EL SALVADOR: PORTRAITS IN A REVOLUTION
1992
Produced by Laura Jackson
Narrated by Vertamae Grosvener
Introduction by Bill Moyers: El Salvador has known nothing but violence for 12 years. Rebel
forces are called the FMLN. 75,000 Salvadorans were killed during the 1980s. One-fifth of the
population became “displaced.” Can the country be demilitarized? This is a story about
transformational thinking. This report is about grassroots revolutionary democracy.
Black & white snapshots of El Salvador.
In February 1989, 8,000 refugees in Honduras chose to go home, although El Salvador was still
at war. Ten years earlier, the Salvadoran military had forced them to leave northern Morazán
Province. They named their new settlement in El Salvador the City of Segundo Montes.
Charles Beirne, S.J., talks about Montes. Montes worked for these refugees.
Montes came from an upper class Spanish family.
He came to El Salvador as a novice in the 1950s.
First he taught high school. Then he taught at UCA.
Priests rethought their role in light of liberation theology.
Demonstrations for justice were met with violence.
Montes testified before the U.S. Congress in 1989.
He told them there were 1 million Salvadoran refugees in the U.S. and that they had left El
Salvador because of repression.
Sylvia Rosales-Fike: The upper class helped to found UCA.
The Jesuits changed from training the elite to transforming the elite for the good of the
country.
Many in the upper class were skeptical of this change. Many resented it.
UCA (José Simeón Cañas University) was founded in 1965.
It moved quickly to the left.
Luis Ramos got letters from death squads.
Corinna Ramos talks about planes dropping bombs, being scared.
She got a note from her parents when they fled.
Rep. Joseph Moakley: People said the refugees were here for economic reasons only.
But Moakley’s research showed that they were fleeing oppression.
Salvadoran refugees give testimony.
Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
PORTRAITS IN A REVOLUTION
The Rio Sumpul massacre.
One-fifth of the Salvadoran population became refugees.
Grace Paley reads her poem, “In El Salvador.”
The Mothers of the Disappeared keep books on the dead and disappeared.
Refina Amaya tells about El Mozote, Dec. 11, 1981.
The Salvadoran soldiers most responsible for atrocities were trained by the U.S.
Daisi Cabellero talks about how the refugees were slowly transformed from individuals into a
community.
The literacy campaign in Colomoncagua (refugee camp in Honduras) was highly successful.
Nearly everything used in the camp was also produced or manufactured in the camp.
Visitación Argueta: We learned to work together, share ideas.
Exaltación Martinez worked as camp coordinator and receptionist for visiting delegations.
Montes at the camp.
The decision to live in community is the only realistic choice.
People in the system will oppose you.
They will call you subversives.
But your strength is to remain in community.
Rep. Joseph Moakley talks about meeting Montes at a Congressional hearing.
Rosales-Fike summaries Montes’s report:
A million Salvadoran refugees in the U.S.
They fled El Salvador for political reasons—to escape repression.
The return to Morazán Province
Montes encourages them.
Government officials discourage the move.
So do international observers.
They make their move in the summer of 1989.
After a Nov. 11 offensive by the FMLN, the government suspended repatriation.
The move is not complete until early 1990.
Rosales-Fike describes her last meeting with Segundo Montes, Nov. 1, 1989.
The murder of the Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter, Nov. 16, 1989.
A government spokesman refers to the victims as “terrorist priests.”
Charles Beirne: The soldiers tried to kill the university that night.
As the Jesuits are buried, the refugees move back to El Salvador from Honduras.
2
PORTRAITS IN A REVOLUTION
Joseph Moakley talks about serving on the Congressional fact-finding committee.
Luis Ramos didn’t think he would continue the struggle when he became an exile in the U.S.
But that’s what happened.
The trial of nine of the murderers was the first time in Salvadoran history that members of the
military were held responsible for killing civilians.
Moakley talks about being proud of what he helped to accomplish in El Salvador.
The formal peace accords were signed on January 16, 1992. They call for:
Reduction in the military
Land reform
Restructuring of government
El Salvador’s future is uncertain.
The army provides a way out of poverty for many.
Peace without justice is useless, say the Mothers of the Disappeared.
Ciudad Segundo Montes is based on democratic principles and self-rule.
[Notes revised, April 2007]
3