Repression (With a Dose of Reform)
On January 22, 1980- the 48th anniversary of the unsuccessful rebellion of 1932200,000 people filled the streets of San Salvador in a unity march of the popular organizations. Gabriel...
...From every corner you hear !Basta Ya!-Enough!-to the repression against the Salvadorean people...
...Copies of this pamphlet are available from EPICA, 1470 Irving Street N.W...
...He headed the Broad National Front (the reincarnation of ORDEN) and many said he led the death squads, the White Warrior Union and the Secret Anti-Communist Army...
...Back where I'm from, things are ugly...
...Magdalena Bonilla, 42, a street vendor: Q: Who are you marching with today...
...A queer calm set in, punctuated by occasional gunfire, bomb explosions and the purr of the National Guard convoys heading toward another night of murder...
...But there was no resistance...
...In 1974, when Ifirst went back, I saw the signs of crisis: people were edgy, uncertain about the future...
...Counter-insurgency plans were being dusted off and examined...
...Government soldiers were everywhere...
...They held power in Chile...
...Do it for the thousands of workers and peasants and for all our people who suffer hunger, misery, exploitation and oppression...
...For information on AIFLD's history in Latin America see the following back issues of NA CLA Report on the Americas: Smoldering Conflict: Dominican Republic, 1965-1975, Vol...
...Compromises that seem to know no limits...
...They were afraid to have community meetings...
...But there were others, less scrupulous than they, to fill the vacancies...
...The right is to blame...
...In the first stages, U.S...
...Rightist sharpshooters located in nearby buildings engaged armed guards of the popular organizations who attempted to defend the mourners in a gun battle that lasted more than an hour...
...Communique of the Salvadorean Communal Union (UCS), San Salvador, June 5, 1980...
...In Chile, it was a U.S...
...Cynthia Arnson and Delia Miller, "Background Information on El Salvador . . .," p. 9...
...official commented on the program's intent: "There is no one more conservative than a small farmer...
...6 In late May, the ISTA technicians went out on strike, protesting the massive repression, the harassment of ISTA personnel by the National Guard, and the lack of fertilizers, seed and financial credit for the new cooperatives...
...they challenged power in Venezuela...
...For fiscal year 1981, it proposes an additional $5.5 million to purchase patrol boats, helicopters, jeeps, parachutes, trucks and radios...
...But in the end, what are those promised changes...
...to 1,000 in June...
...4 In mid-February, he appeared on Salvadorean TV to denounce a list of persons who, he said, were linked to the politicalmilitary organizations of the left...
...government would not tolerate a coup...
...interests and, at the same time, to carry out genuine changes in our country...
...His work in El Salvador is also being subsidized by the 17NACLA Report American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), a known conduit for CIA funds in the 1960s.12 AIFLD itself is now under contract to the U.S...
...16 And finally, on March 23, he called on the National Guard to disobey the orders of their superiors and end the killings...
...Your son, Jose Antonio Morales Carbonell El Salvador, April 19, 1980 16JulylAugust 1980 THE CARROT AND THE STICK On paper, the agrarian reform seemed impressive, even drastic...
...You should follow the example of the other Christian Democrats that decided to stop supporting the repressive regime, to stop serving as a "progressive" cover, in exchange for afew crumbs of power and to stop cynically attributing these desertions to merely "sentimental" motives...
...the myth of a moderate center might still be swallowed...
...The peasants couldn't believe their ears, but they held elections that very night...
...In Venezuela, it 13NACLA Report represented the conservative business community...
...Amnesty International news release, New York City, March 17, 1980...
...At this point there are no longer intermediary positions, things are totally clear: one is either on the side of the oppressed, or on the side of the oppressors...
...But the guerrillas in El Salvador are different...
...They were less discriminating in the countryside: any peasant would do to intimidate the rest...
...It is a neo-colonial war, whose instruments are a puppet government and a military trained and financed by the United States...
...Interpress Service, "El Salvador: 'Land Reform' as a 'Counter Insurgency' Programme like CIA's 'Phoenix' Operation in Vietnam," July 25, 1980...
...8. Solidaridad, Nos...
...strategists and the Salvadorean bourgeoisie...
...8. 13...
...9; Chile: The Story Behind the Coup, Vol...
...The UCS is a peasant organization with traditionally strong ties to the Salvadorean government...
...an international network to complement its own structures...
