PART FIVE: Force for Liberty or for Oppression? El Salvador

"The theory that…intervention on request of the recognized government is permissible denies the right of revolution and encourages intervention on behalf of the insurgents, thus escalating internal to international war. On the other hand, intervention on request of the insurgents denies the right of the government to govern and also invites counter-intervention by other states. Nonintervention on either side in domestic strife…is the only proper policy."
Vietnam Reader

Panama’s modern history is forever linked to the Panama Canal but its national political history is firmly rooted in the colonial traditions of the hacienda and the plantation. El Salvador, on the other hand, is rooted primarily in its huge plantations and its major export crop, coffee. Referred to as “the 14 families”, an oligarchy ruled El Salvador for over 100 years. The government’s priority focused only on the interests of the rich, their coffee exports, and the infrastructure needed to further their growth. In 1930 the iniquities of the oligarchic rule surfaced and a name that would be linked to rebellion became known: Farabundo Marti.

Farabundo Marti was expelled from El Salvador in 1920 for his work as a revolutionary agitator within the labor movement. The Marxist teachings at the National University of El Salvador directed the course of his life. As a founding member of the Central American Socialist Party he returned to El Salvador in 1925 to work with the Regional Federation of Salvadoran Workers. He went to New York in 1928 after a stint in jail to work for International Red Aid. Later this same year he left for Nicaragua to become the personal secretary to Augusto Cesar Sandino who was battling US Marines to free his country. Marti wanted social revolution, not independence, and in 1930 returned to El Salvador.

Marti was part of an ill-fated attempt by reformers to gain political office in 1931. Instead General Hernandez led a successful coup and retained power until 1944. Marti was part of a peasant uprising which was brutally put down in 1932. Known as “La Matanza” (the slaughter) it became the Salvadoran version of our “shot heard round the world”. An estimated 30,000 peasants were believed killed and thereafter until 1980 the military controlled the government with an iron fist. But the 1970s set the stage for the second bloodiest confrontation, the Salvadoran Civil War from 1980 to 1992.

Ironically, the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) that Marti supported in 1930 again challenged the military rule in the 1972 elections. The customary electoral fraud assured a PDC defeat and the opposition’s candidate, Jose Napoleon Duarte, was forced into exile. The united opposition lost all hope for reform through the democratic process and turned to armed insurrection instead. By 1980, with the Communist Sandinista victory in Nicaragua, the stage was set for a Cuban and Nicaraguan supported insurgency in El Salvador.

US involvement in El Salvador emphasized keeping a low profile and was largely a special operations campaign. While strict legal parameters were established at the Departments of State and Defense, once the “centralized planning” had been approved operations on the ground were decentralized in their execution. All US advisors were subject to many limitations and prohibitions designed to facilitate "mission success". Each of us was required to read a binder containing over 70 standard operating procedures limiting behavior, security measures, rules of engagement, human rights, communications etc...Many of these conflicted with others and were designed to ensure the US advisor would take "the heat" for the State Department. Another reason was to acknowledge that the death of an advisor in El Salvador would be explained as a training accident anywhere but there. Years later this was rectified and we were awarded the El Salvador Expeditionary Medal.

Involvement in combat operations was prohibited but the right of self-defense was never denied. Advisors were assigned to the various Salvadoran military units and on several occasions they had to defend themselves; some were killed in action. Too many critics of the war confused US support in El Salvador with our efforts directed against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. As Congressional testimony found, the only link to the support of the Contras was the use of El Salvador’s Ilopango Airbase for resupply operations. This made perfect sense to the El Salvador Armed Forces (ESAF) in light of Nicaragua’s direct support of their insurgency.

An ESAF Colonel and amateur archeologist once told me the Salvadoran people descend largely from the Toltecs which were one of the most violent of the Aztec nations. While I have not corroborated this, it does fit the fearless nature of the Salvadoran soldiers and the insurgents. The civil war was violent and not without human rights violations on both sides. The US did achieve major accomplishments in support of human rights. A good friend and author, William Meara, in his book The Contra Cross details a US inspired-ESAF executed plan that started the disintegration of the ERP (Popular Revolutionary Army), the most dangerous of the five groups comprising the FMLN (the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front). With this operation we were able to clearly demonstrate that torture and cruelty were counter-productive. After 1985 such violations became the exception, unlike the environment that existed into the early 1980s.

The civil war was brutal because the choices were a “win-lose” proposition for both sides. If the insurgency won the oligarchy would lose much of its land and political power would be lost to a Cuba-Nicaragua model. If the oligarchy and status quo prevailed, the peasants would have achieved nothing and social reforms would be put on hold pending future insurrections. On the one hand, many senior ESAF leaders and politicians attempted to use the US for as long as they could before implementing their “final solution”. It was rumored that the Guatemalan military had suggested using the US to stockpile munitions until the day the US withdrew. With a US withdrawal, the Salvadorans would be free to “cut off the head of the snake”. It was this same group that ordered and carried out the murder of the six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in 1989. Supporters of the oligarchy wanted the US Congress to react to the murders and force our withdrawal from El Salvador.

The attempt failed and peace was achieved with the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords in 1992. The insurgents would lay down their arms and be incorporated into the political process. The ESAF would be reduced in numbers and authority and be led by officers who had trained in the US and worked alongside US advisors for most of their careers. Both sides agreed to critical reforms such as land reform. Most significantly, the oligarchy was largely sidelined and for the first time since 1930 basic social reforms would be put in place. Most importantly, despite the hegemonic battle between democracy and communism, the people on both sides were fighting for El Salvador. The US was able to force the necessary reforms within the military and the government that, in the end, were evident to the militarily defeated FMLN. From my perspective, both sides ultimately won.