaves me to speak with a small group of El Salvadorans that has just arrived. I sit on a bench and scan the town. I see: a teenage boy in a Che Guevara shirt; a pair of women washing clothes and a naked baby in the well; three men at a small station marked "Revolutionary Youth of El Mozote," two of whom are armed and in uniform; and a girl holding an infant. The girl comes over to say hello. Her name is Brenda. She looks 10 or maybe 11. I ask her about life in town, going to school - all of the typical small talk one has with a kid.

She snuggles with the baby. She says something, but I hear it wrong. I must have heard it wrong. It sounded like she said that it is her baby. But that can't be right.

We chat for a couple more minutes, before she moves away, sitting down at the next bench.

There's a nice breeze. The sun breaks through the clouds. I can hear soccer coming from the market's TV.

Brenda starts to breastfeed her child.

I catch myself staring - gawking, really - in disbelief. I think I'm going to be sick.

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As noted, the US spent between $4 and $6 billion during the civil war in El Salvador. All told, 75,000 Salvadorans were killed and perhaps 300,000 displaced. The economy, never strong to begin with, was crippled.

Nicaragua's Contras and Honduras also received massive aid during this era. At its peak, the region received $1.2 billion in 1985 alone. At the same time, the CIA pummeled select economic targets in Nicaragua, mining its ports and blowing up oil storage tanks. Nicaragua's economy has yet to recover. The human rights histories of all three countries are by any measure appalling. Attempts have been made, through truth commissions, to document all that occurred, but punishments for crimes committed are unheard of.

What did the US get for its massive commitment of American funds? The Sandinistas remain in power in Nicaragua. In El Salvador, the guerrillas were never defeated; peace wasn't gained until 1992, at which point they achieved status as an opposition party. Though yet to win the presidency, the FMLN has won significant power in congress. Honduras, the US's staunchest ally in the 1980s, lived through a repressive military government before finally regaining civilian rule in the '90s. It never received meaningful economic development assistance, though, and it is a tremendously poor country today.

Assessments are far too often short-sighted. Let's extend the examination. From 1990 to the present, Central America has been marked by three major issues - drug trafficking, gang violence, and migration. It would be foolish not to see correlation - and almost certainly some causation - between US intervention in the 1980s and those problems. At the most basic level, political instability and economic impoverishment provide ample incentive for gangs and illicit trade. Certainly, those conditions are not the exclusive responsibility of the US. But our policies didn't help.

From a US perspective, we then must consider the cost of the War on Drugs and the cost of illegal immigration. Those were undeniably influenced by our intervention in the region in the 1980s - and our subsequent neglect of it afterwards. For, in 1998, Nicaragua received only $24 million in aid and El Salvador, $35 million.

All of which is not to condemn the Reagan administration's policies. It is still possible to look at the big picture and determine that the Soviet Union's defeat had to be accomplished at all cost.

The point, ultimately, is that foreign intervention produces profound and lasting changes in affected regions, and it is very hard to anticipate whether those changes will be for better or worse. Like the butterfly flapping its wings, engagement can and will rewrite the future in many unpredictable ways. And, instead of solving the intended problem, it can create all sorts of new ones. Perhaps the unpredictability can be combated with a long-term commitment, as was the case in Japan and Germany following World War II. But, do conditions exist for such a commitment today? We want changes made quickly - success in four years or less, or your money back.

Unfortunately, credibility and accountability often end up alongside the corpses in the mass graves.

Who is to blame for El Mozote?

It is hard to find clean hands. The El Salvadoran military committed the acts and covered them up. The US trained them and them turned a blind eye - and even assisted with the cover-up. The guerrillas hid in and took supplies from this region, knowing all the while that this would make it a target for reprisals. And, the media, after initially reporting the terrible events, helped to further bury them afterwards. All contributed to the tragedy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Whereas I entered El Mozote all but alone, I leave with what feels to be the whole of El Salvador. 130 of us are wedged into an old US school bus, the only to circulate through the area on this Sunday. Once on the highway, I transfer to the back of a pick-up truck, one of 25 crammed in there.

Back in Perquin, I witness a welcoming ceremony for a group of American eye doctors, volunteering for a week in the area. Several new tourist-oriented lodgings dot the area.

