Senal de Libertad - Radio Venceremos Turns Two
Armstrong, Robert
"Transmite Radio Venceremos, expresion del poder popular. Emitiendo su serial de libertad desde territorios controlados por nuestro pueblo en armas .... "Radio Venceremos is on the air,...
...In the extraordinary march on January 22, 1980 to celebrate the unity of the Left, the ERP-with Comandante Luisa at the microphone-broadcast live from the middle of the march...
...We already imagine Mr...
...The children are responsible for organizing a look-out system in case the enemy comes near...
...By now the ERP was engaged in a full-scale war against the Salvadorean Army...
...The Salvadorean Army gloated over its victory, and the supporters of the rebels worried...
...From a dream of the leadership of the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), one of the political-military organizations that make up the FMLN, Radio Venceremos has become a vital source of information about the revolution and a symbol of Salvadorean resilience and tenacity...
...An armed column of men and women carried the generator, gasoline and the transmitter--dubbed El Muerto by those who shouldered it--to the ERP command post in the town of Guacamaya...
...Few, if any, listened...
...If they don't win the war, the radio is going to continue on the air until victory...
...The radio, they realized, was a project for Morazan...
...Comandantes Luisa and Mariana had organized all of the necessary equipment, tools and spare parts, ready for any eventuality...
...Jos6 Guillermo Garcia, told reporters that the radio had been taken, and promised to take them to Moraz6n to see the "captured Radio Venceremos...
...Throughout 1980, leaders of the ERP dreamed of someday obtaining a short-wave transmitter...
...If they find a short-wave when they search your house, they take it away...
...A special squad was created to guard the radio, Deane Hinton's Love Story Radio Venceremos chose the occasion of the marriage of the U.S...
...The author of the supposed plan remains unknown, but "in it lay the solution to the problem of ensnaring Mr...
...Listening to RV here is a bitch," says Abel, an FMLN supporter in San Salvador...
...An attempt to establish a radio station operated by all of the member organizations of the FMLNFDR, Radio Liberaci6n, failed after only a short time while another station, Radio Farabundo Marti, operated by the Popular Forces of Liberation (FPL) broadcasts irregularly* from Chalatenango province...
...23-63 Telcor Los Escombros, Managua, Nicaragua...
...That December attack marked the last direct threat to the radio...
...Hinton answering his adorable Juliet," the broadcast continued...
...That was how at an elegant reception, our hero was introduced to the distinguished and cultured widow, Patricia de Salaverria...
...Nocturnal Escape "On December 7 they began an artillery attack to soften us up as infantry units advanced on our positions, trying to surround us...
...Should they fail, then the Salvadorean Army "had to arrive so worn out that soon they would have to withdraw or at least [so tired] that we could drive them out...
...Someone records the program and then circulates the cassette from house to house...
...Of course the trip never happened...
...Today, RV broadcasts three 39update update update update times a day over a short-wave band and nightly to San Salvador on FM from a relay station on Guazapa Volcano...
...It was then that the technology of radio and the strategy of war converged...
...The birth of Radio Venceremos (RV) was announced by Comandante Joaquin Villalobos, member of the FMLN general command and head of the ERP, just prior to the January 1981 general offensive...
...But it was difficult to keep the radio's existence a secret because the gasoline motor made a very loud noise...
...If the control is too great, then there is no meeting...
...The radio forced us to stay in a particular area," Comandante Villalobos has written...
...Throughout El Salvador combatants follow the war and await political orientation from the station...
...With intense work, Radio Venceremos was back on the air...
...But it only lasted for a few hours because it began to get dark and the shooting stopped...
...three times a day...
...Quickly it became clear that "they had surrounded us...
...Ramiro, a young campesino from a nearby village in Morazan, was the first killed...
...Accordina to the broadcast's selected especially for its combat skill...
...The project was a secret, even within the ERP...
...The Fourth Section of our army took a little hill and from there guaranteed our retreat...
...or A.P...
...7-907, Mexico D.F...
...policy by women in the D'Aubuisson camp...
...They knew that Venceremos and the command center were there, and they began to close the circle...
...We were, by then, familiar with this tactic after many previous experiences...
...96, Paseo de los Estudiantes, San Jose, Costa Rica...
...The next morning the unexpected happened: we fell into an ambush...
...Each day we listen in a different house," Abel continues...
...When we were quite far away, we heard the great gun battle as they attacked the empty trenches...
...Because it was so old, we had asked for a substitute," a member of the RV collective told Senal de Libertad...
...They were waiting for the morning assault on our positions...
...Based on Daiy Report-Latin America...
...He was a radio technician...
...On Christmas Eve came the familiar, "Transmite Radio Venceremos, espresion del poder popular...
