A Revolution Brews

There are few parallels in the history of the Latin American Left. Within the short space of several years, mass organizations have emerged in El Salvador- capable of mobiliz- ing hundreds of thousands throughout the country; capable of articulating the im- mediate demands of the people for land, water, jobs, justice; capable of unifying the struggles of many sectors and transforming them into a political movement. These mass organizations, in combination with the political-military organizations form- ed in the early 70s, pose a clear challenge to the hegemony of the bourgeoisie. They will not be satisfied with piecemeal and cosmetic reforms. They are organizing a popular revolution. The first organizations to emerge in the mid-70s were the People’s Revolutionary Bloc (BPR) and the Front for Unified People’s Ac- tion (FAPU). The People’s Leagues (LP-28) was formed in 1977. In contrast to the UNO concept of.an elec- toral coalition, these mass organizations saw elections as a futile exercise, designed to divert the energies of the opposition. Moreover, they disagreed with the Com- munist Party’s strategy of allying with mildly reformist parties, such as the PDC, instead of mobilizing the collective strength of the masses. They viewed armed struggle as the necessary answer to the intransigence of the bourgeoisie. In the mid-1970s, conditions in the cities and countryside had only continued to deteriorate. It was estimated in 1975 that a family of six (average family size) needed $704 per year to cover basic necessities such as food, shelter and clothing. Eighty percent of the population earned less.’ The strategy of the BPR was to focus on these conditions, and on immediate economic demands, as a means to create class con- sciousness and incorporate the masses into the revolutionary struggle. It began building its base in the restless countryside. Whereas the Communist Party had long struggled for legal recognition of farmworker unions, the BPR set legality aside. It organized land inva- sions; it led demonstrations demanding a minimum wage in the coffee fields, and lower prices for seed and fertilizer for the im- poverished peasant. In the cities, the strategy was used effective- ly to organize industrial workers around wage demands, speed-up, bus fares and managerial abuse. Slum dwellers marched for housing and running water; market women staged sit- ins to demand lower rents for market stalls. The goal was a mass front, based on a worker- peasant alliance. No sector of the oppressed could be forgot- ten. The BPR organized lottery vendors – among the poorest of the urban workers. It helped to articulate and then supported their demands for benches in front of the National 19 MarlApr 1980NACLA Report Lottery Office, access to toilet facilities and the dismissal of an abusive supervisor. 3 There were differences within the Left. Both LP-28 and FAPU emphasized the escalation of a fascist threat, emanating from sectors of the military and powerful sectors of the agro-bourgeoisie. They urged the forma- tion of an anti-fascist front, which would in- clude sectors of the petty-bourgeoisie and their political parties. BPR warned of capitulation to bourgeois and petty-bourgeois forces destined to betray the worker-peasant alliance. The question of organizing the industrial proletariat also led to differences. FAPU’s strategy, for example, has been to work within existing union structures. Recently, it gained control of FENASTRAS, the largest labor federation of the Left, which includes the union that provides electricity to the entire country. The BPR has opted for the creation of new unions and federations, primarily in textiles, light manufacturing and, increasing- ly, the public sector. 4 Both organizations have cut dramatically into the traditional base of the Communist Party, which still retains a significant in- fluence over the industrial working class. Un- til recently, the PCS opposed the popular organizations, branding them as “ultra- leftist.” Labor-management relations have been profoundly altered by these changes. Op- posing the legalism of the PCS, the popular organizations have instituted the de facto strike, side-stepping the complex system of state arbitration that is designed to smother the strike initiative. The occupation of factories, embassies, radio stations, haciendas was an important new tactic developed by the Left. They demonstrated that the institutions of the bourgeoisie were not sacrosanct. From 1975 on, the political-military organizations began operating in closer coor- dination with the mass movement. The Peo- ple’s Liberation Forces (FPL), operating as both a political formation and a guerrilla ar- my, promoted and supported the work of the BPR. The political party, National Resis- tance (RN) and its military arm, the FARN, served a similar function for FAPU. After 1977, the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP) would begin to work with the People’s Leagues (LP-28). Militarily, FPL, FARN and ERP have used similar tactics. In retaliation for government repression and the uncontrolled activities of para-military bands, they have eliminated key figures in the repressive apparatus. They have attacked security forces through direct, armed confrontations and the bombing of strategic