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A fresh look at the civil war in El Salvador and how it is affecting the US Government's involvement in the conflict.

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00:01Funding for Frontline is provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide
00:07and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
00:12Tonight, on Frontline, the conflict in Central America, which the headlines ignore, El Salvador.
00:20The U.S. has spent nearly three billion dollars here.
00:24But many people say the real problem is not the communist guerrillas, but poverty and despair.
00:31Is U.S. policy here failing?
00:34It has not produced either peace, nor has it really strengthened the people in their democratic commitment.
00:41Tonight, on Forgotten War.
00:53From the network of public television stations, a presentation of KCTS Seattle,
00:58WNET New York, WPBT Miami, WTVS Detroit, and WGBH Boston.
01:07This is Frontline, with Judy Woodruff.
01:11Good evening.
01:16During President Reagan's second term, the debate here in Washington about our policy in Central America
01:23has focused on Nicaragua, and more recently, Panama.
01:27But the U.S. has been putting its money into El Salvador.
01:30Since 1980, we have supported the government of El Salvador with more than three billion dollars in economic and military aid,
01:40nearly ten times the amount given to the Nicaraguan Contras.
01:45The U.S. government now contributes more to the Salvadoran budget than the people of El Salvador do.
01:51This enormous investment was aimed at defeating the leftist guerrillas in El Salvador,
01:58and in creating a centrist democracy there, a model for the rest of Central America.
02:03Tonight, Frontline examines the impact of the American program in El Salvador.
02:11Producers Mark Cooper, George Moll, and Richard O'Regan of Christian Science Monitor Reports
02:18gained unprecedented access behind guerrilla lines,
02:22and returned from El Salvador with a portrait of a troubled land.
02:26Their report is called, Our Forgotten War.
02:33The people of El Salvador, we've heard, weren't ready for democracy.
02:37The only choice was between the left-wing guerrillas and the violent right.
02:42And many insisted that it was the guerrillas that truly had the backing of the people.
02:47But with your support, we were able to send help in time.
02:50What got there was a massive aid package that in El Salvador has come to be called the American Project.
03:05This is its military face.
03:07A barricade of humanity and steel in the path of hemispheric revolution.
03:26The hardware, abundant, expensive, American.
03:30The soldiers, Salvadorans.
03:35The poor, a peasant army.
03:46To Salvadoran military leaders, the nature of their opponent makes American involvement almost inevitable.
03:52When we were threatened by Marxist aggression, we decided to call upon our natural allies to protect us.
04:03The United States of America.
04:06Since 1980, U.S. support has transformed the Salvadoran army into Central America's most technically advanced and fully equipped military.
04:19An army fueled by hundreds of millions in U.S. tax dollars.
04:26Polished and oiled by American advisors.
04:31And supported by a U.S. supplied fleet of warplanes and helicopter gunships.
04:37Elite infantry battalions, trained by U.S. experts, are airlifted into the mountainous countryside.
04:50They stalk the leftist guerrillas.
04:54This has become America's war.
04:59The longest sustained U.S. military commitment since Vietnam.
05:05When the American project began eight years ago, the fighting was confined to a few guerrilla strongholds.
05:13Now it has spread to every corner of the country as the rebel forces break down into small mobile units.
05:24A strategy designed to cope with the government's superior air power.
05:27A strategy that has led the Salvadoran army to spread itself thin.
05:41Casualties are alarmingly high.
05:45As many as one in ten soldiers are killed or wounded every year.
05:54As many as one in ten soldiers are killed or wounded every year.
05:58Now?
05:59Now, now, get a raise.
06:00Now.
06:01Now, get he drunk.
06:02Now, get his left.
06:03Now come back.
06:04Now, get him alive.
06:05Now, get him alive.
06:06Now, get up, come back.
06:07Now, get some pull or get him back.
06:09Now, get him from there to go.
06:10Now that he is gonna kill him.
06:11After nearly a decade of war, neither side has a clear advantage.
06:23The numbers of casualties are disputed, but it is estimated that more than 100,000 Salvadoran citizens have been killed in the war or political violence since 1980.
06:33Seventy miles southeast of San Salvador, in the country's mountainous eastern region, lies the provincial capital of Usulatan.
06:59Surrounded by contested territory, the city is defended by two major garrisons.
07:06Thousands of troops are pinned down in cities like this one, defending bridges, roads and power lines against the guerrillas' unpredictable assaults.
