The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.
8 October 1990 - Aguilares area
We are visiting a community which was one of the stops made by the 1989 delegation. Returning delegates are amazed to see how much building and planting has taken place in just one year. We are told that they have about fifty acres in the community. About 7.5 acres are planted in vegetables, and about ten are set aside for grazing. They have four cows. The main crop is corn, with sesame interspersed. They also have a chicken house and bee hives.
Question: How did you get this land?
"We have the help of U.S. sister parishes, and also of a Norwegian group. SHARE was a big help to us. We have put in electricity and an irrigation system."
Question: Do you experience much harassment?
"Not right now. In other areas there is repression, but for us here, right now, there is nothing repressive. Of course, they are watching us. We had plenty of problems in the first location where we settled as a repopulated community. The most serious of our problems was land, which is why we moved here. We heard about this land and had an opportunity to buy it."
We are introduced to several members of the cooperative leadership: the president of the collective, which is made up of five members, and the bee keeper, who is also on the council. A woman begins to tell us a brief history of Suchitoto, which is where several of these leaders originally lived. In 1979 and 1980 the Christian Base Communities in Suchitoto were being persecuted. As the war sharpened, they were forced to leave the places where they were living. She went to the refugee camps for six months, then to their first repopulated area.
A man picks up the story: "During that period Suchitoto was completely filled with death squads. They spoke of nothing but assassinations. Around Suchitoto we saw nothing but dead bodies, which the dogs were eating. Men could not enter the area. When people wanted to travel across the area, we would advise them not to, because it was too dangerous.
"On 20 April 1980 my wife and her cousin went to the city shopping for salt and sugar and other basic necessities. About 11:00 AM, as they were trying to leave town, my wife's cousin was captured. My wife saw her surrounded by ten savages (armed men) and taken away. The next day we found her tortured body. She left five young children, including twins. My wife has helped her cousin's husband care for the children.
"This is the way they spread terror, by taking bodies from one area and throwing them in another area. There was a spot close to Suchitoto and Copapayo where you could see lots and lots of bodies, sometimes twenty a day. The vultures and the dogs would eat the flesh.
"There was a complete destruction of humanity at that time. They assassinated us and each other. Even the women of military men would turn up dead and tortured. Right now the situation is more normal. The death squad people have either been killed, or they have gone to the U.S. Actually, many of them have gone to the U.S. If the army weren't here, we would not have these problems. Those who left were escaping death and torture.
"The army is still in Suchitoto. Not that the army has become good, but at least it is different than it was. At that time, there was no system for denouncing human rights violations. The administration of Cristiani has earned national and international contempt.
"We were escaping because of the repression. I had to leave for good in 1983. Through 1982 and 1983 the army practiced selective captures. In 1981 was the first military operation. They captured some young people, sixteen-year-olds who had no ties to either side. One, they cut his head off and threw it into a well. Another they stuck with knives and forced him to walk two blocks. He begged them to kill him outright. This is how the army sewed terror.
"I had to leave with my whole family. We abandoned our houses and left a lot of livestock behind. 1983 and 1984 was a period of total destruction. They killed all the animals and people, burned the food crops in the fields, destroyed the houses. We had to make 'guindas' (escapes, or flights) because of this oppression. At times we would have to walk eight days without food or drink, whenever we heard that the army was coming.
"At the end of 1984 we ourselves were captured. Three days before we were captured by the Atlacatl Battalion, there had been a major massacre in the area. Then they changed their policy and wanted to put up a front that they were respecting human rights, so we were not killed. I have a twelve-year-old daughter, and a bullet pierced her in the leg. After the capture we were turned over to the International Red Cross and left at a refugee camp."
Question: Why do you think that the army felt captures and treatment like this were necessary?
"This was a repetition of 1932. They wanted to eliminate completely the struggle of the people. They thought that if they killed people, they would get rid of the problem. They didn't succeed then and they won't succeed now. We see now an increasing union of the popular organizations. They were following the ‘drain the sea’ policy. [“Drain the sea” meant that the military would destroy villages and force the villagers to relocate in order to remove possible support for FMLN guerillas.] When we were captured, we had no houses; we were living in the open.
"We have a commercial committee which brings together four communities. Other communities have fewer opportunities than we do, because they do not receive visits (from international delegations) as we do. CDRS is an organization which is designed to try to demand from the government the help that we deserve.
"The repression is very intense. What we are trying to do is to develop an organization so that all the communities can work together. Some have no land because it was taken away in parcelization. The government makes a big noise about giving out land, but they are really taking it away from us."
Question: How was funding possible for the water system?
"The funds came from a sister parish in Kansas. It is not necessary to purify this water. We have a crystal clear well!"
