El Salvador Texts for Docents (in exhibition order) Vinyl Intro Wall - The issue [in Central America] is not whether change is to occur but whether that change is to be violent and radical or peaceful and evolutionary and preserving individual rights and democratic values. . .

—Viron Vaky, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, September 1979

After 50 years of military dictatorship in El Salvador, a coup d’etat in 1979 ignited a 12-year civil war that became notorious for assassinations, disappearances, and death squads. Christian-based communities, unions, student and popular organizations became targets for joining in opposition to the government, and civilian non-combatants were often caught in the crossfire between the military and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), an umbrella group of four guerrilla organizations and the Communist Party. When UN-brokered peace accords were signed in 1992, approximately 80,000 people had been killed (most of them civilians) and as many as 1.5 million people had fled the country. While the peace accords ended the armed conflict, they did not directly address issues such as poverty, health, safety, and education. The Salvadoran economy grew significantly in the decade following the war, but today the perpetuation of social ills has brought about a new kind of bloodshed: homicide rates are as high or higher than during the war and street gangs are widespread. Intro text panel - Inside El Salvador features more than 100 photographs concerning the civil war and its aftermath. The first section of the exhibition is made up of 67 images taken by 30 international photojournalists during the intensely brutal period of conflict between 1979 and 1983. Photographers Susan Meiselas and Harry Mattison gathered these images into a traveling exhibition and book in 1983 to raise global awareness about the conflict. At a time when the Reagan administration insisted that military aid to El Salvador’s government was essential to stopping the spread of communism and that progress was being made on human rights, the photographs contributed to the debate by providing a contrary eyewitness account. These images—from peaceful moments of civilian daily life to scenes of mass murder—provide an enduring historical and human rights record of those times. The images are accompanied by texts written by poet Carolyn Forché. Generous donations of the prints by the photographers and by the Marlene Nathan Meyerson Family Foundation to the Ransom Center benefited the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen (Museum of the Word and Image) in San Salvador, a museum and archive dedicated to investigating, rescuing, preserving, and presenting elements of the culture and history of El Salvador. The exhibition continues with images by award-winning documentary photographer Donna DeCesare, currently an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism at UT. This section, called El Salvador Inside Out, begins by covering the end of the civil war, notably the murder of six Jesuit priests and the guerilla offensive in San Salvador in 1989—events that increased international pressure for the peace accords. DeCesare’s images then form two stories that trace the tragedy of youth violence from its origins in Los Angeles, where the Salvadoran immigrant community forms the second largest Salvadoran “city” in the world, back to El Salvador. The first story follows Jessica Díaz as she attempts to break the vicious circle of violence trapping her family. The second story

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follows Edgar Bolaños, whose mother sends him back to El Salvador, naively believing he will be safe from the world of gangs that killed his brother. The photographs in the exhibition are amplified by copious printed and video documentation that expand understanding of the conflict in El Salvador and its repercussions. 1 Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) “Mano Blanca,” signature of the death squads left on the door of a slain peasant organizer, Arcatao, Chalatenango Province, 1980 Chromogenic color print Gift of the photographer 2 Harry Mattison (American, b. 1948) Neighborhood known as “La Fosa” (The Grave), San Salvador, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 3 (top) Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Streets of Sonsonate, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 4 (bottom) Kenneth Silverman Drying coffee, Los Ateos, 1980-1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer In the late nineteenth century coffee came to dominate the Salvadoran economy. While U.S. businessmen owned most banana plantations in Central America, coffee was locally controlled. Coffee growers joined with the landed aristocracy to form vast coffee plantations, “coffee oligarchies,” by acquiring large areas of common land and absorbing smaller farms. The oligarchy controlled Salvadoran politics and built an army to suppress the unrest from displaced peasant farmers. 5 Alain Keler (French, b. 1945) Beach resort restaurant, La Libertad, 1979-1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer

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Forché panel - Those who remained in El Salvador did so because they hadn’t the money to leave or had too much money to lose, because they were committed either to the government or to the revolution, because they loved their homes or had no place else to go, because they thought they would be protected by their connections or their neutrality or their caution. They stayed believing it could not get worse, or believing that one side or the other was within months of victory. Others stayed assuming the war would be long, but they had a son in the army, a daughter in the hills, an aging parent who needed care. Every family has been torn apart by the war.

--- Carolyn Forché 7 (top) Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Private security guard, Colonia Escalón neighborhood, San Salvador, 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 6 (bottom) Bill Stanton Home in Reparto Manuel José Arce neighborhood, San Salvador, 1979-1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer With the high level of violence against civilians during the civil war, wealthy Salvadorans barricaded themselves behind blast walls and bulletproof windows. In El Salvador, a country characterized by extreme economic inequality, the walled houses of the middle and upper classes testified not only to the fear of political violence, but also demonstrated their perceived need to protect themselves from the desperation of marginalized members of the urban working class. 8 Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Wedding reception in the countryside, Santiago Nonualco, 1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer

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9 Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Blood of students slain while handing out political leaflets, San Salvador, 1979 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer During this period violence against the civilian population became systemic, and the fragmentation of any opposition movement by means of arrest, murder, and selective disappearance of its leaders became common practice. In 1981 alone, paramilitary death squads and army counterinsurgency battalions killed an estimated 12,000 civilian noncombatants. By 1983, the urban popular organizations had been completely destroyed. Continued death squad violence against civilians who were deemed subversive effectively prevented the resurgence of these movements through the end of the war.

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10 (top) Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Collecting contributions for families of the “disappeared” in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral, San Salvador, 1979 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 11 (bottom) Alain Keler (French, b. 1945) Downtown San Salvador, 1979-1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 12 Alon Reininger (American, b. 1947) Mourners wait to pay last respects to youths killed by the National Guard after a street theater performance critical of the government, Rosario Church, San Salvador, October 1979 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 13 Alain Keler (French, b. 1945) Writing on coffin of one of the youths killed reads: “I love you, I will never forget you, I will tell my daughter about you when she grows up and can understand,” Rosario Church, San Salvador, October 1979 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Forché panel – Before the Spanish conquest, the people believed that man was made from corn rather than a piece of clay breathed upon by God, and that the land could no more be owned than could light or the wind. The lands were held in common; after the conquest they were taken, first for the cultivation of cacao, then indigo, then coffee. It was still believed among the Pipil Indians of the country they called among themselves Cuzcatlan that the earth was a divine being. As serfs to the feudal landlords, they lived impoverished. It was their loss of the living soil, their hunger and rage at the ignorance with which the delicate bond between land and community was broken that moved the Indians to listen to a few wandering revolutionaries in the early 1930s. In 1932, they rose up with machetes and stones against the doors of the feudal mansions. By the time the uprising began on January 22, the revolutionary leaders were in prison and powerless to stop it. On the first night, the volcano Izalco erupted, showering the cities of El Salvador with ash. Day was night as the Indians took the lives of the one hundred people. Their rampage is burned into the memory of the landowners: in the ashen haze, centuries of rage splintered their drawn shutters, and opened their future to fear. In the three days that followed, government troops killed 30,000 people, and as the ash settled, Izalco threw a windy flag of fire to light the Pacific. The revolution became known as the matanza, the massacre.

