The following article appeared in the November 17 issue of the French-language fortnightly Inprecor, published in Paris. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
On October 15, 1979, Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero, who had ruled El Salvador since February 1977, was overthrown by a military putsch. The spokesmen for the "young officers" who overthrew Romero, Colonels Majano and Gutiérrez, announced a program of radical reforms and joined with three members of the Christian Democratic Party to form a junta. That junta received the immediate support of all the bourgeois forces who had been opposed to the military regimes of Romero and his predecessor Molina.
The Salvadoran Communist Party fell in with the new regime and participated in the first government set up by the junta. A representative of the CP was given the post of Minister of Labor.
The revolutionary organizations, however, refused to support the new junta and described the military putsch as an attempt by U.S. imperialism to stem the tide of the rising mass movement. Very rapidly, the course followed by the junta confirmed that analysis.
Genocide Against Peasantry
Most of the reforms that the junta announced with great fanfare remained unimplemented, and an unprecedented wave of repression hit the mass movement. By January, the independent forces had withdrawn from the junta, leaving it composed of military officers and Christian Democratic politicians.
One year after the coup, the character of the military/Christian Democratic junta can be seen in a single figure. More than 8,000 people have been killed by the repres sive forces. This is the bloodiest regime to rule El Salvador since the 1932 peasant insurrection was drowned in blood.
In fact, real genocide is being carried out in the rural areas where the revolutionary organizations have mass support among the peasants. The army, in joint operations with various police bodies and the ORDEN* fascist gangs, conducts sweeps through entire regions, indiscriminately massacring women and children who are unable to flee.
Revelations by the Honduran Catholic
*ORDEN, which means "order," is an acronym for the Democratic Nationalist Organization.
Church brought to light the Rio Sumpul massacre, in which 600 peasants were killed along the border between El Salvador and Honduras. The massacre was carried out with the complicity of Honduran troops.
Tens of thousands of peasants have been forced to flee from the battle zones and the blind repression, and are crowded into refugee camps.
The junta has now shelved implementation of the plans for agrarian reform announced with great publicity early in the year. What remains, however, is the substance of the plan, which is the desire to destroy the mass peasant organizations that provide decisive support for the revolutionary groups.
But the repression is not restricted to the countryside. Hundreds of workers, students, and teachers have also been killed. Every morning brings a new toll of horribly tortured and mutilated bodies, which are left lying by the sides of roads or in the streets of the capital as an example to passers-by. And each day there is a repetition of the attempts to identify the remains of the victims.
There are also the "clandestine cemeteries," like the one found near the port of La Unión last January.
In addition to the eight thousand deaths recorded by the Human Rights Commission, there have undoubtedly been thousands of others murdered, whose bodies have never been found.
Human Rights Activists Murdered
Because of its courageous work, the
Human Rights Commission has itself become the target of repression. There are daily telephoned death threats, several of its leaders have been murdered, and its offices have been repeatedly blown up, the last time on September 4. In October, two leaders of the Commission were murdered in rapid succession: María Magdalena Enríquez, the commission's information secretary, and Ramón Válladares.
Nor has the Catholic Church been spared. The assassination of Monsignor Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador, was only the most publicized instance of the repression that has hit hundreds of Church members who were either involved in the struggle against the dictatorship or simply accused of furnishing aid to the victims of the repression.
The junta has also moved to bring the press into line. The two small independent dailies, El Independiente and La Cronica, were both hit hard for opening their columns to denunciations of the junta's crimes. In the last week of June the offices of El Independiente were bombed and then wrecked by the police. Ten days later two journalists from La Cronica, Jaime Suárez and César Najarro, were murdered in cold blood.
On June 20 the offices of the Independent Press Agency (API) were occupied by units of the National Guard and its director, Vida Cuadra, was arrested and held for several hours.
In mid-August a Mexican journalist from Uno más Uno, Ignacio Rodriguez Terrazas, was found dead in San Salvador. This "accident," as the junta called it, followed several death threats against him.