facilities. And they have used the ransoms collected from kidnappings to sup- port the popular struggle. In 1972 election fraud opened the flood- gates of popular unrest. In response, the bourgeoisie tried several tacks to contain its growth. Colonel Arturo Molina, beneficiary of the 1972 fraud, would attempt to combine repression with timid reform. The bourgeoisie would abandon him-still refusing to con- template the loss of even a fraction of its privilege. In 1977, Colonel Carlos Romero, the hardliner, would attempt to crush the opposition once and for all. He, too, would fail. The clock continued to tick. THE MOLINA PERIOD In response to growing unrest and economic crisis, a new formula for develop- ment was devised under the Molina govern- ment (1972-77). It was given the ambitious name of National Transformation, and in- cluded three key elements. First came wholesale surrender to foreign capital, in the form of generous tax breaks and credits, a new free trade zone in San Bar- tolo, and “a suitable climate for investment.” Repression was therefore the second compo- nent. To keep wages low and foreign capital content, the workers’ movement in the cities and countryside had to be controlled. Third- ly, there was a feeble attempt to counter the effects of repression with a small dose eo reform. Behind this new initiative were the same forces that had supported modernization in the 1950s: sectors of the coffee oligarchy that had diversified their interests into industry and banking, and developed strong ties to foreign capital. They were willing to give lukewarm support to reforms as the price for domestic tranquility. Ultimately, they were defeated and driven from power by the most reactionary sectors of the agro-export bourgeosie. 20MarlApr 1980 21 EXPORT INDUSTRY Foreign investment in El Salvador rose from $66.6 million in 1970 to $104.5 million in 1975.5 U.S. investment increased by $10 million in the same period, with additional millions channeled through Panamanian sub- sidiaries. 6 A 1974 study showed that foreign capital was involved in at least half of all Salvadorean businesses, usually in joint ven- ture with the local bourgeoisie.’ The government did its utmost to cater to foreign capital. Roads, ports and airports were modernized at state expense. Tax and exchange laws allowed foreign companies to increase and repatriate profits. New policies allowed the free entry of machinery, equip- ment and raw materials. State institutions, like INSAFI (created originally to encourage the development of local industry and crafts) were used to under- write foreign investments. They gave long- term credits at low interest, with 100% guarantees by the Salvadorean state. 8 Conditions were even better in the San Bar- tolo free trade zone. There, strikes were outlawed, and companies could operate tax- free. San Bartolo became a haven for runaway garment shops and electronics plants. Maidenform, Texas Instruments, Dataram and others made it their home. 9 Import substitution was no longer the operative model. Local and even regional consumption was incidental to the new scheme. El Salvador was now competing on the world market–on the basis of cheap and abundant labor. Workers received an average wage of $4 daily. 0 By 1979, El Salvador had the most active 807 program in Central America.”I Item 807 of the U.S. tariff code allows apparel components to be shipped from the United States and brought back assembled into finished clothing, with duty paid only on the value added, namely labor. In 1978, U.S. imports from El Salvador of man-made fiber apparel under 807 were valued at $25.9 million– dou- ble the 1975 figure.’ 2 According to an American towel and robe manufacturer, quoted by Women’s Wear Dai- ly, “The Salvadorean is pleased to work; it is a national trait.”‘ 3 Workers at his Hilasal plant earn $8-10 a day, and are “among the best paid in the country.”” 4 Low-paid women make up the majority of workers in the spinning section of this textile plant. Q C’ ‘8 Mar/Apr 1980 21NACLA Report THE DEATH SQUAD S. . I saw the plaza covered with people’s hair. The National Guard had cut off their hair with machetes, taking part of the skin with it… The National Guard arrived in Cayetano with 60 machine guns, tear gas, a cannon… When the farmers came, they grabbed their machine guns and sprayed the workers with gunfire. . . [A] wife was able to reach her husband, grab- bing him by the leg. The bullet hit him and she was bathed in blood… Those they killed, they cut their faces in pieces and chopped up the bodies with machetes. If you like, I will show you where they buried the brains. Report from a Salvadorean priest, 1974.15 Just as a technocratic sector had developed within the military to meet the demands of state participation in the economy, a sector specializing in repression developed as well. Its duties were to collect intelligence on the opposition and conduct military operations to destroy it. Its techniques included the elec- tronic prod, the capucha (a rubber bag tied over the head), solitary confinement, murder, dumping drugged victims into the ocean from helicopters, blowing up “subversives” with dynamite. Selective repression had been an essential element of governing since the massacre of 1932. A union leader mysteriously killed, an opposition