...Statement of the Popular Tendency, 20% of the Party, upon its resignation, March 10, 1980...
...Cynthia Arnson and Delia Miller, "Background Information on El Salvador .. .. ," p.6...
...I was there last December, during the brief period of thefirst junta...
...San Salvador, El Salvador, C.A...
...And in El Salvador, its electoral efforts to unseat the military had failed...
...He had exposed the lies of U.S...
...I came last night with my two daughters...
...that sends a permanent and constant stream of arms and war supplies to strengthen the puppet armies and the para-military bands of assassins...
...It is really dishonorable to be in your situation, and still try to hide from the world the reality of violence and repression that our people suffer daily, crudely attributing it to the supposed provocations of the revolutionary organizations...
...He lunched with the American Legion, lobbied for more arms and accused the U.S...
...He launched scathing attacks on the oligarchy's greed, but blamed the left for the escalation of violence...
...Its purpose was to politically isolate the Viet Cong by giving land to peasants in targetted areas...
...Its reformist platform and Christian identity were powerfully attractive to the exploited masses of this Catholic country...
...Napoleon Duarte- the charismatic mayor of San Salvador in the 1960s, presidential candidate in 1972--would now save the junta from total abandonment...
...14Christian Democratic leader, Jose Napoleon Duarte...
...It is published weekly and includes a weekly review of the government's violations of human rights...
...They washed their hands of the blood, and shook hands with U.S...
...500 in May...
...The brutality of the Salvadorean military and its greater weaponry outgunned the guerrilla armies...
...Every day there was another demonstration by the popular organizations...
...They called it "Land to the Tiller" and a U.S...
...A technician with the government's Institute for Agrarian Reform (ISTA) tells this story: "The troops came and told the workers the land was theirs now...
...New York Times, March 13, 1980...
...It offered an opportunity for advancement to the small but expanding middle class...
...A mother of five children told me of a woman, a militant of the popular organizations, whose head was cut off and tied by the hair to a fence, her nude body lying beneath it...
...Miami Herald, March 11, 1980...
...and, above all, a thirst for power...
...They are everywhere in the cities and villages...
...Destroying that bridge might force the party out of the junta...
...7. Washington Post, July 1, 1980...
...2 By 1980, Christian Democracy had lost its lustre...
...3; Argentina: AIFLD Losing its Grip, Vol...
...As members of FAPU approached the National Palace, sharpshooters on the rooftops of the palace and surrounding buildings opened fire on the march...
...a program of 'reforms with repression' runs contrary to fundamentals of Christian Democracy...
...plus $500,000 for military training.14 By 1981, the United States will have spent $12.2 million on El Salvador's military, in the post-coup period alone...
...His name is Roy Prosterman, a law professor at the University of Washington and currently under contract to the Land Council, a private New York-based organization...
...But in Washington, it was ignored...
...19 NACLA Report San Salvador: June, 1980 I was returning to El Salvador for the third time since I'd lived there 11 years ago as a Peace Corps volunteer...
...The fall of the first junta gave the PDC the chance it was waiting for and saved the U.S...
...The greater brunt of the killing was borne by people in areas known to be strongholds of the popular organizations: Chalatenango, Cabanas, Morazan...
...D'Abuisson had close ties to the American right...
...3 A new ambassador, Robert White, with his human rights credentials earned in Paraguay, was brought in to win votes for U.S...
...Today, on my return after a long trip through various countries of Europe, I want to tell you that the entire world is exasperated...
...The bodyguards accompanying the march returned the fire...
...I remember that some time ago you told me . . that the enormous crisis of imperialism in our country, caused by the uncontainable rise of the revolutionary movement, had to be used to present a more favorable alternative to U.S...
...Agrocenso del Gobierno de El Salvador, San Salvador, 1971...
...The FPL harassed and pummeled the security forces in the mountainous northern areas of Chalatenango and Cabanas...
...Approximately 30,000 people were murdered through Colby's efforts to eliminate Viet Cong supporters...
...Compromises that have taken more lives than the last years of the Military Tyranny...
...policy, declaring that so-called reforms "had to be judged within a context of death and annihilation...
...Ambassador of "leftist sympathies...
...Members of the BPR still waiting to get onto the streets sought shelter in the National University...
...During the 1960s, the Christian Democrats were a growing and formidable force...
...The monthly murders of members of the popular organizations rose from 487 in March...
...one half left on one street corner, the other on the next...
