Toyi's War Experience Chapter IV

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Robert Parry report about some Us intervention in ES war.

Okay after January 10, 1981 FMLN and other minor rebellious groups get together in a goal to make Salvadorans “a little bit happy” The groups started concentrating in protesting and trying to convince people to join the cause, about 30,000 people were killed by right wing death squads backed by the military & lots of hurt victim’s families were thickening Guerrilla’s armed forces, Government didn’t stop there, Death Squads visits at people’s home doubled, it was a sense of insecurity that could be felt in the air, Death squads had a little “Black list” where the names of suspicious rebellion people figured and by referring to each local birth settlement office, they were able to knock on their doors. In some occasions the info Death Squads had was right, sometimes they managed to get who they were looking for, sometimes the person they were hunting was not at home (but up in the mountains) yet their families would suffer the consequences of being tortured to death (even if they really didn’t know specifically were their relative was), sometimes the people in the Black list was placed there for the long tongue of a personal enemy that found a nice way to take revenge, sometimes people was not even in the list, sometimes people were killed just because they made a suspicious move or said something that was not very nice to Death Squads, or sometimes was just to fulfill the boredom of any of the death Squad’s member that had become extremely corrupted and thirsty of blood. Okay bodies started spreading everywhere, I was switched to a near school, we didn’t own a car so every morning I had to get up and ready to be taken by my father to school, oh showering was a daily pain ‘cause there was no such as “warm water” since the bathroom was too small for 2 people and because obviously, there was no water if you ever opened the shower, Dad was used to shower me outside with cold the water taken from a "Pila" that looked like this; at least he was fairly quick doing that, leaving the house to go to school was bit depressing, it was inevitable to walk by the corpses placed on street corners and more inevitable to walk by the corpse’s side and check every single pain expression they had on their faces, some very disfigured from a beating and some with severed finger’s or body parts, sometimes I could see family members crying by their side, inconsolable mothers holding their kids asking for help and being ignored by the passing pedestrians, I was almost pulled by my Dad rushing me trying no to stop by the very sad episode, sometimes turned impossible to go to sleep hearing cars at midnight pulling over and knocking on doors, sometimes family was even laughing trying to have a fun time when they would instantly silence and turn the lights off after hearing somebody walking outside (cause the curfew was on, so, it was very suspicious to hear people outside walking), it was very depressing and full of uncertainty.
My Granny’s & Grandpa’s home:
The home we lived in was an entire block, where most of my aunts lived, they all were going to hereby a piece from Grandpa but they were living In their assigned space, we lived in one corner side of the block, there was a little forest to get to the other corner of the block, it was funny cause we didn’t have a TV in our corner, but one of my aunt’s had one (Black & white) in the other end of the house, the little test was everyday for me when we were watching TV and darkness reached us in the other corner of the house; I was so afraid to cross that little forest at nighttime, although I could see the lights at the other side, I always waited for an adult to walk by to join the walk but sometimes I was very sleepy and I had to push myself through, we had never been bothered by any intruder but the adults were all ready to take over in case of any emergency ( I didn’t suspected it at the beginning) but we were gifted a dog and when the dog started barking (no matter what time it was) everybody (my aunts, Grandpa, Granny and my dad) were used to jump out of bed and grab a machete and join in the middle of the little forest-patio wearing their pajamas, (I personally though that was hilarious) but just notice that there was little rest because everybody was ready in case something serious happened, but as kids we were ordered to stay motionless in bed.. I remember the last one to get up was my younger aunt and she was never able to get a machete ‘cause they were all gone but she always came out with a big stone and a wooden 3’ measurer lol. The only adult boys in the house were my grandpa and my dad.