La Matanza (El Salvador)

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Farabundo Martí was arrested before the uprising. He was executed by shooting on January 31, 1932 .
General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez , under whose presidency the massacres took place

As " La Matanza " , Spanish for "the massacre" , a series of massacres in is El Salvador referred, committed in 1932 after the suppression of a peasant uprising by government forces under General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez . Between 10,000 and 40,000 people were killed. Due to the targeted murder of indigenous people , in particular members of the Pipil ethnic group , and the subsequent ban on the Nawat (Pipil) language , the crimes were both genocide and ethnocide .

requirements

In the years from 1880 to 1930 El Salvador went through a radical economic and political change: Government policy aimed at aligning the country's economy with coffee exports. By two government decrees in 1881 and 1882, the property rights of the indigenous communities were abolished and the communally managed ejidos were dissolved. As a result of the compulsory privatization of the communal land, it passed into the hands of some large landowning families. The basis of subsistence farming was stripped of the indigenous people ; henceforth they were forced to work on the coffee plantations. In addition to the production, the processing, marketing and export of the coffee were also controlled by some Ladino families. Coffee made up to 90% of export earnings in the 1920s. During this time, there was a simultaneous militarization of the farms in order to put down local revolts.

In the local elections in Izalco in 1927 , the Pipil Pedro Mauricio from Nahuizalco received the majority of the votes. The large landowners obtained the cancellation of his election on the grounds that Mauricio was illiterate .

From 1927 to 1930, the governments of Pío Romero Bosque and Arturo Araujo saw liberalization, within the framework of which trade unions were permitted. On March 30, 1930, the Salvadoran Communist Party ( Partido Comunista Salvadoreño ) was founded. In 1931 she was admitted as a party under President Arturo Araujo and approved her participation in the parliamentary and local elections in January 1932.

The liberalization phase ended when, after a rapid drop in coffee prices, a military coup in December 1931 brought General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez to power. The aim of the peasants who had become landless, to regain the lost land, seemed attainable only through active resistance. In the elections on January 3, 1932, the Salvadoran Communist Party won a majority in many communities. General Hernández then canceled the elections.

Preparations for the uprising by the El Salvador Communist Party

The Central Committee of the Salvadoran Communist Party had planned January 16, 1932 at noon as the start of an uprising. The uprising was postponed first to January 19 and then to January 22, 1932. On the night of January 19, 1932, the central hiding place in preparation for the uprising was surrounded and searched by the police. Agustín Farabundo Martí , who was responsible for preparing the uprising, and the students Alfonso Luna Calderón and Mario Zapata were arrested. Agitation material for the uprising was confiscated and passed on to the press. In the 6th Infantry Regiment in San Salvador , units were identified which were connected to the planned uprising. The attempt by insurgents to take a cavalry barracks failed. On January 20, 1932, the government declared a state of emergency in six departments in western El Salvador . Press censorship was imposed nationwide, and publications had to be submitted to the police director in advance. Even before civil rights were restricted, the army had occupied strategic points with heavily armed troops.

The government press reported:

“[...] Groups of farm workers [...] who had been incited by the red catechists rebelled against their employers and demanded more wages and better living conditions. And as if this were not already a clear and convincing expression of the intentions to violate the legal and social condition of the relationship between capital and labor, a revolutionary plan was uncovered two days ago which envisaged the capture of a barracks in the capital by attack What has already been made known by the detailed information from the organs of the national press [...] the government has been forced to issue drastic orders to nip the occasional germs of communism that are already being expressed in different parts of the republic . "

On the night of January 20, 1932, the rest of the leadership of the Communist Party met . Some suggested that the uprising be canceled. They argue that the surprise effect of the arrests has been lost. The party leadership decided to implement the plans with changes, about which the party base could no longer be informed.

The leaders of the Pipil farmers had prepared for the beginning of the uprising, and the impatience of the dispossessed and impoverished indigenous people to regain their land and local government was great. The developments had acquired a dynamic that was independent of party politics.