07:21Usulatan has not seen a guerrilla attack since 1982.
07:27On the night of February 17th, the war strikes.
07:36Automatic weapons fire, grenades and mortars awaken the people of Usulatan.
07:51In the heart of a city supposedly controlled by the Salvadoran army, the garrison is under siege.
08:00The casualties, twenty soldiers and three guerrillas.
08:09Seven civilians are killed, four of them children, the army says by guerrilla mortars.
08:18We can't say for sure what hit the house, because it was totally destroyed, destroyed.
08:27Everyone inside was killed.
08:28Including our grandchild.
08:36In the aftermath of the attack, the townspeople are angry.
08:45Why is there so much war here?
08:54Who knows?
08:55What's that you said sir?
08:56Hunger.
08:57Hunger.
08:58Hunger.
08:59Hunger.
09:00Hunger.
09:01Hunger is the cause of war?
09:02Yes.
09:03Why?
09:04It's the injustice.
09:05The government promised us things that have all turned down backwards.
09:09Everything's bad.
09:10It's done nothing.
09:11It's done nothing.
09:12So much aid has been given to this government and we've gotten nothing.
09:18That afternoon, the people of the town mourn their dead.
09:26In El Salvador, it is a familiar scene.
09:27Two percent of the entire population has been killed in this conflict.
09:33Most of the dead have been civilians.
09:36For those caught in the crossfire, there is anger toward the continuing war.
09:41And toward the political face of the American project, the government of President Jose Napoleon
10:06Duarte, which cannot seem to end the war or address its causes.
10:10The government's unpopularity is a major concern for the United States, which has invested three
10:17billion dollars trying to create in El Salvador a moderate civilian democracy, a pro-American
10:23alternative to Marxist Nicaragua.
10:26You will find this country, the United States of America, eager to stand beside those nations
10:34which respect human rights and which promote democratic ideals.
10:39The American project began in 1979 when President Carter gave significant political and financial
10:46support to an alliance of military and civilian reformers who had overthrown the country's
10:51military dictator.
10:52The new Salvadoran government promised that after 50 years of military rule, a true democracy would
11:05be established.
11:06They hoped to undercut a simmering leftist guerrilla movement with a program of land redistribution
11:12and economic reforms.
11:14For 50 years, the country's tremendous disparities of wealth had sparked unrest and rebellion.
11:20One of the things we did was demonstrate to the Salvadoran government that as long as they were moving
11:26toward democracy, that we would help them out economically and militarily.
11:35But the Salvadoran military, now with U.S. financial backing, began a campaign of bloody repression
11:42against the reform movement.
11:44With the aid of government security forces, the death squads killed thousands.
12:05The reform movement was wiped out.
12:18I was a member of the governing party.
12:20I was a member of the leadership of the party, the political commission.
12:24And I was almost in hiding all the time, sleeping in one house one night, sleeping in a different
12:31house in a different night.
12:32Samora fled into exile in 1980.
12:39After his brother Mario, also a member of the government, was murdered in his home by
12:46members of a right-wing death squad.
12:48Moderate politicians abandoned their hopes of working with the government.
12:54Many threw their support to the cause of revolution.
13:01On the eve of President Reagan's inauguration,
13:05the guerrillas began what they called the Final Offensive,
13:09an attempt to provoke a popular uprising against the U.S.-supported government.
13:14The attempt failed, and the guerrillas retreated to the hills to build a revolutionary army.
13:21Washington continued to support the military government and its civilian leader,
13:27Christian Democrat Jose Napoleon Duarte.
13:31American pressure on the Salvadoran military helped Duarte hold back the challenge posed by
13:36the extreme rightists and their leader, former Army Major Roberto Dalbisson.
13:41Dalbisson was widely believed to be the man who had organized the death squads.
13:46His Arena party represented El Salvador's traditional rulers,
13:50the wealthy landowners and military leaders who resisted any change in the nation's social system.
14:01With the left afraid to campaign openly,
14:03Arena became the only political party capable of opposing the government.
14:07But in the 1984 presidential elections, Duarte defeated Dalbisson.
14:14The U.S. government was now satisfied that Salvadoran democracy was firmly in place.
14:20El Salvador faded from the headlines.
14:22In Washington, support for the Duarte government was no longer controversial.
14:26We're really allied with the good guys here.
