Another friend, with a long history of struggle in the labor movement, was planning to flee with her husband to Belize. "Don Roberto, the Guard combs the houses. We have a picture of Monsignor Romero but we keep it under the mattress. If they found it, they would take us away." Her husband Don Chico, a carpenter, told me how he worries about his 14-year-old son, who studies a trade at a workshop across town. "I worry that the Guard will kill him on his way home. They kill young people just because they are young." The Salvadorean National Guard kills young men and women with equal ferocity. The reason is obvious: 40% of the FPL's leadership are women. On the dirt floor of a house in one of the largest tugurios, I sat with Dona Lola, widow of an old friend. Her son is seated with her on the same box, making sandals just as his 20father did 11 years ago. Dona Lola now sells the sandals aroitnd the country. "I was in Suchitoto, 60 kilometers or so from here, when the muchachos and muchachas marched into the plaza." She is speaking of the guerrillas. "But we were not afraid. We gathered around and listened to them speak of what to do if the Guard came to the village. If the Guard wins, Don Rober- to, what will life be worth? We will be their slaves. We will just be slaves. " Bob Armstrong I-NACLA Report There is a war going on in El Salvador to- day. A war that is little known and less understood. A war that takes the lives of 30 people on an average day, every day, and that threatens to involve other Central American nations in the bloodshed. 1 It's the kind of war we usually find out about when it's too late to stop a steady escalation of U.S. involvement on the wrong side. So far, the U.S. press has swallowed whole the Carter Administration's version: the left is fighting the right, and a noble but besieged government stands in between, trying its best to stop the violence and implement reforms. It is an internal matter. The United States, committed to human rights, seeks only a moderate solution. The junta's own involvement in repression, and the right wing's complicity with that jun- ta, are studiously ignored. U.S. involvement in counter-insurgency is never mentioned. In the jingoistic atmosphere of the Iran crisis, the better wisdom is not to probe too deeply. Most importantly, there is no one Somoza in El Salvador; there are many. The bourgeoisie is not divided as it was in Nicaragua. It is one and united against a vast popular movement, led by peasants and workers, and joined by large sectors of the middle class. Not able to paint a portrait of a heterogeneous struggle against a single dic- tator, the U.S. media-so sympathetic at one stage to the Sandinistas -refuses to accept the notion of a class war in El Salvador. It prefers the mythology of two tiny extremes, squeezing the honorable center. The Carter Administration has used three elements to sustain this story and to give repression a respectable cover: 1) the Chris- tian Democratic Party; 2) the agrarian reform; and 3) Ambassador Robert E. White. The Christian Democrats, with an inter- national reputation as liberals, discouraged close scrutiny of what was happening in El Salvador and immediately gave the shaky jun- ta important international allies in sister par- ties around the world. The agrarian reform- touted as the most radical since the Mexican Revolution--rein- forced international perceptions of the good intentions of the regime and theoretically of- fered a way to win influence away from the revolutionary forces. Ambassador Robert E. White, enjoying great respect among human rights organiza- tions for his work in Paraguay, gave the junta an aura of respectability and kept liberals in Congress convinced of U.S. sincerity in sen- ding arms to "halt the violence." By attacking the right as well as the left, by appearing on the death lists of the fascist gangs as "an ally of communism," White was perceived as a courageous crusader. Today, the myth of the "viable center" has been all but abandoned. Colonel Majano, leader of the young officers' faction of the military was demoted in May. Roberto D'Abuisson, leader of a right-wing coup plot, was released from jail despite the threats from the Christian Democrats to resign and there is little talk of reform anymore. A new rationale for supporting the junta has replaced the old. The Washington Post said it succinctly in a recent editorial: ". . . the United States has found it politically more feasible and ideologically less objectionable to support U.S. Ambassador Robert White 22JulylAugust 1980 Right-wing demonstrators in front of Ambassador White's house. reform, even reform soiled by some repres- sion, than to condone revolution, especially revolution stained by nihilism."' 