Suchitlán Lake is about an hour-and-a-half drive from San Salvador, mainly along backroads. Once there, we board a small powerboat named la Esperancito, “the little hope,” to continue our pilgrimage. We traverse the serene lake, hugged by undulating shores, for over an hour. Finally, we arrive at our destination, the site where a village named Copapayo once stood.
We enter a semi-enclosed lagoon, bringing the boat to rest along a deserted rocky slope. Except for a white cross marking where U.S.-sponsored terrorism once took place, the lagoon is desolate.
One of our companions, a simple man of the land named Rogelio Miranda, walks to the front of our boat and, in a soft voice, begins to share his story.
Copapayo was an impoverished village of some 300 farmers situated at the crossfires of government and rebel troops during the Civil War (1979-1992). The hamlet was in an area controlled by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrilla group.
In response, the Salvadorian army implemented a scorch-earth policy to root out all opposition. Anything that moved, animals or humans treated as animals, was to be killed.
In October 1983, rumors spread that the Atlácatl Battalion, trained by the U.S. military at the School of the Americas, was approaching the village. In fear, all the inhabitants fled, seeking refuge elsewhere. A few days later, an informant told them the army had left, and it was now safe to return.
About 120 members of the community boarded their boats on November 2nd and returned to these shores, unaware that an ambush had been set.
Gone are any remnants of the horrors of that day witnessed by these trees, except for our guide, Rogelio, who was then only nine years old, returning home with his family.
As their boats came ashore, the army opened fire. Machine guns rattled off their U.S.-provided bullets. U.S.-made grenades were lobed into the water, exploding and killing many. U.S. aircraft fired from the rear, preventing any escape.
The people were mowed down–mothers, grandparents, children, nursing babies.
Rogelio and a few others survived by taking flimsy cover under the lily pads growing in the lake. His mother and sister perished.
A cease-fire order was finally given.
Those who survived the first volley of the massacre were forced to march at gunpoint to the abandoned village. They were promised relocation if they obeyed orders. Instead, they were marched further inland with no food or water. Women were raped. Babies killed.
Eventually, the order was given to kill everyone remaining. They were separated into small groups and shot. As the soldiers took aim, Rogelio and another boy leaped toward bushes to hide. Although injured, he survived.
The other boy wasn’t so lucky. About 117 villagers were massacred during those days. Everyone was dead, except for a small boy who remained to retell the story of human depravity.
Copapayo was not the exception, but the norm.
Since 1979, there have been 27 documented civilian massacres (although the number is likely much higher) where entire villages were wiped off the face of the earth. In total, the Civil War claimed around 75,000 lives, 80% of which were at the hands of the army.
Of these deaths, some 20,000 were classified as “unique” killings (as in the case of Copapayo) and disappearances.
The Reagan administration sold the public the idea that the U.S. must support the war to prevent another Cuba, another Nicaragua. Even the so-called liberal newspaper, The New York Times, reported on November 18th that “army troops rounded up and killed more than 100 leftist sympathizers.”
Rogelio, his family, and his neighbors were not “leftist sympathizers.” They read Mark, not Marx. They were people of the land scratching out an existence. But if we could characterize them as leftists, then we can blame the victims for the fate they faced.
While most in the U.S. do not know their history, any Salvadorian can tell you that the U.S. supported death squads and the military dictatorship to the tune of six billion dollars during their Civil War. This amounts to $1.37 million daily, a figure confirmed by the U.S. Government Accounting Office.
No wonder our national deficit skyrocketed during the Reagan Administration, saddling today’s citizens with unsurmountable debt. No wonder those escaping the terror we sponsored in El Salvador and Guatemala contributed to a million immigrants fleeing to our shores during that time, creating an immigration crisis.
No wonder immigrants today continue to come from these countries with economies still trying to recover from the war we economically waged on their lands.
A Salvadorian woman asked me to share a fantasy: “What if the U.S. gave the people $1.37 million a day to build schools, build infrastructure, help the people? What if the U.S. used its mass resources to foster peace rather than war?”
Sitting in my boat listening to Rogelio, I hear other voices.
I hear blood-soaked land crying out to the Heavens for justice. The biblical prophecy must one day come true if these lives lost are not to be in vain: “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’” (Rev 6:9-10)
How long, indeed?
Claiming ignorance does not make the U.S. any less responsible.
We may claim the blood of the lamb as our salvation, but the blood of the innocent shed with our support will condemn us on that day. Either the U.S. will face God’s judgment for the inhospitality shown to our neighbors south of the border, or God owes an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah.
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Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