14:29I mean, our people in the United States, we cannot expect them to support a foreign policy that does not support decency and democracy and attempt to improve justice systems and attempt to improve the standard of living.
14:42And we're with those kind of people.
14:44But the ruling Christian Democratic Party has fallen into disarray and recrimination after a series of defeats at the polls and accusations of corruption, problems made worse by President Duarte's failing health.
14:58Last month, he turned his office over to the vice president and left the country for medical treatment.
15:03In the streets, anti-government protest has reappeared.
15:15Much of it led by President Duarte's disgruntled former allies.
15:22The rightist arena party is confident that popular discontent will bring it to power in next year's presidential election.
15:35And in the countryside, the guerrilla army remains strong and confident of victory.
15:51Opposition politicians, like Ruben Zamora, after years of exile, have returned.
16:00Not to participate in the American-inspired elections, but to overthrow the government the U.S. supports.
16:07Who is not at war with this government in this country, you know?
16:14No.
16:15You take from the richest people to the poorest people, everybody is at war with this government.
16:23In El Salvador today, most people live in the political and military no-man's land, controlled by neither the government nor the guerrillas.
16:34This is the town of San Fernando.
16:37Most of the year, the town is under guerrilla control.
16:41The guerrillas held it in March of this year when the rest of El Salvador held national elections.
16:54Now, 2,500 government troops have been moved into the area.
17:00Under their protection, the election for mayor will be held a month late.
17:08The candidates have never appeared in town.
17:10Neither party has campaigned.
17:13Mayors and candidates are considered by the guerrillas to be part of the war against them.
17:18More than a dozen have been killed in the last few years.
17:21The new mayor, like the current one, will live and work 30 miles away in government-protected territory.
17:30And, like the mayor, the voting process itself must be protected by government troops who are rarely seen in San Fernando.
17:38Voters, many of whom have walked for hours, must pass a military checkpoint at the entrance to town.
17:47In the town square, there are more soldiers.
17:51But hours after the voting was to begin, there are no civilian authorities.
17:57No one is sure when or where the balloting will take place.
18:02It's already nine in the morning.
18:05Where are the ballot boxes?
18:07We don't know.
18:08They haven't told us anything.
18:10How are the ballots going to get here?
18:13Who knows?
18:14Probably by helicopter.
18:16Because if they try to bring them in by road, they'll get burned.
18:19It isn't safe.
18:21Just after ten, by army helicopter, the ballots and the election officials arrive.
18:29They set up booths, but still no one can vote.
18:34There is confusion over what kind of registration card is valid.
18:39Here is one.
18:40This man asked to vote here in San Fernando.
18:44The official who can make the decision has yet to arrive.
18:48Are you going to be able to vote today?
18:50I don't know.
18:51That's what we all want to know.
18:53If we can't vote with just ID cards, then everyone here is going to have to leave now because they live so far away.
18:58You want to vote?
18:59Of course I do.
19:00Why?
19:01It's a citizen's duty.
19:02We're all citizens.
19:03It's to prove that we're citizens.
19:04We elect our president, our mayor, our officials.
19:05That's why we're here.
19:06Do you know the candidates today?
19:07No, nobody knows them.
19:08Why not?
19:09They've never come here.
19:1011 a.m.
19:21The remaining officials arrive on another helicopter.
19:29After a short debate, they disqualify more than half of those who are here.
19:35Some have come to the wrong town.
19:37Others have had their voting cards taken away by the guerrillas.
19:42This lady can't vote here.
19:45But this lady can't vote here.
19:48Because they'll appear in the lists we have.
19:53Voting begins.
20:05Why are you voting for Arena, not the Christian Democrats?
20:21Because that's who we decided to vote for.
20:23For any special reason?
20:25No special reason.
20:26That's just who we're voting for.
20:28Why?
20:29Well, that's who we're going to vote for because that's who we decided to vote for.
20:34Who is the Arena candidate?
20:38We don't know.
20:42Have you decided who to vote for?
20:45I don't know.
20:46The truth is, I don't understand any of this.
20:49And you, ma'am?
20:50Same for me.
20:51Who'd you vote for?
20:53I just chose anyone.
20:55Who knows who?
20:56I never heard of any of them.
20:57People vote because they're afraid that if they don't vote, something can happen to them.
21:07Seven people were taken away by the army when San Fernando was secured for the election the week before.
21:12Those who remain fear the army will treat them as guerrilla collaborators if they can't prove that they have voted.
