INSIDE SUCHITOTO: The people who have stayed
The University Daily KANSAN
March 5, 1984 Page 7
To live in terror, permission is required
EDITOR'S NOTE: Gary Smith, a Kansan reporter, recently made his second visit to El Salvador in as many years. While in the war-torn nation, Smith reported on the Salvadoran elections for the Kansan and visited the Suchitto, Smith also wrote an article about Suchitto for the Kansan in 1983.
What follows is an account of Smith's observations of Sushitto today, and some comparisons with what he found there 18 months ago. It is also the story of some of the people who have chosen to remain.
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador — Suchitoto is a microcosm of everything that is bad about El Salvador.
People wishing to visit this strategic village must possess special permission from the Salvadoran army headquarters in San Salvador before taking the only road into the village. And they must possess control of the terror of knowing that the ride could cost them their lives.
in the town and in houses along the narrow, asphalt road, 5,000 tense, wrinkled and blank faces carry the strain of five years of civil war. The people carry in their pockets the documents that give them permission to live in the hell that is Suchitoto.
AT ONE TIME, 25,000 people lived here. Then the civil war began, eventually forcing the political left in El Salvador into the mountains. The rebels took their guns to try to spark a popular reorganization of the existing government.
The rebels and their supporters have fought for five years to fan that spark. The Salvadoran army and the existing government want never to let that fight topple their control. The struggle has scorned the land and has left to the young only a fable of a once-proud Salvadoran spirit.
Eighteen months ago, Suchitoto was a focus of guerrilla strategy as rebels repeatedly stormed the army garrison in the city.
in the city. The guerrillas wanted to show the government that they were capable of capturing a town close to the capital. 35
miles southwest of her. Suchitoto also is only 4 miles from the heavily guarded Lempa River Dam, a key source of power.
Then, many people lived from day to day.
Now, the remnants of the population are living from meal to meal.
Recently, the left has moved most of its strength to the eastern departments or states of El Salvador.
THE ARMY HAS also shifted troops to the east to battle the rebels, a move that has left government troops unable to keep the road to Sushitoitou. Only four months ago the army was capable of regaining the 8-kilometer road. Now there are none between the bridge, where the army has full control, and Sushitoitou.
The shift in troop strength and the lack of full-scale fighting in Suchitoto, though, is deceptive of military activity in the area.
in the area. According to a farmer who lives near the middle of that treacherous stretch, only a handful of civilian vehicles and
army patrols dare to travel the road. The army patrols are met several times along the way with guerrilla fire from the jungle, he said.
TWO WEEKS AGO, members of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front — a leading rebel group — were casually collecting war taxes from civilians along the road. They were just 2 kilometers from the last army checkpoint at the bridge.
The leader of the patrol said the guerilla efforts were beating the army because, "We are right and we fight for justice, for social equality and for land reform so our people can make more wealth and have enough to eat."
would tell him.
He said that his troops expected to win the war, and smiled. But he said he could not imagine it ending soon.
The patrol commander was more vague about whether the reebels' fight for the hearts and minds of the people was a success.
wish success
"Some are beside us, and some are not beside us," he said. The smile disappeared.
ONLY 3 KILOMETERS from Suichitto, rebels have used rocks to make seven roadblocks. Jungle foliage has made the roadblocks higher still.
Six farmers, too frightened to cultivate their fields for fear of being mistaken for guerrillas, were cutting sticks from the roadblocks with dull-bladed macetes. They would use the sticks as fuel or trade them for food.
"We are really scared when the shooting starts because we don't know which side could kill us," said an elderly woman among the group.
"We don't work beside the army or beside the guerrillas. We just look for some work to do and try to have some food to eat."
ONE OF THE MEN in the group said,
"We know we are in danger on the road
all the time. Nighttime at home, too,
but I have new twin sons and three
more sons. What can we do?
"We work and look for some food and that is all."
In the town, a woman stands idly in a household dry goods shop. The shop has more empty shelves than products to sell. She throws her hands up, frustrated.
I am one of the few who have stayed in Suchitto because my family was too big, and because I am too poor to leave," she said. "So I will just stay here and go on living, or die slowly with the rest."
The streets outside her house-store are empty at 11 a.m., traditionally the market hour, as are most streets in Sukitcho. Commerce now takes place in the early hours of the day when battle is least likely to break out.
There are few people to buy what little there is to sell in Sushihotto today.
THE TOWN IS almost stone quiet, silenced by fear. The sad sounds of a lone violin echoing off the eerily empty streets attest to a forgotten voice, that of the people who stayed.
A man at the Catholic church — once the centerpiece of the town square said that weapons were the logical symbols of pain for the people of Sushito.
"All those weapons, and no more flowers," he said as he lit a candle inside the chapel.
'I am one of the few who have stayed in Suchitoto, because my family was too big, and because I am too poor to leave.'
lod bluore u
Story and photos by Gary Smith
Soldiers guard a bridge 8 kilometers from Suchitoto. The bridge is a temporary replacement for one which rebels blew up two years ago.
A Salvadoran government soldier, armed with a semiautomatic rifle and rockets, guards the entrance to Suchitoto.
Suchitoto, nearly deserted, has fallen prey to the five-year civil war in El Salvador. Fighting rages at the base of
Guazapa Volcano, in the background which has been a stronghold of the rebels throughout the war.
A guerrilla demonstrates his combat readiness while collecting "war taxes" along the only road in and out of Sukitoto.