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The Indians vanished within months, not only into the graves of the uprising but into an ossuary of cultural death. To pass a Ladino (of mixed blood) they burned their native clothes and adopted the Spanish tongue, speaking their own Nahuatl in secret until it withered. The volcanoes quieted while the country slept under military dictatorship for almost fifty years. The stone of ʹ′32 was rolled to block the passage to future insurrections; walls went up around the hacienda mansions, laced with flowering vines to disguise the fears of the rich that it might someday happen again.

--- Carolyn Forché 14 Aslak Aarhus (Norwegian, b. 1952) March in celebration of the unification of the popular political organizations, San Salvador, January 22, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 15 (top) Etienne Montes (French, b. Catalonia) National Policeman using ice cream vendor as a shield during a skirmish with demonstrators, San Salvador, February 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 16 (bottom) Michel Philippot National Guard arresting members of popular political organizations who had occupied the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) headquarters, San Salvador, February 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 17 Mike Goldwater (British, b. 1951) Confession in the Metropolitan Cathedral, San Salvador, February 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Forché Panel –

Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, in a sermon delivered at the Metropolitan Cathedral the day before his assassination, called on “the troops of the National Guard, the Police, and the garrisons: Brothers, each one of you is one of us. We are the same people. The campesinos (peasant farmworkers) you kill are your own brothers and sisters… When you hear the words of a man telling you to kill, remember instead the words of God, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ … In the name of God… I beg you, I beseech you, I order you: stop the repression.”

--- Carolyn Forché

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18 (top) Harry Mattison (American, b. 1948) Mourners in plaza of Metropolitan Cathedral during funeral for assassinated Archbishop Romero, San Salvador, March 30, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Óscar Romero, a Catholic priest born in Ciudad Barrios, El Salvador, was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador on February 23, 1977. Monseñor Romero began his tenure as a conservative religious leader, but was soon radicalized by the assassination of Rutilio Grande, a Jesuit priest who had been working with El Salvadoran campesinos (peasant farm workers). The Salvadoran government refused to investigate Grande’s murder, dramatically drawing Romero’s attention to the relationship between the government and the military. Romero began to advocate more forcefully against the structural poverty of the poor and state violence directed towards civilians. His move toward liberation theology and his staking out a position on human rights increasingly put him at odds with the military. On March 24, 1980, Romero was saying mass when he was shot and killed by an assassin linked to Salvadoran death squads. Today, Romero is considered a martyr and international popular hero of human rights and social justice. 19 (bottom) Etienne Montes (French, b. Catalonia) Crowd in plaza during funeral mass for Archbishop Romero, San Salvador, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 20 Harry Mattison (American, b. 1948) After bomb explosion near cathedral, people try to escape being trampled, March 30, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Over 80,000 people attended the funeral of Archbishop Óscar Romero. A military bombing and snipers caused mass panic, during which 39 mourners were killed and over 200 were wounded. 21 Patrick Chauvel (French, b. 1949) Member of a popular political organization provides cover for fleeing civilians, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer This photograph shows a member of a popular organization with a gun, making the image a useful tool for government propaganda. While some individual members of these organizations were armed, the organizations were not involved in violent action against the government. Despite the fact that El Salvador’s popular political organizations were fundamentally distinct from the guerrillas in their goals and methods, being more reformist than revolutionary, the Salvadoran military and

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successive right-wing governments claimed that the popular organizations were just branches of the guerrilla movements, often by selectively using photographs like this one. The deliberate mischaracterization of popular organizations as branches of the armed revolution provided the justification for military-linked death squads to destroy the popular organizations by systematically killing their membership. 22 Harry Mattison (American, b. 1948) Interior of cathedral where the dead and wounded have been carried, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 23 Harry Mattison (American, b. 1948) Nuns leaving the cathedral, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Forché Panel – A campesino (peasant farmworker) will tell you that he really doesn’t work for you, he helps you. You pay him a little, but he will never say that he is working for you. If you ask him and he tells you the truth, that is what he will say. Why does he say this? Because it is true. He knows who you are, he knows what you are doing to him. It is also his way of saying you are wrong and someday he will kill you. He doesn’t mean he will do this himself –that he will kill you personally. He means that this knowledge of wrong will be passed on to his children, and then to their children. It doesn’t matter if it takes two or three generations. It’s like a bee passing his knowledge to the next generation of bees. That’s why sometimes the Indians think they can wait a long time.

--- Carolyn Forché 25 (top) Christian Poveda Payday at a farm under the administration of the Agrarian Reform, February 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 41 (bottom) Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Religious service, Mejicanos, 1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 28 (top) Kenneth Silverman Las Vueltas, Chalatenango, 1980-1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 29 (bottom) Kenneth Silverman National Guardsman arresting a suspected guerrilla, Chalatenango, 1980-1982

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Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 24 (top) Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Waiting for the bus on the road to La Libertad, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 36 (bottom) John Hoagland (American, 1952-1983) Arrest of auto repair mechanic for failure to carry an ID card, San Salvador, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 27 Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Road to Aguilares, 1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 26 John Hoagland (American, 1952-1983) Two young girls found alongside the highway to Comalapa Airport, August 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Civilian victims of El Salvador’s civil war numbered in the tens of thousands. While many were killed by the military and their aligned death squads for their participation in non-violent leftist and center-left popular organizations and political parties, other civilians with no political affiliation whatsoever were frequently killed when they were caught in the crossfire between the military and guerrillas, or when they accidentally triggered landmines, used extensively by both the guerrillas and the military. Forché Panel – The woman is thin like a tree in winter. Her hands fly out from her like two birds as she speaks. She is wearing her apron, but unties it as she comes in and digs through one of her pockets for the photograph she has folded several times, so that a crease now divides the face in two. “This is my son, this is him as he looked before they took him away. It was at night. He had been cleaning the church after school.” How long ago did he disappear? She looks helplessly at each of us. “Two, maybe almost three years.” My friend says what it is possible to say with the eyes: Don’t tell her what you think. Tell her you will look for him.

--- Carolyn Forché 30 Eli Reed (American, b. 1946) Families looking for “disappeared” relatives in the “Book of the Missing,” Human Rights Commission Office, San Salvador, August 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer

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Forché Panel –

El Playón is a lava bed, a skirt of black sponge-like stone in the lap of the volcano. There is a graveyard beside it. El Playón, “the beach,” is a rock strewn with refuse and sea wrack: a body, a thin spoon, bottle glass purple from the sun, paint cans, a skull with hair, a shoelace, trousers, more bodies, flocks of vultures fattening themselves on the ground, a stripped spine, a broken plate, a palm open to the rain. El Playón is a body dump. “Yo lo vi,” Goya wrote beside his sketches. “I saw it, and this, and also this.”