2 The left in El Salvador is being painted as irrational and crazy. "Even Fidel Castro can't control it," says a State Department leak. "We're not talking about pragmatic San- dinistas," they say. "This is a Pol Pot left." 3 The junta is simply the lesser evil. Even this rationale is getting harder to push on the American public. Recent events in El Salvador have made it eminently clear that the Salvadorean left is neither tiny nor crazy. A new coalition has been formed that incor- porates broad sectors of society, exposing the total isolation of the junta from all forces save the right. The program of the popular move- ment is public knowledge; it is anything but nihilism. THE CENTER MEETS THE LEFT The difficult task of unifying the revolu- tionary and reformist forces in El Salvador has been accomplished, after nine months of intense debate. The result is the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR), which includes all the popular organizations and all the forces involved in the first junta; and the Unified Revolutionary Directorate (DRU), which includes all the political-military organizations of the left. The FDR is the future expression of a popular, anti- oligarchic, anti-imperialist government which the revolution has pledged itself to establish. The DRU is recognized as the political and military vanguard of the revolutionary pro- cess. The FDR The Democratic Revolutionary Front was formed on April 18, 1980, when the Revolu- tionary Coordinating Council of the Masses (CRM), representing all the popular organizations, united with the Democratic Front (FD). The FD was a newly formed organization composed of trade unions, pro- fessional organizations, small business groups, student associations, the two major univer- sities and, most significantly, the social democratic MNR and the Popular Social Christian Movement (a new group composed of the Christian Democrats who left the junta in March). 23NACLA Report With the formation of the FDR then, all of the important opposition forces in El Salvador for the last 20 years-save the handful of Christian Democrats still in the govern- ment-came together in a single body. Neither the military nor their bourgeois patrons could be found among them. The initiative to form the FDR came from the popular organizations, whose unity pro- the popular organizations, whose unity proc- lamation declared: "We call on all the sons, small and medium-sized business peo- ple, professionals, students, market women, etc. to close ranks against the enemies of the people so that we can form the broadest and most powerful unity of the revolutionary and democratic forces-- a unity that will make possible the conquest of a truly revolutionary government and . . . will make democracy and social justice a reality." 4 Joining the leaders of the popular organiza- tions were Roman Mayorga and Guillermo Ungo, both members of the first junta. The president of the FDR is Enrique Alvarez, former Minister of Agriculture in the first junta and the black sheep of one of El Salvador's wealthiest families. He broke with his past long ago and established himself as an independent leftist whose commitment and personal integrity made him the logical choice of both the revolutionary and reformist forces. Guillermo Ungo described to NACLA the extraordinarily rapid process of unification: Early on under the junta, the view that the pro- gressive democratic groups like ours were caught in the crossfire between right and left was true. But as the right gained more military control, we came to see that regardless of what we or the left did or said, the military would go right ahead with its plans to exterminate the guerrillas. These groups are so close to the popular and democratic organizations that the repression fell on all of us--even those within the government, even the Archbishop. .... We had to face the fact that we were being propel - led from a battle of resistance into a wa "of in- surrection. The Front's first tasks have been to win recognition and support internationally, and to try by diplomatic means to reduce the bloodshed that must result from the stubborn U.S. support for the Christian Democratic- military junta. In June, the FDR won the en- Enrique Alvarez, president of Democratic Revolu- tionary Front dorsement of the Socialist International whose resolution of support urges the United States to alter its policy toward the junta. Washington has tried to discredit the FDR by saying that reformers joined out of weakness, capitulating to an extremist left. Ruben Zamora, leader of the dissident Chris- tian Democrats, responded to that charge in a recent NACLA interview: "The State Depart- ment contradicts its own words. On one hand they tell us that we are so weak that some alleged madmen on the left will eat us alive. On the other hand, they urge us to go in with the junta so that it can rely on our strength to break the oligarchy." 6 Now that its "moderate center" has failed to achieve reforms, and now that the extent of repression in El Salvador is becoming more widely known, Washington is indeed trying to draw the reformist elements of the FDR away from their revolutionary partners. When the FDR delegation visited the United States in July, they were invited to a two-hour, off-the- record meeting with top State Department of- ficials. But the Front has consistently main- tained that there can be no dialogue while the 24July/August 1980 state of siege goes on. More importantly, the FDR unqualifiedly recognizes the Unified Revolutionary Directorate as the vanguard of the Salvadorean revolution, while the DRU recognizes the FDR as El Salvador's future government. "The leadership of the insurrec- tion is shared between the DRU and the Ex- ecutive Committee of the FDR," says FDR President, Enrique Alvarez. 