This is the other side of historical tragedy - tourism and aid. The next generation will have economic opportunities the last one never did.

	El Salvador Report
Home	February 5: Report from El Mozote, El Salvador: Massacre The scope of a government's domestic obligations should be clear enough. A serviceable constitution should spell things out where common sense fails, though even the best of them leave ample wiggle room for creative political wonkery. Defining the scope of foreign policy - and the qualities of good foreign policy - is a much more challenging endeavor. On its surface, the key requirements are deceptively simple: protect Americans and American interests at home and abroad.* But, America has people and interests in every country; how extensive and exhaustive should our policies be? And, how invasive? What should be the guiding philosophy? Protect Americans at all cost, regardless of how negatively other countries are affected? Permit extensive military action in other regions with an equivalent commitment to rebuilding afterwards? Focus on long-term sustainability, even to the detriment of short-term needs? Uphold high moral standards in all of our affairs, even if this brings significant financial or strategic losses? Or, minimize our engagement outside of our borders to the greatest extent possible? There are compelling arguments to be made for all of these, but frequently one must be pursued at the expense of the others. So, how do you decide? ------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm not sure where I am or where I'm going. Fortunately, a strange man with a machete has volunteered to lead me through this maze of footpaths, with no other humans to be seen, en route to El Mozote. As we walk, I outline my obituary in my mind, while taking pictures of myself, my guide (as discretely as I can), and my passport. If he turns upon me, my last act will be to swallow the memory card; that way, no matter how disfigured or dismembered I end up, identification should still be possible. Fortunately, the planning proves unnecessary, as he deposits me safely in El Mozote. There's not much to it: a small church, a market, a well, a guard post, and a handful of houses. More homes undoubtedly spread out beyond sight but, regardless, this is a very modest spot. If anything, this spurs to mind summer camp - I crane my neck to spot log cabins, horseback rides, and other assorted frontier paraphernalia. Instead, it is the site of a massacre. A whole town obliterated in one searing, brutally efficient evening. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The presidential transition from Carter to Reagan represents one of the most dramatic swings in foreign policy philosophy in American history. Carter favored dialogue and compromise; above all else, he was driven by a commitment to human rights, not just in America but in all countries. Reagan was more than willing to employ the heavy hand and deal with shady characters if doing so would help bring down the Evil Empire. The broad brushstrokes of history have not been kind to Carter, whose term has been smeared with one defining word: malaise. Reagan, meanwhile, is credited with steering America back from those precipitous cliffs and overseeing the collapse of Soviet Russia and the Berlin Wall. A critical component of Reagan's campaign - and one often under-stated in assessing his presidential legacy - is his work in Central America. Marxist movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador were perceived as profound threats - new entryways for communism into the Americas - and so close to home! By Reagan's time, Nicaragua was, to some extent, a fait accompli. The Sandinistas were in power and preparing to roll out reforms. Regardless, the Reagan administration worked to destabilize and undermine their rule by arming and training a small dissident group, the Contras. In El Salvador, history had not yet been written. While the FDR/FMLN guerrillas ravaged parts of the country, a non-Marxist government remained in power. But, its hold on the nation grew more tenuous with each passing day. Significant assistance was badly needed. Reagan and the US would come through. Over the course of the war, the US provided over $1 billion in military aid and $3 billion in economic aid (some estimates go as high as $6 billion in combined aid). To El Salvador. This was a line in the sand: communism shall not pass. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Around one side of the church in El Mozote is a lovely garden, with roses and other flowers. Having grown accustomed to the greens, browns, and yellows of El Salvadoran scenery, this is a particularly striking spot, all the more unexpected in such a small place. "This," says Sara Chiquipaz, "is where they exhumed the bodies of the children." When the crack military battalion, Atlacatl, stormed El Mozote on December 11, 1981, it quickly divided the men, women, and children, moving them to different locations. The children were placed in the church's "convent." As would be repeated in Rwanda a decade later, this offered no protection. The children's names and ages line the bottom of the mural that fills the church's right side, flanking the rose garden. Many are counted in months, not years. Sara and her parents