--- Carolyn Forché 31 John Hoagland (American, 1952-1983) El Playon, well known location where bodies of the “disappeared” are often found, Sonsonate, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 37 Oswald Iten (Swiss) Students forced to vacate building by security forces during closing of National University, San Salvador, June 26, 1980 Gelatin silver prints Gift of the photographer 38 Oswald Iten (Swiss) Students killed by security forces, National University, San Salvador, June 26, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 39 (top) Chris Steele-Perkins (British, b. Burma 1947) Female victims of death squad, Apopa, 1981 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer The death squads emerged from the network of paramilitary groups and El Salvador’s centralized intelligence agency, both founded in the 1960s by General José Alberto Medrano. Medrano was once quoted as saying, “All the guerrillas are traitors to the Fatherland, and the law against them is the death penalty. So we applied the law against them.” 40 (bottom) Alain Keler (French, b. 1945) Mass for slain Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) leaders, Metropolitan Cathedral, San Salvador, December 3, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer

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Forché Panel – “When someone joins a death squad, he is in for life. If you quit, you might talk, and no one wants to be fingered later for these crimes. The first time such a man goes out on an operation, he is tested by the others. They tell him he must rape the victim in front of them, then cut off certain pieces of the body. They want to see if he has the stomach for this. After that, he is as guilty as the others and he is in. His reward is usually money.” Why isn’t it enough to kill a victim? Why must each also suffer mutilation? “The death squad members must all be guilty of every murder; some one rapes, another strikes blows, another uses the machete, and so on until it would be impossible to determine which action had caused the death, and the squad members are protected from each other by mutual guilt. Also, when mere death no longer instills fear in the population, the stakes must be raised. The people must be made to see that not only will they die, but die slowly and brutally.”

--- Carolyn Forché 42 Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Unearthing of three assassinated American nuns and lay worker from unmarked grave, Santiago Nonualco, December 4, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer On December 2, 1980, members of the El Salvadoran National Guard raped and murdered four U.S. churchwomen. The women, three of whom were nuns and the other a laywoman, had been doing charity work and helping refugees of the civil war. Their murders outraged many in the U.S. and forced the Carter administration to temporarily cut funding to El Salvador’s military. Although the Carter administration tied the restoration of military and economic aid to the prosecution of those responsible for the murders, it restored funding before significant progress had been made on bringing anyone to justice for the crimes. The Reagan administration increased funding to El Salvador significantly. Five members of the National Guard were eventually tried and convicted in 1984. U.S. government documents declassified in the mid-1990s revealed that the State Department had withheld information pointing to involvement in the murders at high levels of the Salvadoran military. Bill Ford, the brother of one of the nuns, and the families of the other women brought suit against two senior Salvadoran generals, José Guillermo García and Eugenio Vides Casanova in 1999. The case was brought under the Torture Victim Protection Act, a 1992 federal statute that gives U.S. citizens who are victims of torture (or the families of victims of extrajudicial killings) the opportunity to charge those who committed these crimes. In 2000 the two generals stood trial, charged with responsibility for the crimes under the command responsibility doctrine, which holds that military commanders are responsible for the acts of their subordinates. The generals were found not liable for the crimes.

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Forché Panel – The Colonel What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were imbedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man’s legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around, he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.

--- Carolyn Forché 35 Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Soldiers searching bus passengers, Northern Highway, 1980 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 32 Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Funeral procession for member of the civil defense, El Triunfo, 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 33 (top) John Hoagland (American, 1952-1983) “La Virtud” Refugee Camp, Honduras, 1980-1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Hundreds of thousands of refugees attempted to flee the violence during the civil war, moving to other parts of the country, or leaving altogether. In 1981, an estimated 60,000 Salvadoran refugees lived in refugee camps in Honduras like this one, while between 1979 and 1988 approximately 500,000 Salvadorans succeeded in making their way to the United States, despite many obstacles—including the fact that the U.S. largely did not recognize Salvadoran asylum claims during the 1980s. 34 (bottom) Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948)

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Literacy class, “San José de la Montaña” Refugee Camp, San Salvador, 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Case 1

Civil War, 1981-1983 La Guerra Civil, 1981-1983

“Central America: the Tortured Land,” The San Francisco Examiner, summer 1982. Photographs by Eli Reed and John Storey. Courtesy of Eli Reed. These articles are available on the touch-screen computer at the end of the exhibition. Case 2

Civil War, 1981-1983 La Guerra Civil, 1981-1983

“The Agony of El Salvador,” by Raymond Bonner, New York Times Magazine, 2/22/81. Photographs by Alain Keler and John Hoagland. “El Salvador: The Voices of Anguish in a Bitterly Divided Land,” by Lydia Chavez, New York Times Magazine, 12/11/1983. Photograph by Susan Meiselas. “The Truth About the Death Squads,” by Christopher Dickey, The New Republic, 12/26/1983. Photograph by Susan Meiselas. “El Salvador: The State of Siege Continues,” by Richard J. Meislin, New York Times Magazine, 2/20/1983. Photographs by Susan Meiselas. These articles are available on the touch-screen computer at the end of the exhibition. Case 3

Facsimile Documents from the Museum of the Word and Image, San Salvador

“Qué es Radio Venceremos y cómo apoyarla”, Radio Venceremos “1982: un año de victoria popular”, Venceremos (órgano oficial del FMLN) Publicado por la Liga Anticommunista Salvadoreña El Salvador: Revista Internacional, No. 4, 1981

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“Incidentes en Entierro de Monseñor Romero”, El Diario de Hoy, Lunes 31 de Marzo de 1980 These materials are available on the touch-screen computer at the end of the exhibition.

43 Richard Cross Trenches dug by guerrillas, Cabañas, 1981-1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 44 (top) Christian Poveda (French) Fabricating explosives in “liberated zone,” Chalatenango, October 1981 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 45 (bottom) Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Field hospital in “liberated zone,” Morazán, 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 46 Christian Poveda (French) Dance in a guerilla camp, Chalatenango, October 1981 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer

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Forché Panel – “It’s easier for us to fight in many ways than for the soldier. He is given a gun and a uniform, but even his uniform is deducted from his pay. He thinks if he is a good soldier, someday his commanding officer will do something for him, maybe get him a job. When they leave the army and go back to their village it is the same life. No work, no food, and people they knew have been killed. I think many of them will join us eventually. It is a matter of what happens inside the soldier when he goes back to his village. We have already seen the beginning of this.” “I feel sorry for the soldier. Most of them come from the campo (countryside) and when they get to the city, they see how people live, with water and electricity. They see that the middle-class boys aren’t drafted, and it is only themselves fighting, campesinos (peasant farmworkers). I have friends who are right now in the army. I think about them while I am fighting and I think they think about me. One thing different for us is that we fight beside women who feel as we do. The soldier fights only among men, but he doesn’t know what his fellow soldier thinks. If he does, he knows they will both be out in two years. We don’t know how long it will be for us.”

