Sumpul River massacre

The Sumpul River massacre (Spanish: masacre del Sumpul[1]) was a massacre that took place in Chalatenango, El Salvador along the Sumpul River during the Salvadoran Civil War. Salvadoran Armed Forces and pro-government paramilitaries, seeking to disrupt the activities of Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLM) guerillas, had launched an offensive on May 13, 1980 that displaced a large number of civilians. The next day, they were attacked and massacred by Salvadoran forces with the cooperation of the Honduran military, which prevented the refugees from fleeing across the border. At least 300 and possibly 600 refugees were killed or drowned. Both governments denied accusations of misconduct in the incident, but a 1993 United Nations Truth Commission report described it as a "serious violation" of international law.

Prelude

Following the 1969 Football War between El Salvador and Honduras, the Organization of American States (OAS) negotiated a ceasefire that established an OAS-monitored demilitarized zone (DMZ) three kilometers wide on each side of the border. When the Salvadoran Civil War began, many peasants abandoned or nearly abandoned a number of villages, including the hamlet Las Aradas, and formed camps within the DMZ on the Honduran side of the border in order to avoid harassment from the military, as well as the National Guard and paramilitary Organización Democrática Nacionalista (ORDEN), which could and did still enter the DMZ (but did not cross the border).[2]

The Honduran government became concerned with the number of Salvadoran refugees residing in Honduras, an issue that had previously been one of the causes of the Football War. The Salvadoran government, convinced that these camps were being used by FMLN guerrillas as a base of operations for their recently-intensified activities in the region, also grew concerned. Their belief was partially based on the fact that many peasants within the DMZ were members of the Federación de Trabajadores del Campo, a political organization promoting agrarian reform that was seen by the Salvadoran government as providing support to the guerillas.[2] Furthermore, in early 1980, FMLN guerrillas had organized citizens of several small Salvadoran border villages, providing some with rudimentary military training, and in early May, they seized control of nearby fallow land and began farming it.[3]

During the last two weeks of March 1980, the Honduran government began pressuring refugees to return to El Salvador; in response, a group returned to Las Aradas. Following their return and before the massacre, National Guard and ORDEN troops twice advanced to Las Aradas, and the refugees fled across the river both times. On May 5, Honduran and Salvadoran military leaders met on the border to discuss how to prevent Salvadoran guerillas from entering Honduras. A few days later, the Honduran government again pressured refugees to return to Las Aradas, which some did.[2]

On May 13, Salvadoran forces consisting of Military Detachment No. 1, the National Guard and ORDEN commenced an anti-guerilla operation.[2] They began in various points,[2] including the nearby village of Las Vueltas,[3] and converged on Las Aradas, clashing with guerillas multiple times.[2]

Also on May 13, 150 Honduran soldiers belonging to the 12th Battalion, which was based in Santa Rosa de Copán, arrived in the Honduran villages of Santa Lucía and San José near the Sumpul River.[1] They prevented the refugees from crossing the border.[1][3]

Massacre

The massacre began when Salvadoran soldiers demanded that the refugees return from the river, threatening to throw children into the river if they did not, but refugees did not comply.[3] Fighting commenced around 10:00 a.m. with "fistfuls" of gunfire that penetrated houses' walls, killing many people and cattle.[4] Groups of soldiers rounded up many civilians and indiscriminately killed them,[1] shooting them with machine guns,[1][4] bludgeoning them with rifle butts[4] or goring them with machetes or military knives.[1] Members of ORDEN threw babies and young children into the air, cleaving or decapitating them with machetes.[4]

Many civilians attempted to flee by crossing the Sumpul river into Honduras,[1][4] but they were obstructed and possibly shot at by Honduran soldiers.[lower-alpha 1] Many were shot by Salvadoran soldiers as they attempted to cross the river,[4][8] while many others, especially children, drowned.[8] Some hid alongside stone fences and were strafed by helicopters.[8]

The massacre lasted approximately six[4] to nine hours.[9] It left "at least 300" dead, with many sources placing the count at 600.[lower-alpha 2]

Aftermath

Villages abandoned by the refugees during the attack were left deserted afterwards,[3] as National Guard prevented refugees from returning;[2] the Salvadoran and Honduran armies both departed the next day.[2]