...The mother church was the Christian Democratic parties of Germany and Italy-whose money and training created a generation of Latin American politicians, determined to be the third choice between capitalism and communism...
...Letter of resignation, Hector Dada, Christian Democratic member of the junta, March 3, 1980...
...4. Washington Post, July 2, 1980...
...Respect for human rights is incompatible with the exacerbated and growing repression exercised against the popular organizations and against the people in general...
...On her way, she found a body cut in half...
...with his 3-year old son: Q: How do you feel in this demonstration...
...The PDC filled two slots on the junta and packed the cabinet...
...have been converted into such enormous compromises and complicities with the number one enemy of Humanity: Yankee Imperialism...
...Each hacienda was to be a military outpost in the junta's campaign to destroy the left...
...The Christian Democratic Party should not participate in a regime which has unleashed the'bloodiest repression ever experienced by the Salvadorean people . . . The 600 victims of repression between January and February clamor for justice...
...Again, the U.S...
...25-27...
...It is lamentable to me that you find yourself in this situation, but I remember that you taught me to be clear, a clarity that obliges me to tell you . . . that I am ready to give the last drop of my blood for the liberation of our people...
...The least you can do at this moment is to be loyal to the principles you taught me...
...Do it for a minimum sense of human compassion, that I cannot believe you have lost...
...But no one was arrested and the Christian Democrats stayed on...
...He was joined by Antonio Morales Erlich, another stalwart of the party's right wing...
...Thousands started to run...
...D'Abuisson was handsome, charismatic and totally committed to the destruction of the left...
...Involvement in the Control of the Peasant Movement in El Salvador (Washington, D.C.: EPICA, 1980...
...The Washington Post reports that "a squad of more than 20 men in National Guard uniforms with complete battle dress and an armored car drove to a government agricultural cooperative with a list of cooperative leaders considered to be subversives...
...The party, however, could no longer stand the strain...
...375-376, January-February, 1980, pp...
...This Week Central America and Panama, February 4, 1980...
...3. Memorandum of Meeting with Robert White on June 4, 1980 with representatives of 6 Congresspeople, Washington, D.C...
...D'Abuisson's message was clear: get rid of the Christian Democrats and make way for a Chilean solution to the crisis...
...12JulylAugust 1980 Christian Democracy sank its roots in Latin America in the late 1950s...
...The author of the "Land to the Tiller" program in Viet Nam is now advising the Salvadorean junta...
...At their rally, I listened to men and women who had never spoken in public, start forward, get lost in theirfeelings, then burst free in torrents...
...At a second stage, properties of 250 to 500 acres would be affected...
...On March 24, Archbishop Romero was killed by an assassin's bullet as he offered mass for the mother of a friend...
...The right was becoming more brazen as the left grew stronger...
...The parallels between Vietnam and El Salvador are not far-fetched...
...officials admitted that the "center" had shifted to the right--but "only slightly," they said...
...THE PARTY SPLINTERS We have not been able to stop the repression and those committing acts of repression...
...5 By May, the entire left wing of the party had resigned, as well as those associated with the Central American University...
...But it was one component of a larger "rural development" project that included the infamous Operation Phoenix, run by former CIA director William Colby...
...Agency for International Development (AID), another familiar actor in Vietnam, to advise the Salvadorean Communal Union (UCS) on managing the new cooperatives...
...Or the permanent state of siege . . .? The famed nationalization of banks and foreign trade...
...In mid-February, the U.S...
...One estimate is that only 2% of the coffee plantations were affected by the "sweeping reforms...
...They could elect their own leaders and run it themselves...
...All the security forces were in their barracks...
...O 18JulylAugust 1980 During the funeral mass for Archbishop Romero, an explosion stampeded the enormous crowd...
...I had never seen people so determined, so hopeful that things would finally change...
...They brought blood-curdling stories of massacres and sadistic brutality...
...I am certain that you yourself don't believe that...
...Their demands were simple: benches and toilet facilities in the National Lottery Office...
...9. NACLA interview with Enrique Alvarez Cordova, President of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, New York City, July 28, 1980...
...It was high time for some dramatic strokes...
...His first trip to the United States was sponsored by the American Security Council, a right-wing lobby group in Washington...
...It is inconceivable that after so few months in government, your seemingly good intentions...
...Mobilizing its forces like a military campaign, the junta rushed its reform into place...
...Political activists were just finding their bearings...
