27 de Mayo, 1981 - PM
26 de Mayo, 1981- AM - English Annotations
00:20:38
In this opportunity, our mobile unit crossed territories controlled by the Francisco Sanchez Eastern Front, crossing over rivers and mountains, until they reached the village of El Junquillo in the department of Morazán, where the dictatorship committed one of its habitual massacres against innocent elderly, women, and children.
00:23:54
We found it right here next to the bed. I suspect that they took her from the bed to kill her and to do who knows what else they did to her, probably raped her, because we found her remains next to the bed.
00:27:24
All those people were first raped and then killed with knives, they slit all those people’s throats, they say, All those North Americans that were with Napoleon Medina Garay. Yes, and that’s how they kill all those young babies, and also a two-day old baby girl. Her name was Dominga Diaz.
00:28:51
While the dictatorship talks of elections, our country talks about the reality of death and repression that El Salvador lives.
00:33:06
As I said, we were lied to. They told us that the soldiers brought foreign journalists and that they couldn’t kill defenseless women and children in front of journalists. I speak of Capitan Medina Garay, yes, him. He made them get close when he came here.
00:39:32
Up next, Radio Venceremos presents, Plomo Informativo against the dictatorship’s information siege.
00:41:00
The Band Tepehuani tours through Europe. The Band Tepehuani, a testimonial music group of our country carries out a tour through Europe. They had four concerts in France. In Great Britain, they visited several cities. Afterward, they had two performances in Belgium. Presently, they are in Germany where they will carry out a country-wide tour. Later, they will travel to Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. The concerts have proven the European people’s solidarity with our people’s struggle and the rejection of the United States' intervention in El Salvador’s internal issues.
00:41:48
Next, information on Paris, France. The President of France, François Mitterrand tapped writer and journalist Regis Debray as his foreign policy advisor. Debray, who is 40 years of age, has a degree in Philosophy from the Univeristy of Soborna and he has an advanced education from the Superior National School, both of which are in Paris. He is part of the French Socialist Party since 1973.
00:42:21
Regis Debray was with Commander Ernesto “Che” Guevara during the struggle in Bolivia. In his last trip to Latin America, Regis Debray gave his complete support to the Salvadoran people’s struggle for peace and democracy against the military dictatorships that have oppressed the country for the past 50 years.
00:42:49
Washington. A large concentration of hundreds of North American citizens with hundreds of representatives from Black, juvenile, and other union organizations protested in this city against the racist terror in Atlanta under the slogan, “Save our people. Put an end to racist murders, protect our Atlanta youth, and No to the Salvadoran junta.”
00:43:23
While the United States states help the Salvadoran junta, it neglects the North American people to the extent that it permits racists and neo-fascists to wander freely throughout the North American territory.
00:43:41
More information. Thugs from the dictatorship assassinate two union leaders in San Salvador. The workers Carlos Ibrian Resinos and Jose Alirio Martinez were assassinated this past Tuesday, May 26th, by police officers dressed as civil society, according to reports by factory workers from the candy factory Delicia. The police officers were controlling the workers' entrance, inconspicuously posted in front of the factory when the unionists arrived. They shot them at point-blank range.
00:44:23
Carlos Ibrian Resinos, worked as the Secretary of Finances, and Jose Alirio Martinez Martinez as the General Secretary of the union. We strongly condemn and repudiate the dictatorship’s new attempt against the Salvadoran working class. At the same time, we join in solidarity with our comrades of the sweets and pasta industry union against this regime’s abuses, and we encourage them to continue forward in the struggle for their revindications and for a revolutionary and democratic government.
26 de Mayo, 1981- AM - Spanish Annotations
31 de Diciembre, 1981 - PM - Spanish Annotation
31 de Diciembre, 1981 - AM - Spanish Annotations
00:02:58
Nuestro apartado postal, 7-907, México, Distrito Federal.
27 de Mayo, 1981 - AM - English Annotations
00:09:57
In The Creative Powers of the People, today we have the text by revolutionary poet, Roque Dalton. His creative power is present in our fight, and from his body of work we've chosen "The policemen and the Guards."
