The self-annointed “coolest dictator in the world, Nayib Bukele, has just been re-elected president of El Salvador with a purported 85 percent of the vote. The margin of victory borders on the unbelievable. Bukele’s government is infamous or famous for an iron-fisted crackdown on the nation’s gangs. In a “state of emergency” civil liberties are suspended. In what has become a war, 14 months ago, 10,000 soldiers surrounded Soyapango, a large San Salvador slum. In January 1984 on assignment for Time, a business executive invited me to dinner at his home. I accepted, and we set off in a small bus. The tiny nation was beset by a civil war that pitted the leftist FMLN rebels against the U.S.-backed murderous dictatorship. The 12-year war would take the lives of at least 75,000 people. Many were victims of the regime’s death squads. I will continue to post anecdotes from my years in El Salvador. Here is an excerpt from my book about my visit to Soyapango.
My host lived with his mother in the hillside slum of Soyapango. I had expected him to live in a middle-class home and not the tiny sparsely furnished house where his mother served us dinner.
Later we stepped outside, and several young men came up to us. They greeted the man and he introduced them to me.
“He’s a friend,” the man told the men, referring to me. “You can speak freely.”
They said Soyapango had endured lethal government repression. The army’s death squads had in recent months arrested and never returned several young men. They were now among the “disappeared,” people arrested, tortured, killed and their bodies disposed of in remote places. Lake Ilopango was a favorite for disposing bodies.
“But we have taken measures to protect ourselves and our community,” the executive said. “‘Go ahead, guys. Show him,’” he said to the youths.
They scampered off and returned with an assortment of firearms, including AK-47 rifles, carbines and handguns.
“Now, when the death squads come, we have a welcome for them,” said the man.
Everyone laughed.
“In time, there will be a national FMLN offensive,” he continued. “Right here in the capital, that offensive will be decided. If we take San Salvador, the war is over.”
I could not have anticipated what I witnessed. A national offensive would be launched years later, and, in fact, help bring the war to an end.
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 