It was once illegal to read books by Roque Dalton, one of El Salvador's…
Denial
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"We can't just start over with a clean slate, like the government says. It's never gonna be forgotten or wiped clean. We can forgive, but we won't forget." - Rufina Amaya, El Mozote Survivor
Until December 11, 1981, El Mozote was just a tiny hamlet, nestled deep in the mountains of El Salvador. Eleven days later, its one thousand people, mostly children, were dead. Surrounding villages were razed. When the elite army battalion that executed the massacre returned to base, its soldiers were sworn to silence. For the next decade, the Salvadoran and U.S. governments put up a wall of denial. Beyond the overgrown ruins of El Mozote, the official "truth" prevailed.
But now the story of what happened in the village, and the question of responsibility, have taken center stage in El Salvador's quest for conciliation. DENIAL finally puts on record an event that shaped the war, politics and media coverage of El Salvador for almost the length of the fighting. The war may be over, but not the conflict that splits Salvadorian society. The government has passed an amnesty law that closes the door on all abuses committed during the war. Feeling untouchable, those responsible for the Mozote massacre continue their death squad activities in city streets, jeopardizing the country's efforts to build a future by its failure to settle its past.
Citation
Main credits
Lacourse, Danièle (screenwriter)
Lacourse, Danièle (film director)
Patry, Yvan (screenwriter)
Patry, Yvan (film director)
Other credits
Camera, William Turnley, Wilfredo Pineda de Leon, Alain Dupras; editor, Nick Hector; music composed by René Lussier.
Distributor subjects
Central America; Conflict Resolution; El Salvador; Human Rights; Latin America; U.S. Foreign PoilicyKeywords
WEBVTT
00:00:02.772 --> 00:00:09.772
[music]
00:00:52.267 --> 00:00:54.170
My name is Rufina Amaya.
00:00:56.724 --> 00:00:59.182
I lived outside El Salvador
for eight years.
00:01:04.728 --> 00:01:06.192
I had to flee to Honduras
00:01:06.360 --> 00:01:09.260
because the Salvadoran army
was attacking and killing us.
00:01:10.255 --> 00:01:11.405
I had to save my life.
00:01:17.785 --> 00:01:20.744
My daughter was born
in a refugee camp in Honduras.
00:01:25.038 --> 00:01:28.438
From the time she was small,
she dreamed of returning to El Salvador.
00:01:28.904 --> 00:01:32.354
She\'d go out with her little suitcases
pretending she was going there,
00:01:32.563 --> 00:01:35.563
then she\'d come back saying,
\"Mom, I\'ve been to El Salvador.\"
00:01:35.754 --> 00:01:36.854
She gave me strength.
00:01:46.159 --> 00:01:47.699
In December 1981,
00:01:48.159 --> 00:01:50.759
I lost everything
that I\'d worked for over the years,
00:01:50.927 --> 00:01:53.050
My children, my money, everything.
00:02:01.919 --> 00:02:08.919
[music]
00:02:15.330 --> 00:02:17.343
My name is Wilson Guevara Barrera.
00:02:18.537 --> 00:02:20.187
I spent all my childhood in war.
00:02:20.864 --> 00:02:22.364
They were really tough times.
00:02:30.381 --> 00:02:32.481
I was 11 when I first picked up a pistol.
00:02:34.974 --> 00:02:36.724
I was fighting with the guerrillas.
00:02:37.193 --> 00:02:44.193
[music]
00:02:54.102 --> 00:02:55.102
When the war ended,
00:02:55.270 --> 00:02:58.355
I decided to join
the new National Civilian Police.
00:03:17.057 --> 00:03:18.907
I was afraid when we came back here.
00:03:19.462 --> 00:03:21.412
The soldiers were still in the streets,
00:03:21.580 --> 00:03:23.780
so I was afraid,
knowing that they were mean.
00:03:24.142 --> 00:03:25.292
That they were killers.
00:03:31.755 --> 00:03:34.884
I\'d ask myself
why I\'d ever come back to El Salvador
00:03:35.265 --> 00:03:38.315
with everything that had happened,
and everything they\'d done.
00:03:55.527 --> 00:03:58.177
Here in the new Civilian Police,
there are guerrillas.
00:03:58.345 --> 00:04:00.645
There are also
members of the old police force,
00:04:00.813 --> 00:04:03.735
civilians, and some soldiers
from the Atlacatl Battalion.
00:04:13.647 --> 00:04:16.184
I didn\'t feel too comfortable about that
at first.
00:04:16.352 --> 00:04:17.352
I was weary,
00:04:17.520 --> 00:04:19.670
because they\'d been our enemies
for so long.
00:04:25.492 --> 00:04:27.292
Now people say that the war is over,
00:04:27.460 --> 00:04:29.710
and we shouldn\'t hold grudges
against anybody,
00:04:29.951 --> 00:04:31.001
but it\'s not so easy.
00:04:37.517 --> 00:04:44.517
[music]
00:05:11.928 --> 00:05:15.289
El Mozote used to be a pretty place
and many people lived there.
00:05:18.174 --> 00:05:20.174
I was happy there with all my children.
00:05:22.640 --> 00:05:24.906
We had sugar cane fields
and [?] patches.
00:05:26.903 --> 00:05:28.327
We grew corn and beans.