00:10:25
They always saw the people as a mass of backs running away as a field on which their clubs fell with hatred. They always saw the people with an eye on sharpening their aim and between the people and their eye, the sight of a pistol or a rifle. (They too were once of the people but with the excuse of hunger and unemployment they accepted a weapon, a club and a monthly salary to defend the makers of hunger and unemployment.) They always saw the people enduring sweating shouting raising placards raising fists and what’s more telling them: “Dog sons of whores, your day will come.” (And with every passing day they figured they’d done a great thing in betraying the people from which they were born: “The people are a mass of cripples and fools —they thought— it’s great we’ve gone over to the side of the clever and strong”). And then the trigger was squeezed and bullets went from the side of the cops and guards to the side of the people they always went that way, from there to here and the people fell bleeding week after week and year after year broken-boned they wept through the eyes of the women and children fleeing in terror ceasing to be a people to become a fleeing mob disappearing every man for himself to his house and then there was nothing left but the fireman hosing the blood off the streets. (The colonels finished up by convincing them: “That’s the way it is guys—they said— hard and to the heads of the civilians fire on the rabble you are uniformed pillars of the Nation priests of the first rank in the cult of the flag, the shield, the hymn, the Fathers, representative democracy, the official party, the free world whose sacrifices the decent people of this land won’t forget though we can’t give you a raise today though of course we’d like to”). They always saw the people convulsive in the torture chamber hanged beaten broken swollen asphyxiated raped ears and eyes pricked with needles electrified drowned in piss and shit spit-upon degraded their last remains giving off little froths of smoke in a hell of quicklime. (When the tenth National Guard was found dead, killed by the people and the fifth cop was roughed up by the urban guerrilla the cops and the National Guard began to think, especially because the colonels had already changed their tune and laid the guilt for today’s failure on “these rotten troop recruits we have”). The fact is the cops and the guards always saw the people from there to here and the bullets only traveled from there to here. Let them think about that a while let them decide whether it’s too late to seek the people’s side and shoot from there shoulder to shoulder with us. Let them think about that a bit but meanwhile they shouldn’t be surprised let alone offended now that some bullets have begun to reach them from this side where it’s still the same people as always except now with their heads held high and each time with more rifles.
00:16:58
The Modesto Ramirez Central Front Report,
00:17:02
On May 16th, at nine at night, the FMLN forces attacked teams of soldiers dressed as civilians in Hacienda Las Pilas in the village of Potrero Grande.
00:17:21
We caused the enemy casualties.
00:17:54
We caused two enemy casualties with this action.
00:17:59
Our forces continue with the hostile actions which with we continue to inflict on the forces of the genocidal army, which thinks it can vacate us from the regios of Suchitoto, Guazapa,
00:18:18
With this action, we caused four enemy casualties. FMLN casualties: one combatant.
00:18:35
As a complement to this action, our guerrilla squads left a booby trap with a bomb that exploded when the enemy intended to inspect the zone.
00:18:51
This action caused five enemy casualties.
00:18:58
On May 18th at 9:00 AM, the Farabundo Martí for the National Liberation Front initiated combat with patroling enemy forces in the cantons of La Ceiba, Valle Nuevo, Valle Viejo, and Buenavista.
00:19:29
That same day, at 5:00 PM, revolutionary forces conducted a stalking ambush against an army's armored truck that transported ammunition and supplies to the enemy forces stationed in Canton El Roblar.
00:19:50
We carried out this action on the new street in San Rafael and caused the puppet army two casualties.
00:20:02
On May 19th at 11 hours, FMLN guerrilla comandos fought against patrols belonging to the Death Squadrón in Canton Santa Anita, jurisdiction of Tenancingo, department of cuscatlan, 40 kilometers from San Salvador.
00:20:30
One enemy casualty was reported in this combat.