The massacre received widespread media attention in Honduras. The first news report was transmitted on May 21 by Costa Rican morning news program Radio Noticias del Continente.[2] Salvadoran priests and rescue workers attempting to visit the site of the massacre a few days after were turned away,[3] but a Honduran priest reported that "there were so many vultures picking at the bodies in the water that it looked like a black carpet."[10] Two foreign journalists also visited the site from Honduras and conducted interviews of survivors, publishing their findings in a leaflet. A few days after the massacre, the newspaper Tiempo published an interview with Father Roberto Yalaga, a priest in the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, who confirmed that at least 325 Salvadorians had been killed and that a Honduran military detachment had cordoned off the bank of the Sumpul river.[2]

Cases of typhoid in other villages along the river appeared within a week and were attributed to the large quantity of decomposing corpses in the river.[3] The bodies were not buried,[2] and piles of bones from the massacre could still be seen a year later.[10]

On June 19, the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán filed a formal complaint, signed by its 38 pastoral workers. The complaint accused the government and armed forces of Honduras of complicity in the massacre and in the subsequent cover-up. It also accused the OAS of complicity in the cover-up. The Archdiocese of San Salvador endorsed and associated itself with the complaint by the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán in a communiqué published on June 29, and the Honduran Conference of Bishops, headed by the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Monsignor Héctor E. Santos, endorsed the accusations in a July 1 press release.[2]

Salvadoran Defense Minister José Guillermo García denied claims of massacre, stating, "There have been dead in that area, but not in such 'industrial' quantities."[3] The U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa also denied that evidence for a massacre existed.[4] In an official statement, Honduras described the accusations against it as libelous and irresponsible. Honduran President Policarpo Paz also denied the claims in a nationally broadcast radio speech. Honduran Minister of Government Cristobal Diaz Garcia told the press that no one doubted that a massacre had occurred, but claimed that the Honduran military had not been involved and that government would not set up a commission to investigate.[2] Alfonso Rodriguez Rincón, Chief of the OAS observers, dismissed the accusation by the Honduran Church as the product of an overactive imagination, stating that the OAS knew nothing about the incident. He noted that there were numerous operations on the Salvadorian side and it was conceivable that many guerrillas had been killed, speculating that the incident was being confused with another one.[2]

In October 1980, President José Napoleón Duarte, in an interview with United Church Observer, acknowledged that a military operation had taken place in the Sumpul river area and said that some 300 people, all of them "communist guerrillas", had died.[2] The UN Truth Commission later determined OAS observers reported a major clash between Salvadoran forces and the FMLN took place May 14–16, resulting in 200 deaths that included civilians, but the report included no evidence of a massacre.[2]

The U.S. embassy eventually conceded that "something happened".[4] A Salvadoran official visiting Washington, D.C. in April 1981 conceded that 135 people had died but disputed most other details of the incident.[10] Also a year after the massacre, García admitted in an interview that a number of people had died in a clash on 14 May 1980 at the Sumpul river, but said that the number of deaths had been greatly exaggerated.[2]

On October 26, 1992, survivors of the Sumpul river massacre filed a judicial complaint with the Chalatenango Court of First Instance, which was admitted under the title "on verifying the murder of 600 people".[2]

On April 1, 1993, the United Nations published its "Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador", finding that there was "substantial evidence" that Salvadoran forces "massacred no less than 300 unarmed civilians" and that "the massacre was made possible by the cooperation of the Honduran armed forces." It also noted that "Salvadorian military authorities were guilty of a cover-up of the incident", and described the massacre as "a serious violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law".[2]

On May 14, 2012, the 32nd anniversary of the massacre, the Salvadoran Ministry of Culture declared Las Aradas "Protected Cultural Property".[1]

When the Salvadoran Supreme Court struck down an amnesty law protecting participants in the civil war in July 2016, enabling their prosecution, the case regarding the massacre was still open.[13]

Notes

  1. ↑ A Washington Post article published shortly after the massacre claimed that the nature of Honduran involvement was unclear and that they might have shot at refugees as they attempted to cross the river.[3] A year later, a report by United Press International stated that Honduran soldiers shot refugees.[4] The 1993 UN Truth Commission Report found only that Honduran soldiers had prevented refugees from crossing the river,[2] and most recent sources claim likewise;[5] exceptions include Noam Chomsky's 1992 book What Uncle Sam Really Wants[6] and a 2017 article in Jacobin.[7]
  2. ↑ One of the first publications to report a death toll for the massacre was The New York Times, which reported 600 deaths.[10] The 1993 UN Truth Commission report stated that the death toll had been "at least 300".[2] Most sources follow the lead of either The Times or the report;[11] exceptions include Public Radio International, which has placed the death toll between 600 and 700.[12]

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador" (1993).

