Rufina could not see the children; she could only hear their cries as the soldiers waded into them, slashing some with their machetes, crushing the skulls of others with the butts of their rifles. Many others -- the youngest children, most below the age of twelve -- the soldiers herded from the house of Alfredo Márquez across the street to the sacristy, pushing them, crying and screaming, into the dark tiny room. There the soldiers raised their M16s and emptied their magazines into the roomful of children.
Not all the children of El Mozote died at the sacristy. A young man now known as Chepe Mozote told me that when the townspeople were forced to assemble on the plaza that evening he and his little brother had been left behind in their house, on the outskirts of the hamlet, near the school. By the next morning, Chepe had heard plenty of shooting; his mother had not returned. "About six o'clock, around ten soldiers in camouflage uniforms came to the house," Chepe says. "They asked me where my mother was. I told them she had gone to the plaza the night before. I asked them if I could see my mother, and they said I couldn't but I should come with them to the playing field" -- near the school. "They said when we got there they would explain where my mother was."
Carrying his little brother, Chepe went with the soldiers and walked along with them as they searched house to house. "We found maybe fifteen kids," he says, "and then they took us all to the playing field. On the way, I heard shooting and I saw some dead bodies, maybe five old people." When they reached the playing field, "there were maybe thirty children," he says. "The soldiers were putting ropes on the trees. I was seven years old, and I didn't really understand what was happening until I saw one of the soldiers take a kid he had been carrying -- the kid was maybe three years old -- throw him in the air, and stab him with a bayonet.
"They slit some of the kids' throats, and many they hanged from the tree. All of us were crying now, but we were their prisoners -- there was nothing we could do. The soldiers kept telling us, 'You are guerrillas and this is justice. This is justice.' Finally, there were only three of us left. I watched them hang my brother. He was two years old. I could see I was going to be killed soon, and I thought it would be better to die running, so I ran. I slipped through the soldiers and dived into the bushes. They fired into the bushes, but none of their bullets hit me."
Lying amid the maguey that night, Rufina Amaya heard the chorus of screams dwindle to a few voices, and those grew weaker and weaker and finally ceased. She heard the officers order that fire be put to the house of Alfredo Márquez and the church and the sacristy, and from the maguey she saw the flames rise and then she heard faint cries start up again inside the buildings and the short bursts of gunfire finishing off a few wounded, who had been forced by the flames to reveal that they were still alive.
Soon the only sounds were those which trickled down from the hills -- laughter, intermittent screams, a few shots. On La Cruz, soldiers were raping the young girls who were left. On El Chingo and El Pinalito, other soldiers busied themselves making camp. Down in the hamlet, a few troops walked about here and there, patrolling. Not far from the still burning house of Israel Márquez, two soldiers halted suddenly, and one of them pointed to the patch of maguey. He lowered his rifle and fired, and after a moment his companion fired, too. In the patch of brush, the stream of bullets sent a dark-green rain of maguey shreds fluttering to the earth. Then the soldiers charged forward and began poking among the weeds.
- from The Massacre at El Mozote by Mark Danner.
Today marks twenty-five years that more than 733 men, women and children were savagely murdered by Salvadoran troops in a massacre that the Reagan administration, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times tried to deny ever took place. A good description of the backlash can be found here.
Bones do not lie, however, and in 1992 an Argentine forensic team began excavations on the site of the village once known as El Mozote, accounting for the remains of at least 200 victims. May they all rest in peace.
It's important to note the chilling anniversary of El Mozote. Those who forget history... well I guess we know the rest. With the likes of Eliot Abrams making NSC recommendations in today's White House, I guess it's not surprising to see the level of violence in Iraq today.
I'm reminded that he was one of the deniers of El Mozote, as well as a defender of the Atlacatl Battalion.
Posted by: Bill | December 20, 2006 at 04:23 AM