Massacre and the Flea Market
Day 64
San Salvador is hot, 35 Celsius yesterday. So it was a nice luxury to wake up in our cool a/c room this morning. We had a tasty breakfast of Gallo Pinto (rice mixed with beans and eggs) before setting out to see more of the city. At least more of it beyond the mall. There was a small museum dedicated to the lost indigenous peoples and the struggles of the leftist guerrillas (FMLN) in El Salvadors civil war that we wanted to visit. There are not many attractions in the city but this was one place I felt was important to see since the civil war here affected so many people.
We paid our $1 entry fee and entered the small museum. There was photos of El Salvadors native people and the story of their tragic past. Unfortunately all the information was in Spanish so we understood little. What I do know is El Salvador was very different from Guatemala. In Guatemala native people still make up about 65% of the population. Here that number is about 5%. There were photos of the young men and woman who fought and died for the FMLN in El Salvadors brutal civil war. One particular event of the war, which sadly I had no prior knowledge of, was especially gut wrenching. On December 11, 1981 the U.S. trained Atlacatl Battalion of the Salvadoran army entered the village of Mozote to question locals about the whereabouts of the FMLN. The local population was well known sympathiser of the FMLN. The army rounded up the entire village for questioning, there were reports of woman and children being raped. Before leaving Mozote the army killed the entire village, every man, woman and child. 733 people left dead for any who passed to see. When news of the massacre started to reach the world the Reagan administration called it a “gross exaggeration”. The U.S. was sending the Salvadoran army big dollars during the civil war. There have been constant attempts to investigate what happened in El Mozote that day but nothing much has come of it and nobody has ever been found responsible.
We left the museum a bit depressed but I believe its positive that this information is there for future generations of the country to see. We jumped in a cab and headed to the centre of San Salvador, for no particular reason except that we were here so I figured we should see it. The centre is off limits at night due to the high crime rate in the city and even during the day its advised to stick to the busy streets. As our taxi stopped at the main square it became evident that San Salvador had surpassed Guatemala City as the shithole capital of Central America. The crumbling buildings looked like the war was still ongoing, the streets were filthy with garbage piled up everywhere and lined with stalls selling everything you could imagine. It looked like a giant flea market that was being held in a garbage dump. This was a like being in another country compared to the metrocentro mall yesterday. We walked the streets as people literally grabbed our arms trying to pull us into their shops. Needless to say after walking around for about an hour we were ready to leave, it just wasn’t a pleasant place. Civil war and earthquakes had taken their toll and instead of rebuilding it seems anyone with money just moved out to the suburbs.
We retreated back to our cool, clean a/c room where we showered off the filth from the day and found some decent italian food next to our hotel. Even though central San Salvador was much we saw it and we are ready to move on in the morning to Honduras. Our plan is to only tuck into Honduras for a few days before heading south to Nicaragua. Tomorrow will bring yet another Central American capital, hopefully better than what we’ve seen so far.
For more info on El Mozote checkout the articles below;
The Original article from the New York Times, Jan 27th 1982
In depth report on the massacre
Tags: Civil War, El Mozote, El Salvador, Massacre
Michael Coroneos
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