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "La masacre del Sumpul (1980)" [The massacre of the Sumpul (1980)]. ChalatenangoSV (in Spanish). Retrieved June 10, 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Betancur, Belisaric; Planchart, Reinaldo Figueredo; Buergenthal, Thomas (April 1, 1993). "Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador". derechos.org. Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Dickey, Christopher (July 6, 1980). "Salvadoran Refugees Caught Between 'Hammer and Anvil'". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Report of massacre in El Salvador". UPI. London: United Press International. February 22, 1981. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  5. ↑ Additional sources stating that Honduran soldiers obstructed but did not shoot civilians include:
    • "La masacre del Sumpul (1980)" [The massacre of the Sumpul (1980)]. ChalatenangoSV (in Spanish). Retrieved June 10, 2018.
    • Alder, Daniel (May 18, 1993). "Authorities dig for remains at 1980 massacre site". UPI. San Salvador, El Salvador: United Press International. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
    • Admin (May 1, 2014). "The Story of Maria Dolores Dubon Alfaro". Afflicted with Hope. Caroline J. Sheaffer and Donald J. Seiple. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
    • "EXPERT REPORT OF PROFESSOR TERRY L KARL" (PDF). cja.org. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
  6. ↑ Chomsky, Noam (1992). What Uncle Sam Really Wants. Odonian Press. p. 35. ISBN 9781878825018. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  7. ↑ Goodfriend, Hilary (January 16, 2017). "El Salvador's New Battlefield". Jacobin. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  8. 1 2 3 Viveiros, Amanda (February 12, 2018). "A call for solidarity: Survivors of the 1980 Sumpul River Massacre in El Salvador inch closer to justice". 106.9 The X. London, Ontario. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  9. ↑ "EXPERT REPORT OF PROFESSOR TERRY L KARL" (PDF). cja.org. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Hoge, Warren (June 8, 1981). "SLAUGHTER IN SALVADOR: 200 LOST IN BORDER MASSACRE". The New York Times. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  11. ↑ Additional sources stating at least 300 deaths include:
    • "La masacre del Sumpul (1980)" [The massacre of the Sumpul (1980)]. ChalatenangoSV (in Spanish). Retrieved June 10, 2018.
    • DeLugan, Robin Maria (July 20, 2016). "Amnesty No More". NACLA. The North American Congress on Latin America. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
    • Grandin, Greg (July 27, 2016). "Eat, Pray, Starve: What Tim Kaine Didn't Learn During His Time in Honduras". The Nation. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
    Additional sources stating 600 deaths include:
    • Viveiros, Amanda (February 12, 2018). "A call for solidarity: Survivors of the 1980 Sumpul River Massacre in El Salvador inch closer to justice". 106.9 The X. London, Ontario. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
    • Kane, Adrian Taylor (April 1, 2013). "Blood in the Water: Salvadoran Rivers of Testimony and Resistance" (PDF). Hispanic Issues On Line (12): 163–179. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
    • Lewis, Carl (July 22, 2016). "El Salvador Amnesty Law repeal & U.S. intervention". Workers World. Workers.org. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
    • GeorginaNicoli (August 25, 2016). "El Salvador: The history of Arcatao". Progressio. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
    • DeShazer, Mary K. (1994). A Poetics of Resistance: Women Writing in El Salvador, South Africa, and the United States. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
  12. ↑ Guidi, Ruxandra (June 30, 2015). "These isolated towns in dangerous El Salvador are murder-free zones". PRI. Public Radio International. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  13. ↑ Malkin, Elisabeth; Palumbo, Gene (July 14, 2016). "Salvadoran Court Overturns Wartime Amnesty, Paving Way for Prosecutions". The New York Times. Mexico City. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
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