...and created new parties throughout the hemisphere...
...Simple things, but they were tired of waiting...
...Washington, D.C...
...The security forces surrounded it as a plane sprayed insecticide on the crowd...
...A state of siege was declared throughout the country and troops rolled into the largest haciendas, ostensibly to stop the landowners from fighting back...
...Each occupying force received a list, prepared by ORDEN, of suspected members of.the popular organizations...
...cordial relations with the business community...
...By June, however, even the UCS had withdrawn its support from the reforms after several of its leaders were murdered by the National Guard.' Counter-insurgency is also part of the package in El Salvador...
...the promised dialogue with the popular organizations fails to materialize...
...The guerrillas attacked the armed forces and members of the para-military squads...
...Their rationale for entering as others resigned was simple: Only they could prevent a civil war between left and right...
...A: Because we have to be one single body in this battle against the rich...
...It found a champion in Roberto D'Abuisson, a former intelligence officer in the National Guard, dismissed by the first junta as one of Romero's chief torturers...
...In 1971, 91% of all coffee holdings were less than 1,250 acres--the limit of the agrarian reform's reach...
...I went to see old friends in the tugurios on the edge of the city...
...Its address is SocorroJ uridico del Arzobispado de San Salvador, Apartado Postal 06-294...
...They were coming out of their houses again...
...On March 17, 1980 Amnesty International called on the government of El Salvador to halt a campaign of murder and abduction against peasants, launched following an announcement of agrarian reform...
...REPRESSION (WITH A DOSE OF REFORM) 1. Francisco Andres Escobar, "En la linea de la muerte," Estudios Centroamericanos, Nos...
...The military went after the unarmed members of the popular organizations...
...Also, Carolyn Forche and Philip Wheaton, History and Motivations of U.S...
...8, No...
...We're going to breed capitalists like rabbits...
...Solidaridad is the bulletin of the Legal Aid Office of the Archbishop of San Salvador...
...the chances for producing reforms with the support of the people are receding beyond reach...
...Among them was Mario Zamora Rivas, then Solicitor General of the second junta...
...And the people would desert the popular organizations, they believed.NACLA Report A Son's Letter to His Father Jose Antonio Morales Carbonell, a militant of the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL), writes to his father, Antonio Morales Erlich, member of the second junta [on June 13, Jose Antonio was captured and is imprisoned in the jail of the National Police]: Dear father, On May 30, 1979, I had to leave the country with a group of companeros to visit the Embassies of France, Venezuela and Costa Rica, to demand freedom for our captured leaders...
...government from having to abandon its centrist pretensions...
...A poster in a working class barrio showed a young man holding a machine gun: "Join the Armed Forces of Popular Liberation...
...Over the July 4 weekend, the government sent troops into its offices and confiscated all of the files, including signed statements by eyewitnesses of atrocities committed by National Guardsmen and other members of the security forces...
...The popular organizations were no longer in the streets, since a state of siege had made all demonstrations illegal...
...Viet Nam is the clearer analogy...
...Venceremos...
...7 Venezuela-ruled by friendly Christian Democrats-waged a successful anti-guerrilla campaign in the 1960s...
...VIET NAM REVISITED When the first phase of the agrarian reform failed to attract any popular support, the junta jumped to stage three: giving land to sharecroppers and tenant farmers...
...By 8:30 p.m., the streets were deserted...
...It was hard to get here...
...I returned at the beginning of June...
...Owners would be generously compensated in cash and government bonds, and encouraged to invest in industry...
...From there they would finance a more subtle resistance...
...Everyone had a horror story to tell, corroborated by neighbors and others who needed to tell the stories as a form of catharsis: Dona Teresa had gotten up early one morning to do marketing...
...9, No...
...So on March 9, the second junta announced a set of "sweeping reforms": land would be redistributed, banks and foreign trade would be nationalized, the power of the oligarchy would be broken, they said...
...Death squads combed the cities for their leaders and decapitated the bodies...
...We're ready to show them that we are more thqn a few!' The streets were so crowded that each organization had to await its turn to enter the procession...
...go unpunished...
...A: We are going with the BPR...
...The Christian Democrats were stunned and outraged...
...Carlos Vazquez, 36, tailor...
...5. Cynthia Arnson and Delia Miller, "Background Information on El Salvador .. ," p. 4. 6. NACLA interview with ISTA technician, San Salvador, June 2. 1980...
