Don Carlos Bonilla Velasco
President – ADES
Notes from a Testimony
Don Carlos Bonilla Velasco is a Salvadoran peasant farmer, a leader in his community, Santa Marta, and the president of PWRDF partner, ADES – Santa Marta (Association for Social and Economic
Development). In his testimony, he spoke about the events that led to his community’s flight into exile in 1981, their six-year exile in Honduras, and their return to Santa Marta in 1987. This experience of flight, exile and return, has profoundly shaped the people of Santa Marta.
Time did not allow for him to speak about Santa Marta’s development and ADES’s work since then. But we agreed that on my next visit, we would sit down with a bottle of “agua ardiente” (home brewed moon shine), and a tape recorder and get the whole story. As I was without a tape recorder this time, what follows is only a third-person account from my hastily scribbled notes.
Don Carlos began by explaining that historically, Santa Marta was a community of “colonos”, that is, poor peasant farmers who rented land from the local land owner, and who lived in virtual indentured slavery.
In 1977, Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero began broadcasting his Sunday homilies nationwide. It was through those homilies and work and activities being carried out by ordained and lay people, including the establishment of Christian Base Communities, that the people of Santa Marta began to ask themselves, “what is the direction that we want to follow?”
Archbishop Romero’s Sunday homilies served as a kind of alternative news broadcast, helping those like the folk in Santa Marta, learn and understand what was going on in their country. In 1978, the growing military repression that he spoke out against soon became a reality for the people of Santa Marta, as military commissioners (civilians armed by the military) began persecuting community leaders and capturing local catechists.
In 1979 the situation worsened with the arrival of the army, forcing the community’s leaders – Don
Carlos among them – into hiding in the hills surrounding Santa Marta. By 1980, the repression was such that no one was sleeping in their homes at night, as one military operation after another swept through
Santa Marta, burning houses and destroying crops. In March of that year, Archbishop Romero was assassinated.
On March 15, 1981, 7,000 government soldiers entered Santa Marta. Fearing a massacre, the community and other smaller ones in the area had taken the decision to try to flee across the nearby
Lempa River into Honduras. That same day Don Carlos’ wife gave birth to twin girls, one of whom died at birth. With a newborn, and three other small children they fled, along with 7,000 other people crossing the Lempa River on March 18.
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Don Carlos vividly described the utter confusion and panic as people, many of whom could not swim, tried to cross the river, while soldiers on the ground and in helicopter gunships overhead shot and launched grenades at them. The Honduran army on the other side of the river also shot at them. In all,
60 people were either drowned or shot in the crossing, 25 people who had been unable to leave Santa
Marta were killed by the Salvadoran army, and a further 15 were either killed or disappeared by the
Honduran army once they had crossed.
More would have died had it not been for the Salvadoran insurgent force, the FMLN, who attempted to protect those fleeing, as well as the presence of a number of Salvadoran, Honduran and international accompaniers. Don Carlos recalled Padre Beto, a Honduran priest, who swam back and forth across the river with children on his back, and clinging to his long beard.
Those who survived were generously received by the people of the hamlet of Los Hernandez and other nearby communities who provided them with their first food – mostly fruit – in days, and welcomed them into their homes. Caritas Honduras fairly soon came through with rice and beans, but there was little water or wood with which to cook. Meanwhile, the Honduran army had the area surrounded and was harassing and disappearing those they identified as leaders. Don Carlos was questioned briefly but released.
After a month in Los Hernandez, they were moved to a place called La Ventura where three camps were established. Doctors Without Borders, Caritas, the Catholic Church, the Mennonites, and others began to arrive with support. But they were living under plastic sheeting, and their water source was contaminated, leading to malnutrition and an epidemic of intestinal disease. At one point, seven people were dying daily.
In desperation, some tried to flee the camp and return to El Salvador, but they were killed by the
Honduran military which continued to surround the camps. Don Carlos explained that the presence of seminarians, priests, and others from church and solidarity organizations helped in averting complete panic in the camps.
In mid-1981 the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) finally arrived on the scene, and told the refugees that they would have to move to camps away from the border with El Salvador into the interior of Honduras. The refugees were determined to stay near the border. Don Carlos was among those who negotiated an alternative site with the UNHCR, San Marcos de Ocotepeque, now know by the name of the camps that were established as Mesa Grande.
The Mennonites brought building supplies and each family built a more solid shelter. A clinic and nutrition centre was also built by the refugees, and they began to organize an education program for their children. When teachers were asked for, Don Carlos, who has a grade four education, offered to help and for two years he taught grade one. He laughed and said that was a “big headache” given his own level of education!
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The refugees’ education program received strong support from international NGOs and cooperants.
From those beginnings in the refugee camp grew the school in Santa Marta for over one thousand children, fully staffed by young people from the community who are about to complete their university studies. But that is another story... After two years of teaching, Don Carlos’ responsibilities as the coordinator of his camp, forced him to withdraw from the classroom.
Other initiatives undertaken by the refugees included the establishment of workshops for making clothing, shoes, etc. Though the land was only good for cattle grazing, the refugees managed to grow vegetables, as well as, in very limited amounts, corn and beans. The Hondurans, Don Carlos said, were amazed that the Salvadorans managed to produce veggies out of rocks!
In 1983 the UNHCR proposed yet another move of the 11,500 people at Mesa Grande, but the refugees refused to be moved. In 1985, the amount of material support and supplies the refugees had been receiving from the UNHCR and other sources began to be reduced. As a consequence, some individual repatriations back to El Salvador began, but those who returned were either killed or fled back in fear.