00:05:29.334 --> 00:05:30.784
We were selling handicrafts,
00:05:31.346 --> 00:05:32.796
so we were doing fairly well.
00:05:52.288 --> 00:05:53.568
I was born in Mozote.
00:05:54.361 --> 00:05:55.861
It was a nice little village.
00:05:58.752 --> 00:06:02.202
My mom used the spinning wheel
to make tiny bows out of Mezcal string,
00:06:02.370 --> 00:06:04.220
and she\'d go into town to sell them.
00:06:10.510 --> 00:06:13.660
In December 1981, I was eight years old,
00:06:16.211 --> 00:06:17.261
but I remember a lot.
00:06:17.579 --> 00:06:20.479
That was the year of the worst massacre
in the eastern area
00:06:21.129 --> 00:06:22.736
or even the entire country.
00:06:40.788 --> 00:06:44.461
We were at my in-law\'s house
pressing sugarcane to make sweets.
00:06:47.750 --> 00:06:52.134
All of a sudden we heard shooting
and saw planes firing in all directions
00:06:52.398 --> 00:06:55.928
over towards Arambala, La Joya,
everywhere.
00:06:57.092 --> 00:07:04.092
[helicopters flying]
00:07:29.557 --> 00:07:33.514
[machine gun firing]
00:07:33.682 --> 00:07:39.095
[plane flying]
00:07:41.265 --> 00:07:42.865
We were living near the school.
00:07:43.753 --> 00:07:45.795
The first soldiers arrived in Mozote.
00:07:51.523 --> 00:07:53.023
A soldier came up to our house
00:07:53.191 --> 00:07:55.841
and told us
that everybody had to go to the church.
00:07:59.435 --> 00:08:02.135
My mom and Don Fernando,
the man she was living with,
00:08:02.303 --> 00:08:03.303
said they\'d go.
00:08:04.460 --> 00:08:05.460
They left
00:08:05.628 --> 00:08:08.478
and I stayed behind
in the house with my younger brother.
00:08:24.373 --> 00:08:26.723
First
they forced everybody out of their houses,
00:08:26.891 --> 00:08:29.141
and made us all
lie face down in the street,
00:08:29.565 --> 00:08:30.565
both men and women.
00:08:36.334 --> 00:08:37.434
The kids were crying.
00:08:37.983 --> 00:08:40.283
They kept us there
until 7:00 in the evening.
00:08:40.985 --> 00:08:43.035
They searched us all and took everything,
00:08:43.349 --> 00:08:46.549
then they told us to get up
and lock ourselves inside our houses.
00:08:47.296 --> 00:08:50.579
They said if we stuck so much
as our noses out the door,
00:08:50.992 --> 00:08:52.521
bullets would start to fly.
00:09:06.045 --> 00:09:07.495
I don\'t want to show my face,
00:09:07.670 --> 00:09:11.070
because I\'m afraid of turning up dead
like the people from Mozote.
00:09:16.809 --> 00:09:18.809
We were two civilians for each company.
00:09:19.537 --> 00:09:22.237
The National Guard ordered us
to go with the battalion,
00:09:22.503 --> 00:09:25.237
and in those times,
if anyone refused, he was killed.
00:09:26.156 --> 00:09:27.156
They used us mostly
00:09:27.324 --> 00:09:30.924
to carry the pack and mattress
of whoever was in charge of the company.
00:09:31.701 --> 00:09:33.851
The head commander was Colonel Monterrosa.
00:09:35.241 --> 00:09:37.791
The second in command was [?].
00:09:39.623 --> 00:09:40.992
[barking dog]
00:09:48.961 --> 00:09:52.411
At four o\'clock the next morning,
they made us leave our houses again,
00:09:52.579 --> 00:09:54.339
and they took us
to the center of the village
00:09:54.494 --> 00:09:58.249
where we had to form two lines,
one for women, and the other for men.
00:09:58.746 --> 00:10:02.546
The younger kids were with the women,
and the older ones were with the men.
00:10:04.622 --> 00:10:05.822
Then they separated us.
00:10:06.516 --> 00:10:10.066
They locked up the men in the church
and the women in different houses.
00:10:10.234 --> 00:10:17.234
[music]
00:10:19.482 --> 00:10:22.382
A while later,
we heard screaming coming from the church.
00:10:23.250 --> 00:10:25.050
I saw what was happening to the men.
00:10:25.218 --> 00:10:27.768
They were blindfolded
and they had their hands tied.
00:10:30.318 --> 00:10:32.718
They brought out my husband
and four other men.
00:10:34.327 --> 00:10:36.577
I could see
that they were going to kill them.
00:10:36.745 --> 00:10:39.970
When my husband tried to escape,
they cut off his head.
00:10:55.754 --> 00:10:57.754
My dad and my mom still hadn\'t come back
00:10:57.922 --> 00:11:01.122
when a soldier came up to the house
at about 6:00 in the morning.
00:11:04.554 --> 00:11:06.654
\"Go over to the soccer field,\" he told me.
00:11:06.876 --> 00:11:08.626
\"Okay, I\'m on my way,\" I answered.
00:11:09.014 --> 00:11:11.864
I took my brother by the hand
and we headed for the field.
00:11:17.254 --> 00:11:18.254
When we got there,
00:11:18.452 --> 00:11:19.702
I saw the other soldiers
00:11:20.379 --> 00:11:22.979
and they had lots of people there,
mostly children.
