¶ … Massacre at El Mozote

Mark Danner's book, "The Massacre at El Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War" tells the story of a massacre of men, women, and children in El Salvador. The massacre at El Mozote was not discovered until years after it occurred, and the government attempted to play it down until the truth came out. The author is attempting to show that the political cover-up that occurred after what happened at El Mozote became known is a "parable" or tale of the Cold War, because it indicates the power of large governments to cover up information they did not want the people to know or understand, while "undermining" Communism around the world. The massacre is also a parable of power, and how power can corrupt and kill. That the troops were trained by Americans is another element of the parable, and it shows how corrupt even the "best" intentions can be. The author shows that the situation was tragic and could have been avoided, but it was also ignored and played down, something that seems especially repugnant since so many of the victims were innocent women and children, who posed little real threat to the troops.

The situation in El Salvador was also a parable of what was happening all over the region. Central America seemed to be covered in revolt in 1981, when the massacre occurred. Along with the revolution in El Salvador, there was an armed conflict going on in Guatemala that was bringing terror and bloodshed to the country, and the Sandinistas had just taken over control in Nicaragua. In the midst of the Cold War, America supported the Central American regimes that fought Communism, no matter how corrupt and dictatorial they became, because Communism was the "real" evil that threatened the world. As such, they supported regimes that committed unspeakable crimes, such as the massacre at El Mozote, while keeping the true nature of their support from the American people. The Nicaraguan situation (Iran-Contra affair) with Oliver North supporting the rebel Contras against the Sandinistas by selling weapons to Iran is probably one of the biggest examples of this, but clearly, as El Mozote shows, there were many more tragic results.

References

Danner, Mark. The Massacre at El Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War. New York: Vintage, 1994.