21:19What can happen is that if you go down the road and the soldiers check your card and see that you haven't voted, then they suspect you.
21:29And you can have problems.
21:31That's the reason people come to vote.
21:34Not because they understand or know who they are electing.
21:38Here there aren't even any candidates.
21:42Do you think the people knew the difference between one party and the other?
21:47I doubt it.
21:49I doubt if they knew any difference.
21:52With the voting finished, the election officials asked the soldiers to radio for a helicopter.
21:59The helicopter carries away the ballots, the officials, and along with them, any trace of the Salvadoran government.
22:05The army remains in control of the town.
22:09It does not control the countryside around it.
22:13Five miles outside of San Fernando, reporters are waved down by guerrillas.
22:18The rebels want to explain their opposition to the election and discuss the progress of the offensive that is being conducted in the area against them.
22:27We have a communique from our command.
22:31And then we'll take any questions you have.
22:33So do you accept?
22:36A press conference is assembled a few yards off the road.
22:49The questions are relayed by walkie-talkie to the rebel commanders.
22:52And carried in full on the guerrillas' radio station, Radio Farabundo Martí.
22:57Desatando una brutal represión y terror.
23:00Aprovechando la cobertura que puede darle el show electoral en San Fernando para que dicha represión pase desapercibida.
23:07The press conference lasts more than an hour.
23:10The press conference lasts more than an hour.
23:12Less than one minute's helicopter flight from the nearest government-controlled town.
23:18Norteamericana.
23:21The result of this proposal was a total failure.
23:25We continue to be present in all parts and acting in the back of the operation.
23:30The mountainous region along El Salvador's border with Honduras has been a traditional sanctuary for guerrilla operations.
23:41The insurgents who stopped the press outside San Fernando are based in this province of Chalatenango.
23:47But it is in this northeastern province of Moritzan where the guerrilla army, known as the FMLN, maintains its most secure zone of control.
24:02The last army outpost in this region was dislodged five years ago.
24:08Now the town of Perkin is the unofficial capital of what the FMLN refers to as Free El Salvador.
24:16The government army can occupy this town and the territory around it.
24:21For several months last year it did.
24:24But it can only hold the town for short periods of time.
24:35Most of the year Perkin remains a place for revolutionary fighters to rest between offensives.
24:42And to prepare for new ones.
24:47We are really fighting the U.S. Army.
24:50If it were not for American help, we would have won this war a long time ago.
25:01These are the special assault commandos.
25:07The guerrilla elite strike force.
25:09Their commander is a former Salvadoran army officer, schooled by the American army in counter insurgency.
25:17In 1981 he defected to the FMLN.
25:21Since then he has used his expertise to drill insurgents.
25:26He is now the chief of the guerrilla's military operations.
25:33This unit we are training here will overrun and destroy the enemy's strategic positions.
25:39The Salvadoran army has yet to develop effective tactics to fight these revolutionaries.
25:48The guerrillas are trained to pursue a strategy opposite that of the Salvadoran military machine.
25:55To fight a protracted war of infiltration and surprise.
26:04A war the guerrillas believe the Salvadoran military has neither the ability nor the commitment to fight.
26:10I've been in both armies. The big difference is in the sacrifice and commitment of the revolutionary army.
26:21Its determination to fight doesn't at all depend on outside factors,
26:25but rather on the political and ideological commitment of each soldier.
26:29Each one knows exactly why he is fighting.
26:32And it has organized a large network of supporters and collaborators.
26:37Their clandestine radio stations are the voices of the revolution,
26:42carrying the message of the rebellion's tactics and purpose
26:45to an audience who, the guerrillas say, is more and more inclined to listen.
26:49Trabajador, pasala consigna!
26:51Tu arma es el fuego!
26:52Tu arma es el fuego!
26:53Acumula gasolina!
26:54Botellas vacías!
26:55Tela de algodón!
26:56Fabrica el armamento popular!
26:58Pasala consigna!
26:59Tu arma es el fuego!
27:00Tu arma es el fuego!
27:01Tu arma es el fuego!
27:02Todos al combate!
27:05Hay una coyuntura interna en El Salvador.
27:09There's a very special set of circumstances now in El Salvador.
27:12An extreme sharpening of the economic, social and political crisis.
27:20It's much worse now than it was when the war broke out in 1980.
27:25It's much harder now for the people.