00:11:27.091 --> 00:11:28.591
Some of the kids were crying.
00:11:30.888 --> 00:11:32.345
One was hung from a tree.
00:11:35.868 --> 00:11:38.318
Then I noticed
some little shapes on the ground.
00:11:39.128 --> 00:11:40.478
They must\'ve been children.
00:11:52.122 --> 00:11:53.272
What scared me the most
00:11:53.440 --> 00:11:55.448
was when they grabbed the little kid
by the head
00:11:55.616 --> 00:11:57.166
and threw him up into the air.
00:11:57.334 --> 00:11:59.684
Then they used the bayonet
on the end of the gun
00:11:59.852 --> 00:12:01.452
to catch him when he came down.
00:12:01.721 --> 00:12:04.121
I turned my head away,
so I wouldn\'t see anymore.
00:12:04.606 --> 00:12:07.306
I was sure that they were going to kill me
right there.
00:12:16.700 --> 00:12:19.007
They raped the 12-year old girls.
00:12:19.676 --> 00:12:22.961
Some of the soldiers said
that they only liked 12-year-olds.
00:12:23.664 --> 00:12:26.014
One soldier was telling some others
about a girl
00:12:26.182 --> 00:12:29.032
who said that they could do
anything they wanted with her,
00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:31.050
but she begged them not to kill her.
00:12:32.023 --> 00:12:33.023
After he raped her,
00:12:33.601 --> 00:12:35.639
he slit her throat and drank her blood.
00:12:52.615 --> 00:12:55.265
When they brought me here,
I thought I could escape.
00:12:58.333 --> 00:13:00.733
The women were lined up
on both sides over there.
00:13:01.965 --> 00:13:02.965
I stayed here.
00:13:07.552 --> 00:13:09.302
There were soldiers on both sides.
00:13:12.027 --> 00:13:13.977
When they moved away to see the women,
00:13:14.335 --> 00:13:16.235
I kneeled down on the ground to pray,
00:13:19.295 --> 00:13:21.095
and then I snuck off into the bush.
00:13:28.528 --> 00:13:32.078
I stayed right next to an apple tree
and covered myself with branches.
00:13:38.137 --> 00:13:41.737
I didn\'t move from 5:00 in the afternoon
until about 1:00 in the morning,
00:13:41.905 --> 00:13:42.905
when I could escape.
00:13:51.683 --> 00:13:52.826
I was really scared.
00:13:53.666 --> 00:13:54.666
I said to myself,
00:13:55.316 --> 00:13:56.616
they\'re going to kill me,
00:13:56.784 --> 00:13:58.684
but they\'ll have to get me on the run,
00:13:58.852 --> 00:14:02.402
because I\'m not going to let them
tie me up before they finish me off.
00:14:11.947 --> 00:14:13.347
They shot at me, but missed.
00:14:14.448 --> 00:14:21.448
[music]
00:14:43.053 --> 00:14:45.453
I could see
that the school was full of children,
00:14:45.621 --> 00:14:47.121
who are crying and screaming,
00:14:48.190 --> 00:14:49.990
and then the church started to burn.
00:14:50.751 --> 00:14:51.751
I asked the captain,
00:14:51.919 --> 00:14:54.619
\"Why don\'t you
at least get the children out of there?\"
00:14:54.787 --> 00:14:57.893
\"No,\" he said,
\"That way you just have more subversives.\"
00:14:58.220 --> 00:15:05.220
[music]
00:15:09.925 --> 00:15:12.775
I could recognize my children\'s voices
when they shrieked,
00:15:13.019 --> 00:15:14.769
\"Mommy Rufina, they\'re killing us.\"
00:15:15.049 --> 00:15:17.549
The screams from the dying children
were horrible.
00:15:31.791 --> 00:15:35.030
It hurt a lot to leave my brother behind,
but he was too small.
00:15:35.842 --> 00:15:38.492
If I tried to carry him,
they would\'ve killed me too.
00:15:59.169 --> 00:16:02.336
A bunch of animals were going
by the path where I could escape.
00:16:02.884 --> 00:16:05.813
I crawled on my hands and knees
inside the herd
00:16:06.228 --> 00:16:08.678
until I came out
on the other side of the fence.
00:16:17.258 --> 00:16:19.098
Then I slithered like a snake.
00:16:19.418 --> 00:16:23.488
[gunshots]
00:16:23.656 --> 00:16:25.656
That\'s when they started to shoot at me.
00:16:25.831 --> 00:16:29.489
The bullets lifted up the [?] bushes,
but missed me.
00:16:29.657 --> 00:16:32.407
I heard very clearly
what one soldier said to another,
00:16:33.448 --> 00:16:36.748
\"You\'re scared by the ghosts
of those people you killed, you idiot.
00:16:36.967 --> 00:16:38.667
They\'re going to drive you crazy.\"
00:16:51.683 --> 00:16:54.609
I can\'t tell you exactly
how many people died there,
00:16:55.086 --> 00:16:57.206
but I came across about 100 bodies.
00:16:58.352 --> 00:17:01.466
They left them lying on paths
or stuck to fenceposts.
00:17:02.153 --> 00:17:03.353
Most of them were kids.
00:17:07.688 --> 00:17:09.438
Later, the Colonels had a meeting.