--- Carolyn Forché

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62 Michel Setboun (French, b. 1952) Training of civilian militia by guerrillas, Usulután, February 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Many campesinos (peasant farm workers) supported the guerrillas in a number of ways. Nearly all guerrilla fighters came from the rural population. Those who chose not to fight instead provided food, intelligence, and other forms of aid. These individuals took on what they saw as the moral struggle of the insurgency against El Salvador’s elite and the military that kept it in power. Even those who wanted to remain neutral, however, were drawn into the conflict by violence and pressure from both sides. Since most of the violence against civilians was committed by the government, and because the insurgents were fighting in the name of the marginalized rural poor, civilians in the countryside overwhelmingly chose to side with the rebels. 48 (top) John Hoagland (American, 1952-1983) Civilians flee as guerrillas burn trucks on the coastal highway, Usulután, 1980-1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 47 (bottom) Harry Mattison (American, b. 1948) Building barricades on the coastal highway to prevent army access, Usulután, 1980-1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Forché Panel – “They have had a very strange ten years. Things were difficult for campesinos (peasant farmworkers) before, but in this ten years---” “There are those who are watching. One day they’ll give soup to the soldiers, the next day tortillas to the guerrillas. They’re waiting to see who is going to be what. They want their children to live. Some of them are angry. They say, ‘We’d rather live the way we did before than have all this death around us.’ Some say, ‘We’d rather die fighting than live the way we did before.’ It is different for each man and each woman, each child.”

--- Carolyn Forché 49 (top) Harry Mattison (American, b. 1948) Army on an operation, Morazán, January 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 50 (bottom) Arturo Robles Guerilla defends town of San Lorenzo against National Guard attack as civilians flee, 1982

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Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 51 Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Victims of the Mozote massacre, Morazán, January 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer On and around December 11, 1981, units of the Atlacatl Batallion and the Third Infantry Brigade murdered approximately 900 civilians in the village of El Mozote and the surrounding area after questioning the villagers and campesinos (peasant farm workers) about guerrilla activity in the area. The first mention in the Western press came on January 27, 1982, when Alma Guillermoprieto of the Washington Post and Raymond Bonner of the New York Times concurrently published accounts of the massacre. Guillermoprieto’s article was accompanied by a photograph by Susan Meiselas, whose images also ran the next month in an article in the New York Times Magazine. The Reagan administration and the Salvadoran government quickly denied the reports and, together with the Wall Street Journal, accused the Times and the Post of peddling guerrilla propaganda. Today, El Mozote is remembered as one of the worst atrocities of the Cold War. Leaders of the Atlacatl Battalion had received counter-insurgency training at the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia; consequently, the enormity of the massacre put intense pressure on President Reagan to show that the U.S. was not supporting human rights abuses with military aid. After Congressional Democrats attempted to reduce aid to El Salvador, the Reagan administration embarked on a campaign to convince Democrats and the general public that the human rights situation was improving. In late 1982, Congress voted to double military aid to $82 million. Forché Panel – Sometimes in the countryside you will come upon a tree that has been decorated with strips of paper, rags, and garbage. This is because the tree failed to bear fruit in its good year. The people tie things to the tree to make it feel ashamed, to embarrass it in front of other trees, so that the next year fruit will come. One day in the campo (countryside), in an area where there had been some killings, there was a tree with skin and hair hanging from its branches. It looked like rags and garbage. The soldiers who had done this were from the campo. They knew what it meant to hang things on a tree.

--- Carolyn Forché

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Case 4

El Mozote – I

“Salvadoran Peasants Describe Mass Killing,” by Alma Guillermoprieto, The Washington Post, 1/27/1982. Photograph by Susan Meiselas. “Massacre of Hundreds Reported in Salvador Village,” by Raymond Bonner, The New York Times, 1/27/1982. “U.S. Disputes Report of 926 Killed in El Salvador,” by Barbara Crossette, The New York Times, 02/02/1982 “The Can-Do Bombardier,” by Sydney Schanberg, The New York Times, 02/06/1982 “The Media's War,” editorial, The Wall Street Journal, 02/10/1982 On and around December 11, 1981, units of the Atlacatl Batallion and the Third Infantry Brigade murdered approximately 900 civilians in the village of El Mozote and the surrounding area after questioning the villagers and campesinos about guerrilla activity in the area. The first mention in the Western press came on January 27, 1982, when Alma Guillermoprieto of the Washington Post and Raymond Bonner of the New York Times concurrently published accounts of the massacre. Guillermoprieto’s article was accompanied by a photograph by Susan Meiselas, whose images also ran the next month in an article in the New York Times Magazine. The Reagan administration and the Salvadoran government quickly denied the reports and, together with the Wall Street Journal, accused the Times and the Post of peddling guerrilla propaganda. These articles are available on the touch-screen computer at the end of the exhibition.

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Case 5

El Mozote – II “Salvador Urges Increase in Arms; Visiting Congressmen Oppose Aid,” by Raymond Bonner, The New York Times, 2/20/1982 “With the Rebels in El Salvador,” New York Times Magazine, 2/21/1982. Photograph by Susan Meiselas. “Salvador Skeletons Confirm Reports of Massacre in 1981,” by Tim Golden, The New York Times, 10/26/1992 “The Mozote Horror, Confirmed,” editorial, The New York Times, 10/26/1992 “The Truth of El Mozote,” by Mark Danner, The New Yorker, 12/6/1993. Photograph by Stephen Ferry. EL MOZOTE: LA MASSACRE 25 AÑOS DESPUÉS, by Pedro Linger Gasiglia, 2007 In 1990 a criminal complaint against the Atlacatl Battalion led to a judge’s order for remains to be exhumed at El Mozote. After the peace accords were signed in 1992, Tutela Legal, the human rights office of the Archbishop of San Salvador, invited members of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team to join the El Mozote exhumation, supervised by the U.N. Truth Commission. Their findings confirmed that a massacre of several hundred had taken place at El Mozote, and that the deaths were clearly not the result of armed conflict between the military and the guerillas, as Salvadoran and U.S. officials had claimed. Human rights advocates consider El Mozote a turning point for the human rights movement because it marked the first time that an investigative approach was used to document abuses. In addition, the massacre prompted the first-ever use of the Geneva Conventions for assessing human rights abuse in Central America. Currently, human rights advocates in El Salvador have been challenging the country's 1993 amnesty law and examining recent Supreme Court rulings for opportunities to prosecute those responsible for the massacre at El Mozote. According to the 1993 U.N.Truth Commission, 85% of the human rights abuses during the war were committed by government forces, 7% by the FMLN, and the rest are unsolved. For more information about El Mozote, please see the adjacent exhibition case as well as Pedro Linger-Gasiglia’s video “El Mozote: the massacre 25 years later” at the end of the exhibition. Many of the complete articles are available on the touch-screen computer at the end of the exhibition. 63 Richard Cross Telephone lines downed by guerrillas, Coastal Highway, 1981-1982

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Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 52 Christian Poveda (French) Portraits of guerrillas, Chalatenango, January and October 1981 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 53 Christian Poveda (French) Guerrillas retreat after stripping dead soldier for his uniform and rifle, Chalatenango, October 1981 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 55 (top) Harry Mattison (American, b. 1948) Wounded army officer being evacuated by helicopter, Guazapa, March 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 54 (bottom) Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Soldiers under fire, Cabañas, 1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 69 Harry Mattison (American, b. 1948) Soldiers with their mutilated victims, Chalatenango Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Forché Panel – We remember the long lines of the last election, the sun hissing midday heat over the crowds and in some villages the people ducking into polling places under gunfire. It was an election, and people voted in record numbers. “Yes,” the campesino (peasant farmworker) says, “in my village we voted. Many people had already left because of fear and couldn’t vote. A poor man doesn’t vote because he has no address. His shack, what address can it have?” “Last time they said we would be voting for peace. In some places when you vote they make a mark on your thumb with ink that doesn’t wash off to keep you from voting twice. They also take the number of your ID card for the ballot. The National Guard comes to the village and says, ‘We will know how you vote.’ What difference does it make? If I don’t vote, people say I am a subversive. If our whole village doesn’t vote, that is the end of our village. Everybody votes.”