7 Is the alliance between reformers and revolutionaries as solid as it seems? Guillermo Ungo, in the same interview observed: This is not a tactical, but a strategic alliance. It is an absolute historic necessity, and it will be very resilient. In Nicaragua, for example, the alliances of classes in opposition to Somoza in- cluded the weakened national bourgeoisie. Right after the Sandinista victory, the bourgeoisie moved to recover its influence and had to be edged out, slowly and painfully. In El Salvador, the class alliance has been distilled. It has excluded the national bourgeoisie before the revolution. There can be few surprises we won't be prepared for now."' The DRU What the U.S. government fears most is represented by the DRU, comprising the three major political-military organizations and the Salvadorean Communist Party. One very small group operates outside the DRU. It is the Central American Revolutionary Workers Party, organized throughout the region and associated with the youngest of the popular organizations, the Movement of Peo- ple's Liberation (MLP). The DRU is the unified political and military command of the revolution. All four member organizations describe themselves as Marxist-Leninist and have been responsible for guiding the revolutionary struggle over the last ten years. Four men form the central command: Salvador Cayetano Carpio of the FPL, Jorge Shafik Handal of the PCS, Ernesto Jovel of the RN, and Joaquin Villalobos of the ERP. Cayetano Carpio is the most well known of the four. A baker by trade, he has been a leader of the working class movement since the 1940s. In 1969, as secretary-general of the Salvadorean Communist Party, he led a ma- jor faction out of the party and created the FPL. The issue was armed struggle. Cayetano's successor was Jorge Shafik Han- dal, who oversaw the development and col- lapse of the C.P.'s electoral strategy and in 1980, led the party into the DRU. Ernesto Jovel and Joaquin Villalobos entered the struggle as university students. They are both in their late twenties and have lived their adult lives in clandestinity within the revolu- tionary struggle. PEOPLE'S WAR Since March, a state of siege has hampered the massive demonstrations that were the hallmark of the popular organizations during the first junta. By May, the cost in human blood all but ended the efforts to defy the siege. The U.S. State Department has cynical- ly used this lack of street activity to claim that the revolution is losing its force. But the FDR and the DRU still have three key weapons at their disposal: 1) civil disobedience, including the general strike; 2) guerrilla warfare; and 3) diplomatic efforts to gain international solidarity. In late June, the Democratic Revolutionary Front called for a general strike that was almost textbook perfect in its execution. Eighty percent of El Salvador's businesses were closed down. The city of San Salvador was deserted. Even non-union factory workers, court and bank employees, and government agronomists joined the strike as their first steps toward political involvement. New sectors among the middle classes con- tinue to broaden the ranks of the FDR, and to belie the notion that the government stands between two tiny "extremes." On the military front, militants of the popular organizations have taken up arms in the Liberation Army, under the joint com- mand of the DRU, while others have stayed in their communities to form people's militias. So far the people's army has confined itself to scattered actions, not wanting to outpace the political and diplomatic aspects of the Front's activities and clearly buying time to incor- porate the many ill-trained volunteers. But already its strength is evident. Impatient for a showdown, the Salvadorean military changed its tactics at the end of July and sent several battalions into areas where the revolutionary forces maintain virtual control. In one of the regions under attack, near the Honduran border, the Army evacuated a 25NACLA Report reported 5,000 people in an attempt to isolate the insurgent forces. Fifteen hundred Sal- vadorean troops attempted to encircle the embattled area where 1000 guerrillas were concentrated. The revolutionary forces escaped the trap, inflicting heavy casualties on the Army regulars. Colonel Manuel Vides Casanova, head of the National Guard, refus- ed to acknowledge that the guerrillas were a problem. He did admit that there were "quite a few. Better organized than we are and able to mobilize themselves with greater speed." 9 The only outstanding question for the revolutionary forces is how the war will be conducted. Since October, there has been a continuing debate between the FPL and the RN over whether insurrection or prolonged people's war is the correct strategy. Insurrec- tion would mean building to a major confron- tation in the short term, while the latter would mean the continuing development of the mass organizations and the revolutionary armies, and a more gradual war of attrition and isolation of the enemy. While the military struggle goes on, the diplomatic efforts of the FDR are aimed at In typical tugurio community, hundreds live in makeshift houses built of mud, cardboard or oil drum lids. Prisoners taken after National Guard stormed Christian Democrat headquarters occupied by popular organization. 