(Continues from A Salvadoran Samurai I)
Paramilitary groups instilled fear in the people with the most fearful imagery. Using nature - in this case, a river, as a human extermination tool was called ‘hammer and anvil’ strategy. To encircle a group of people and shoot them all at one time was called ‘ants’ strategy. Soldiers ripped pregnant women’s bellies and grabbed their babies to put them on display, then chopped both bodies into pieces and threw them into the Rio Lempa.
The Salvadorean army was trained at the School of the Americas to be killers, by the then US administration of Ronald Reagan, who current President George W. Bush lists as one of the men he most admires. Those graduates chose the simplest way to decrease rebel numbers. Instead of searching one by one for individuals, they massacred entire groups of people, including scholars, pastors, even nuns, living in any areas thought to be suspicious.
The adolescent boy did not choose to be a guerrilla fighter, but ran away. He did not want to carry a gun. A searing image of his mother being shot was more than enough. ‘But above all, I always remembered my mother’s teaching of Catholicism and ethics. I didn’t want to disgrace her, a devoted person with self-sacrificing love. I became a caretaker for orphans of the war.’
In 1992, at last, the war ended through UN mediation with peace accords. The fact was, however, that the US was reluctant to give further support to the government, which was too corrupt to be functional. Foremost, the guerrillas had been far tougher than the US had estimated. The 12-year conflict was over after causing more than 20,000 military deaths; 75,000 civilians killed; 8,000 missing; and 1.5 million refugees spread out in neighboring countries.
(To be continued to Salvadoran Samurai III)