But the repression, massive and cruel as it is, has been unable to block the rise of the mass movement and the growing strength of the revolutionary organizations. The military/Christian Democratic junta's original six-month state-of-siege proclamation has been renewed month after month.
Although the junta has tried to sell itself as "reformist,"
and to convince international public opinion that the massive repression is the work of paramilitary gangs over which it has no control, it has been unsuccessful in that attempt.
The Christian Democratic Party, which since January has been the only force in the government besides the military officers, recently suffered new defections. A founder of the party, Dr. Roberto Lara Valado, resigned in early August. From Venezuela he denounced the Christian Democratic Party's direct complicity in the massacres being perpetrated by the repres sive forces "El Salvador is Going Through a Civil War"
The junta has been forced to acknowledge the scope of the repressive operations it is carrying out, and the fact that it does not fully control the situation militarily.
A diplomatic offensive launched by the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR), the coalition of opposition groups, which sent representatives on international tours to expose the character of the junta, was so successful that in late June the junta launched its own tour to repolish its image, and to insure the active collaboration of the European Christian Democrats and the governments they lead.
During his trip to Spain, the Salvadoran minister of the interior justified his pressing appeals for help by acknowledging that "El Salvador is going through a civil war.... The present confrontations," he admitted, "have resulted in the loss of more men in the armed forces than the 1969 war with Honduras."
In fact, for more than six months the revolutionary organizations have been intensifying their military activity. The Farabundo Marti People's Liberation Forces (FPL), the biggest of the politicalmilitary organizations, announced that from January to May it had killed 914 members of the repressive forces, and another 324 in the period from May 19 to June 10.
According to systematic analysis by the revolutionary organizations of the military actions they have carried out and the toll in their confrontations with the army and police, five government troops have been killed for each loss the revolutionaries have sustained.
Since spring, attacks and ambushes against government forces have increased, and have resulted in the capture of large stocks of arms and munitions.
Because of El Salvador's small size, barely 200 kilometers by 100 kilometers; its topography, which although quite hilly is accessible everywhere to well equipped troops; and the fact that its only borders are with Guatemala and Honduras, it is not possible at this point for the revolutionaries to set up units involving several thousand combatants.
The strength of the political-military organizations flows from their great mobility and, above all, from the support they receive from the mass organizations, in the cities as well as the countryside. This is what allows them to break through the encircling operations launched by much larger and better equipped government forces, and even to hold them in check for days or weeks.
In late July and early August units of the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) were able to repel an offensive in the departments of Cabañas and Morazán. The government offensive involved two thousand soldiers backed up by helicopters and armored cars. The ERP was able to blow up the main bridge linking Morazán with the garrison at San Miguel.
Larger and Larger Armed Confrontations
Because the most remote regions of El Salvador can be reached in a two hour helicopter flight from the capital, it is impossible to have "liberated zones" as long as the fighting has not reached the scope of a general insurrection. But the revolutionary organizations exercise de facto control over several departments. This means that the armed forces and the police do not enter those areas in small units, and can only travel in heavily protected convoys.
The army tries to break down these pockets of resistance by mounting large scale operations like the one in late Oc-
Salvadoran Opposition Coalitions
Since the beginning of 1980 the opposition groups in El Salvador have been undergoing a process of unification.
There are now two main coalitions.
which together provide the organizational framework for the political and military struggle against the ruling military/Christian Democratic junta.
Revolutionary Democratic Front
(FDR): Established on April 16, 1980, the
FDR is a coalition of eighteen organizations. Arnong them are the five principal mass organizations: the Revolutionary
People's Bloc (BPR), the February 28
People's Leagues (LP-28), the United
People's Action Front (FAPU), the Natonalist Democratic Union (UDN), and the People's Liberation Movement (MLP).
Each of these mass organizations is itself composed of trade unions, peasant and professional groups, and student organizations.
Farabundo Marti National Liberation
Front (FLN): The FMLN represents the tober, again in the department of Morazán.