26JulylAugust 1980 Members of the people's revolutionary militia peeling away the mask of respectability that the second junta has been allowed to main- tain. They believe that international solidar- ity is the only way to reduce the bloodshed. The task is ever more urgent as the U.S. government begins to arm El Salvador's neighbors for a Central American war. A CENTRAL AMERICAN WAR? Central American businessmen are firm believers in the domino theory of revolution. They have finally seen the writing on the wall, and their answer is to hold the line in El Salvador, pump their own armies with money and weapons, and wait for Ronald Reagan to be elected. In Guatemala, El Salvador's western neighbor, the business community is sending arms money to El Salvador's death squads. President Lucas Garcia has met with Colonel Gutierrez of the Salvadorean junta to discuss the coordination of military operations.' 0 And soldiers in Guatemala's regular army 'are ready to don Salvadorean uniforms and replace that army's losses--as they did in Nicaragua in Somoza's last days. The United States, while balking at human rights abuses in Guatemala, is nonetheless securing its military preparedness. Military aid to Guatemala was suspended in 1977, but that suspension does not affect the Foreign Military Sales cash program. The United States currently plans to sell the Guatemalans military aircraft, helicoptors, anti-aircraft guns, armored cars, and other materiel wor- thy of an invading force." Obviously, Guatemala has problems of its own--namely a guerrilla and popular move- 27Military patrol combs the Chalatenango countryside in search and destroy mission. ment that is rapidly advancing toward unity and the strength to challenge decades of military dictatorship. In revolutionary circles, word has it that 1980 is the year of liberation in El Salvador, 1981 is Guatemala's turn. The Guatemalan bourgeoisie sees its showdown in San Salvador. In Honduras, where human rights abuses are less glaring, the United States succeeded in pushing for elections in May 1980, and the installation of a civilian government. Simultaneously, however, the U.S. govern- ment has decided to turn that country's ragtag army into America's new bulwark against communism. The Carter Administra- tion has re-programmed $3.5 million to the Honduran military for patrol boats, night vi- sion sights, M-16 rifles and the like." The importance of Honduras lies in its long common border with El Salvador. The border runs through rugged mountains, which offer the only natural protection to revolutionary forces that El Salvador's geography provides. Honduran troops have already assisted the Salvadorean Army in search and destroy mis- sions in the northern areas of Chalatenango. The most gruesome incident occurred on May 14, when Salvadorean soldiers chased fleeing peasants toward the Sumpul River, the borderline between the two countries, Sandinistas in joint actions with the ex- National Guardsmen. A request for $5.5 million in military assistance to Nicaragua for fiscal year 1981 was recently turned down by Congress by a vote of 267 to 105. WHAT IS AT STAKE? Why has the struggle of a country the size of Massachusetts caused so much panic in while the Honduran Army sealed off the area on the other side. Salvadorean helicopters, soldiers and members of ORDEN opened fire indiscriminately on the unarmed refugees, as Honduran soldiers stood on the banks of the river with megaphones, ordering the hysterical peasants to stay on their own side. Six hundred people were killed including many children, during a 5-hour slaughter. Their bodies lay in the sun for days, attended only by dogs and vultures."' For fiscal year 1981, the United States has promised the Honduran military an addi- tional $5 million in arms aid and $500,000 in training. 14 This build-up of military capacity in Cen- tral America poses a direct threat to the Nicaraguan revolution as well. Somoza's Na- tional Guard still has camps along the Honduran-Nicaraguan border. Honduran weapons could easily be turned against the Washington? What is at stake that is so im- portant that the United States is willing to provoke a regional war? U.S. economic investment in El Salvador is minimal compared to the rest of Latin America. Including foreign subsidiaries, it does not exceed $60 million.'" The State Department argues rather that "strategic in- terests" are at stake: a revolutionary victory in El Salvador would endanger the recently discovered oil fields in Guatemala and Mex-JulylAugust 1980 ico, as well as the Panama Canal. Protecting oil fields has become a conven- ient rationale for imperialist intervention in many parts of the globe. But such arguments are specifically designed to appeal to the anx- iety and chauvinism of the more reactionary segments of U.S. public opinion. They are rounded out by the old standby: Cuban ex- pansionism.' 