Led fighters popular movement against the US backed government call themselves the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front Like the Sandinist revolutionaries of nearby Nicaragua, the people of El Salvador have named their movement after heroes of their national liberation struggle.
It is just over 50 years since Agustin Farabundo Marti was executed, at the age of 38, as the central leader 01 a general insurrection throughout the country.
Born to peasant parents of modest means in a remote mountain region close to the Pacific Coast, Marti's carly friends were the children of the workers on his family's farm, Recognising their son was a bright child, Marti's parents decided to send him to school in the town of Santa Tecla. He was an excellent student and graduated from high school in 1913 to go on to university to study law and social sciences.
Alienated from most of his fellow students at the university, most of whom came from wealthy families. Marti began to seck out the company of workers and to study the writings of Marx and Lenin. He became a revolutionary.
He took up the fight against the despotic rule of the Melendez. Quinones families who were in power between the years of 1913 and 1927. He preached the need for political unity of the peoples of Central America and carned a reputation as a and spokesperson in every struggle against the dictatorship.
Before long he found himself in prison. When he was offered release. he refused to go free until other opponents of the regime were also released. Finally the government deported him to neighbouring Guatemala in 1920.
There he spent seven years in exile. But he spent this time participating in the revolutionary movement in that country, working often as an agricultural labourer. Wherever he worked. he was a tireless agitator and socialist propagandist.
er from the FMLN to Reaganvas Farabundo Marti? seek, if at the same time you offer military aid to a repressive government? The military assistance your government has provided to the Salvadoran junta has brought about, among other things, the prolonging of the war and the entrenchment in the seat of power of the most repressive elements Salvadoran government - those who do not even respect the lives of US citizens, as demonstrated by the murder of the four women religious workers in 1980.
The recent agreement to train 1600 troops from the junta's-army at US bases confirms to us that your objective is not peace, but war - against our people.
Your administration has not only SCLE Wal material and military advisers, but is also helping to plan the strategy of extermination being carried out against our people. This is exactly Under-Secretary Defense Ikle outlined in his recent testimony before the Senate committee on Inter-American fairs.
As part of this scorched earth' policy, the population itself becomes a military target, especially those who live in areas near the fighting. And the painful experience of many massacres shows how little the sex, age, religious Deners. these victims matters.
Barely December 7 and 17, in Morazan proIn 1926, less than two years before his return to his own country, Marti participated in the formation of the Communist Party of Central America which drew together many worker and peasant leaders from Guatemala Honduras, Salvador.
Bv the time he returned to e Salvador in 1928 there was a war raging in Nicaragua between the popular forces led by Augusto Cesar Sandino and troops of the United States, backing up the ruling oligarchy Farabundo Marti and a handful of other Salvadoran leaders went to Nicaragua to fight with Sandino, known as the General of Free Men, and inspired many other Salvadorans to follow suit.
Marti became Sandino's personal secretary and a colonel in his general staff. He was responsible for writing to me govemmems or many Lann American countries and publicising the aims and intentions Nicaraguan revolutionary fighters.
Much of this work was done in the field and amid heavy bombing by US planes. It was here that Marti often switched weapons and made famous the phrase: 'When history written with a pen, it must be written with a rifle."
Meanwhile the situation was commore than 1000 peasants, women, and old people. and political Led alive by tion.
The Salvadoran people, greatly admire the cannot understand respect for human rights.
ment and that of the Soviet the reality of because of the poverty and repression inposed on Subthem by the oligarchy Aiand the military.