00:17:10.151 --> 00:17:13.901
They said that they\'d won a victory
by killing that whole slew of guerillas.
00:20:10.674 --> 00:20:17.674
[music]
00:20:39.708 --> 00:20:42.358
Salazar gathered the company together
for a meeting.
00:20:43.662 --> 00:20:44.962
He said, \"Look, soldiers,
00:20:45.144 --> 00:20:48.044
whatever you have seen and heard
doesn\'t get out of here.
00:20:48.440 --> 00:20:49.790
Once you\'re home and drunk,
00:20:50.038 --> 00:20:52.638
don\'t talk about any of this
like some soldiers do.
00:20:56.889 --> 00:20:57.889
War is tough, man.
00:20:58.057 --> 00:21:01.257
If you got to kill your mother, you do it.
You\'ve got no choice.\"
00:21:01.425 --> 00:21:02.855
You placed a flag that said,
00:21:03.023 --> 00:21:05.323
\"if the guerilla came back
to Morazán province,
00:21:05.681 --> 00:21:07.231
so will the Atlacatl Battalion.
00:21:39.611 --> 00:21:42.050
Well, I remember walking down one trail,
00:21:42.705 --> 00:21:45.055
and off to the right
was a hut that I went in.
00:21:45.876 --> 00:21:47.676
There were the bodies of several men
00:21:47.844 --> 00:21:51.505
and out front were some wood planks
that had recently been cut.
00:21:52.465 --> 00:21:56.057
I remember pacifier
and some children\'s clothes.
00:21:57.694 --> 00:21:59.565
All the houses had been destroyed.
00:22:00.687 --> 00:22:04.861
In the cornfield
just on the right at the edge of the house
00:22:05.029 --> 00:22:06.120
were several bodies.
00:22:06.288 --> 00:22:08.838
It was fairly obvious
that they\'d been taken outside
00:22:09.017 --> 00:22:11.875
or gathered together,
and then shot in a group.
00:22:13.743 --> 00:22:16.243
It was clear it wasn\'t-
it didn\'t happen in combat.
00:22:16.411 --> 00:22:18.811
You can see
there\'s no bullet holes in the walls.
00:22:19.348 --> 00:22:21.898
Combat,
all the houses aren\'t destroyed like that.
00:22:22.143 --> 00:22:24.524
In guerrilla warfare...
They might be in World War II,
00:22:24.692 --> 00:22:25.851
but they aren\'t guerrilla warfare-
00:22:26.019 --> 00:22:28.944
you don\'t have bodies
laying out in a cornfield.
00:22:30.034 --> 00:22:31.784
They don\'t die like that in combat.
00:22:32.331 --> 00:22:33.331
Our next witness,
00:22:33.757 --> 00:22:37.571
Secretary Enders
to the subcommittee once again.
00:22:43.409 --> 00:22:46.026
We sent two embassy officers down
00:22:46.194 --> 00:22:49.856
to investigate the reports
that you referred to Mr. Chairman
00:22:50.024 --> 00:22:55.896
of a massacre
in Mozote in the Morazan province.
00:22:58.845 --> 00:23:01.693
What is clear
from the report that they gave,
00:23:02.431 --> 00:23:04.181
that there has been a confrontation
00:23:04.349 --> 00:23:07.799
between guerrillas occupying El Mozote
and attacking government forces
00:23:07.967 --> 00:23:08.967
last December.
00:23:09.388 --> 00:23:11.579
There is no evidence at all to confirm
00:23:11.755 --> 00:23:15.239
that government forces
systematically massacred civilians
00:23:15.407 --> 00:23:16.740
in the operations zone
00:23:16.968 --> 00:23:20.395
or that the number of civilians killed
even remotely approach
00:23:20.936 --> 00:23:26.111
the 733 or 926 victims
variously cited in the press.
00:23:27.167 --> 00:23:31.084
Look, the policy was
to support the Salvadoran government.
00:23:32.168 --> 00:23:35.718
The old line, \"He may be a son of a bitch,
but he\'s our son of a bitch.\"
00:23:35.886 --> 00:23:38.357
They may be thugs, they may be killers,
they may be brutal,
00:23:38.525 --> 00:23:40.175
they may be human rights abusers,
00:23:40.343 --> 00:23:43.893
but the policy was we, the United States,
has to back this government.
00:23:44.474 --> 00:23:48.074
I wasn\'t surprised, I don\'t think,
particularly at what Enders had said.
00:23:49.523 --> 00:23:52.526
There was no cover up here by anybody.
00:23:53.090 --> 00:23:56.114
I was not in-charge of Latin America
at that point.
00:23:56.608 --> 00:24:00.740
I was certainly cognizant of most
of what was coming up from the embassy.
00:24:00.908 --> 00:24:03.000
What was coming up from the embassy,
I think, was a report
00:24:03.168 --> 00:24:06.720
that something happened in this place,
00:24:06.888 --> 00:24:08.735
but we don\'t know what,
we can\'t get to it,
00:24:08.903 --> 00:24:12.584
and the behavior of the FMLN
is certainly suspicious.
00:24:14.410 --> 00:24:19.063
There was not evidence at that point
of there being a massacre in El Mozote.
00:24:50.819 --> 00:24:52.669
If they wanted to know what happened,
00:24:53.050 --> 00:24:55.293
the United States was supporting the army
at the time,
00:24:55.461 --> 00:24:56.861
totally supporting the army.