...Our defense lines waited for the order to fire while the entire camp prepared to try an escape...
...Listen, Hin, we need military aid.' 'Yes, my love.'"Listen Hin, the State Department should change its policies toward our country,' 'Yes my love.' 'They should abandon the fish' [slang term for the Christian Democrats...
...But so were they, and this time they were more agile and compact...
...Rebel observers had noticed a possible point of penetration where no troops seemed concentrated, and toward it in silent march moved the Command, the military units, the civilian population and Radio Venceremos...
...He ripped it off...
...Radio Venceremos Today Villalobos: "Today the radio is protected not only by the forces that are there to defend it, but also by the offensive military actions of the revolutionary movement...
...Many people had to get through...
...War of Position Within a month of the first transmission, it became obvious that the existence of the radio had unexpected military consequences...
...As the main voice of the revolution, RV is essential listening for the foreign press...
...RV publications are available by writing to Radio Venceremos, A.P...
...This led them to aim for establishing an area of control, a strategic front from which to fight...
...Six thousand troops came, and with them, a disproportionately large number of air and artillery attacks...
...D. P8 The newly named Radio Venceremos went on the air for the first time on January 10...
...February 15...
...FDR) in El Salvador...
...If they find you listening, they bust you," Abel told Sehal de Libertad, an RV publication...
...The enemy didn't detect our escape...
...It had come just before the [December] offensive...
...1983...
...After a considerable search, he bought a World War II-vintage Valient Viking, an ancient but impressive machine, which no one in the ERP really knew how to operate...
...It wasn't possible...
...The compahero who was carrying it dropped it right at the most critical point in the ambush...
...Foreign Broadcasting Information Service...
...That, in turn, forced the ERP to reconsider its strategy, abandoning what strategists of guerrilla warfare regard as a fundamental principle: the guerrilla army is always on the move and never attempts to defend a fixed position...
...he learned here in the mountains and together with Apolonio and Mauricio had performed magic and miracles repairing the radio equipment...
...NACLA Reportupdate update update update "El Muerto" Makes Noise On December 11, 1980, Joaquin Villalobos, chief of staff of the ERP, entered Morazin...
...The Death of "El Muerto" "It's the ugliest thing that can happen and we had never experienced it before...
...Radio Venceremos is on the air, expression of people's power...
...Since its organization in 1971, the ERP frequently had occupied radio stations to broadcast messages to the general population...
...Regular programming would begin on the 26th...
...The shooting was intense...
...Javier, responsible for the logistics of the radio encampment, fell mortally wounded...
...It has grown into an international communications network which includes short-wave and FM transmissions within El Salvador (with the technical capacity to transmit live from the battlefield), three magazines and a film production company...
...or A.P...
...Sending its signal of freedom from territories controlled by our people in arms .. . -Sign-on of Radio Venceremos January marked the second anniversary of Radio Venceremos, principal voice of the insurgent Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) and the Democratic Revolutionary Front Radio Venceremos broadcasts on two frequencies simultaneously on the 40 meter band, seven khz...
...Their first assignment was to broadcast the call for the general offensive...
...Nobody knows the size of RV's listening audience...
...With the new year the FMLN seized the initiative in the war and went on the offensive, a situation which has not changed...
...Tongue in revolutionary cheek," reported the Washington Post, Radio Venceremos "suggested the marriage was cooked up not in heaven but in the salons of El Salvador's wealthy, where it said patrician ladies designated the bride as a sort of rightist mole to influence the diplomat" Radio Venceremos: "On more than one occasion, the elegant and hysterical ladies of the already famous feminine fronts and peace crusades attacked Hinton in costly newspaper advertisements," a reference to the campaign against U.S...
...Garcia never dared to show the transmitter to the press because nobody would ever have believed that that museum piece was Radio Venceremos...
...satyrical reverie, the ladies began to play up to the paunchy ambassador: parties, flattery, offers of money...
...Yes my love.' "In conclusion, that which the oligarchy could not win in the diplomatic struggle it has won in the wedding bed...
...The answer was Morazin, a very poor, mountainous province of El Salvador where the ERP had been organizing for several years...
...The radio went with him...
...It does news reports, analyses, interviews with prominent leaders of the revolutionary movement, reports from the battlefield and cultural programs from the liberated zones...
...Now they have announced the wedding of the golden Ambassador Hinton and the flower of the oligarchy, although a little wilted, Patricia de Salaverria...
...Several days later El Salvador's minister of defense, Gen...
...I began to think that they were going to kill us all, but no...
...In the refugee camps in Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Belize, where radios are few, refugees have organized "listeners' circles...
...Our security forces went back to get it but it had been shot to pieces...
...It had to be done silently and quickly...
...With the heavy equipment, it was slow going as they advanced toward a safer area...