--- Carolyn Forché

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56 Richard Cross José Napoleón Duarte, PDC candidate, campaigning, San Salvador, March 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer In March 1982, after a year of increased violence and political killings, Salvadoran citizens went to the polls to elect a new Constituent Assembly. The Reagan administration, wary of letting public opinion in the U.S. turn too strongly against continued military aid to El Salvador, supported the centrist Christian Democratic Party (PDC), led by José Napoleón Duarte, against the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). The founder of ARENA, former Major Roberto D’Aubuisson, was a principal organizer of the death squads and was later implicated in the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero. Prior to the election, the Central Intelligence Agency poured $2 million into El Salvador in an attempt to ensure a PDC victory. The PDC won more seats than any other political party, but ARENA’s seats, combined with the right-wing coalition, made up a majority in the new Constituent Assembly. The Assembly would likely have appointed D’Aubuisson as president, but when the U.S. asserted that this would jeopardize military aid, the Assembly nominated Alvaro Magaña, a moderate who was one of Reagan’s preferred candidates. Magaña’s cabinet included members of the three major parties, including Duarte’s PDC. Duarte was subsequently elected as president in 1984. 57 (top) Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Guerrilla dragged through the streets of Cuscatlancingo the day before elections, March 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 58 (bottom) James Nachtwey (American, b. 1948) Voting lines, San Salvador, March 1982 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 59 J. Ross Baughman (American, b. 1953) Entrance of the US Embassy, San Salvador, March 25, 1981 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 60 (top) Eugene Richards (American, b. 1944) U.S. adviser at naval base, La Unión, 1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer

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61 (bottom) Eugene Richards (American, b. 1944) U.S. Special Forces adviser instructs soldiers in use of M203 grenade launcher, Hopango, 1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer Although the Carter and Reagan administrations were limited by law in the number of troops they could station in El Salvador, both administrations maintained a presence of military advisers and trained Salvadoran counter-insurgency squads extensively at the controversial U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. The United States provided over $6 billion in aid to the Salvadoran government over the course of its twelve years. 67 Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Firing range used by U.S. trained Atlactl Battalion, 1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 66 John Hoagland (American, 1952-1983) Independence Day military parade, National Stadium, San Salvador, 1980-1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 65 (top) Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Mother and daughter killed by government bombing, San Francisco Javier, 1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer The war left few families untouched by violence. Being aligned with any particular political group or side in the conflict did not promise immunity from danger. One of the conflict’s central social legacies is that of families torn apart and destroyed. 64 (bottom) Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) Mother of dead soldier receiving his coffin, Dolores, 1983 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer 68 Harry Mattison (American, b. 1948) Cleaning the Presidential Palace, San Salvador. 1981 Gelatin silver print Gift of the photographer

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Pedestal El Salvador: Work of Thirty Photographers, edited by Harry Mattison, Susan Meiselas, and Fae Rubenstein (New York: Writers and Readers Pub. Cooperative, 1983) The 30 photographers that contributed to this book were: Aslak Aarhus Carlos Aparicio/Black Star Ross Baughman/Visions Cynthia Brito/F4 Patrick Chauvel/Sygma Richard Cross/Black Star Owen Franken/Sygma Gianni Giansanti Mike Goldwater/Network Alain Hartig John Hoagland/Gamma-Liaison Oswald Iten/Black Star Cindy Karp/UPI Alain Keler/Sygma Harry Mattison Susan Meiselas/Magnum Ivan Montecino/UPI Etienne Montes James Nachtwey/Black Star Bob Nickelsberg/Woodfin Camp Michel Philippot Christian Poveda Olivier Rebbot Eli Reed/San Francisco Examiner Eugene Richards/Magnum Arturo Robles/Black Star Michel Setboun/Sipa Kenneth Silverman/Wheeler Pictures Bill Stanton Chris Steele-Perkins/Magnum

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HRC Panel – El Salvador’s Path Toward Peace In November 1989 the FMLN launched an offensive in several major cities, which the military countered by indiscriminately bombing working class neighborhoods in San Salvador. The fighting revealed two compelling facts: the military could not defeat the guerrillas, and the civilian population would not rise up and join the revolution. Later that month, the murder of six Jesuit priests and two others by the U.S. trained Atlacatl battalion drew international censure. 1989 also signaled the end of the Cold War, the lens through which the U.S. viewed and justified its financial support for the Salvadoran military. U.N. mediated peace negotiations began in 1990, and the peace accords were signed in January 1992. The accords provided for the demobilization of military and guerrilla forces, changes in the responsibilities and size of the military, electoral and judicial reforms, and limited social and economic programs. An amnesty law, favored by both parties to the conflict, was also passed, exempting all those responsible for extrajudicial crimes. This immunity and the failure of the accords to address the land-tenure issues that gave rise to the conflict would later prove to be significant impediments to reconciliation in post-war El Salvador. 70 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) San Antonio de los Ranchos, Chalatenango, El Salvador, 1988 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer While playing, Abelito, an orphan boy, finds fragments of an American-made mortar that exploded near his home. 71 (top) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Sonsonate, El Salvador, 1989 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer Lucia Cubas, a cleaning woman residing in Houston, TX, returns to El Salvador to verify for Americas Watch whether the exhumed remains in an unmarked grave are those of her “disappeared” son. The body showing evidence of torture and execution style murder proves to be that of Lucia’s 32-year-old son, an ecomonics student. 72 (bottom) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Barrio, San Salvador, 1989 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer

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Child near dead civilian reportedly killed by Salvadoran death squads. 73 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Jesuit Murders, November, 1989 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer On November 16, 1989, Father Ignacio Ellacuría, the progressive rector of the University of Central America whose work focused on liberation philosophy and theology, was assassinated along with five other Jesuit priests: Ignacio Martin-Baro, a libreration theology social psychologist and vice-rector of the UCA; Segundo Montes, director of the Human Rights Institute; Joaquin López y López; Amando López; and Juan Ramón Moreno, all teachers at UCA. Their housekeeper and cook, Elba Ramos, and her daughter, Celina Mariceth Ramos, were also murdered. The following month, U.S. Congressman Joe Moakley was appointed chairman of a task force to investigate the Jesuit murders. In January 1990, President Alfredo Cristiani detained Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides Moreno along with junior officers and enlisted men of Atlacatl Battalion, the same battalion responsible for the El Mozote massacre in 1981 in connection with the murders. A year later, Congressman Moakley’s report accused the armed forces of controlling the investigation. In September 1991, Colonel Benavides was found guilty for ordering all of the Jesuits’ murders, and Lieutenant Mendoza Vallecillos was found guilty for ordering the murder of the young girl. Two months later, Congressman Moakley issued a statement that the murders were planned at a meeting of senior military officers, none of whom were ever brought to justice. 74 (top) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Soyapango, El Salvador, 1989 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer While waving white flags, civilians flee aerial strafing and rocketing of their neighborhoods by the military during the guerrilla offensive. While the guerrillas had largely invaded the upper and middle class neighborhoods, the military dropped the bulk of their bombs on the working class residential neighborhoods. 75 (bottom) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) U.S.-Mexican border crossing, 1991 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer Salvadoran youths escaping the conflict in their homeland have dug a pathway to the U.S. side of the new INS border fence intended to stem the flow of illegal migrants.