Although the great majority of the fighters are in the FPL and the ERP, the forces of the National Resistance (RN) and those recently set up by the Communist Party are also taking part in operations against the government troops.
Establishment of Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front
The process of uniting the fighting forces has been going on for some months. On October 15 it reached a new stage with the establishment of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), named for the martyred leader of the 1932 insurrection. This body encompasses all four of the main political-military groups.
Already on January 10 unity had been reached between three of them-the FPL, the CP, and the RN. The ERP, which originally remained outside this process, finally joined this coordinating committee, which on May 22 took the name Unified Revolutionary Directorate (DRU).
"From now on," the DRU declared, "there will be a single leadership, a single military plan, a single command, a single national and international line."
The establishment of the DRU was an extension of the process that had already brought the four main mass organizations, each of which is affiliated with one of the political-military organizations, into the Revolutionary Coordinating Committee of the Masses (CRM) on January 11, 1980.
effective fusion of the four main politicalmilitary organizations. In early October three of them came together. These were the Farabundo Marti People's Liberation Forces (FPL), the Salvadoran Communist Party (PCS), and the People's Revolufionary Army (ERP). They were joined in early November by the Armed Forces of National Resistance (FARN), sometimes referred to simply as the National Resistance (AN).
A fifth group, the Central American Revolutionary Workers Party (PRTC), while not yet a member of the FLN, is cooperating with it.
Each of the mass organizations is linked with one of the political-military organizations. These links are: BPR and FPL; LP-28 and ERP: FAPU and FARN; UDN and PCS; and MLP and PATC.
The leadership body of the FMLN is the Unified Revolutionary Directorate (DRU). which was also the name of a precursor of the FLN
The CRM brought together the Revolutionary People's Bloc (BPR), which is linked to the FPL; the Nationalist Democratic Union (UDN), linked to the CP; the United People's Action Front (FAPU), linked to the RN; and the February 28 People's Leagues (LP-28), linked to the BRP.
Achievement of this unity testified to the strong desire of the component groups to overcome their previous differences, which had even involved physical battles beween them, pressing needs of a situation that al agreed was explosive.
National Resistance Breaks From DRU
A number of disagreements arose within the DRU, however, leading to the September 12 announcement that the RN had withdrawn. These disagreements flowed from differing assessments of the period and the tactics to follow.
The RN, which the other groups accused of adopting adventurist and even putschist positions, thought that it was possible to precipitate the fall of the military/Christian Democratic junta even before the political-military prerequisites for the insurrection had all reached fruition.
There were even accusations, which the RN denied, that it was flirting with the idea of taking part in a coup with Col. Majano in September.
The confrontations that had developed within the junta, pitting Col. Majano against Col. Gutiérrez, Defense Minister Garcia, and the most reactionary sectors of the army, were clearly simply another episode, another step, which Washington looked upon with favor, to try to resolve the problem of the junta's growing international discreditment. This is how the DRU immediately analyzed the conflicts within the military.
Imperialism is constantly looking for some possible alternative in order not to lose everything if there is a victorious insurrection, as happened in Nicaragua. Majano and the sectors of the army under his control would be a key element in setting up such an alternative, which Washington hopes could draw in some of the forces now in the Revolutionary Democratic Front.
The disagreements within the DRU over tactics had already been sharpened by the questions posed during the August 13-15 general strike. Even the character of the general strike was not obvious to all. Some wanted the general strike to be the kickoff for a general insurrection, while the DRU, in its balance sheet of the strike, gave special emphasis to the strike's character as a dress rehearsal: featuring the mobilization of the neighborhood populations in self-defense operations, the temporary occupation of localities, and guerrilla attacks against the repressive forces.
The DRU's view was that it was necessary to spend several more months improving military preparations, building mil itias on a mass level, accumulating heavy weapons, and continuing the international diplomatic offensive that the Revolutionary Democratic Front had begun in June.