6 In testimony before a Congressional sub- committee, deciding on a military aid package to the Salvadorean junta, U.S. State and Defense Department officials accused Cuba of sending arms to insurgents through Honduran territory. The press quickly picked up the story. But once the seed had been planted, the Washington Post later reported in a small article that "in private, top State Department officials and U.S. diplomats on the scene play down the Cuban role ... These officials acknowledge that there is little evidence to support allegations of a heavy supply of arms from Cuba."" In fact, the Salvadorean rebels are self-financed and quite able to purchase weapons on the open and black market. In his recent speech in Managua on the an- niversary of the Sandinista victory, Fidel Castro clearly described the dynamic of revolutionary struggle in the region: "We do not come to light revolutionary fires. . . No one can be a torchbearer for other revolu- tionaries. People are like volcanoes. They don't need to be lit. They just explode. And the whole range of Central America . . . is now a volcano."" 1 The Nicaraguan revolution was the first break in 20 years in the chain of control that the United States maintains in Latin America. It came in the same year that the U.S. empire suffered another defeat in Iran. It followed a decade of setbacks beginning in Viet Nam. Central America is the backyard. An em- pire is sustained, in part, by the image of its invincibility. If it suffers defeats in its own backyard, questions are raised about its strength throughout the world, both among its enemies and its allies. Herein lies the real U.S. stake in El Salvador. Frightened peasants dread arrival of National Guard. Sorghum in man's hand, usually fed to pigs, is this family's last morsel of food. 29NACLA Report THE INTERVENTION SCENARIO Before the United States will send its own troops into El Salvador, it will try to find sur- rogate forces to do the job for it. The first line of defense is, of course, the Salvadorean Ar- my. Its 30 years of U.S. training is being put to the test. If the Salvadorean Army succeeds in crushing the revolution, the United States will be able to restore a measure of its former control. If the Army fails or appears to be failing, the likelihood of a Central American war dramatically increases. Assistant Secretary of State William Bowdler has stated publicly that the United States would consider direct intervention in El Salvador only if it became an international- ized conflict. He implied that what the United States fears is a Cuban presence. In fact, Guatemala may be a more likely candidate and an equally useful pretext for interven- tion. As we stated before, the Guatemalan Army is chomping at the bit to aid its Salvadorean counterpart and protect itself from the effects of another victorious revolu- tion in the neighborhood. Another preferred route to U.S. involve- ment would be the Organization of American States (OAS) or a peace-keeping force from the Andean Pact nations. The United States proposed this option in the last weeks of the Nicaraguan struggle and was rotundly defeated. Mexico has taken a strong stance against this scenario in El Salvador, and other countries are likely to follow suit. The United States is therefore left with the dangerous alternatives of allowing a regional war to unfold and/or directly intervening itself. The repercussions would be enormous: anti-Americanism is already at an all-time high in Central America, and with 20% of the U.S. population of Latin American des- cent, the domestic effects could be just as unsettling. Once again, the refusal of the United States to respect the right of all countries to self- determination, and to acknowledge that reforms cannot be carried out without the support and participation of the people, has led it into a very dangerous corner. The cur- rent repression, the future war, a Central American conflagration, another Viet Nam cannot be avoided unless the U.S. govern- ment recognizes the Democratic Revolu- tionary Front and the DRU for what they are: the only legitimate expression of the Salvadorean people. If it does not, then it is leading the American people down another dark tunnel whose end is not in sight. To avoid another Viet Nam, it may be necessary for the U.S. government to accept another Nicaragua. THERE'S A WAR GOING ON 1. Solidaridad, Nos. 13-15. 2. Washington Post, July 23, 1980. 3. El Salvador News-Gazette, English-language newspaper in San Salvador, April 27-May 5, 1980; Washington Post, July 2, 1980. 4. Manifesto of the Revolutionary Coordinating Council of the Masses, San Salvador, January 11, 1980. 5. NACLA interview, Ungo. 6. NACLA interview with Ruben Zamora, New York City, July 28, 1980. 7. NACLA interview with Enrique Alvarez Cordova. 8. NACLA interview, Ungo. 9. El Diatio-La Prensa, UPI, August 3, 1980. 10. Latin America Weekly Report, (London), May 16, 1980; Latin America Regional Reports, (London), May 2, 1980. 11. Cynthia Arnson and Delia Miller, "Background Information on El Salvador .... " p. 8. 12. Ibid. 13. Agence France Presse, June 23, 1980, citing Report of the Clergy of Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras. 14. Cynthia Arnson and Delia Miller, "Background Information on El Salvador . . .". p. 8. 15. See NACLA Report on the Americas, "El Salvador: Why Revolution? Part I" (March-April), 1980 for a detailed breakdown of direct U.S. investment. 16. New York Times, March 26, 1980. 17. Washington Post, April 17. 1980. 18. Guardian, (U.S.), July 30, 1980.