00:20:34
At sixteen hours, the genocidal army proceeded with its policy of death, destruction and scorched earth that dictated the eight group of Special Forces Coommand of the Yankee Army, and it attacked the Bermuda Hacienda in the zone of Suchitoto, Guazapa. This attack was carried out by a truck, a small tank, and army soldiers that shot eight 81-millimeter morters agains Canton Tenango. No casualties were reported in in the people’s lines. Simultaneously, however, another force tried to penetrate Canton San Francisco, which is controlled by the patriotic forces of the FMLN,
00:21:31
the result of the combat were two enemy casualties.
00:21:38
In Chalatenango, on May 24th, the Popular Army of the FMLN continues its labors of hostility close to the towns of Arcatao and San Antonio Los Ranchos. An FMLN column made up of fifty men penetrated that same day in Canton Los Amates, Department of Chalatenango, thus coming in hostile contact with enemy forces.
00:22:11
Report of the Anastasio Aquino Paracentral Front
00:22:13
On May 23rd, FMLN guerrilla comandos attacked the enemy posts in Canton Potrero Grande, in the Department of Cabañas. In this operations, the FMLN forces mined the field and impeded enemy free movement while also anihilating its forces. This action was carried out in the following manner: The hostilities began at 8:20 PM with artillery barrage from the FMLN against enemy forces. This provoked the enemy to haphazardly flee. At 9:00 PM, the FMLN squad of combat engineers retired after mining the field.
00:23:16
At 10:30 PM, enemy partrols fell unto one of the mines, and the number of their casualties is currently unknown.
00:23:20
In the department of La Paz, patriotic forces ambushed a convoy of the genocidal army in close proximity to Zacatecoluca.
00:23:30
Two casualties were the result of this operation besides leaving a vehicle damaged y out of commission.
00:23:40
On this same date, guerrilla commandos attached the local command post of the township of Santiago Nonualco in the department of La Paz.
00:23:52
With this operation we caused three enemy casualties, two deaths and one wounded.
00:24:00
The Francisco Sanchez Eastern Front Report. On May 24th, in the department of Morazán, around the area of Delicias de Concepción, there was a combat for over three hours.
00:24:15
The FMLN forces caused the enemy several casualties.
00:24:22
When the combat was at its strongest point, fifty soldiers of the dictatorship haphazarly fled to the township of Delicias de Concepción in Morazán.
00:24:35
Seven wounded of the dictatorship were the result of this action, among them a captain with fractured legs.
00:25:28
In San Salvador, the capital hurt by the dictatorship’s repression, despite martial law and curfew, despite the groowing militarization of the streets and other public places, our companions, workers, students, women from the marketplaces, hovel residents, militiamen and combatants operate day and night in liberating campaigns that harass and erode the enemy forces.
00:26:00
The enemy is determined to say that our actions are acts of terrorism. Our people know that this is not the case. This is about the continuity of our just fight for national liberation. This is about the popular response to the crime and repression of the genocidal junta. Forward, comrades of San Salvador. The combatants of the Francisco Sanchez Eastern Front greets you. The present is one of fighting. The future is ours.
00:29:02
They killed whoever they caught there. They killed nineteen, among them children and the elderly just because they were refugees and others from the same town they had them on a list to kill, but among the nineteen that they killed were children, elderly people, and women that were nursing.
00:29:22
And there, around five days later was the story in the newspaper about a confrontation in El Rosario Villa where nineteen guerrillas had died and that (the army) had not suffered any casualties.
00:34:03
These are the words of a young Salvadoran who held the weapons the dictatorship gave him and who today bears the weapons of the people. It is a reflection of what is happening in the middle of the Armed Forces.
00:34:21
It’s the awakening awareness of those who belong to the exploited classes and who have remained deceived by the criminal high military command, those who have been recruited by force or out of necessity have remained in the army and at the service of the oppresion. Those peasant soldiers have begun to open their eyes, have begun to question the trenches they have occupied. They have begun to ask themselves, “Why do I fight?” “Who do I serve?” “For whom am I sacrificing my own life?”
