Salvador/U.S. Déjà vu
Nine years into my journalistic career, I was sure I knew it all. I brought that hubris with me when, in January 1984, I reported my first story in El Salvador.
American officials would never lie. Shade the truth, yeah. I knew that.
Amidst the civil war, death squads were on a non-stop rampage. Unknown vigilantes were responsible for the wanton murders, between 2,500 and 3,000 in 1984.
During the conflict that officially lasted from 1979 to 1990, between 20,000 and 40,000 civilians were slaughtered. An estimated 8,000 to 9,000 people were disappeared.
Human rights groups working with independent investigators conclude that the combined total of massacred and disappeared was a bit over 71,000.
Government security forces, with the invaluable aid of U.S. military and counterinsurgency advisors, are guilty of these crimes.
The Vietnam War provided a killing template. It was called the Phoenix Project, a mass assassination campaign aimed at eliminating support for the Viet Cong.
A near-copy was used in El Salvador, unofficially named the “Salvador Option.”
Officials at the American Embassy, I soon learned, lied with gusto. They feigned ignorance about who was slaughtering people. American military advisors, who, in reality, directed counterinsurgency efforts, were true believers in the “option.”
Once again, I am watching U.S. authorities lie about El Salvador and one of its citizens.
The Kilmer Abrego Garcia is another shameful and cruel episode in American-Salvadoran relations. Dictator Nayib Bukele is happily partaking in the Trump regime’s mockery of the rule of law.
Let’s remember that an army of American officials, whose salaries we pay, are dutifully making this grave injustice possible.
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 