leader exiled. That was all they thought was needed to reawaken the memory of the matanza and instill fear in the popula- tion. But as popular struggle continued to ex- pand in the 1970s, the military answered with massive retaliation. The above-mentioned inci- dent in Cayetano, a small hamlet where farm- workers had organized, is one of many that could be described. On July 30, 1975, a peaceful student demonstration in San Salvador, protesting the military intervention of the university campus in Santa Ana, was attacked by National Police, National Guard and Army forces. An unknown number of students were killed. Ambulances followed behind the tanks and armored cars, to pick up the dead and wounded. Behind the ambulances came street sweepers to wash the blood away.'” 22MarlApr 1980 23 To denounce the massacre, several small organizations– the Union of Farmworkers (UTC), the Revolutionary Secondary Stu- dents Movement (MERS) and the Union of Slumdwellers (UPT)–occupied the Metro- politan Cathedral in San Salvador. They would form the backbone of the People’s Revolutionary Bloc (BPR). To complement the brutality of the armed forces, the Molina government revitalized ORDEN, nominally a civic organization but in fact a para-military network of spies, in- formers and enforcers, founded by General Medrano in the mid-60s, to combat “subver- sion.” By 1979, ORDEN would claim 100,000 members, recruited from the ranks of retired Peasants captured by the repressive forces. soldiers, small landowners, thugs and a frightened middle class. ORDEN has attempted to terrorize the rural population in particular, invading the homes of suspected left sym- pathizers and breaking up meetings of the popular organizations. Other death squads began to operate as well. Their very names indicate the fascist content of their ideology: White Warriors Union (UGB), Anti-Communist Armed Forces of Liberation-War of Elimination (FALANGE), and Organization for the Liberation from Communism (OLC). Sectors of the agro-bourgeoisie are suspected of financing the operations of these right-wing gangs. AGRARIAN REFORM On June 29, 1976, Molina announced a meek project for agrarian reform, called the Transformacion Agraria.1 7 Only 4% of the country’s land would be affected. Property owners would be amply compensated by the state, while a new caste of 12,000 small land- owners would be created. El Salvador’s inter- nal market would expand and new in- vestments would flow into industry from payments for “expropriated” lands. Molina presented the plan to the oligarchy as “life insurance” for their future. But he had not consulted them. The project was sup- ported only by a handful of the more vi- sionary members of the bourgeoisie, with in- terests in industry; by technocrats in the state apparatus; and by the U.S. embassy. The De Sola family, the largest of the cof- fee exporters, exemplifies this modernizing tendency within the bourgeoisie. Tightly linked to U.S. capital through joint ventures (see Investment Appendix), it encouraged the development of a restrictive democracy based on an expanded middle class. At the other end of the spectrum were the Hill, Llach and Regalado Duenas family groups-the largest of the landowning dynasties. Drawing their inspiration from European fascism and American anti-com- munism, they supported all-out repression and balked at Molina’s suggested reform. Their reaction was the more widespread within the bourgeoisie as a whole. The most reactionary sectors–those dependent on growing coffee, cotton and cane-seized the MarlApr 1980 23NACLA Report initiative against the more diversified sectors of the ruling class. The land would not be touched. It had given them their wealth. It would give their children theirs. Molina himself was excoriated in the press as a communist. A successor had already been named-or rather a PCN candidate for the 1977 elections-who quickly made clear his opposition to agrarian reform. A coup would have been superfluous. A SPECIALIST The defeat of the Transformacion Agraria signified the eclipse of the modernizing tendency within the bourgeoisie.Large land- owners took firm control of the state ap- paratus-as always, through military inter- mediaries. Their mandate was clear: leave the economy to free market forces, and eliminate all opposition. General Carlos Humberto Romero was ideally suited to the tasks at hand. He came from a branch of the armed forces that specialized in repression; he had been in charge of ORDEN. As Molina’s Minister of Defense, he was praised for his role in the stu- dent massacre of July 30th. Growing unrest in the countryside was of paramount concern to the new regime. The Catholic Church was targeted as a major source of that unrest. Since the 1960s, priests and nuns had organized comunidades de base, a combination of study and social action groups composed of poor peasants and farm- workers. They held literacy classes, developed new agricultural techniques and organized farm cooperatives. They taught that injustice was sin. Because of their active participation in the peasant and rural worker unions organized by the BPR-the Christian Federation of Salvadorean Peasants (FECCAS) and the Union of Field Workers (UTC)-militant priests have been singled out as targets by the right-wing death squads. “Be