The riot

On the night of January 22nd to 23rd, 1932, thousands of farm workers occupied various villages in the departments of Sonsonate and Ahuachapan with machetes , cumas and a few rifles . Juayúa was the first city to be occupied by insurgents led by Francisco Sánchez . He had all alcohol poured out to prevent his followers from getting drunk. He also had the land titles handed over to him by the Grundamt in order to prepare a land distribution among the farmers who supported him. The women had to wear red clothes, the color of the party of the revolutionary Sánchez.

In Izalco it was the indigenous farmer leader Feliciano Ama who led the local farmers to the town hall. The indigenous people warned the mayor, Miguel Call, to leave, but he refused and shot two indigenous people. As a result, Miguel Call was shot. His designated successor Rafael Castro was also killed.

from the west: Ahuachapán, Sonsonate, Santa Ana, La Libertad. The uprising took place in these departments .

Feliciano Ama moved with farmers from Izalco to the departmental capital Sonsonate . There, insurgents from Juayúa killed the mayor, but the landowners accused the Ama they hated. He fled to Izalco and hid in the hills there, but was tracked down by soldiers of the Izalco garrison under Commandant Cabrera, seized and hanged in the center of Izalco .

The rebel stronghold of Juayúa was also quickly stormed by the army. Francisco Sánchez was seized, taken through the surrounding villages and then shot together with comrades.

In the vicinity of Nueva San Salvador there was bitter fighting. The military was informed, disciplined, and had superior firepower. After three days the uprising was suppressed.

Until then, not many insurgents had died in these fighting. The losses among the representatives of power were even smaller. In Juayúa the landowner Emilio Radaelli, his wife and the city commander, Coronel Mateo Vaquero, in Colón the secretary of the municipality , Efraín Alvarenga, the policeman Damasio Cruz and the local commander Coronel Domingo Carlos Campos died. Altogether, hardly more than 20 people died on the part of the state power and the large landowners, according to other sources 20 civilians and 30 military personnel.

La Matanza

Only after the end of the fighting did La Matanza , the " butchery ", take place, one of the most casualty mass murders in recent Latin American history. At the locations of the uprising, all men over 18 years of age suspected of participating in the fight were shot without trial. The massacre ended the indigenous culture of El Salvador. People were killed because they spoke the indigenous Nawat (related to the Nahuatl of Mexico) or because they wore the dress of the Pipiles . Journalists were kept away from the locations of the massacres. Eyewitnesses later reported that government troops murdered people indiscriminately, raped women from the villages and looted towns where the uprising was initially successful.

The security forces murdered between 8,000 and 30,000 people, the vast majority of whom were Pipil farmers. In the indigenous communities of Izalco , Nahuizalco , Tacuba and Juayúa , it is estimated that 28.5 percent of the population was murdered, almost every male over 12 who was unable to flee. Rapid fire weapons and Luftwaffe bombs were also used. The mass shootings lasted for about a month. The Nawat language of the Pipil was subsequently banned and brought to the brink of extinction within a few decades.

Legión Nacional Pro-Patria

The bourgeoisie organized the Legión Nacional Pro-Patria , a paramilitary militia that was no less cruel than the regular army . In a few months she killed en masse farm workers, laborers and students. Hundreds of murders for personal revenge, rape of women, and violence against children and the elderly have been committed.

Number of victims

USS Rochester (CA-2)
  • At the end of January 1932, the USS Rochester (CA-2) and the HMCS Skeena (D59) and HMCS Vancouver (F6A) anchored in the port of Acajutla . Their commanders declared that their job was to protect their compatriots. They offered to use their marines ashore against the insurgents.

