Ugly History: The El Mozote murders - Diana Sierra Becerra
In 1984, a group of radio broadcasters
and operators
walked into the abandoned village
of El Mozote in El Salvador.
Fireflies illuminated the remnants
of a massacre
that had taken place three years earlier.
Led by Colonel Domingo Monterrosa,
government soldiers had tortured,
raped, and murdered 978 people,
including 553 children.
The youngest victim, Concepción Sánchez,
was just three days old.
Both the US and Salvadoran governments
denied the massacre had taken place,
and the slaughter left few people
alive to tell their story.
But with the help of Radio Venceremos,
one of those survivors, Rufina Amaya,
shared her testimony—
exposing both Monterrosa
and the governments funding his crimes.
This massacre was one in a long line
of atrocities
committed against El Salvador’s farmers.
Since the 1800s, a handful of oligarchs
had controlled nearly all
the country’s land,
forcing laborers to work
for almost nothing.
In 1932, Indigenous farm workers
led an insurrection,
but the dictatorial government responded
by committing genocide
against these communities.
From then on, one military dictatorship
after another ruled the country
in concert with wealthy landowners.
Their power only grew in the 1960s,
when the United States began supplying
the regime with military aid.
The US wanted to stop the spread
of reformist and revolutionary movements,
which they saw as threats to capitalism.
So they spent huge sums of money training
Salvadoran soldiers and “death squads”—
fascist military units versed
in brutal counter-insurgency methods.
Throughout the 1970s,
these forces slaughtered farmers
who organized to demand basic rights,
such as living wages, food,
and clean water.
Finally, in 1980, farmers
and urban workers formed
the Farabundo Martí
National Liberation Front.
This coalition of guerrilla groups fought
to overthrow the dictatorship
and build a socialist society that met
the needs of laborers.
These revolutionaries were attacked
from every direction.
Colonel Monterrosa led a special battalion
intent on destroying the FMLN,
using tactics he’d learned
at an American military school.
State forces terrorized farmers
to stop them
from joining or aiding the guerrillas.
But one group of rebels
would not be silenced:
the operators of Radio Venceremos.
This clandestine guerrilla radio began
in 1981,
and its broadcasters Santiago and Mariposa
became the voice of the revolution.
They transmitted news
from the front lines
and reported military abuses
that no other source covered.
The station’s politics and popularity
made it a high-profile target.
And because they operated
in a relatively small area,
its broadcasters had to move constantly
to evade capture.
To communicate undetected, the group
modified two radios into telephones,
linked together through kilometers
of barbed wire covering the countryside.
This secret telephone line helped
the rebels
stay one step ahead of their pursuers.
In addition to reporting news,
the radio broadcast educational programs
in areas under guerrilla control.
Here, farmers organized democratic
councils to govern themselves,
alongside cooperatives, schools,
and medical clinics.
Organizers also encouraged civilian women
to participate in these councils
to ensure the revolution overthrew
both capitalism and patriarchy.
Women made up roughly
a third of the guerrillas,
working in a huge variety of roles.
Colonel Monterrosa was obsessed
with destroying Radio Venceremos.
In October 1984,
government soldiers finally captured
their radio transmitter.
Monterrosa himself went to retrieve
the equipment
and held a theatrical press conference
celebrating
his “decisive blow to the subversives.”
But in reality, the radio team had
outsmarted him once again.
The transmitter was boobytrapped.
Once Monterrosa’s helicopter
left the press conference,
radio members detonated
the device over El Mozote,
killing the colonel near the village
he had massacred.
Monterrosa’s death was one victory
in a much larger conflict.
The civil war raged on for 8 more years
before concluding in 1992,
when peace accords dissolved
the oppressive National Guard
and allowed the FMLN to become
an electoral party.
But these accords didn’t address
problems of deep, structural inequality.
In 1993, the UN Truth Commission
reported that over 75,000 people
died during the war.
Yet the Salvadoran legislature prevented
the prosecution of war crimes
and continues to obstruct justice
to this day.
As of 2021, no participating
American officials have been put on trial,
and only one individual
from the Salvadoran government
has been sentenced for war crimes.
Historical erasure exists
in the US as well,
where these and other stories
of US intervention in Central America
are rarely taught in public schools.
But the victims refuse to be forgotten.
Rufina Amaya continued to share
her testimony until her death in 2007.
And survivors of other massacres still
organize to denounce state violence.
They map old massacre sites,
exhume and bury loved ones,
and build sanctuaries and museums,
all in the hope of pollinating
a more just future.