The UNHCR refused to recognize these people as refugees, and the camps’ leadership had to argue hard with the UNHCR for this recognition.
In August 1986, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees visited Mesa Grande for the first time, meeting with the refugees for 20 minutes. At the meeting the High Commissioner offered the refugees three options: 1. to become Honduran citizens, but remain resident in the camps; 2. to be accepted in a third country; 3. to “voluntarily” repatriate to El Salvador. Don Carlos explained that this repatriation would not in fact be voluntary, because the Salvadoran government insisted that it would determine where the refugees would be repatriated to in El Salvador.
The leadership of the seven camps in Mesa Grande met to analyze these options and then began discussing them with the refugees. In January 1987, the UNHCR pressed for a decision from the refugees who responded that they had a fourth option to propose: voluntary repatriation to their communities of origin in three Salvadoran departments (provinces): Chalatenango, Cuscatlán and
Cabañas. The UNHCR insisted this was impossible because of the position of the Salvadoran government, whereupon the refugees began a pressure campaign, sending letters to the official and non-governmental international organizations that they had worked with and to the Salvadoran churches and government. In the letters they called for support for their right to return to their communities of origin.
In July 1987, the Salvadoran Vice-Minister of Foreign Relations came to “negotiate” with the refugees, but with a firm position that it was up to the government to determine to where the refugees would be repatriated. In the wake of this visit, the refugees began talking about and planning for, an “exodus” back to El Salvador.
On October 8, the Vice-Minister arrived again and spent seven hours negotiating with the refugees. She insisted that the refugees were being manipulated by the FMLN to demand that they be returned to
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their communities of origin. At 1:00 a.m. she announced that at 6:00 a.m. she wanted to meet with the entire Mesa Grande population to determine what their desire was regarding repatriation. With only 5 hours to organize through the night, the camps’ leadership managed to assemble 10,000 of the 11,500 refugees, accompanied by an ecumenical delegation from El Salvador.
When the Vice-Minister asked the assembled refugees who wanted to return, Don Carlos described an overwhelming response from the crowd of, “Mañana nos vamos!” – Tomorrow we are leaving! He said that this was the genuine reaction of the population, not of the camps’ leadership, nor of the FMLN.
That evening, the UNHCR arrived with the news that the Salvadoran government had accepted the wishes of the refugees. “This was a dream that was finally realized,” said Don Carlos.
Very rapidly, in fact the next day on October 10, the refugees arrived back in El Salvador. But, said Don
Carlos, they arrived to a country still very much at war. The journey from the border – during which the refugees were accompanied by representatives of the Salvadoran churches and the international community – was slowed by numerous military checkpoints. The following day, those from Santa Marta arrived to find their community completely destroyed. There were no buildings, no crops, not even an evident water source. At that point, said Don Carlos, he felt completely overwhelmed and exhausted.
Under constant harassment from the army, they set to work to find water and build provisional housing.
“Safe conduct passes” had to be obtained from the army to bring any and all supplies into the community. In September 1988, a 14-truck caravan organized to bring in a large amount of supplies at one time, was blocked by the army. But 50 people from Santa Marta mobilized to confront the local military official who eventually backed down and let the caravan through. Constant helicopter overflights accompanied by indiscriminate machine gunning, continued to terrorize the population of Santa
Marta. Though no one was killed in these actions, several were wounded.
Despite this pressure, the community began to plant crops, and more, to seek the means to become the owners of the land that historically, they had only rented. With the support of international NGOs they were able over time to purchase 500 manzanas (1 manzana = 1.75 acres). In so doing they were the only Salvadoran returnees to purchase lands that became the common property of the community.
Initial efforts at collective farming evolved into individual parceling out of the land (still owned collectively) as more refugees returned and Santa Marta’s population grew.
In 1988, Santa Marta, together with other returned communities, established the Committee of
Repatriates of Cuscatlán and Cabañas. Don Carlos served as its president for a period of time, a position that placed him on the army’s black list. Meanwhile, peace negotiations had begun and in 1992, the
Peace Accords were signed between the Salvadoran government and the FMLN. Don Carlos said that while they’ve been back for 14 years, there’s still an awful lot to do, “but we’re working on it!” he said.
I asked Don Carlos what had been the most difficult moments for him personally over the course of this experience. He said there had been three moments: The first was in 1980 when he and another man from Santa Marta spent a day in hiding near the community, right under the nose of an army patrol.
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Miraculously, he said, they were not discovered. The second moment was in 1981 right after he had crossed into Honduras and was captured and briefly interrogated by the Honduran army. The third moment occurred in 1987 when he was interrogated by the Salvadoran army in the town of Victoria
(between Sensuntepeque and Santa Marta) while trying to bring supplies to Santa Marta.
I then asked Don Carlos what had been the most hopeful moments. He said that he felt hopeful when accompanied by representatives of the church and solidarity communities which he said was fairly constant. He added that it was a wonderful experience for him to be able to travel to southern Mexico and share the experience of his people with Guatemalan refugees as they prepared their own repatriation to Guatemala.
Finally, before he headed off to yet another meeting, Don Carlos said that he worried about having abandoned his family to undertake all the work and responsibilities on behalf of his community, but, he said, his community was his family. He added that he still works his land. “I have to be busy,” he said,
“or I don’t feel right!”
Suzanne Rumsey
December 2001
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