00:24:57.029 --> 00:24:58.241
The Salvadoran government
would\'ve collapsed
00:24:58.409 --> 00:24:59.551
without the United States\' support.
00:24:59.719 --> 00:25:02.439
You\'re telling me they
couldn\'t have conducted an investigation,
00:25:02.607 --> 00:25:05.337
sat down with those military officers
and gone through what happened?
00:25:05.505 --> 00:25:08.655
Of course they could\'ve.
They didn\'t want to know what happened.
00:25:11.078 --> 00:25:13.004
El Mozote was a blown operation.
00:25:13.742 --> 00:25:15.368
The guerrillas had left.
00:25:16.328 --> 00:25:22.181
Basically, what got captured was
about 600, 700 people who had not fled.
00:25:24.134 --> 00:25:26.978
The intelligence officer for the operation
00:25:27.363 --> 00:25:29.813
had told me
that these people had been captured.
00:25:30.315 --> 00:25:32.065
Basically, what he had told me was,
00:25:32.233 --> 00:25:33.583
they would need my services
00:25:33.751 --> 00:25:37.556
to go interrogate
all these people that had been captured.
00:25:41.715 --> 00:25:44.979
Though something happened in there,
I\'m not sure why,
00:25:45.147 --> 00:25:48.242
but there were never any interrogation
those people were shot.
00:25:48.877 --> 00:25:51.685
Very soon, the very next day,
00:25:52.384 --> 00:25:56.397
I\'d been told to wait to be called up
to go interrogate them.
00:25:56.566 --> 00:25:57.883
That call never came.
00:25:58.745 --> 00:26:05.745
[music]
00:26:24.052 --> 00:26:27.062
This was one
of about four or five operations
00:26:27.230 --> 00:26:30.248
whereby whoever was found got slaughtered.
00:26:33.002 --> 00:26:35.897
Basically,
what you had was an all out paranoia.
00:26:37.722 --> 00:26:40.037
You had an army that felt isolated.
00:26:41.186 --> 00:26:45.345
They didn\'t know who their enemy was,
especially up at the higher levels.
00:26:46.028 --> 00:26:49.572
They knew they were dressing as civilians.
00:26:49.740 --> 00:26:51.363
I think that, all of a sudden,
00:26:51.531 --> 00:26:54.931
they start seeing
every civilian as a potential enemy,
00:26:55.099 --> 00:26:57.566
and later on every civilian as an enemy
00:27:18.539 --> 00:27:19.682
In 1981,
00:27:20.137 --> 00:27:23.403
I took a team into El Salvador in March
00:27:24.133 --> 00:27:26.733
to train
the Atlacatl Immediate Reaction Battalion.
00:27:28.924 --> 00:27:33.259
I taught a class to the Salvadorans
on human rights.
00:27:33.427 --> 00:27:35.677
Now,
I did not title the program human rights,
00:27:35.845 --> 00:27:39.838
I felt that that would be
too upfront and way with them.
00:27:40.006 --> 00:27:43.344
I just called it the proper treatment
of suspects and prisoners.
00:27:43.893 --> 00:27:47.885
We integrated into that, for example,
how to treat the general populace.
00:27:48.860 --> 00:27:52.349
The idea of the training
was to make them understand
00:27:52.517 --> 00:27:54.355
that just because someone\'s
on a battlefield,
00:27:54.523 --> 00:27:56.123
it doesn\'t make them your enemy.
00:28:01.276 --> 00:28:02.276
Generally,
00:28:02.444 --> 00:28:04.996
the officers
I worked with in a six month period,
00:28:05.242 --> 00:28:06.242
including the staff,
00:28:06.562 --> 00:28:07.562
were pretty good.
00:28:13.141 --> 00:28:15.146
Most of them, half of them at least,
00:28:15.314 --> 00:28:18.314
could\'ve served probably
in any army anywhere in the world.
00:28:25.579 --> 00:28:29.117
I think the leadership of that unit
was really a cut above
00:28:29.463 --> 00:28:33.022
in terms of referencing them
to the rest of the Salvadoran military.
00:28:33.785 --> 00:28:39.794
The commander Colonel Domingo Monterrosa
was a very inspiring, charismatic leader.
00:28:41.637 --> 00:28:43.559
His troops willingly followed him.
00:28:45.073 --> 00:28:46.123
He was a good planner
00:28:47.696 --> 00:28:49.246
and he truly cared for his men.
00:29:09.428 --> 00:29:12.178
I was not surprised
that something like that happened.
00:29:13.230 --> 00:29:14.230
I was surprised
00:29:14.398 --> 00:29:16.698
that the Atlacatl Battalion
was accused of it.
00:29:18.070 --> 00:29:22.695
I was skeptical
when I continued reading press reports
00:29:22.863 --> 00:29:28.520
that the Atlacatl Battalion
was the unit that did this.
00:29:29.724 --> 00:29:30.974
Of course, it bothered me
00:29:31.142 --> 00:29:34.392
that the press always said
the US trained the Atlacatl Battalion.
00:29:34.678 --> 00:29:41.678
[music]
00:30:13.400 --> 00:30:17.772
The Embassy was worried about...
