The Women of El Mozote

The El Mozote massacre in December 1981 was one of the gravest atrocities and war crimes committed during the course of El Salvador's civil war. It is important to keep the memory of what happened there alive so that it can never happen again. No one has ever been punished for the war crime.

Los Angeles writer Marcos Villatoro recently made a short video called The Women of El Mozote which features interviews with some of the women who have returned to El Mozote after the massacre and the war, and now tell the story to those who visit there.



Marcos told me that he made the video so that the women can sell it from the small tourist kiosk they have at the site of the monument to the massacre. So pick up a copy of the full video if you ever visit El Mozote.

If you like this, you might also want to check out the trailer for Marcos' new project, Tamale Road, or I also recommend his book of poetry, On Tuesday, When the Homeless Disappeared.

Comments

Hodad said…
yep, me again,
\I know one of the lying assholes that was green beret trainer that was there, SOA boy
North's coke running buddy, probably was 2nd guy at Romero's death, and 3rd wife salvadoran etc etc
threatened me
not over till some of these disgusting gringos, working for ybilarybush-cheney are gome

just how it is
he was there, he told me
Greg said…
Tim -

Thank you for posting the video clip "The Women of El Mozote".

Historically, the ATLACATL were conceived to be a light infantry, highly mobile counter-guerrilla force. Training in the United States was meant to develop not only the necessary military skills for COIN warfare in El Salvador, but to also develop a non-commissioned and commissioned officer structures far more sophisticated than what exited in the Salvadoran Army at the time.

However, ATLACATL was very much under the overall command and control of the Salvadoran military, and 1981/1982 represented those early years in the war where the FMLN were literally on the verge of overthrowing the government.

The ATLACATL swiftly became a throughly compromised entity once back in-country. Based initially in the "Iron Triangle", a group of Salvadoran army bases (the other two were the Salvadoran Calvalry and Artillery bases just outside of San Salvador), ATLACATL undertook an overall strategy and tactical approach to warfare meant to be equally as fierce as the FMLN's worst elements.

The General Amnesty agreed upon by both sides remains a stark admission no one's hands were clean, and no one's soul untarnished during this 10-year civil war.

The mass murders at El Mozote, so early on in the ATLACATL's history, became the cornerstone of its ongoing brutality and insanity for the rest of the war.

The successful FMLN military operation to assassinate the ATLACATL's seniormost officer, COL Domingo Monterosa, extracted revenge for the murders at El Mozote and decapitated the ATLACATL leadership, and hence its projected long term effectiveness as an instrument of terror.

El Mozote must remain as much a universal reminder of the horrors of genocide and state sponsored terrorism as do the Nazi inspired death camps of Europe; the ATLACATL must remain as loathed and so properly identified no less than the world community does the Nazi SS and its membership.

If we choose to forget El Mozote it can and will happen again.

If we create monsters such as the ATLACATL they will wreak their vengence upon us for breathing life into them and letting them loose among us.

Let the Women of El Mozote be heard.
Unknown said…
Typo in your post, says December 2001 (should be 1981).
Tim said…
Oops. Corrected now.