...If we can't record, then we 40 write down the most important news and instructions and pass the notes by hand...
...This, explains Comandante Mercedes del Carmen Letona ("Luisa"), led the ERP leadership to conclude that "written propaganda had lost its force because of the limitations on its diffusion and the risks to those who distributed it and those who read it...
...Their objective was the annihilation of our headquarters and of Radio Venceremos," one member of the radio collective May/June 1983 I 41update update update update recalls...
...The answer: love...
...The heavy components of the radio slowed the escape...
...Montalvo, another member of the RV team, was the third...
...The mobile guerrilla units had therefore "to wear out the enemy and try to prevent them from reaching the area...
...So, as in the refugee camps, people have organized themselves in the barrios into listeners' circles...
...Since the revolutionary movement has taken the initiative, the radio has ceased to be the enemy's principal objective and what they now do is try to create interference," Villalobos has observed...
...El Muerto-the monster radio lay in the middle of the path riddled with bullets...
...The idea was to not let anybody enter the zone where the radio was," Comandante Luisa explained in a written history of RV...
...However, the oligarchy realized that while it may not always be in agreement with imperialism, it is not advisable--particularly for an oligarchy that has already smelled death-to be at odds with imperialism...
...Not until January of the next year was the project revived...
...Although RV is the project of the ERP, in its two years it has come to be recognized as the main voice of the Salvadorean insurgency...
...If you can't beat the enemy, join 'em," the ladies concluded...
...Of course, when the transmitter, without that part, finally got to El Salvador, it would not work...
...Hinton...
...In December, the Army almost got what it wanted...
...When they were 500 meters away, the compas opened fire...
...The Salvadorean Army, now preoccupied with the guerrilla onslaught, can no longer dedicate its energies to the destruction of Radio Venceremos...
...Although sometimes overzealous and guilty of rhetorical excess, RV has become a fundamental and credible source of information about the progress of the war and the political concerns of the FMLN-FDR forces...
...But we lost the transmitter...
...As the person responsible for smuggling the radio into El Salvador was preparing its disguise, he saw a piece sticking out of the radio that looked like an outlet without a wire...
...1983, a third radio station Radio Guazapa-was begun by the National Resistance, a member group of the FMLN months of 1979, Jorge Mel6ndez, second in command of the ERP, was sent abroad to find a radio transmitter...
...And so "the big idea, the very brilliant idea, arose...
...Hinton fell into the trap...
...By mid-1979, repression of the two independent newspapers in San Salvador and raids by security forces on print shops had grown fierce...
...Our team [those responsible for the radio] asked the Command to let us go on the air, so the enemy could never say that they had silenced us . . But what was at stake wasn't just the radio but the entire war front...
...But Hinton was a hard man to break...
...The RV team was now separated from the others and protected only by its security squad...
...no one knew of the radio's existence...
...It was not until they finally identified an experienced radio technician"Apolonio"-among the ranks late that year that they discovered their machine had that capability...
...Though the rebel offensive was not entirely successful, the Salvadorean Army immediately grasped the potential importance of the radio and went after it...
...Army Seizes Radios While it is risky anywhere in El Salvador to tune in the clandestine broadcasts, it is most perilous in the cities, where the bulk of the Salvadorean military power is concentrated...
...In those tumultuous days, the radio was forgotten...
...We had not gone on the air and many people feared the worst...
...They've adopted another form of struggle because they're convinced that the battle against [the radio] is going to be won only if they win the war...
...The insurgents silently passed through the encirclement and once on the other side broke up into small groups, each going its own 42 way...
...Deane Hinton, a widower, had announced his intention to marry Patricia de Salaverria, widow of one of El Salvador's most right-wing landowners, who lost a big portion of the family holdings in the 1980 agrarian reform...
...Congratulations Mr...
...They were backed up by two radio technicians, Apolonio and Mauricio...
...Radio Venceremos' Origins ERP leaders began discussing the possibility of regular radio transmission in late 1978 and early 1979...
...Hearing the racket, people from the area told one another: "They must be making mezcal up there," referring to the potent alcoholic extract of the maguey cactus...
...Hinton...
...October 1979 brought the young officers' coup against General Romero and the first junta...
...With the night came the chance to break the encirclement...
...ambassador--on Valentine's Day--to show that the rebel station is as creative as it is resourceful in its radio broadcasting...
...From July to December 1981, Radio Venceremos remained the fundamental objective of the Salvadorean Army...
...The radio was silent for three weeks...
...So, sometime in the last six *On February 21...
...Expanded from the five leaders of the ERP general command-who knew nothing about radio broadcasting-the RV staff now includes professional reporters, writers and radio technicians...
Vol. 17 • May 1983 • No. 3