00:30:18.487 --> 00:30:22.989
The embassy was suspicious
of a series of reports
00:30:23.157 --> 00:30:27.605
which it believed were largely motivated
by propaganda from the guerrilla side,
00:30:27.773 --> 00:30:29.173
and which were not reliable.
00:30:29.341 --> 00:30:32.482
I think, in fact,
this is a lesson for the press
00:30:33.070 --> 00:30:37.207
in why it is important
to maintain credibility
00:30:37.375 --> 00:30:40.181
and not be captured
by guerilla propaganda.
00:30:40.349 --> 00:30:43.149
Because then what happens is
you get a story that turns out to be true,
00:30:43.284 --> 00:30:44.670
and you have the embassy think,
00:30:44.838 --> 00:30:47.325
\"This probably isn\'t true,
because look who\'s reporting it.
00:30:48.046 --> 00:30:49.478
That editorial, that attack,
00:30:49.947 --> 00:30:52.347
turned around
the reporting in Central America.
00:30:52.631 --> 00:30:56.795
I know one journalists down there.
00:30:59.215 --> 00:31:03.829
The journalist editor in the States
sent the Wall Street Journal editorial
00:31:04.014 --> 00:31:06.214
and said,
\"Let\'s not let this happen to us.\"
00:31:08.215 --> 00:31:10.165
It did have an impact on the reporting.
00:31:10.333 --> 00:31:12.083
They wouldn\'t have done otherwise.
00:31:35.170 --> 00:31:37.167
Somebody said, \"ne more massacre.
00:31:37.335 --> 00:31:40.329
We\'ve told them one more massacre
and no more money.
00:31:40.497 --> 00:31:41.920
We\'ve told them and they know we mean it.\"
00:31:42.088 --> 00:31:45.518
Well, as one again,
American diplomat said to me,
00:31:46.581 --> 00:31:48.085
that was 10 massacres ago.
00:31:48.554 --> 00:31:49.554
We were constantly,
00:31:49.722 --> 00:31:52.365
the United States Congress,
the government, the State Department,
00:31:52.683 --> 00:31:54.978
the White House, the Congress,
00:31:55.630 --> 00:31:58.480
they were always making these threats.
\"One more massacre.
00:31:58.648 --> 00:32:00.137
If they don\'t clean up
the human rights situation,
00:32:00.305 --> 00:32:01.705
we\'re going to cut off aid.\"
00:32:02.042 --> 00:32:03.892
The United States never cut off aid,
00:32:04.416 --> 00:32:07.566
and the massacres continued,
the human rights abuses continued.
00:32:28.275 --> 00:32:30.975
We have been doing this work
for the last nine years,
00:32:31.654 --> 00:32:35.490
but what it was really very shocking
in El Mozote
00:32:35.658 --> 00:32:36.658
was the fact that,
00:32:37.126 --> 00:32:40.295
we were exhuming
this enormous amount of children.
00:32:40.463 --> 00:32:43.720
That was something
that was completely unusual for us,
00:32:43.888 --> 00:32:49.202
and was very hard and unique.
00:32:49.512 --> 00:32:52.381
We have never seen a case of this kind.
00:33:04.508 --> 00:33:08.883
We found 143 individuals
from this one small room,
00:33:09.320 --> 00:33:12.714
one pile over the other one,
forming a compact mass,
00:33:13.373 --> 00:33:15.242
from which 131
00:33:15.638 --> 00:33:18.400
were children
under the age of 12-years-old.
00:33:20.143 --> 00:33:21.610
There were several infants
00:33:21.778 --> 00:33:25.679
that were
between six months to one-year-old.
00:33:29.168 --> 00:33:33.157
We found on the floor of the building
38 holes,
00:33:33.594 --> 00:33:37.495
in which in some of them
we found fragments of bullets.
00:33:38.805 --> 00:33:41.019
Over those holes, we found for instance,
00:33:41.187 --> 00:33:45.920
skulls
or parts of the chest of the skeletons
00:33:46.277 --> 00:33:48.972
that were showing
the path of a bullet through them.
00:33:49.140 --> 00:33:51.290
That is to say
that at least in those cases,
00:33:51.467 --> 00:33:53.617
they were just killed
inside of the building
00:33:53.793 --> 00:33:57.466
while they were lying down
in an execution manner.
00:34:13.571 --> 00:34:15.871
There were two moments
that it was really hard.
00:34:16.188 --> 00:34:19.545
One was when I was cleaning
the skeleton of a woman.
00:34:19.816 --> 00:34:25.738
As I start going on the pelvic area,
I start finding fetus bones.
00:34:26.576 --> 00:34:29.976
I start realizing that this woman
was pregnant when she was killed.
00:34:31.639 --> 00:34:34.560
Well, of course,
that was really pretty hard.
00:34:35.965 --> 00:34:37.273
The second moment was
00:34:37.441 --> 00:34:42.332
when I was removing
the clothing of one of the children,
00:34:43.340 --> 00:34:46.808
and a little horse...
A little plastic horse
00:34:46.976 --> 00:34:50.030
came out
of one of the pockets of the little boy.
00:34:51.713 --> 00:34:53.410
That kind of thing, their toys,
00:34:55.860 --> 00:34:58.774
was really very hard to continue working
00:34:59.195 --> 00:35:01.961
when we were just
exhuming toys and children.
00:35:02.129 --> 00:35:06.299
It was really very, very hard.