27:27FMLN commander Joaquin Villalobos is the leader of the revolutionary forces.
27:33This is his first interview with the U.S. media.
27:37The relationship between our forces and the people has been greatly improved and cemented.
27:43Because of that, the likelihood of a victory on our part is very high.
27:49In the capital of San Salvador, the American ambassador is confident that the revolutionary army is in decline.
27:55I think that we have broken the back of their military might already.
28:00There are probably a thousand fanatics that can stay out there for a long time.
28:05The Reagan administration considers the Salvadoran guerrillas to be part of an international Marxist movement.
28:16And says they can keep fighting only because they are armed and supported by a network of terrorists and subversives.
28:23They are training in Cuba, training in the East Bloc and the Soviet Union, training in Libya, training in Nicaragua.
28:32I mean, the support apparatus for the Salvadoran guerrillas is clearly established.
28:38These are hardcore communist guerrillas.
28:41They are hardcore communist guerrillas.
28:42They have no interest in participating in a democratic system. They don't believe in it.
28:46In the hills of Morasan, the guerrillas answer that it is the United States that hinders democracy in El Salvador.
28:54When the wishes of the people truly become known, they say, it will be the Americans who are cast out.
28:59Todos cantarlo!
29:01No, no, no ha la intervención! El pueblo! Que revolución! No, no, no ha la intervención! El pueblo! Que revolución!
29:14The military officers responsible for murder, those who still murder today, are the ones
29:32in power.
29:33That sort of impunity does nothing to permit free political expression.
29:37You know, if you go into the streets to protest, your life is hanging by a thread, you're risking
29:43your future.
29:44So under those conditions, how can you talk about democracy?
29:49This is a dictatorship, a military dictatorship disguised as a civilian government.
29:56The FMLN rejects the idea that El Salvador's current government can or wants to make the
30:01reforms the country needs, and they say an American-style system will not work here.
30:12Does our model imply radical change?
30:14Yes, it does.
30:15Is our model in some ways socialist?
30:17Yes, it has to be, and it shouldn't frighten anyone.
30:21You have to understand that we cannot copy your model.
30:25You built your capitalist system by oppressing and exploiting our continent, but we don't
30:32have anyone to exploit to build the same society you have.
30:35Where are we going to get our slaves?
30:38From whose mines are we going to take the riches?
30:42We have none.
30:44We must build our society with our own labor.
30:47Just let us get on with it.
30:53In response to the US allegation that their revolution is foreign-supported, FMLN leaders
31:01say they have the right to buy weapons from wherever they can.
31:05The foreign source of most of their guns, they say, is the Reagan administration.
31:10They are either captured from the Salvadoran army or purchased from another American-financed
31:16force, the Nicaraguan rebels.
31:18Are you buying guns from the Contras?
31:20Yes, we buy from the Contras.
31:22The Contras deny the charge, but FMLN commander Roberto Roca insists that the Contras are indeed
31:29selling some of their weapons to the Salvadoran guerrillas.
31:36So, guns paid for with US tax dollars and earmarked for the Contras are winding up in
31:42our hands.
31:43Fortunately, they are now in good hands, going for a good cause.
31:50Whenever they can, the guerrillas make their own, from homemade uniforms to home-brewed bombs
31:57and explosives.
31:59The guerrillas are developing their own weapons industry.
32:06Regional commander Jonas has called local guerrilla leaders together for a firing test
32:11of what they call popular armament.
32:15artillery is made from the crudest of materials.
32:22We wrap all this in a burlap bag.
32:25Then we tie it with hemp so that the shrapnel won't fall out in flight.
32:32You want it to explode and expand when it hits the enemy forces.
32:37A piece of pipe becomes a mortar.
32:46Discarded shell casings, a grenade.
32:52The testing is interrupted.
32:55A government plane is heard overhead.
32:58One of the fleet of American-supplied A-37 bombers.
33:19The plane passes.
33:25Testing is resumed.
33:26This time, a land mine, fashioned from a tin can.
33:30The guerrilla forces feel they can fight this kind of war indefinitely.
33:55Their stamina and the tactics of their enemy, they believe will enable them to win what both sides declare to be the crucial battle in this war.
34:12The battle for the loyalty of the Salvadoran people.
34:16San Fernando de Marsan is one of several towns the guerrillas point to as examples of how the government drives people to support their revolution.