...480 in April...
...8 The greatest sham of the agrarian reform was that the coffee oligarchs, the heart of bourgeois power, were not even touched...
...He decried the torture and killings from his pulpit and said defiantly, "When all peaceful means have been exhausted the Church rcognizes the right to insurrection...
...handmaiden in the overthrow of Allende...
...government breathed a sigh of relief...
...government re-programmed another $5.7 million to El Salvador, for transport, communications and intelligence equipment...
...Duarte was well known internationally...
...Gabriel Cienfuegos, 47, two children, a worker: Q: Why have you come to this demonstration...
...Their targets were different...
...His voice had expressed the hopes and determination of the Salvadorean people...
...Meanwhile, a major military aid package was being prepared to give "logistical and communications support" to the Salvadorean armed forces...
...The FARN was active in the region of the western coffee fincas...
...The new junta denied any involvement in the massacre...
...Or the growing and shameless intervention of Yankee Imperialism, that sends personnel trained in counter-insurgency techniques and other specialties...
...It was extraordinary...
...In the center of the city, 21 lay dead, 120 wounded...
...They wanted to frighten us, but here we are...
...A: Brave and strong...
...The original "Land to the Tiller" program was implemented in Viet Nam...
...for $2.00 plus 50 cents postage in the U.S.A...
...In El Salvador, Venezuelan advisors have been used to cover U.S...
...The real objectives of the military occupations became all too clear...
...I have faith in the power and creativity of the people's forces and I am convinced that the only way to defeat the enemy is with arms in hand, destroying completely the repressive apparatus and creating a more just society, free of misery and exploitation...
...Twelve of the leaders...were killed and the 160 families living there fled in terror...
...On April 1, 1980, the U.S...
...Also comments by Ruben Zamora in conference held at the Center for InterAmerican Relations, New York City, July 28, 1980...
...They pointed the finger at D'Abuisson and threatened to resign if Zamora's killers were not brought to justice...
...To stay on their side makes you responsible as well for the crimes committed against the people-crimes committed by your very colleagues...
...The PDC had all the necessary qualities: a moderate image and the memory of popular support in the 1960s...
...But the slogans and struggle had escalated beyond demands for daily needs...
...The war that the United States is fighting in El Salvador is the first step in its typical response to liberation movements around the world...
...Zamora was a bridge between the left and right wings of the Christian Democratic Party...
...THE WAR BEGINS Throughout the countryside, the fledgling people's army was testing its strength...
...involvement...
...They are peasants, workers, students and other members of the popular organizations who have now joined the ranks of the popular army...
...Not even the names have changed...
...The ERP attacked the principal headquarters of the National Guard...
...In 1960, Christian Democracy came to El Salvador...
...and later, the small plots would become the property of tenant farmers and sharecroppers...
...Since 1971, coffee magnates had further subdivided their estates among family members in anticipation of reform...
...U.S...
...This theme would be used repeatedly by the Christian Democratic Party to justify its continued presence in the junta...
...7, No...
...The next morning the troops came back and I watched as they shot every one of the elected leaders...
...But time was running out, as the right grew more bellicose and the left continued to grow...
...The repression was not confined to areas affected by the agrarian reform...
...Refugees began to flood the capital, seeking protection within the Catholic Church...
...ambassador had to summon the military high command, along with members of the oligarchy, to convey that the U.S...
...Several nights later, armed men entered Zamora's house through the roof and killed him with a tommy gun...
...13-15, 1980...
...Most landowners took their compensation in cash, packed their bags and went to Miami...
...Where the first junta had failed, they could succeed in pushing through reforms...
...Resignation letter of 7 key party leaders...
...involvement is usually limited to military advisors, who give technical assistance to the surrogate army...
...Do it for your family, your children...
...First, all properties in excess of 1,250 acres would be expropriated to form peasant cooperatives...
...This represents 73% of what it spent there from 1950 to 1979...
...I followed a march of lottery vendors, some of the poorest of the capital's poor...
...policy among liberals in Congress...
...2. Stephen Webre, Jose Napoleon Duarte and the Christian Democratic Party in Salvadoran Politics 1960-1972, (Baton Rouge and London: 1979...
...Reform was a cover for repression...
...The famed Agrarian Reform...
...Archbishop Romero had implored President Carter to halt the flow of arms...
...20010, U.S.A...
Vol. 14 • July 1980 • No. 4