00:35:24.286 --> 00:35:26.886
I can\'t help,
but think back to Vietnam and My Lai.
00:35:27.535 --> 00:35:30.039
That happened.
It should not have happened.
00:35:33.127 --> 00:35:37.127
I don\'t know the circumstances of it.
I wasn\'t there. I\'ve read accounts of it.
00:35:37.295 --> 00:35:39.545
Unfortunately,
I think in just about all wars,
00:35:39.713 --> 00:35:41.313
these kinds of things do happen.
00:35:41.586 --> 00:35:44.186
Innocent people were killed,
sometimes on purpose.
00:35:44.672 --> 00:35:45.972
There\'s no excuse for it.
00:35:49.342 --> 00:35:50.342
I would say
00:35:50.510 --> 00:35:53.796
to the Salvadoran military people
that did that,
00:35:55.676 --> 00:35:57.826
\"Shame on you,
and you should be punished.\"
00:36:15.439 --> 00:36:19.310
The teachers here at the police academy
insist that we defend human rights.
00:36:20.074 --> 00:36:23.515
What people expect is that from now on,
we respect their rights.
00:36:24.122 --> 00:36:25.522
We would like the new police
00:36:25.690 --> 00:36:28.140
to be totally different
from the one of the past.
00:36:43.479 --> 00:36:47.629
A few weeks after the massacre in Mozote,
I met up with the guerrillas in the hills
00:36:55.255 --> 00:36:57.705
I told them
that my mom and dad had been killed.
00:36:58.341 --> 00:36:59.715
I was the only survivor.
00:37:05.487 --> 00:37:09.104
They said to me, \"Don\'t worry.
You can live with us and you\'ll be okay.\"
00:37:10.876 --> 00:37:12.576
I agreed and I felt good about it.
00:37:14.847 --> 00:37:17.297
Then they sent me
to a little school for orphans.
00:37:28.610 --> 00:37:31.731
It was one big family.
We shared everything.
00:37:32.501 --> 00:37:35.067
When there was food, nobody went hungry.
00:37:39.245 --> 00:37:42.345
Then I became a messenger
with the guerrilla commander Manolo.
00:37:42.647 --> 00:37:44.120
I was about 11 by then.
00:37:50.109 --> 00:37:52.278
I had a pretty little 9mm pistol.
00:37:53.199 --> 00:37:56.445
I was still small,
and I felt good about having that pistol.
00:37:58.257 --> 00:38:01.681
I had it for three years
until I was big enough for a rifle.
00:38:02.244 --> 00:38:04.906
In \'85, they gave me a cut off M-16.
00:38:05.074 --> 00:38:12.074
[music]
00:38:22.137 --> 00:38:25.487
At first, I hated the soldiers,
because they had killed my mother.
00:38:30.086 --> 00:38:32.236
I knew
I\'d have to take revenge against them
00:38:32.404 --> 00:38:34.054
someday, somehow.
00:38:35.376 --> 00:38:36.976
Since I was with the guerrillas,
00:38:37.144 --> 00:38:38.144
I picked up my gun
00:38:38.312 --> 00:38:41.362
and was more than eager
to fight the soldiers and kill them.
00:38:43.211 --> 00:38:46.523
I knew what they done with my mom,
and I wasn\'t afraid of them.
00:38:48.087 --> 00:38:49.087
If they killed me,
00:38:49.361 --> 00:38:51.961
they were just getting
the last member of our family.
00:38:52.129 --> 00:38:53.129
That\'s all.
00:39:14.279 --> 00:39:16.851
When I left Morazán, I had nothing left.
00:39:22.886 --> 00:39:25.186
In Honduras,
I started working in healthcare.
00:39:25.746 --> 00:39:28.246
I took care of those kids
as if they were my own.
00:39:28.813 --> 00:39:30.213
I felt that they were mine.
00:39:30.990 --> 00:39:34.190
This is how I got better
and started to feel love for life again.
00:39:54.135 --> 00:39:55.935
I didn\'t want to have any more kids.
00:39:56.521 --> 00:39:57.521
I said to myself,
00:39:57.689 --> 00:40:00.589
\"I don\'t want any more
if they\'re just going to kill them.\"
00:40:00.757 --> 00:40:01.757
Five years later,
00:40:01.925 --> 00:40:04.075
I fell in love
with a man I\'d known before.
00:40:04.406 --> 00:40:06.797
Then I had another child, Marta.
00:40:11.430 --> 00:40:12.730
She was a big help to me.
00:40:12.898 --> 00:40:15.298
I don\'t know
how I could\'ve made it without her.
00:40:59.684 --> 00:41:01.617
The peace is still very fragile here.
00:41:02.835 --> 00:41:04.559
Studying human rights together,
00:41:04.957 --> 00:41:08.307
we have discovered that we have rights
and we want them respected.
00:41:08.867 --> 00:41:12.223
We can have peace
only when we have justice and truth.
00:45:56.014 --> 00:45:58.314
This just wasn\'t the time
for an amnesty law.
00:45:59.372 --> 00:46:02.622
The cases were being investigated,
and the truth was being told.
00:46:04.389 --> 00:46:05.739
It\'s all part of the past,
00:46:05.907 --> 00:46:07.307
but we can\'t just start over
00:46:07.475 --> 00:46:09.675
with a clean slate
like the government says.