34:28The town was destroyed by government air raids, a tactic designed to dry up civilian support for the guerrillas.
34:35They killed a two-year-old girl, they killed a five-year-old girl, and they killed their mother too.
34:45Other neighbors also died.
34:48And that's what this government has given us.
34:51These men now form part of a town council set up with guerrilla encouragement.
34:56When the Salvadoran government refused to fund a school, the town council built its own and hired a teacher.
35:17The school bell is made from a spent helicopter rocket.
35:30With guerrilla encouragement, this women's committee has organized to bring food into Perkin.
35:40To smuggle it past army roadblocks.
35:47The committee provides lunch for the school children twice a week.
35:55Here, deep inside rebel territory, the government blockade has made supplies too scarce to ensure that everyone receives what they need.
36:09Cut off from adequate food and medical care, this two-year-old was claimed by the number one killer of Salvadoran infants.
36:24Diarrhea and dehydration.
36:28The only portion of the three billion dollars in USAid these people see are the weapons used against them.
36:52In the capital of San Salvador, the center of government control, living conditions have declined over the course of this war.
37:05It is a city choked with refugees and poverty.
37:09In the last ten years, the population of San Salvador has doubled.
37:13Consumer buying power has dropped 50%.
37:16Half the population has no access to clean drinking water.
37:24One in four Salvadoran children is malnourished.
37:28This is San Miguelito, a typical neighborhood in San Salvador.
37:40People here live in shacks constructed along a river choked with sewage and trash.
37:53And a family moved here seven years ago, after the war drove them from their farm.
37:58Thirteen people.
38:03Three generations.
38:05Two rooms.
38:11What can you feed your family now?
38:14Right now, beans are pretty expensive, so we buy what we can, when we can.
38:20Some eggs, maybe some sour cream, for 50 cents.
38:24It's enough for one meal.
38:26You get what you can, maybe a pound of sugar, a pound and a half of beans, because two pounds now cost too much.
38:38Have you asked for a salary increase?
38:41Well, that's not allowed.
38:44You can't ask for a raise.
38:46You know, it's a government job.
38:48If we ask for a raise, they fire us.
38:51If you want to get along, you keep quiet.
38:57Oscar Miranda works as a printer for the government.
39:01His father and brother also contribute full-time salaries to the household.
39:06By Salvadoran standards, this family is doing well.
39:10Half the population has no job at all.
39:14They live like the people of Rio Las Canas, trying to support themselves however they can.
39:22The people here are refugees who have come to the outskirts of San Salvador looking for peace or for work.
39:33They earn their money by digging sand out of the riverbed and loading it onto trucks for use in construction projects.
39:40Can you support your family with what you make here?
39:46No.
39:47God knows we can't.
39:51With the needs we have, only God can help us.
39:55When we don't have money, I send my wife with 10 cents up to the store
40:00to buy fish skeletons for soup.
40:05They strip off the meat and leave us the head and the bones.
40:08That's what we eat.
40:11As in every community in El Salvador, the war is never far away.
40:16How much will the three of you make?
40:18Two dollars.
40:20For how much work?
40:22For a truckload.
40:23Two dollars for the three of us.
40:25When did you start doing this work?
40:31Since my father died.
40:33Arturo's father and two other river workers were taken away by armed, uniformed men
40:38on the night of April 14th of this year.
40:42A week later, they were found dead of gunshot wounds in shallow graves an hour down the road.
40:49Arturo's mother says her husband was taken away by Air Force infantry troops.
40:53I'm afraid all alone here.
40:58My children are all boys.
41:00I'm afraid the same can happen to them that happened to my husband.
41:04I'm afraid for the boys.
41:06Scared.
41:12Trouble started here when the river workers began to organize.
41:15There was a dispute with this landowner who claims the riverbed is private property.
41:19He erected a fence to keep the workers from digging on the land he claims.
41:25At first, some men came from the Union.
41:32They wanted to see about taking that fence down.
41:36That's when that rich man told us that little by little he was going to get rid of all of us who dig the sand.
41:43That's what he said.
41:44Not long afterward, the three men from Rio Las Canas were kidnapped and murdered.
41:50They're all working here illegally. They're squatters.
41:55None of them have title. They don't own any of this land.
41:58They haven't paid anything for it.
42:04You're armed.
42:06Do you feel threatened?
42:07Yeah, sure. We're constantly threatened.
42:10By whom?
42:11By all these people.