We have taken up arms nou because one military rebellion.
ago, between It is the that time. Marti returned.
and El back with savage movement.
revolutionary Can i be children, They were the Atlacatl Brigade, which was trained and equipped with the military aid from your administrawho sc progressive and democratic ideals of the people of the understand Cahillo why you insist on pledging your support to a genocidal government. We why the hard-earned dollars of US tax-payers go to support programmes of extermination instead of furthering peace and Your claims that the war in El Salvador is simply an aspect of the confrontation between your governUnion seems to us to have nothing to do with our country Salvadorans have joined the struggle because we love war, but rathe regime after another has closed off all democratic avenues for change and has forced us to make use of our legitimate right to Salvadorans and Salvadorans alone who struggle daily ing to a head in his own country with the plight of the population worsened by the onset of the severe economic depression in the capitalist world at workers and peasants began to revolt, the government hit repression persecution of the leaders of the Salvadorean 'defence' minister (centre) Garcia after helicopter raid change the old and unjust social strucThe 30,000 dead were neither Kussians CHOl Cubans. They Salvadorans who yearned to live in peace and dignity The only outside torces 0 801 conflict are the Us advisers your government has sent. Portraying our war as part of an East-West conflict can only lead to its regionalisation and to a growing intervention by your This would cause still more COULICEY suffering for the Salvadoran people, Marti was arrested for his work at this time and along with another revolutionary leader, Ismael Hernandez, went on a hunger strike.
Because the government feared the repercussions if he died, he was once again deported and, because no other country would accept him, spent several weeks aboard the steamship "Venezuela'.
as well as for the people of the United States.
Your claiming that the solution to were the Salvadoran elections in March also has nothing to do with reality. How can a democratic process be guaranteed amid indiscriminate repression? If you are the one who decides the destiny of the United States, it is because you are in office by virtue of free elections. Americans went to the polls in peace, and this is people to be able to elect its leaders.
The Salvadoran government, far from creating the indispensable conditions for achieving such peace, is pushing ahead with a war of extermination against our people. These elections, then, are no solution, but are simply one more farce that the military government has imposed on our people.
Mr President, the confidence your our Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front has made a public and generous ofter to undertake order for all Salvadorans. The great majority of the international comHe jumped ship in Nicaragua, and after swimming ashore, finally made his way back February, 1933 Within three months he was on hunger strike in time sparking off and demonstrations for his release. Many of these protests were savagely repressed and conflict is through precondition for a solution.
message expressed preserving world peace neus to take concrete exPression In peace talks that could lead to ending the war and building a Sincerely, democratic and just social deaths He CaVasel blindfolded ly returned. prison again, this massive protests side resulted in many The extreme the courage, freedom. munity has supported our proposal for a political solution, as is shown by French-Mexican communique and the motion adopted by the UN General Assembly last December 16.
Our proposal calls for negotiations covering all topics. We are ready at a moment's notice to begin working out an agenda mutually agreeable to all parties, without any precondiin the presence or witnesse from other governments, and with the Salvadoran people fully informed about the progress towards a political solution. This is our contribution to peace, but we have noted your administration's opposition to a political we have said leads us to respectfully request that you change your policy toward El Salvador. We only ask for the right to resolve our own problems by ourselves without foreign interference.
If, in this new year, your government is interested in and willing to pursue peace in the world, it has the chance to achieve such peace in E Salvador by dropping its opposition to a political solution and instead seeking friendly and just relations between our two peoples.
Salvador Cayetano Carpio, Joaquin Villalobos, Ferman Cienfuegos Shafik Jorge Handal, Roberto Roca was released and deported and barefoot, to Guatemala from where he immediateHe even went back to the garrison where he had been imprisoned to visit and give heart to his comrades still inmass dissatisfaction and anger had reached a high level by the beginning of 1932 resulting from the poverty, hunger and unrestrained massacres being carried out by the dictatorship.
A call for a general insurrection was made but days before it broke out Marti was arrested. Along with two other comrades he was sentenced to death and executed on 1 February.
The rage of the Salvadoran people overflowed. The insurrection was put down at the cost of over 30,000 lives.
This is the struggle that is being continued today. Fifty years later the struggle in El Salvador is being carried on by sons and daughters of Farabundo Marti who see in his great example daring, and resolution that is necessary to finally win their Reprinted from the Australian Trotskyist paper Direct Action.