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Case 6

The Jesuit Murders, 1989 El asesinato de los jesuitas, 1989

Human Rights Watch flyer. Photographs by Donna DeCesare and Maddy Miller. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. “Whodunit?,” by David Helvarg, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, 11/29/1989. Photograph by Donna DeCesare. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. “No Way Out,” by James Ridgeway, The Village Voice, 11/28/1989. Photograph by Donna DeCesare. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. “The Last Essay of Father Ellacuria,” by Ignacio Ellacuria, The Village Voice, 11/28/1989. Photograph by Donna DeCesare. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. “Taking the rod to the Class of '66,” by Linda Robinson with Douglas Farah, U.S. News & World Report, 2/5/1990. Photographs by Donna DeCesare and Jason Bleibtreu. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. These articles are available on the touch-screen computer at the end of the exhibition. Case 7

Civil War, 1989-1992 La Guerra Civil, 1989-1992

“El Salvador's ‘Death Squad’ Party Goes Legit,” by Patrick Lacefield, Newsday, 4/3/1989. Photograph by Donna DeCesare. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. “The Guns of Salvador,” by James LeMoyne, New York Times Magazine, 2/5/1989. Photographs by Donna DeCesare, Vic Hinterlang, and Simona Calì Cocuzza. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. “El Salvador’s Tet,” by Chris Norton, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, 11/29, 1989. Photograph by Donna DeCesare. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. “The Salvadorans Make Peace in a ‘Negotiated Revolution,’” by Tim Golden, The New York Times, 1/5/1992. Photographs by Donna DeCesare and UPI. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. “El Salvador's Army: A Force Unto Itself,” by Joel Millman, New York Times Magazine, 12/10/1989. Photographs by Donna DeCesare. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. Many of these articles are available on the touch-screen computer at the end of the exhibition.

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Case 8

Diaspora and Gangs Diaspora y las Pandillas

“Sad Ritual,” by Ana Puga, Houston Chronicle, 2/12/1989. Photograph by Donna DeCesare. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. “El Salvador: War, Poverty and Migration,” by Donna DeCesare, Fellowship, 3/1993. Photographs by Donna DeCesare. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. “A New U.S. Import in El Salvador: Street Gangs,” by Mike O'Connor, The New York Times, 7/3/1994. Photograph by Donna DeCesare. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. Mother Jones, July/August 1999. Photograph by Donna DeCesare. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. “The Children of War: Street Gangs in El Salvador,” by Donna DeCesare, NACLA Report on the Americas, July/August 1998. Photograph by Donna DeCesare. Courtesy of Donna DeCesare. These articles are available on the touch-screen computer at the end of the exhibition. HRC Panel – Transnational Gangs Those fleeing El Salvador’s war arrived in Los Angeles to labor in menial jobs. The dollars they sent home could not always insulate their children from broken families, alcoholism, or war trauma. For some youths in both countries, gangs offered an alternative family and financial rewards. The Salvadoran Peace Accords coincided with an aggressive shift in U.S. immigration policy. During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, nearly 1,000 Salvadoran youths were rounded up by INS agents and deported. L.A. gangs have been spreading in El Salvador ever since. Today, “transnational” gangs have become a counter-terrorism target for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. El Salvador’s “Hard Hand” policing policies have disturbing echoes from the past. Yet gangs continue to grow more violent. Donna DeCesare has photographed the spread of L.A. gangs in Central America for more than a decade. Her pictorial narratives following Jessica Díaz in Los Angeles and Edgar Bolaños in El Salvador as each struggles to break free from haunting and intimate, memories of violence and violation.

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76 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Juvenile Prison, Los Angeles, 1994 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer When DeCesare met Jessica Diaz she was at the Ventura Training School, the only juvenile correctional facility in California that interns girls. Jessica spoke of her memories of El Salvador. From the window of their tiny house, three-year-old Jessica had watched as government soldiers took her father outside and shot him in the head. Since then she has been haunted by the memories of other violent deaths. 77 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Altar, San Salvador, 1994 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer In El Salvador, Jessica’s half-sister Sonia Diaz tapes memorials to her family’s tragedies on the mirror. The photographs show her father who was killed by soldiers, her brother killed in gang wars in Los Angeles, her brother in jail in El Salvador, and her sister Jessica in jail in California. Sonia is the only one of the siblings who didn’t go to Los Angeles and the only one who did not become a gang member. 78 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Visiting Day, Los Angeles, 1995 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer Jessica embraces her mother Carmen and her son Carlos on visiting day at the Ventura Juvenile Correctional Facility, 1995. Addled by an addiction to crack, she had been persuaded to help her drug dealer rob a bank. “He said with the money we could go away somewhere else. I hated my life. I wanted to escape as far away as I could.” 79 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Victor Diaz, San Salvador, 1995 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer Victor still never talks about it. He was six years old when he saw Salvadoran soldiers murder his father. His tattoos read “In memory of my father Victor” and “In memory of my brother Ulises.”

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80 (top) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Memorial, Los Angeles, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer Carmen Diaz keeps a memorial to the latest family tragedy in her home in Los Angeles. The murder rate in El Salvador now surpasses the death toll during the war years. Victor Diaz has become part of these tragic statistics. He was murdered in El Salvador in 1996. His family assumes the murder was gang related, but it was never investigated. 81 (bottom) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Jessica and Danny, Los Angles, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer Jessica fell in love with Danny. They steal a moment to themselves. “I don’t know what I’d do without Danny. He has really supported me.” 82 (top) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Jessica at home, Los Angeles, 1998 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer At first parole was hard for Jessica. She changed her homegirl look but no one would give her a job when they found out about her past. Her son Carlos refused to accept her as his mommy. “I felt no one loved me and for some weeks I went back to drugs,” she says. Finally she found help and acceptance from the Los Angeles Conservation Corp.: a place to continue her studies, get counseling, and get work experience in community-based environmental projects. Jessica and Danny are raising their daughter Cassandra together. Although Carlos still lives with his grandmother, Carmen, he visits. Jessica hopes that one day he will come to live with her and Danny. But meanwhile she says, “Carlos is all my mom has besides me, now that my brothers are gone. We can work it out.” 83 (bottom) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Bathtime, Los Angeles, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer After watching his grandma Carmen bathe his baby sister Cassandra, Carlos decides to give it a try with his puppy.

