BASTA!

BASTA! (ENOUGH!) This is exactly what I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs last Thursday as I sat in Philosophy class at the UCA. But before I could even excuse myself from class to go and deal with my frustration in private, my eyes began to fill with water and the whole room became a blur. Although I knew I would soon have tears rolling down my cheeks, I had no desire to get up out of my seat. I just wanted to sit and cry. So that’s what I did. I cried softly until break at which point I began to sob with my whole body. My shoulders were shaking, my nose was running uncontrollably and my shirt was heavy with sweat. What a sight I must have been! I guess you might have called it a detox of sorts. And it was my way of saying BASTA! Enough! Enough! It was all just too much for me to take in.

That previous weekend we visited the town of El Mozote in the department of Morazan which is located about 5 hours from San Salvador. On December 11 and 12 of 1981, El Mozote was the site of a massacre planned and carried out by an elite section of the Salvadoran Army, the Atlacatl Battalion. This battalion is also responsible for five other massacres during the civil war in El Salvador including the murder of the six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter in November of 1989.

A woman by the name of Rufina was the sole survivor of the El Mozote massacre, barely escaping death by hiding behind a tree. She continued to tell her story of the mass killing and burning of her town until her death a few years back. Today, a few of the buildings in the town have been rebuilt, and a beautiful memorial stands in remembrance of the victims - about 800 were identified but it is estimated that around 1,000 people were murdered during the two days. Rufina’s daughter (who was living outside of El Mozote at the time of the massacre) is now the one who tells her mother’s story. She served as our guide during out visit to El Mozote. It was an incredibly overwhelming and haunting experience. As we stood in the center of town and she spoke of the events of Dec. 11 and 12, she pointed in the direction where the original church stood – the place where the soldiers kept all of the men until, few by few, they were taken into the field to be shot. Right across from the church was the land where the house stood in which all of the women and children were trapped before killed. We then walked on the same path that all of the younger women and girls were forced to follow before reaching the clearing where the soldiers raped and killed them.

Standing on the ground where so much blood was shed and so much horror experienced was something too big and awful for me to wrap my mind around. I was haunted with the thought of how it must have felt to hear the screams of your husband, child, wife, brother, sister, aunt or grandfather being tortured, and then to know it would soon be your turn. And then I started thinking about every other person within just the past 100 years or so who has also had this experience? Just think of the genocide during the holocaust, in Rwanda, in Bosnia, in Darfur. How is it that these human rights abuses have been committed within our grandparents, parents, or even our own lifetime? How many human rights violations before that? And what is happening right now as I sit here at the computer and write this? Who else is screaming in agony? And why aren´t we all aware of these situations? Or are we choosing not to be aware? How does one respond as a global citizen to all of this?

I don’t know. I just don’t know. And last Thursday during philosophy class I guess it just all came crashing down on me. I couldn’t bear to feel such powerlessness and confusion. How am I/are we supposed to make sense of it all? But then one of my classmates came over, wrapped her arms around me and just held me. And at that point I realized that to just feel, and to let myself fully feel any and every emotion (or lack of emotion) no matter how frustrating or bizarre, is the best way to respond at this moment. To just feel without judgment or analysis, without seeking a concrete answer or solution, is what I think is most important right now.

I’m going to keep thinking about this. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or insights.


Hasta pronto,

Chancita

For those of you interested, I highly recommend The Massacre at El Mozote by Mark Danner. He does a wonderful job of explaining the context in which the massacre occurred, and U.S. response and involvement in the war. Know that the descriptions are very graphic.