33rd anniversary of El Mozote massacre in El Salvador

Thirty-three years ago, the US-trained Atlacatl Battalion in El Salvador killed 800 people, mostly women and children, in the northern Morazan province. It was a terrible massacre in what was a terrible war, especially when referring to acts committed by the Salvadoran security forces. Most people who have taken a Latin American politics course have read Mark Danner's The Massacre at El Mozote which is a pretty strong indictment of the US.

However, it is mostly an indictment of our naivete in trying to train a Salvadoran military dedicated to slaughter. Yes, the Atlacatl was US-trained, but by December 1981 none of that training seems to have sunk in. Here's Danner:

The Americans landed at the brigade command in San Miguel to refuel and to receive their first briefing. "The brigade commander was expecting us," Greentree said. "In San Miguel, that was Flores" — Colonel Jaime Ernesto Flores Grijalba, the over-all commander of Operation Rescue. Also present, Greentree believes — he is not absolutely certain — was Domingo Monterrosa. The officers gave the Americans "a sort of after-action report, saying which units were where," Greentree said. "As I recall, the Atlacatl was the main combat unit, and they talked about this hammer-and-anvil nonsense. We were dismayed, because the Atlacatl was supposed to have developed new tactics, but now they were back to the same old shit — you know, insert a blocking force and then carry out a sweep." The message about El Mozote — the version that the Salvadoran Army had presumably already provided the defense attaché's office — was, in effect, that the Army had fought hard to dislodge a large company of guerrillas from the town, and though perhaps a few civilians had been killed in the crossfire, soldiers certainly had not carried out a massacre.

Colonel Flores was not particularly happy to see the Americans, and it was clear that his attitude was shared by the other officers they encountered that day. As McKay — who is now a colonel attached to nato headquarters in Brussels, and was given permission to speak publicly about the events at El Mozote by the Defense Department — told me, "In general, we had very little cooperation when we went to Morazán."

What the Salvadoran military did in El Mozote went against everything that the US was trying to instill in them - professionalism and "modern" counterinsurgency tactics. That might still have led to criminal acts (I sure think so) but we didn't turn them into a murderous force.

The US Government did a miserable job attacking journalists who had uncovered the truth. It did a horrible disservice to itself when it covered for the Salvadoran military and government. However, one often leaves with the impression that the US trained the Salvadoran military to massacre peasants. As we look back to La Matanza in 1932, we know that's not the case.

When one continues the story, there is also a bit of excitement when the ERP uses the "captured" radio to lure Domingo Monterrosa to his death. While they certainly wanted a bit of revenge, it was also clear that they wanted to kill him because he had drank the cool-aid and adopted more modern counterinsurgency techniques which involved working more closely with the local population to provide for their needs. He was dangerous because he was winning their hearts and minds and not causing greater numbers of Salvadorans to join the guerrillas.

Our history in El Salvador and the region is bad enough without stretching matters.