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84 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Family Gathering, Los Angeles, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer On Thanksgiving afternoon friends and family relax at Jessica’s home. Danny advises a young friend against joining a gang. 85 (top) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Protest, Los Angeles, 1994 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer The symbol Salvadoran activists formerly used to protest the U.S. backed war in their country is now used by immigrant rights groups to protest deportation to Central America and laws that would deny education and health care to the undocumented. 86 (middle) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Watts, Los Angeles, 1994 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer Esperanza holds her lame pet pigeon. She calls it Giovanni after her 15 year-old uncle who was paralyzed in a drive-by shooting. Giovanni never leaves home without one of his guns for protection. He hides it in his wheelchair. 87 (bottom) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) INS Sweeps, Los Angeles, 1994 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer Immigration agents from the Violent Gang Task Force detain youths with tattoos and baggy pants. Anyone without a residency number or some proof of being American citizen is taken to the processing center for a police and immigration check and possible deportation. 88 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Suchitoto, El Salvador, 1992 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer

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An image of the promise of peace in El Salvador. An elderly peasant stands over the first corn sprouting on lands that he and fellow villagers were forced to abandon 12 years ago. Now that war has ended they are returning to remake their lives. 89 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Edgar Bolaños, San Salvador, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer When Edgar was three years old he witnessed the Salvadoran army massacre the men from his village. His father was rumored to have been “disappeared” and his uncles were murdered. “We couldn’t bury them,” Edgar remembers. “If we tried the soldiers would say we were communists and kill us too. So dogs came and soon there were only bones.” When the army began threatening his mother, Ana, she left. First she went to San Salvador and then to the United States leaving her four sons with her parents. For five years Edgar lived with his grandma and grandpa while his mother saved the money to bring him and her other sons to Los Angeles. When Edgar’s two older brothers joined the Mara Salvatrucha gang in Los Angeles, his mother sent him back to El Salvador thinking she could save him. He was fourteen years old. But Edgar found that LA gangs wage war in El Salvador, too. After his brother Jose was murdered in Los Angeles, Edgar reacted by taking his dead brother’s gang name “Shy Boy.” Shortly after Jose’s body was sent for burial in El Salvador, Edgar tattooed his mother’s name Ana and a tombstone with the name “Shy Boy” on his back. He began hanging out in the gang crash pads in San Salvador that have become his home. 90 (top) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Edgar’s mother, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer In Los Angeles Ana Bolaños frets about fresh uncertainties the new U.S. immigration law brings. In the past Ana could sneak back over the border to see Edgar in El Salvador. But now the INS doesn’t only deport those entering illegally. Those who re-enter illegally, as Ana must, could face prison. She would lose her chances at U.S. citizenship. The separation in their family is especially hard on Ana. She writes to her son often, but he seldom writes back. 91 (bottom) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Letter, Santa Ana, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer “My dear Edgar, All I want is for you to have a decent life, to find peace and happiness. I don’t think you will find those things the way you are living now. Why don’t you stay with my father? He is old and could use your help.” When Edgar finishes his mother’s letter there are tears in his eyes.

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92 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Gang crash pad, San Salvador, 1995 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer Edgar’s girlfriend “Little Crazy” (in the foreground) also used to live in Los Angeles. Her mother sent her to El Salvador thinking it would keep her safe from gangs. 93 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Shy Boy, San Salvador, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer Embracing his homeboy’s daughter, Shy Boy says: “I want a family of my own, but first I need a house, a job, I need a future.” 94 (top) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) “Crazy Big Gangstas,” 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer This corner is territory of the “Crazy Big Gangstas,” a subgroup or clique of the Mara Salvatrucha gang of Los Angeles. Most of the fifteen and sixteen year old “gangstas” in this enclave have never lived in Los Angeles. 95 (bottom) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Punishment, San Salvador, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer There has been an argument among the gang members. A homeboy made a pass at another gang member’s wife. The leaders of the Crazy Big Gangsta clique decide to hold a meeting to resolve the dispute. The judgement is called “giving court.” Punishment takes place during the gang meeting. 96 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Revenge pact, San Salvador, 1996 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer

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One of the top leaders from the Mara Salvatrucha gang has been murdered inside Mariona prison. Homeboys from the San Salvador cliques of Edgar’s gang gather to attend the funeral and make a pact of revenge over their leader’s grave. 97 (top) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Piedra, San Salvador, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer Cocaine was once the drug of the wealthy, but now many gang members have become addicted. Edgar’s homeboy Spider prepares piedra, or crack cocaine mixed with marajuana. 98 (bottom) Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Piedra, San Salvador, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer When Edgar hears rumors that his girlfriend is going with another homeboy, he becomes despondant. “I feel angry at her, but I love her,” Edgar says. “Now I don’t care about anything.” 99 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Edgar Bolaños, San Salvador, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer “There are lots of people here who want to kill me. I don’t mean homeboys. I mean the really bad people from the organized crime rings and other people who just hate us.” Some of Edgar’s friends die in gang fights; a death squad known as “The Black Shadow” murders others. 100 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Edgar with his grandfather, Santa Ana, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer “I was afraid someone would kill me,” Edgar says. “So I left the city and went to my grandfather’s for a month. Now my girlfriend won’t talk to me.” Edgar thinks of staying to help his grandfather, but he grows restless easily. The backbreaking work the peasants do is too hard for his grandfather, but he misses the action of the city. “I am proud that we are peasants. Peasants are humble and generous. But I could never settle in the country. I miss the action of the city, then I grow bored of that, too. Wherever I go I want to be someplace else.”

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101 Donna DeCesare (American, b. 1955) Jose’s Grave, Sonsonate, El Salvador, 1997 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the photographer A few miles from the soccer field where the Salvadoran army tortured and murdered his uncles and other men from his village, Edgar searches a cemetery for his brother Jose’s grave. “My mom brought me back here to El Salvador because Jose told her some Eighteenth Street gang members were going to kill me in Los Angeles,” Edgar says in a low voice. “The bullet meant for me got him instead.” Edgar now lies in Sonsonate in the same grave with his brother Jose: the fragile light of his dreams extinguished by an assassin’s bullets. Who killed Edgar Bolaños?