00:46:10.363 --> 00:46:12.974
It\'s never going to be forgotten
or wiped clean.
00:46:13.502 --> 00:46:15.874
We can forgive, but we won\'t forget.
00:46:22.392 --> 00:46:23.892
If those people are forgiven,
00:46:24.319 --> 00:46:26.881
that means
no matter what happens in El Salvador,
00:46:27.071 --> 00:46:29.021
there\'s always a way to get around it.
00:46:29.817 --> 00:46:32.217
Killing children
is about as low as you can go.
00:46:34.083 --> 00:46:35.900
If those people get off scot free,
00:46:36.537 --> 00:46:38.837
it\'s because our governments
are responsible.
00:46:39.624 --> 00:46:43.424
If you let a beast keep all its claws,
it can repeat what it\'s always done.
00:46:44.769 --> 00:46:48.369
I don\'t think that a sick person
can get better without taking medicine.
00:47:14.656 --> 00:47:17.456
The main thing for me
would be to have a full time job,
00:47:17.829 --> 00:47:20.779
so that I could start to earn something
and pick myself up.
00:47:25.301 --> 00:47:27.101
I\'ve got nothing at all right now.
00:47:27.426 --> 00:47:28.426
Not even a house.
00:47:29.451 --> 00:47:32.571
I\'ve come out of a 12-year war
just like I went into it
00:47:33.342 --> 00:47:34.938
or maybe I\'m worse off now.
00:47:35.876 --> 00:47:40.015
My hope is that someday I\'ll have a place
to settle down and live in peace.
00:48:04.404 --> 00:48:06.704
If the massacre in Mozote
had never happened,
00:48:07.106 --> 00:48:08.956
I might have had a normal childhood,
00:48:13.837 --> 00:48:15.295
but I grew up in the war.
00:48:15.778 --> 00:48:18.228
I\'ve forgotten
what it means to have a childhood.
00:48:20.646 --> 00:48:22.093
My only toy was a gun.
00:48:25.472 --> 00:48:27.872
Would you want the same thing
for your children?
00:48:34.759 --> 00:48:36.805
I want my children to develop normally
00:48:37.192 --> 00:48:40.592
and go through all the stages
of their childhood and teenage years.
00:48:44.188 --> 00:48:47.422
I don\'t want them to be forced
into the kind of life that I had.
00:48:57.490 --> 00:49:04.490
[crowd cheering]
00:49:34.483 --> 00:49:41.483
[singing]
00:49:47.206 --> 00:49:54.206
[music]
00:49:59.130 --> 00:50:01.080
I hope that the future will be better.
00:50:01.376 --> 00:50:04.038
That there will be no more war,
no more killings.
00:50:08.482 --> 00:50:12.389
I want our children to have a future
for them to live better with dignity,
00:50:12.779 --> 00:50:14.129
and not the way it\'s been.
00:50:15.127 --> 00:50:17.227
That\'s what I would like for my daughter,
00:50:17.395 --> 00:50:19.103
that the future belongs to her.
00:50:51.619 --> 00:50:53.027
Since my graduation,
00:50:53.195 --> 00:50:55.345
I\'m working as a policeman in the village.
00:50:56.511 --> 00:50:58.961
I always believed
that peace would come one day,
00:50:59.634 --> 00:51:03.084
that the killings would stop
and we could finally live without fear.
00:51:11.541 --> 00:51:14.444
But today we\'re seeing
this terrible wave of violence.
00:51:15.374 --> 00:51:19.174
Former guerrilla fighters and commanders
are being murdered in the streets.
00:51:28.302 --> 00:51:29.302
They say
00:51:29.470 --> 00:51:31.870
that so-called secret armed groups
are to blame,
00:51:32.195 --> 00:51:33.895
but they are the same death squads
00:51:34.063 --> 00:51:36.763
who have been spreading terror
for the last 10 years.
00:51:40.722 --> 00:51:43.322
I\'m afraid
that they\'re going to do something to me.
00:51:57.101 --> 00:51:59.951
I\'m worried the guns will be heard again
in El Salvador.
00:52:01.224 --> 00:52:04.518
There has never been sharing
between rich and poor here.
00:52:06.651 --> 00:52:09.302
People are used to violence
to solve problems,
00:52:10.352 --> 00:52:13.024
but the truth
is that violence is no solution.
00:52:38.068 --> 00:52:40.668
It hurts
to think about our dear ones who are dead,
00:52:42.193 --> 00:52:44.746
but we know
that death gives way to new life.
00:52:46.985 --> 00:52:48.635
These candles symbolize the light
00:52:48.803 --> 00:52:51.283
of the children and old people
who died here.
00:52:52.303 --> 00:52:53.303
Without this light,
00:52:53.852 --> 00:52:57.837
we can never have the bliss that we hope
will one day return to our hearts.
00:53:04.670 --> 00:53:06.370
We can say that we have forgiven,
00:53:07.224 --> 00:53:09.424
but deep in our hearts,
we know we have not.
00:53:10.016 --> 00:53:11.716
It is not that we live with hate.
00:53:12.036 --> 00:53:15.336
We only want to be sure
that these killings will not happen again.
00:53:30.222 --> 00:53:37.222
[music]
Distributor: Icarus Films
Length: 57 minutes
Date: 1995
Genre: Expository
Language: Not available
Grade: 10-12, College, Adult
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
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