Division General José Tomas Calderon (aka Chaquetilla), the head of the operation in western El Salvador, stated:

“I arrived in Acajutla on February 29, 1932 at 10:30 am. The port commander informed me that the British had already announced to the warships from shore that I was coming to the port, and he again expressed his suspicion by saying that any threat of attack would lead to the disembarkation of the marines, because apparently he trusted not that the communist movement had already been brought under control. This prompted me to make an inspection visit to the port offices, where I met the captain of the marines, who was introduced to me by the British vice-consul. From what the English captain said to me in correct Spanish there, I concluded that the warships did not believe that the government could effectively guarantee order throughout the country and that the communist movement was already nearing its end, I sent a dispatch with the following wording for signaling to the ships: "The Chief of Operations of the Western Region of the Republic, Division General José Tomas Calderon, sincerely greets Admiral Smith and Commander Bradeur of the warships Rochester, Skeene and Vancouver on behalf of the Government of General Martinez and on his own behalf, and he is pleased to announce that peace has been restored in El Salvador; that the communist offensive has been completely suppressed and broken up, and we are on the verge of total extermination. 4,800 Bolsheviks have already been liquidated. "

  • The Costa Rican writer Vicente Sáenz spoke to General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez in January 1933 . In his book Rompiendo Cadenas , he writes that Martinez said of the estimates of 12,000 deaths given abroad for the week: “The foreign newspapers have exaggerated the total. I don't know for sure myself. But I guess it won't be 4,000. "
  • Sáenz's footnote states:

"Others, including Salvadoran civil servants and military chiefs, who were well informed about this terrible slaughter, have given even higher numbers."

  • William Krehn, the Time magazine correspondent who spoke to Martinez, said in Democracia y Tiranía en el Caribe that Martínez had told him there were no more than 2,000 dead, or at most a few more.
  • The poet and revolutionary Roque Dalton names a number of more than 30,000 dead.
  • There are meticulously kept balance sheets of fincas in El Salvador, in which the loss of the rear occupants is registered.

Execution of Marti, Luna, Zapata

At 6 p.m. on January 30, 1932, a military tribunal opened the case against Agustín Farabundo Martí , Alfonso Luna and Mario Zapata . The verdict was announced on January 31, 1932 at 6 a.m.: Marti, Luna and Zapata were sentenced to death by shooting . The sentence was on 1 February enforced .

Murder weapons

Miguel Márol reported to Roque Dalton :

“The truck was driving at high speed towards my closer home, as I could see when a group of soldiers in Casamata stopped and checked the vehicle. 17 national police officers armed with Mauser rifles guarded us on the journey. The head of the group, a captain named Alvarenga, carried a German-made automatic pistol called the 'Solotur' and drove with him in the cabin. He would die of an intestinal fever a few months later. Maybe all the crimes like what he was about to commit have left their mark on him. "

Commemoration of the massacres

"Rescue from Communism"

The party of death squads , the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA), commemorates the "events of 1932" and the "Savior of the Fatherland" General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez with approval and nostalgia . In 1981 she chose Izalco as the founding site , where over a quarter of the population was killed in 1932 and, according to her statement, "saved the country from communism". It is here that she traditionally starts her nationwide election campaigns with her party anthem, which says: "El Salvador will be the grave where the reds will find their end" ( El Salvador será la tumba donde los rojos terminarán ) . Even today, the Salvadoran army still refers positively in its tradition to General Maximiliano Martínez, the suppression of “communist subversion” in 1932 and to the founder of the death squads and the ARENA in the 1980s, Roberto D'Aubuisson Arrieta .

Guerrillas in the tradition of the 1932 insurgents

A faction of the PCS founded the underground movement Fuerzas Populares de Liberación Farabundo Martí on April 1, 1970 and took up the guerrilla war. By naming it after Farabundo Martí , it placed itself in the tradition of the uprising. On October 10, 1980, she was involved in the founding of the guerrilla organization Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), which took over this name.