42:13These people over here?
42:14Yes, by all of them.
42:16By agitators and union leaders.
42:17How have they threatened you?
42:20They said they're going to shoot me.
42:22Machine gun me.
42:24Are any of you armed?
42:29No, no one here has any weapons.
42:31All we have are hoes to cut down the weeds.
42:36No one has any weapons.
42:39We're just poor people.
42:41He's the only one around here who is armed, and that's to threaten us.
42:43In the history of this conflict, only one soldier has ever been prosecuted for the killing of a Salvadoran civilian.
42:5265,000 civilians have been killed in the last 10 years.
43:02I'm afraid.
43:04I'm afraid because they took the others away without us knowing why.
43:08They can take me away for no reason at all.
43:10Despite the murders, the workers continue to dig sand from the riverbed.
43:17They have no place else to go, and no other way to make a living.
43:23My real fear is that I don't know who wants to kill us.
43:28It's nothing but hatred, pure hatred.
43:30El odio es.
43:31El odio?
43:32El odio.
43:33El odio.
43:35In San Salvador, the war and economic devastation that it has brought with it has opened the door to political defiance.
43:42On the steps of the National Cathedral, they sing of revolution, and in praise of El Salvador's revolutionary martyr, Farabundo Martí.
43:55Five years ago, this concert could not have been staged. Its organizers would have been in hiding, in exile, or dead.
44:05The site of the concert, the plaza in which protestors had been killed by Salvadoran troops, is a powerful political statement.
44:20The site of the concert, the plaza in which protestors had been killed by Salvadoran troops, is a powerful political statement.
44:35Even more powerful, the appearance of this ensemble, seen here in public,
45:04for the first time since 1980. It is the official musical group of the guerrilla army.
45:19The American project helped make open political protest possible, hoping to draw the left into supporting peaceful change.
45:27But the freedom to speak is now used to demand the violent overthrow of the American-supported government.
45:34The next morning, 20,000 workers came into the streets to confront the government.
45:47It is May Day, 1988.
45:49Some of the marchers have traveled many hours in buses or on foot from the remote countryside.
45:56They spray paint slogans demanding food and jobs.
46:02Many of the nation's unions supported the government in the 1984 elections.
46:07Since then, suspicion and hostility have grown on both sides.
46:10The government abandoned a promise to enact social and economic reforms.
46:15In response, the unions have moved increasingly to the left.
46:21Troops and riot police defend the American embassy, a traditional target for those who see the United States as the force that keeps this government in power.
46:29Students and urban commandos burn telephone junction boxes as acts of open defiance and economic sabotage.
46:39The government considers these marchers, even their former allies among them, to be guerrilla collaborators.
46:45Many cover their faces to prevent the security forces from identifying them.
46:50The marchers are harassed by military planes and helicopters.
46:55A bomber drops pro-government leaflets.
47:03The rally is tense.
47:07Riot troops block several nearby streets.
47:10In the past year and a half, government security forces have killed more than ten union officials.
47:16Several others have disappeared after arrest.
47:19Suspected police informers are cornered by the commandos.
47:22A military helicopter circles so close it is difficult to hear the speakers.
47:44The crowd responds with taunts and chants of solidarity.
47:47The speaker, Ruben Zamora, like many of the marchers, is a former ally of President Duarte and a former supporter of the American project.
47:59And the minister of foreign relations exteriors, Reagan, said,
48:04hace 7 years, that they were going to trazar the line to stop the revolution in El Salvador.
48:13In El Salvador no have been able to trazar any line.
48:19The only ones who have been able to trazar line in this country
48:24are the forces of the people who have done it and will be returning more and more.
48:35But the right wing is pushing too.
48:38It remains strong and it remains opposed to any kind of social reform.
48:43Tonight the city's wealthy elite has come out to raise money for the Orena party.
48:48Dinner is $100 a plate, more than double the monthly per capita income.
48:54This march Orena dealt a devastating blow to the ruling Christian Democrats when it won control of the National Assembly.
49:09Orena mayors preside over two-thirds of the nation's cities.
49:13Its leaders, including former Major Roberto D'Abasan, believe El Salvador's political future is in their hands.
49:20They set up a whole propaganda machine saying the best thing the U.S. ever did for El Salvador was to bring us this guy named Jose Napoleon Duarte.
49:31He was supposed to be the big star, the star quarterback, but he wasn't even fit to sit on the bench and pick up fumbled passes.