were out of town on the 11th - a rarity, as the military had assured a distinguished resident of El Mozote that it was a safe spot, who in turn encouraged locals from the surrounding areas to come stay there. These were all civilians, non-combatants; the guerrillas had dispersed as the army moved in. Unfortunately for Sara, the rest of her family was at home. "I lost six siblings and sixteen cousins that night," she says, deadpan. As is typical of perpetrators of genocide or other high magnitude massacres, the military sought to cover its tracks. The executions were painstakingly thorough and the bodies were dumped in impromptu mass graves. Most of the buildings were leveled. Leading me around town, Sara points out the few surviving structures from that night, all pockmarked with numerous bullet holes. We pass by several pond-like depressions, perhaps 20 feet in diameter and ten feet deep. Atlacatl was well equipped. All told, somewhere between 733 and 926 people were killed that night. One survived. Rufina Amaya managed to slip behind a tree, from which she was forced to listen to the slaughter, including the deaths of her husband and children, all the time fear-stricken that she would be discovered. But, she survived to tell the story - the lone witness to the death of a town. The El Salvadoran government was quick to deny, as was the Reagan administration. And, though families of those who died in the slaughter believed Amaya's account - her grave lies in the center of town, along side the memorial, and is covered in beautiful flowers - some nagging doubts persisted. It was such an unbelievable story and all of the authorities were denying it. They weren't alone. The New York Times reporter who wrote the first account, Raymond Bonner, was subsequently dismissed from the Times. Media watchdogs resoundingly attacked his report, going only on government-supplied evidence. "That was the hardest part, all of the doubt," Sara recalls. "And then," in 1992, "the exhumations began." All told, they found 131 children buried alongside the church. The stories were unbelievably real. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The biggest problem for the Reagan administration in El Salvador wasn't the enemy, it was the ally. Upholding democracy presented nightmares. The left-wing was clearly out of the equation, but the right-wing wasn't much better. The military's favored party, ARENA, was closely linked with death squads and the savage elimination of dissidents. Power in their hands would only exacerbate existing problems. Sadly, the moderates were also a poor choice, politically weak and with the added potential downside of prompting a military coup. If political matters were tricky, military ones presented a fatal conundrum. As noted, El Salvador's military employed exceptionally brutal tactics, often targeting civilians. But, many believed this was the most effective way to combat a guerrilla force. Often, the US reconciled this dilemma with a don't ask, don't tell policy. As one US intelligence officer noted, "You can't always do business with honorable people. In such cases, the less you know, the better it is." That almost certainly absolves the US a little too cleanly from affairs in El Salvador, though. Training accompanied funding. Many of the country's elite forces, like Atlacatl, learned much of what they knew from US troops. Including, almost certainly, many things we would prefer to wash our hands of. ------------------------------------------------------------------- "Can you believe it?" Sara asks. "Most people who visit say they can't believe it happened." "I have an easy time believing the extremes to which governments will go." The Legacy Project may afford one a healthier sense of the power of the human spirit, but it offers little hope in the realm of governance. That's not to suggest that governments are all comprised exclusively of cynical assholes solely focused on self-enrichment at the public teat. Surely, there must be some like that, but I do believe the majority of politicians in the western world* are committed to the public welfare. However, the whats and hows of accomplishing that are elusive. *I don't mean to suggest that western leaders are equipped with moral advantages relative to those in other parts of the world. My main point is that in most developing countries, assets are so limited that political power provides leaders with incredible financial strength, which they can then use to reward supporters. The greater dispersal of wealth in many western countries ensures that those in government do not have exclusive control over the flow of resources. The El Salvadoran military believed a powerful message to the civilians in northeastern El Salvador would decisively diminish guerrilla support, a key step in bringing peace to their war-torn country. The US believed that victory in El Salvador would help stop Soviet advances, which would in turn bolster hopes for peace in America and the world. It is easy to write off a thousand lives in a place no one has heard of and no one will see. A small price to be paid for the bounty that lies ahead. Sara leaves me to speak with a small group of El Salvadorans that has just arrived. I sit on a bench and scan the town. I see: a teenage boy in a Che Guevara