a patriot,” says one leaflet distributed by the White Warriors Union, “kill a priest.” In April 1977, a Jesuit priest, Father Rutilio Grande, was machine-gunned to death on his way to mass by unknown assail- ants. His work had radicalized a significant sector of the rural community. Land occupa- tions and strikes for higher wages had begun to disturb the tranquility of Aguilares, located about 20 miles north of San Salvador. The BPR had become very active. The Jesuit’s murder was followed by a military attack on the town. House-to-house searches allowed soldiers to steal what little the people had. Men were lined up in the streets and beaten; women were abused; hun- dreds were arrested. The Army called it Operation Rutilio. Simultaneously, the National Guard attacked numerous land occupations in the area, using modern weapons and helicopters to drive workers off the land. One month later, another priest was murdered. He had worked with opposition parties in the 1977 elections. In June, the entire Jesuit order received a death threat: “Leave the country or face ex- tinction,” signed the White Warriors Union, which had claimed responsibility for the se- cond assassination. Upper echelons of the Salvadorean Church were profoundly affected by these events. Aguilares marked a turning point for Arch- bishop Oscar A. Romero (no relation to the General), a conservative when he assumed the position in 1977. He has now become one of the most outspoken critics of military rule and economic injustice. 18 Archbishop Romero (right). 24MarlApr 1980 The Archbishop uses his weekly sermons, broadcast on radio, to attack the system of “institutionalized violence,” the system of ex- ploitation and repression which has kept the mass of Salvadoreans hungry and poor. Speaking recently, he declared that, “These are insurrectional times. The morality of the Church permits insurrection when all other paths have been exhausted.”‘ 9 Twice, the Catholic radio station has been bombed. INTERNATIONAL ISOLATION The excesses of the Romero regime brought it the condemnation of Amnesty Interna- tional, the International Commission of Jurists, the Human Rights Commission of the OAS – and even the U.S. State Department. The Carter Administration’s coldness to Romero’s policies was not surprising. Tradi- tionally, the United States had supported the modernizers, the groups that were eager to take the hand of U.S. capital and together lead the country toward industrial growth and huge profits. Romero represented a regression to the rule of backward, agrarian interests. In 1977, El Salvador, in the appropriate company of Argentina, Brazil and Guatema- la, rejected proposed U.S. military assistance in protest over U.S. criticism of its human rights record. In November, Romero attempted to con- trol the popular organizations by passing a draconian law which forbade meetings of more than three persons if criticism of the government were the subject of discussion. The law prohibited the distribution of “false and tendentious” information that would af- fect adversely the public order. It forbade the mailing of such information to foreign coun- tries if it would lead to a loss of international prestige. The law, however, had no significant effect on the growth of the popular organizations, who openly defied it. After a year of internal and international pressure, it was repealed in March 1979. The beginning of the end of the Romero period can be dated from May 1979. Plain- clothesmen from the political police arrested the Secretary General and four principal leaders of the People’s Revolutionary Bloc. The Metropolitan Cathedral was occupied in pro- test. Without warning and in full view of the TV cameras, National Police and Guardsmen opened fire on a crowd gathered on the steps. Twenty-four died. Caskets of 21 militants of LP-28, massacred during a demonstration on October 29, 1979. 25NACLA Report The Left retaliated by occupying em- bassies, and assassinating key government figures. And the bloodiest period of repres- sion under Romero began. Particularly hard hit were teachers who formed part of the na- tional teachers’ union, ANDES, and who had been identified by the military as the intellec- tual leaders of the BPR. In the first six months of 1979, the government killed 406 people. 2 0 The political-military organizations of the Left became increasingly active as the only armed deterrent to government repression. The Armed Forces of National Resistance (FARN) aimed its attack at the heads of foreign companies. Six executives were kid- napped and held for ransom. Capital started running scared, pulling up roots and moving to Miami and beyond. New investments stopped coming. NOT ANOTHER NICARAGUA Having suffered a major defeat in Nicaragua, the U.S. government began pressuring Romero to ease up on repression and attempt a democratic opening. It was ob- viously too little, too late. Romero’s call for a “national dialogue” was ignored by both the popular organizations and the traditional op- position. Romero was politely encouraged to resign. For over a year, the U.S. officials had met with various factions of the Salvadorean op- position to find some way out of what it perceived to be an increasingly dangerous situation. The desired scenario included a civilian-military government