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  • In 1984, a group of radio broadcasters and operators

  • walked into the abandoned village of El Mozote in El Salvador.

  • Fireflies illuminated the remnants of a massacre

  • that had taken place three years earlier.

  • Led by Colonel Domingo Monterrosa,

  • government soldiers had tortured, raped, and murdered 978 people,

  • including 553 children.

  • The youngest victim, Concepción Sánchez, was just three days old.

  • Both the US and Salvadoran governments denied the massacre had taken place,

  • and the slaughter left few people alive to tell their story.

  • But with the help of Radio Venceremos, one of those survivors, Rufina Amaya,

  • shared her testimony

  • exposing both Monterrosa and the governments funding his crimes.

  • This massacre was one in a long line of atrocities

  • committed against El Salvador's farmers.

  • Since the 1800s, a handful of oligarchs

  • had controlled nearly all the country's land,

  • forcing laborers to work for almost nothing.

  • In 1932, Indigenous farm workers led an insurrection,

  • but the dictatorial government responded by committing genocide

  • against these communities.

  • From then on, one military dictatorship after another ruled the country

  • in concert with wealthy landowners.

  • Their power only grew in the 1960s,

  • when the United States began supplying the regime with military aid.

  • The US wanted to stop the spread of reformist and revolutionary movements,

  • which they saw as threats to capitalism.

  • So they spent huge sums of money training Salvadoran soldiers anddeath squads”—

  • fascist military units versed in brutal counter-insurgency methods.

  • Throughout the 1970s, these forces slaughtered farmers

  • who organized to demand basic rights,

  • such as living wages, food, and clean water.

  • Finally, in 1980, farmers and urban workers formed

  • the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front.

  • This coalition of guerrilla groups fought to overthrow the dictatorship

  • and build a socialist society that met the needs of laborers.

  • These revolutionaries were attacked from every direction.

  • Colonel Monterrosa led a special battalion intent on destroying the FMLN,

  • using tactics he'd learned at an American military school.

  • State forces terrorized farmers to stop them

  • from joining or aiding the guerrillas.

  • But one group of rebels would not be silenced:

  • the operators of Radio Venceremos.

  • This clandestine guerrilla radio began in 1981,

  • and its broadcasters Santiago and Mariposa became the voice of the revolution.

  • They transmitted news from the front lines

  • and reported military abuses that no other source covered.

  • The station's politics and popularity made it a high-profile target.

  • And because they operated in a relatively small area,

  • its broadcasters had to move constantly to evade capture.

  • To communicate undetected, the group modified to radios into telephones,

  • linked together through kilometers of barbed wire covering the countryside.

  • This secret telephone line helped the rebels

  • stay one step ahead of their pursuers.

  • In addition to reporting news,

  • the radio broadcast educational programs in areas under guerrilla control.

  • Here, farmers organized democratic councils to govern themselves,

  • alongside cooperatives, schools, and medical clinics.

  • Organizers also encouraged civilian women to participate in these councils

  • to ensure the revolution overthrew both capitalism and patriarchy.

  • Women made up roughly a third of the guerrillas,

  • working in a huge variety of roles.

  • Colonel Monterrosa was obsessed with destroying Radio Venceremos.

  • In October 1984,

  • government soldiers finally captured their radio transmitter.

  • Monterrosa himself went to retrieve the equipment

  • and held a theatrical press conference celebrating

  • hisdecisive blow to the subversives.”

  • But in reality, the radio team had outsmarted him once again.

  • The transmitter was boobytrapped.

  • Once Monterrosa's helicopter left the press conference,

  • radio members detonated the device over El Mozote,

  • killing the colonel near the village he had massacred.

  • Monterrosa's death was one victory in a much larger conflict.

  • The civil war raged on for 8 more years before concluding in 1992,

  • when peace accords dissolved the oppressive National Guard

  • and allowed the FMLN to become an electoral party.

  • But these accords didn't address problems of deep, structural inequality.

  • In 1993, the UN Truth Commission

  • reported that over 75,000 people died during the war.

  • Yet the Salvadoran legislature prevented the prosecution of war crimes

  • and continues to obstruct justice to this day.

  • As of 2021, no participating American officials have been put on trial,

  • and only one individual from the Salvadoran government

  • has been sentenced for war crimes.

  • Historical erasure exists in the US as well,

  • where these and other stories of US intervention in Central America

  • are rarely taught in public schools.

  • But the victims refuse to be forgotten.

  • Rufina Amaya continued to share her testimony until her death in 2007.

  • And survivors of other massacres still organize to denounce state violence.

  • They map old massacre sites, exhume and bury loved ones,

  • and build sanctuaries and museums,

  • all in the hope of pollinating a more just future.

In 1984, a group of radio broadcasters and operators

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