* * * * * On January 9, 1999, after breakfast Edgar’s girlfriend began nursing their two-month-old son. He didn’t want to smoke in the house, so he grabbed his cigarettes and told his girl he’d be back in a few minutes. He never returned. Witnesses who spoke with his mother said that a car with polarized windows drove up and someone blasted Edgar’s chest full of bullets. The police claimed they had no clues. But people in the barrio told his mother that the drive-by shooting was done by a death squad of local vigilantes. Edgar was 20 years old. DeCesare Panel – Epilogue Gangs are a social problem and a social indicator. In both the U.S. and El Salvador many of the young people involved in gangs expect to die young. Is this a choice, or is it the result of failed public policy and shrinking options for youth in each country? Deportees denied the minimal anchors of family and “home” become caught in a revolving door—leaving and returning—their lives turned inside out. El Salvador has responded to the “gang threat” by criminalizing tattoos and granting police broad powers. Social cleansing is tolerated or even welcomed. The U.S. has also responded with a national crackdown on “immigrant gangs.” Rejected and feared at each turn, they enter a cycle of hopelessness with nothing left to lose. One of the lessons learned from El Salvador’s past and U.S. government involvement there during the 1980s is clear: when justice is denied, it not only inspires moral outrage, it also generates violence. Whether resistance to repression takes the form of revolution or tragically finds expression in suicidal nihilism, the essential catalysts are injustice and impunity. Who killed Edgar Bolaños? It is a question that should haunt us all.

--Donna DeCesare

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Video Program El Mozote: The Massacre 25 Years Later, by Pedro Linger-Gasiglia, 2007 In English, 12 minutes 10 Years Taking the Sky by Storm, Colectivo Radio Venceremos, 1992 In Spanish, subtitled in English, 11 minutes La Vida por la Mara, Univision, 2006 In Spanish, subtitled in English, 5 minutes Chronology

El Salvador: A Chronology 1850–1900 Coffee exports dominate the Salvadoran economy and vast coffee plantations are

formed. These “coffee oligarchies” control Salvadoran politics and build an army to suppress peasant farmer unrest.

1932 Labor and peasant leaders, including Augustín Farabundo Martí, the founder of the

Salvadoran Communist Party, call for an armed revolt against the government. The rebellion fails and the military kills 20,000–30,000 people, mostly indigenous peasants, in retaliation. The event is remembered as la matanza (the slaughter). The military takes control and rules for nearly 50 years.

1960s In the wake of revolution in Cuba, the U.S. creates the “Alliance for Progress” for

El Salvador that encourages rural development, land reform, and elections. These reforms are opposed and often blocked by the landed oligarchy and much of the military.

1972 José Napoleón Duarte, the winner of the popular vote in the presidential election,

is forced into exile by a military faction. 1977 Jesuit priest Father Rutilio Grande is assassinated, opening a wave of military

repression against progressive Catholic clergy. Archbishop Óscar Romero calls for an investigation and urges popular demonstrations.

1979 A military coup establishes the Revolutionary Government Junta (JRG). It

proposes to end violence and corruption, guarantee respect for human rights, and enact socioeconomic reforms. The JRG is distrusted by leftist factions and opposed by a core of military officers, led by former Major Roberto D’Aubuisson.

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D’Aubuisson and his death squads receive considerable support from the wealthy whose interests are threatened.

1980 In February, President Jimmy Carter announces $50 million in aid. Military

repression continues and goes unpunished. In March, Archbishop Romero is assassinated. At the funeral, attended by 80,000 people, explosives and gunfire kill 39. In May, D’Aubuisson is arrested for plotting a right-wing coup and is implicated in Archbishop Romero’s assassination. In June, government troops occupy and shut down the National University, killing at least 50 students. In November, four guerrilla groups and the Communist Party form the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). In December, four U.S. churchwomen are abducted, raped, and murdered. The U.S. State Department suspends military aid. José Napoleón Duarte is named president after a government reshuffling, and Washington resumes aid.

1981 In January, the FMLN launches a coordinated attack across El Salvador. The junta

declares martial law. President Carter sends $5 million in emergency military aid. Ronald Reagan is sworn in as president on January 20. In February, State Department officials confirm that future aid to El Salvador will not be contingent on progress in the investigation of the murder of the U.S. churchwomen. In December, Army troops, including members of the U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion, conduct a “search and destroy” mission in the Morazán department, killing as many as 1,000 civilians in El Mozote and the surrounding villages.

1982 In January, President Reagan certifies to Congress that El Salvador’s government is

“making a concerted and significant effort to comply with international recognized human rights.” In February, the Reagan administration announces it is bypassing Congress and sending an additional $55 million in emergency military aid. In March, approximately 1.2 million Salvadorans vote in the general elections. The right-wing coalition wins control of the Constituent Assembly and elects D’Aubuisson as its president. In May, the Assembly effectively guts past agrarian reforms. In August, guerrillas step up their campaign against the Salvadoran economy by orchestrating large power outages.

1983 In March, President Reagan calls for $110 million in military aid, saying that El

Salvador is “the first target” in a Soviet-Cuban campaign to spread “revolution without frontiers” up to the U.S. border.

1984 In May, José Napoleón Duarte, the U.S. backed center-left coalition leader, is

elected president. Later that month, four National Guardsmen and a Deputy Sergeant are convicted and imprisoned for the 1980 rape and murder of the four U.S. churchwomen. In October and November, talks begin between the Salvadoran government and opposition organizations, including the FMLN.

1985 The FMLN kidnaps President Duarte’s daughter and a friend. Father Ignacio

Ellacuría, the rector of the University of Central America, works to negotiate an exchange of the kidnapped women for FMLN political prisoners. The following year, the Nationalist Republican Alliance party (ARENA) launches a campaign to strip Spanish-born Ellacuría of his citizenship.

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1989 In March, ARENA candidate Alfredo Cristiani is elected president. In September, talks resume between the government and the FMLN. Father Ellacuría outlines his idea of a “new phase in the Salvadoran peace process.” On November 11, the FMLN launches a general offensive in major cities and the Salvadoran army responds by bombing residential working class neighborhoods in San Salvador. On November 16, Father Ellacuría, five other Jesuit priests, and two others are assassinated at the University of Central America. In December, U.S. Congressman Joe Moakley is appointed to investigate the Jesuit murders.

1990 In January, President Cristiani detains Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides

Moreno, junior officers, and enlisted men of Atlacatl Batallion in the investigation of the Jesuit murders. In May, the U.S. House of Representatives votes to cut aid to El Salvador in half. Under United Nations auspices, the Salvadoran government and the FMLN agree to begin serious negotiations to end the civil war.

1991 In June, Washington reinstates military aid funding in full. In September, Colonel

Benavides and a lieutenant are found guilty of the Jesuit murders. In November, Congressman Moakley issues a statement that the murders were planned at a meeting of senior military officers, none of whom were ever brought to justice.

1992 In January, the Peace Accords of El Salvador are signed in Mexico. Over the

course of the civil war, approximately 80,000 people have been killed (most of them civilians) and as many as 1.5 million people have fled the country. In July, U.N. Truth Commission begins examining acts of violence committed during the war.

1994–2008 After having committed over $6 billion to the Salvadoran military over the past

dozen years, the U.S. greatly reduced aid to El Salvador to help it rebuild after the war. El Salvador holds elections including coalition candidates of the FMLN, ARENA, and other parties.

Chronology compiled from: Harry Mattison, Susan Meiselas, and Fae Rubenstein, eds., El Salvador: Work of Thirty Photographers (New York: Writers and Readers Pub. Cooperative, 1983); Teresa Whitfield, Paying the Price: Ignacia Ellacuría and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994); and www.pbs.org/itvs/enemiesofwar/.