Politics in the Americas

What follows is a chronological account of El Salvador's gruesome history during its civil war. Before reading further, be warned that it shares a raw historic event that took place during the country's war time.

On Thursday December 10th, 1981 a mother named Rufina Amaya along with campesinos from la aldea of El Mozote del departamento de Morazán were congregated at the request of Marcos Díaz to communicate that he had word from a Salvadoran military official that they would execute a military operation to get rid of the guerilleros. Díaz communicated that the official had told him that the campesinos had nothing to worry about as long as they stayed in home.

On Friday December 11th, 1981 en la madrugada Amaya and everyone else in El Mozote were forcefully taken out of their homes and separated into groups. After divvying up the population of campesinos into two groups, the ejército began to interrogate the people about what they knew, if any, about the guerillero activities. It was then after that Amaya became aware of a helicopter approaching the plaza. When it landed, Domingo Monterrosa's Batallón de Infantería de Reacción Especial Atlacatl began to execute the military operation, but with the residents of El Mozote as the target. Rufina Amaya recounts: "Poco después el helicóptero despegó y los gritos de muerte comenzaron."

Something to be said about Domingo Monterrosa. According to Wiki, he continued training to "... study anti-communist insurgency tactics" in Taiwan after military studies at the infamous School of the Americas in Panamá. After returning to El Salvador from Taiwan, he was assigned to lead the Batallón de Infantería de Reacción Especial Atlacatl. The U.S. journalist Mark David Danner wrote a piece entitled "The Truth of El Mozote" that sheds more light of this Domingo Monterrosa character. In the piece, Danner documents that Monterrosa was obsessed with war trophies. More specifically, he was wanting any remnants of Radio Venceremos -- la emisora clandestina y la voz oficial del Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional.

On Thursday December 24th, 1981 Rufina Amaya tells on Radio Venceremos what had occured. And on Wednesday January 27th, 1982 international public opinion of the massacre is stirred up from its reporting in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Years elapse as the Salvadoran government and U.S. are in denial of what's occured. It's in this milieu of public opinion buildup that Alfredo Cristiani holds the presidency (June 01, 1989 - June 01, 1994).

On Friday October 26th, 1990 Pedro Chicas Romero, a campesino who lost his family during the El Mozote massacre, presents to the United Nations his grievances against the Salvadoran government. And on Tuesday October 30th, 1990 the Catholic Church with the moral authority of Liberation Theology, presents to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights a petition alleging the Salvadoran government of human rights violations against 765 personas, ejecutadas extrajudicialmente durante el operativo.

Against this backdrop of international public opinion, Cristiani negates the massacre ever happened until 1992 when el Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense begins to excavate the site of El Mozote.

Then, on Thursday January 16th, 1992 the Acuerdos de Paz de Chapultepec were signed that ended the civil war. A year later on March 03, 1993 the Ley de Amnistía General para la Consolidación de la Paz was signed into Salvadoran law that in effect caused the investigation from Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense to stop. In short, all with grievances from the massacre were stopped from obtaining any redress from the Salvadoran government.

On Tuesday March 6th, 2007 Rufna Amaya dies from a stroke. And finally, on Friday September 30th, 2016 the judge Jorge Guzmán Urquilla, orders the re-opening of the case to charge the military officials after 23 years of the passing into law of the Ley de Amnistía General para la Consolidación de la Paz.