Remembering the dead

Since the genocide, it had not been possible in an atmosphere of extreme repression and fear to commemorate the dead of 1932. The peace accords of January 16, 1992 opened up prospects for the first time to speak publicly about the crimes of 1932 in El Salvador. Across from the Church of the Assumption ( Iglesia la Asunción ) in Izalco is El Llanito , one of the largest mass graves from the Matanza period . In January 2001 Juliana Ama, a teacher in Izalco, an activist for the rights of her people, Pipil , and the great-niece of the farmer's leader Feliciano Ama , who was hanged there in 1932, began organizing commemorations in El Llanito , which have since been held annually around the anniversary of the carnage of the Catholic pastor of the Iglesia la Asunción and indigenous groups.

literature

  • Hugh Byrne: El Salvador's Civil War: A Study of Revolution . Boulder, Colorado, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1996.
  • Thomas L. Pearcy: The History of Central America . Greenwood Press, Westport CT et al. a. 2006, ISBN 0-313-32293-7 ( The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations ), ( online limited version (Google Books) ).

swell

  1. ^ University of California, San Diego (2001): El Salvador: elections and events 1902-1932 ( Memento of May 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Carlos B. Córdova, Bombsite 90 (2005): Daniel Flores y Ascencio (English)
  3. ↑ Marina A. Henriquez (December 6, 2007): Unheard Voices - Pipil / Nahuate Nation Past and Present (PDF file; 480 kB)
  4. ^ A b c Paul D. Almeida: Organizational expansion, liberalization reversals and radicalized collective action . In: Harland Prechel (ed.): Politics and globalization 15, 2007, pp. 57–97.
  5. ^ Matthew Clay Watson: History and Community Thinking in Nahulingo, El Salvador. Thesis, University of Florida , 2005.
  6. ↑ a b Miguel Marmol and Oscar Martínez Peñate sobre José Feliciano Ama (eltorogoz.net) ( Memento of the original from July 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / eltorogoz.net
  7. ↑ Thomas Anderson: Matanza. El Salvador's Communist Revolt of 1932 . 1971, p. 23
  8. ↑ a b c Dermot Keogh (1982): El Salvador 1932. Peasant Revolt and Massacre.
  9. ↑ Miguel Mármol: Francisco Sánchez (Héroe de 1932)
  10. ↑ Museo de la palabra y la imagen 1932, Cicatriz de la Memoria ( Memento of the original from March 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / 66.49.250.235
  11. ^ Stoll, David La Biblia como arma
  12. ↑ Jeffrey Gould and Carlos Henríquez Consalvi: Video "1932. Cicatrices de la memoria ". New York: First Run / Icarus Films, 2002. Film review 1932 - La memoria toma la palabra . ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / collaborations.denison.edu
  13. ↑ a b Jorge Arias Gómez : Farabundo Martí , EDUCA San José. 1972. 
  14. ↑ the grandfather of the future President Armando Calderón Sol ( envio July 1994 )
  15. ↑ Roque Dalton The world is a limping centipede. The Century of Miguel Mármol , translated from Salvadoran Spanish by Michael Schwahn and Andreas Simmen, the original Spanish edition was published in 1972 under the title Miguel Mármol. Los sucedes de 1932 en El Salvador at EDUCA in San José, Costa Rica, Rotpunktverlag Zurich March 1997. p. 246
  16. ^ Dalton p. 208
  17. ^ Emilyhabenberg, March 15, 2009: El Salvador Elections - The Ghosts of Izalco
  18. ↑ Marko Martin: Teniente Hidalgo dreams of fighting. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, March 1, 2011
  19. ^ Roberto Lovato: March 12, 2009: Izalco, El Salvador and the Way Beyond the Silence . New America Media, News analysis ( Memento of the original from November 22, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / news.newamericamedia.org
  20. ^ Roberto Lovato: Mon (u) rning in El Salvador. Of America, March 26, 2009
  21. ↑ Iván Escobar: Municipios indígenas cambian rumbo político en 2009 . DiarioCoLatino, January 24, 2009 ( Memento of the original from September 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.diariocolatino.com

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