49:37Now the Americans have the tough job of explaining to their own people that it is Orena that has the support of the Salvadoran people.
49:47When the American project began, the U.S. promised to push the extreme right wing out of power.
49:52But eight years later, Orena is El Salvador's leading electoral force.
49:58The party declares that while American aid is needed, it rejects the strings of political and military reform the U.S. has attached to that aid.
50:07If we play around with strategies made in the USA, we are finished.
50:13Siegfried Ochoa, a former army colonel who led a rebellion against the Duarte government in 1983, is now an arena member of Congress.
50:21This is a dirty war.
50:25But the United States thinks that by making concessions to the communists, they can hold them back.
50:31But while a human rights policy is well-intentioned, it ties the hands of the government.
50:38It ties the hands of the armed forces.
50:44U.S. educated businessman Alfredo Cristiani is Orena's most moderate public face.
50:49The man considered most likely to be El Salvador's next president.
50:54Cristiani considers the U.S.-backed land, economic, and social reforms to be misguided and a failure.
51:02It's very obvious that the countries that are better off economically use the private enterprise system.
51:09So why use some other sort of formula where it doesn't work?
51:12Finally, in Latin America then, what country would you point to as an example of the sort of system that you think would work for El Salvador?
51:23Chile.
51:24Orena's admiration of the politics and the tactics of brutal dictatorships like that of Chile's General Augusto Pinochet have been the reason that the U.S. has striven to keep the party out of power.
51:38But Orena's success at the polls has favorably impressed some American lawmakers.
51:42Orena won at fair and square. They had really good people out at the polls. They worked the crowds well. They were clean cut, they were constructive, and they were pro-USA.
51:55They were wearing red, white, and blue aprons. And they wanted to identify with us.
51:59I would just say, I came back and I read that Do-Bassan had won the election. That death squads were back. That somehow the President's policy was in disarray. Well, not so.
52:11But some critics contend the American program is fundamentally flawed because it addresses the symptoms, but not the causes, of the Salvadoran rebellion.
52:19You cannot find a military solution to a problem of illiteracy, a problem of hunger, a problem of polluted water, a problem of no medical access for either pregnant mothers or for children once they are surviving the birth.
52:39Those are social, economic, political problems that can never be found at the end of a barrel or rifle.
52:49Senator Hatfield is co-author of a recent Congressional report on El Salvador entitled Bankrolling Failure.
52:56In many ways, President Duarte has an impossible job under the current emphasis the United States has on maintaining the war.
53:07We are as much if not more concerned about maintaining a military action, a military confrontation, a military, looking for a military resolution of social, political, economic problems.
53:24I mean, when you have a group of armed guerrillas who are committed to taking over the country by force, what choice do you have except to continue the war?
53:32So to blame USAID for continuing the war is, it seems to me, both irresponsible and disingenuous.
53:39Of course we're continuing the war. Of course we are. There's nothing wrong with that.
53:46I see that in both parties, in the leadership of both parties, in the mainstream of both parties, there is very strong support for what is going on here.
53:55At the extremes of both parties, there is some criticism. But I think that this is a place where we do have bipartisan support for policy and I expect that that consensus will hold.
54:09A consensus in Washington that this war, now mostly forgotten in the United States, must continue in El Salvador.
54:20In El Salvador, the people wait. They wait for the end of a war that has killed more than 100,000 of their people.
54:27Twice as many as the number of American soldiers killed in Vietnam.
54:32They grow increasingly poor as they wait for the democracy and justice that the warriors say they are trying to create.
54:40They wait for the peace that all sides have promised, but none have secured.
54:46Last week at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in Washington, surgeons operated on President Duarte for stomach cancer.
55:03Doctors expect that Duarte will live for only a few more months.
55:08On Capitol Hill, there are no indications that Congress will soon reevaluate U.S. policy toward El Salvador.
55:15The next chapter of the American project is unlikely to be written before the arrival of a new president in Washington in January and a new president in San Salvador next March.
55:30Thank you for joining us. I'm Judy Woodruff. Good night.
55:37Next week on Frontline, life on an Indian reservation.
55:41The Quinault Indians have one of the most beautiful reservations in America, but they also have serious problems with alcohol, drugs and unemployment.
55:51There's nothing solid here to give people confidence that their tribal government is actually delivering their future to them.
55:59Watch Indian Country on Frontline.
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