This was no longer the time for general strikes like those in January and March, with street demonstrations mobilizing tens of thousands of people in the face of indiscriminate repression. The RN, however, did not share that assessment.
For a year and a half El Salvador has undergone a tumultuous revolutionary upsurge, strongly accelerated by the victory of the Sandinistas in nearby Nicaragua. The junta's policy, combining announced reforms and fierce repression, has been unable to stop this process. But this situation cannot continue for long.
The equilibrium in the relationship of forces is highly unstable. And the international situation, in which the results of the U.S. presidential elections are not a negligible factor for Central America, also leads to the conclusion that decisive confrontations will take place in the near future.
In such situations a revolutionary leadership is decisively tested. In such times tactical errors, whether the premature launching of confrontations or the inability to seize the occasion to engage in the decisive battles when it presents itself, are very costly. The Sandinista Front in Nicaragua was victorious in its decisive test, leading the masses to victory.
The FSLN's example of achieving unity
The FSLN's example of achieving unity
BELIZE
MEXICO
Caribbean Sea
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COSTA
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in the struggle is what inspired the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, which was established in response to the masses' burning need for a united central leadership. That is also why the National Resistance, after having quit the DRU, has now joined the FMLN. The National Resistance explained that "in order to inflict a decisive defeat on the class enemy, it is indispensable and urgent that the people and their organizations closely unite." In a sense, the new united organization marks the end of the 1970 split in the Salvadoran CP, which gave rise to the FPL. Although at that time the split took a minority of the CP membership, today the FPL, under the leadership of Salvador Cayetano Carpio, the former CP general secretary, represents the overwhelming majority of the forces in the united organization. The CP is, in fact, the smallest of the four components, after the ERP and RN.
The united organization has the political support of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua and the Cuban leadership. It is linked to both by years of common struggle against imperialism. Last August 23, Commander Humberto Ortega told tens of thousands of people gathered in Managua to celebrate the literacy campaign that "we will remain in total solidarity with the Salvadoran people." Earlier Commander Tomás Borge had declared that any foreign aggression against El Salvador would be seen as an attack against Nicaragua itself.
The increased intervention by American imperialism in El Salvador took place before Reagan's election. U.S. imperialism is trying to create the conditions for military intervention, either directly or through other countries.
The Carter administration attempted to set up an intervention force made up of the Andean Pact countries-Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. But Ecuador was not eager to participate in such a move.
Costa Rica and Panama also prefer to
PANAMA
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stay out of such an operation, and only Guatemala and Honduras show very direct interest. This is what prompted Honduras to sign a peace treaty with El Salvador in October, eleven years after the "football war." With the treaty signed, the military mutual assistance agreement between the two neighboring countries could be revived.
Moreover, arms deliveries to the junta have been increased. Washington's arms sales to the region have gone from $3 million in 1979 to $15 million in 1980, and are expected to rise to $23 million in 1981. France has sold El Salvador Fouga- Magister planes and Alouette helicopters, which were used in late October in the massive operation in Morazán.
The presence of U.S. military advisers has also grown. Christian Democratic leader Héctor Dada acknowledged that thirty-six were already on the scene. The junta's main agrarian reform adviser is none other than R. Prosterman, a CIA agent responsible for forcing Vietnamese peasants into the infamous "strategic hamlets" during the 1960s.
The training of hundreds of Salvadoran officers in the U.S.-run military school in the Panama Canal Zone has been denounced by Panamanian officials.
Without doubt, in this area at least, Reagan will continue the program already in effect. U.S. imperialism remains torn between wanting to prevent a new revolutionary victory in Central America at all costs, a victory that would ignite the entire region, and the danger of getting involved in a military operation that might not rapidly achieve its aims, even at the cost of hundreds of thousands of deaths.
And in that case, moreover, Central America would explode in struggle against U.S. imperialism, reviving
: the heroic tradition of Augusto César Sandino and Farabundo Martí. Stopping the imperialist plans in the region is an urgent priority for the international solidarity movement.
November 5, 1980.