based on the traditional opposition parties– particularly the trusted Christian Democrats-and Pentagon-trained sectors of the Salvadorean 26MarlApr 1980 military, backed by the industrial bourgeoisie. On October 15, 1979, a group of young military officers would overthrow Romero and pledge to carry out significant reforms, including land redistribution. The result would be a replay of Molina’s Transforma- cion Agraria. Two successive juntas of civil- ians and soldiers have since tried to rule the country. But the U.S. scenario has still not taken the stage. The popular organizations are too strong, too determined to not have shed so much blood in vain; the bourgeoisie now prefers destruction to surrender. And in the middle stand the Christian Democrats, with their narrow social base, and their inability to rein in the terrorism of the Right and the militancy of the masses. The post-coup period will be the subject of Part II of this Report. About the Author Robert Armstrong is a lawyer who has worked in the Salvadorean human rights and solidarity move- ment for the last three years. He writes regularly on El Salvador for The Guardian. A REVOLUTION BREWS 1. Roque Dalton Garcia, “El Descanso de Guerrero,” La taberna y otros lugares (San Salvador: UCA Editores), 1976. 2. Burke, op. cit., p. 481. 3. “Entrevista al Bloque Popular Revolucionario de El Salvador,” ALAI(May 4, 1978), p. 139. Also see Mayo Heroico ’79 (El Salvador: BPR), 1979 and Salvador Samayoa and Guillermo Galvan, “El Movimiento Obrero en El Salvador: Resurgimiento o Agitacion?” ECA (Estudios Centroamericanos), No. 369-370 (July-August 1979). Samayoa served as Minister of Education in the first junta after Romero’s fall. With most other ministers he resigned at the beginning of January. Shortly thereafter, he announced in a press conference that he had joined the FPL and then disappeared underground. 4. Samayoa and Galvan, op. cit. 5. Alberto Arene, “Las Multinacionales y El Desfalco de la Economia Nacional,” Boletin de Ciencias Economicas y Sociales (San Salvador), July-August 1978,. p. 22. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., citing “Las Inversiones Extranjeras,” presented by the Institute for Economic Research, University of El Salvador, to Second National Congress of Professionals of the Economic Sciences, San Salvador, October 1974. 8. Ibid. 9. See accompanying chart for U.S. investment. 10. Women’s Wear Daily, March 3, 1980, p. 1 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Report on El Salvador presented at a conference held in the Pre-University Institute “Leonte Guerra Castellanos,” Bayeros, Cuba. 16. Ibid., p. 9-10; also Castillo, op. cit., p. 48. 17. ECA, No. 335/336 (September-October 1976). The entire issue, devoted to the agrarian transformation, was written in the midst of the debate. It gives a cross- section of views and excellent articles on land tenure. 18. Ivan D. Paredes, “La Situacion de la Iglesia Catolica en El Salvador y su Influjo Social,” ECA, No. 369-370 (July-August 1979). 19. El Diario-La Prensa, January 31, 1980. 20. Italo Lopez Vallecillos. “Fuerzas Sociales y Cambio Social en El Salvador,” ECA (July-August 1979). 21. Roque Dalton Garcia, “Plegarias de un Fascista,” reprinted in Pulgarcito, Vol. III, no, 1 (March 1978), p. 11. Pulgarcito is a newspaper printed intermittently by the Committee of Progressive Salvadoreans in San Fran- cisco. Their address is Comite de Salvadorenos Pro- gresistas, P.O. Box 12355, San Francisco, CA 94112. Background information for this report came from the following sources: 1. Alistair White, El Salvador (New York: Praeger Publishers), 1973. 2. El Salvador, Landscape and Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 1971. 3. Latin America Bureau, Violence and Fraud in El Salvador (London: LAB), July 1977. 4. Amnesty International, El Salvador (New York: Amnesty International), 1978. 5. “El Salvador: Human Rights and U.S. Economic Policy,” Update Latin America (Washington Office on Latin America), January 1979. 6. The Recent Presidential Elections in El Salvador: Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy, hearings before Subcommittee on International Organizations and on Inter-American Affairs, March 9 and 17, 1977 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), 1977. 7. Religious Persecution in El Salvador, Hearings before the Subcommittee on International Organiza- tions, July 21 and 29, 1977 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), 1977. 8. Human Rights in El Salvador, (London: Parliamentary Human Rights Group, House of Com- mons), 1979. 9. Panchimalco, Investigacion Sociologica (San Salvador: Editorial Universitaria), 1959. 10. Jose Arias Gomez, Farabundo Marti (San Jose: EDUCA), 1972. 11. Centroamerica Hoy (Mexico: Siglo XXI), 1975. 12. Tomas Guerra, El Salvador: Octubre Sangriento (San Jose: Centro Victor Sanbria), 1979. 13. Ana Guadalupe Martinez, Las Carceles Clandestinas de El Salvador (Published clandestinely), 1978. 14. Jaime Barrios, “Posibilidad Objetiva Real de la Revolucion en El Salvador.” Revista Internacional, No. 10 (October 1979). 15. “El Salvador: Alianzas Politicas y Proceso Revolu- cionario,” Cuadernos de Coyuntura, No. 5 (Mexico City: SEPLA), 1979. 16. The companeros of the Salvadorean popular strug- gle and solidarity movement.