shirt; a pair of women washing clothes and a naked baby in the well; three men at a small station marked "Revolutionary Youth of El Mozote," two of whom are armed and in uniform; and a girl holding an infant. The girl comes over to say hello. Her name is Brenda. She looks 10 or maybe 11. I ask her about life in town, going to school - all of the typical small talk one has with a kid. She snuggles with the baby. She says something, but I hear it wrong. I must have heard it wrong. It sounded like she said that it is her baby. But that can't be right. We chat for a couple more minutes, before she moves away, sitting down at the next bench. There's a nice breeze. The sun breaks through the clouds. I can hear soccer coming from the market's TV. Brenda starts to breastfeed her child. I catch myself staring - gawking, really - in disbelief. I think I'm going to be sick. ------------------------------------------------------------------- As noted, the US spent between $4 and $6 billion during the civil war in El Salvador. All told, 75,000 Salvadorans were killed and perhaps 300,000 displaced. The economy, never strong to begin with, was crippled. Nicaragua's Contras and Honduras also received massive aid during this era. At its peak, the region received $1.2 billion in 1985 alone. At the same time, the CIA pummeled select economic targets in Nicaragua, mining its ports and blowing up oil storage tanks. Nicaragua's economy has yet to recover. The human rights histories of all three countries are by any measure appalling. Attempts have been made, through truth commissions, to document all that occurred, but punishments for crimes committed are unheard of. What did the US get for its massive commitment of American funds? The Sandinistas remain in power in Nicaragua. In El Salvador, the guerrillas were never defeated; peace wasn't gained until 1992, at which point they achieved status as an opposition party. Though yet to win the presidency, the FMLN has won significant power in congress. Honduras, the US's staunchest ally in the 1980s, lived through a repressive military government before finally regaining civilian rule in the '90s. It never received meaningful economic development assistance, though, and it is a tremendously poor country today. Assessments are far too often short-sighted. Let's extend the examination. From 1990 to the present, Central America has been marked by three major issues - drug trafficking, gang violence, and migration. It would be foolish not to see correlation - and almost certainly some causation - between US intervention in the 1980s and those problems. At the most basic level, political instability and economic impoverishment provide ample incentive for gangs and illicit trade. Certainly, those conditions are not the exclusive responsibility of the US. But our policies didn't help. From a US perspective, we then must consider the cost of the War on Drugs and the cost of illegal immigration. Those were undeniably influenced by our intervention in the region in the 1980s - and our subsequent neglect of it afterwards. For, in 1998, Nicaragua received only $24 million in aid and El Salvador, $35 million. All of which is not to condemn the Reagan administration's policies. It is still possible to look at the big picture and determine that the Soviet Union's defeat had to be accomplished at all cost. The point, ultimately, is that foreign intervention produces profound and lasting changes in affected regions, and it is very hard to anticipate whether those changes will be for better or worse. Like the butterfly flapping its wings, engagement can and will rewrite the future in many unpredictable ways. And, instead of solving the intended problem, it can create all sorts of new ones. Perhaps the unpredictability can be combated with a long-term commitment, as was the case in Japan and Germany following World War II. But, do conditions exist for such a commitment today? We want changes made quickly - success in four years or less, or your money back. Unfortunately, credibility and accountability often end up alongside the corpses in the mass graves. Who is to blame for El Mozote? It is hard to find clean hands. The El Salvadoran military committed the acts and covered them up. The US trained them and them turned a blind eye - and even assisted with the cover-up. The guerrillas hid in and took supplies from this region, knowing all the while that this would make it a target for reprisals. And, the media, after initially reporting the terrible events, helped to further bury them afterwards. All contributed to the tragedy. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Whereas I entered El Mozote all but alone, I leave with what feels to be the whole of El Salvador. 130 of us are wedged into an old US school bus, the only to circulate through the area on this Sunday. Once on the highway, I transfer to the back of a pick-up truck, one of 25 crammed in there. Back in Perquin, I witness a welcoming ceremony for a group of American eye doctors, volunteering for a week in the area. Several new tourist-oriented lodgings dot the area. This is the other side of historical tragedy - tourism and aid. The next generation will have economic opportunities the last one never did.
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