00:35:11
In Jucuaran, department of Usulután, soldiers of the third brigade refused to fight against the forces of the Farabundo Marti for National Liberation Front. In Torola, five police of the tax office (Hacienda) abandoned their their posts with their issued weapon and equipment. The same thing is happening in the entire country. Soldiers who have become aware of the misery that they’ve since their roots, (they’ve also become aware) of the repression which they themselves have executed as blind instruments of the oligarchical power and of imperialistic designs.
00:35:59
Soldiers have their own combat post with their own people, and those who have made that decision and have joined our ranks have been well received, by their brethren of class, with the respect and brotherhood that all have come to know.
00:36:24
We showed this recently in the case of soldier Santos Enrique Diaz Alvarenga, the third brigade of San Miguel. And now we have just heard the testimony of Santiago Argueta Sanchez, a former civil guard in Villa del Rosario. In this town when our forces too the enemy’s possession’s, Santiago Argueta Sanches deposed his weapons in response to our combatants’ calls (to join their ranks), and he laid down his weapons and joined our forces.
00:37:05
He immediately expressed his sincere and conscientious desire to join the ranks of the people, and the statements that he has declared to us reiterate what we all already know, that in the National Army there are profound challenges between the military high command and officers, classes, and soldiers that are do not agree with the genocide.
00:37:39
On the other hand, to make these challenges even more acute, within the National Army young officers most likely cannot how Yankee military adviser the day to day take over the lion’s share of the military operations agains the people, thus giving it everyday a more criminal nature.
00:38:05
The case of the soldiers that disobeyed the order to fight against the opposition forces of the Farabundo Marti for National Liberation Front, that is to say, the opposition forces of the people, moves us to encouraging reflections on what is happening in the center of the army, in addition to the fact that they’ve been unable to garner any military victory in all their operatives against our positions in the entire national territory.
00:38:45
While this is all happening, the people are joining the militias, they are joining their (own) army, they are integrating into the cornfields of the people to produce the sustenance for the revolutionary army. They consolidate the zones under their control while the dictatorship lives its worse moment.
00:39:14
Each day, the people is becoming more convinced that victory is within the reach of their united and persevering hands. Hope overwhelms us all, and that is why we close our fists, and we are achieving victory with combat blows. That is, today more than ever we have the conviction that we will prevail, which means that soon we will conquer peace and social justice for our people.
00:44:29
Four members of the genocidal army died and several others were wounded by a mine explosion found in a stony hill in Zacatecoluca, in the south of San Salvador.
26 de Mayo, 1981 - PM - Spanish Annotations
31 de Diciembre, 1981 - PM - English Annotation
27 de Mayo, 1981 - AM - Spanish Annotations
00:43:53
México, Distrito Federal, Radio Venceremos, voz oficial del Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional se sintoniza con claridad en este país.
26 de Mayo, 1981 - PM - English Annotations
00:01:10
In Plomo Informativo, the news of our people.
00:01:17
The exploitation and death of workers from the San Sebastián Central Minery. A report has reached the official voice of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, the radio of Salvadoran people, and the news comes from the city of Santa Rosa de Lima, in the department of La Unión. The report expresses that two mine workers were captured because they were reported to the National Guard by the sycophantic administrative manager Cristobal Bonilla, Francisco Torres Menjibar, mine superintendent, along with Manuel Reyes and Rolando Saravia all of the San Sebastián Central Minery.
00:02:02
One of the two captured workers managed to escape from the guard, while the other worker, after being cruelly tortured, was assassinated. Several days ago other workers were assassinated by order of the sycophants already mentioned. The names of the assassinated workers are Donato Salvador, Leonardo Blando, and Carmen Fuentes.
00:02:27
The message also reports that the San Sebastián Mine exploiters have held worker salaries for several weeks. They laid off twenty workers several days ago without giving them the compensation due to them according to SVC 28.165, despite the multi-million profits from the sale of gold extracted from the wealthy mining exploitation.
00:04:00
The evident wear that the people’s forces are producing day to day on the genocidal army’s ranks can no longer be hidden from the genocidal leadership. The government’s Junta has acknowledged to the press, through the official spokesman of the armed forces, that they suffered 20 casualties in the last 24 hours.