We board the bus again and travel through the city of Aguilares to a nearby parish. Here we visit a bakery which employs seven women in turning out marvelously tasty sweet cakes and cookies. The cakes are raised dough baked on long, shallow trays like Moravian Sugar Cake, with a brilliant red sugar and jelly topping. The women of the baking project tell us that they bake from 6:00 AM to 2:00 PM, and then market the pastries in small shops in Aguilares. Other customers come to the village to purchase bread straight from the oven. For each 100 colones' worth sold, they make 25 colones profit.
Question: Do you take the bread into town yourselves?
"Yes, we do, but some come here to buy.
"This is a collective society of women who had a concern. We could bake bread, but we had no funds. Then N. (a U.S. church worker) came to visit. She made the contacts for us, and from Project Salvador came funds to help. We bought some materials and were ready to work. It took us about a month to learn the whole baking process. Now we are a self-sustaining operation, and we plan to expand if possible."
We watch as sheets of cake are removed from the oven and turned out onto wooden trays to cool. Samples of the cake and of cookies stuffed with nut filling are passed around for us to try. We admire the solid brick and clay construction of the oven, and the efficiency of the women who are working here.
From the bakery our guides take us up a hill and show us a building which sits on about one acre of land. This building is owned by a woman who lives in town, and it is for sale for 10,000 colones (about $1,200.00). They want to purchase it and turn it into a school. There is a core group of about twenty families who would organize the education project. Many in the community are not in the habit of having their children go to school, so first they have to convince the rest of the community that a school is necessary.
Question: Do you have a teacher?
"Yes, we do. (It turns out that the woman speaking to us is the teacher.) We are thinking that we would have about 150 children, but there may be more. Right now we need everything. The whole project is just in the thinking stage.
"This is a community of more than five thousand, and there is just one small school to serve us all. There had been schools in each community, but all of them were destroyed by mortar fire. We left, and when we came back, we saw just skeletons of houses. It is difficult to build here because we have to travel so far for the clay, and also for firewood.
"Some of us own our own homes, and others rent. Rent is 60 colones per month. Rice workers get paid 12 colones per day without food. When we are not working in the rice fields, we are out gathering firewood."
(Someone mentions that just yesterday evening and this morning there was a confrontation on the road outside of Aguilares.)
"When Rutilio Grande was ordained, his first mass was in this community. This whole area was his parish.
"We have an agricultural cooperative with thirty-five members."
Question: Are you in a sister parish relationship with any churches in the U.S.?
"Yes, but it is through the first community you visited. The same churches which are twinned with them are twinned with us."
Question: Do you have much problem with the army?
"Yes, last year we had quite a few problems. We also have problems with a Pentecostal church in the area. We have a big social work with the people, and they don't. They criticize us because they say that we are involved in politics. We do the work openly and take a holistic approach. We talk about priorities, that human beings have both a physical and a spiritual dimension. But they just don't get it. They preach against us in their congregations. They are worried about our taking members away from their church, but when we have a school, it will be for all the children. Also health care will be for everyone.
"We are most worried about criticisms in this other congregation. People are afraid to come to services here, because of what happened during the time of Rutilio. The Pentecostals talk about Rutilio Grande as a disease. Our church is being signaled as the successor to Rutilio because we denounce injustice and work for freedom. The Catholic church in general is open, but the priest here is very negative and won't have anything to do with Lutherans, probably out of fear.
"The Pentecostals require tithes to support the church. They were originally started by missionaries, but now they take no U.S. funds. They have split many times, and have about 150 different sects. (He may mean independent congregations.)"
Question: Why is the Pentecostal church so successful?
"They are not really successful. They have been here for fifteen years and the two biggest congregations have only 50 and 70 members. We have been here for three years and already have 150 members."
(It was difficult for me to catch all the nuances and implications of their problems with the Pentecostal churches. It appears that the public denunciations of the Lutheran church by the Pentecostal preachers have been used by the government to further the persecution. It may be that high government and military officials in the region are members of these Pentecostal sects, or perhaps some of their members are simply informers. It was apparent, however, that even though the Pentecostal groups do not have many members, their influence is sufficient to cause deep concern in the Lutheran pastors and fear in the people they serve.)
Question: What do people do in the off season?
"In February through April the people cut sugar cane and coffee. Then in May it is time to prepare the land for planting."
Question:
Is coffee grown around here?
"No, the people go to areas where coffee grows. The whole family travels together."
Question: What would happen to the school system when the families leave to pick coffee?
"Children of school age sometimes stay with their grandparents. It is the parents and children above ten years of age who go to do the cutting."
Copyright © 2022 Marian L. Shatto
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