Suchitoto

Our last weekend in El Salvador we went as a groups to Suchitoto. A town about an hour north of San Salvador, this was one of the major sites of bombing by the military during the war. It is right by Chalatenango, the north eastern most state bordering Honduras. This is the town where Peggy lives and runs a community art center which also has hostel like place where we all stayed. Saturday morning we took a boat ride across lake Suchitlan which is actually a reservoir created by the damming of  the upper part of the Lempa river. We road to the site of one of the most deadly massacres during the war, the massacre of the Copapaya community. We heard the testimony of two native Copapayans. One woman told us a little bit about life in their community before the war and before the damming of the Lempa. Then we head the testimony of  Rujilio, a survivor of the massacre. During the war the army would often come in to communities like Copapaya ever so often and destroy their houses, live stock and kill people to prevent organization, and because they believed these people were guerrillas. Soon the people were able to prepare themselves with look outs that would tell them when the army was coming so they could escape across the lake or up into the mountains. They would stay in Honduras or other communities across the lake for a few days and then send lookouts back across to see if the army was gone before they went back. One such time they went back a little too soon. They didn’t realize the army was camped up a little higher in the mountains and when they tried to go back to their village from a small cove of the lake the army came upon them trapping them. Over 80 people were killed in two phases of the massacre. 1st at the lake, while some got away and while others were captured. Then the marched with the captured for a few days before grouping these people in three groups before lining them up and executing them firing squad style.  Rutilio is the sole survivor of the second stage of the massacre. He was 10 years old at the time. His testimony was testimony was so emotional we all sat in silence for a while after. In my mind I could help but re-visit the graphic scenes he spoke of, and trying to imagine myself going through those same things at the age of 10. It seemed almost impossible to be true. It was captivating evidence of how many people during the conflict who may have been spared physical death but who’s lives were emotionally taken forcefully by the army. We then visited the new community of Copapaya where the people are trying to start over from scratch, building a school, library and working on running water and electricity, among so many other things.