00:06:39
In the last few days, we’ve read with much surprise in the local newspapers the tone of the declarations made by the Interim archbishop of San Salvador, Monsignor Arturo Rivera y Damas, about the violence that prevails in our country.
00:07:00
We understand that one of the deepest concerns of the church during these historical and conflictive moments is precisely the painful spilling of blood that our country presently suffers.
00:07:20
In the same manner, we remember that when Monsignor Rivera y Damas assumed the position of Interim Archbishop of San Salvador, he stated that he would continue the path outlined by our unforgettable Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero.
00:07:40
When we speak of an outlined path, we want to refer to something very clearly, Monsignor Romero’s line does not allow ambiguities. He was very clear and precise. He followed a coherent attitude in relation to the role of that the church much play in situations like the one our people are currently passing. He called injustice, repression, and genocide by name.
00:08:20
The day before his assassination, Monsignor Romero, in his last Sunday homily, said, “We want the government to take seriously the fact that reforms will not do any good if they’re soaked in blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people, whose lamentations each day reach the sky more loudly. I plead with you, I beg you, I order you to cease the repression.”
00:09:01
There is no possible confusion. Monsignor Romero directly identified who promote the violence and that is why those promotors of violence assassinated him.
00:09:20
That is why Archbishop Rivera y Damas’s attitude is exceedingly strange when he states that the repression executed by right-wing extremist groups and by army personnel and the security corps has decreased. A few minutes ago, we were listening from the lips of survivors of the El Junquillo massacre all the horror, all the horror of the instrumentalized genocide used by the genocidal junta. In the face of the fresh blood from children of the El Junquillo, we ask, “How is it possible to make such a declaration?”
00:10:10
Only a few days ago, news agencies stated that on Friday the 22nd of this month, 26 bodies were found outside of San Salvador with obvious signs of torture.
00:10:33
We will never know the total number of tortured people or of the forcibly disappeared by the genocidal junta. And regarding the terror that the dictatorship sows in peasant zones, this known throughout the entire world.
00:10:56
No. The regime has definitely not made any kind of concessions in its policy of extermination. On the contrary, we can say with utter certainty and with the support of an entire people that the government repression has multiplied by a thousand.
00:11:24
Additionally, Monsignor Rivera y Damas also stated that, in his opinion, our forces try to impede the people from recooperating trust to start seeking paths of normalization.
00:11:45
We want to believe that these statements were made from naiveté and not from malice. The reality is that the opposite is true and our people know this, and so do the ample democratic and progressive sectors of the entire world.
00:12:13
This misrepresentation is entirely absurd. The FMLN has been at the cutting edge before the concert of voices that demand a political exit to the conflict. In the interest of avoiding further pain and spilling of blood for out people, already afflicted enough, [the FMLN] has accepted and promoted concrete proposals to reach a political exit to the crisis.
00:12:59
Nonetheless, it’s more than evident that those who hinder our people are already looking for paths of normalization, and they’re precisely those that murder and kidnap members of known legal opposition parties while also demogogically talking about elections. As is in the cases of Eleuterio Cárcamo and Margarita Gastiasoro. Both of them were leaders in the Social Democratic Party, National Revolutionary Movement, MNR.
00:13:50
In the case of Dr. Guillermo Manuel Ungo, president of this same party, that incredibly has been accused by the terrorist regime, having mentioned him along with other politically renown personalities in a famous list published by the armed forces and other media.
00:14:23
It is a fact that all the statements formulated by Monseñor Rivera y Damas separate the Church from a neutral position because they are partisan and very dangerous. The only thing that these statements result in is support and they, to a certain extent, justify the criminal actions agains our people that paramilitary groups and members of the security forces and of the army carry out on a daily basis.
00:15:10
We are certai that these types of attitudes do not contribute to achieve a favorable climate for a political exit to the present crisis. At the same time, they distance the church from the possibility of playing an important role in the mediation process.
31 de Diciembre, 1981 - AM - English Annotations