El Salvador's Radio Venceremos
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The Story of El Salvador's Radio Venceremos
José Ignacio López Vigil
Broadcasting under Blankets
The very first broadcasts took place in '79. We painted graffiti calling on people to
tune in to our new station on Tuesdays and Fridays, and ran off leaflets announcing that
the Salvadoran people now had their own voice, their own station, the People's
Revolutionary Radio.
At first we went up on a little hill near the city to go on air. There was no other
way. We hooked up at six in the afternoon--for how long? Ten minutes, maybe fifteen.
A mix of commentary, revolutionary music and combative messages: agitation.
By 22 January, 1980 we were transmitting from the National University. That day
we'd organised the first big demonstration of the recently created Revolutionary
Coordinating Body of the Masses. Damn, it was incredible! Over 300,000 people in
the street, the largest mobilisation ever. People began gathering at eight in the morning
in Cuscatl&aacut;n Park. They just kept coming, a sea of men, women, youth,
unionists, militants with banners asking for democracy and attacking the Christian
Democrats and their civilian-military junta, imposed by the gringos.
At about 9.30am the crowd started to march, but since there were so many it
moved very slowly. When the ones in front reached the National Palace near the
cathedral, the ones at the back were still at the El Salvador del Mundo statue. The
march didn't go straight downtown, it snaked all around the side streets--it must have
been ten kilometres long, more or less. And there were people on the sides. All along
the march there were cars with loudspeakers tuned in to our station so that everyone
could hear.
We were back at the university broadcasting. Every so often a comrade would
phone to tell us how the demonstration was going. We also listened to what the other
stations were saying. That was the way we worked back then, pirating off other
correspondents because the RRP, our station, was completely clandestine.
Transmitting from the university required some complicated manoeuvring. We
usually went on air at six o'clock when the most students would be around. We'd put
the aerial up on the roof and connect everything. Then we'd slip through a back door
into a little room--a little closed off corner on the first floor, like a storeroom. We'd
leave a tape recorder outside playing loud music to distract people, and several of us
would keep watch to make sure no one came near. Then those of us with the loudest
voices would take the microphone and begin the programme. We had to cover
ourselves with blankets to muffle our chants, otherwise they carried into the hallway
outside. It was boiling hot anyway, so broadcasting under wool blankets, like ghosts,
was a real ordeal.
On the 22nd it was my turn to be the fan. The Viking overheated a lot, it wasn't
made to transmit for such long periods. But with the excitement of all that was going on,
we stayed on air an hour at a time. Our first hour-long programme! And there I was
with a piece of cardboard fanning the Viking so that it wouldn't pass out. When the
announcers stuck their heads up for air I'd fan them too. Mariana was there, full of
enthusiasm, announcing, reading messages, greeting all the organisations represented on
the march.
Then a helicopter circled overhead and we thought they'd located us, so we turned
off the transmitter and ended the broadcast.
"Let's go out into the street", I said, "and see what's happening."
What was happening was a terrible massacre. When we got to the US Embassy,
we met people streaming the other way.
"They're killing!" they screamed. "Don't go down there!"
But since we were armed, we went on anyway.
"We're going to get it sooner or later anyway," one compa said. "Let's blow them
to pieces!"
"Don't even think about it. They're shooting from the rooftops."
It was inexcusable--criminal. That huge mass of defenceless people targeted by
sharpshooters firing from the roof of the National Palace itself. Other snipers were on
top of the theatre and other buildings nearby. Even people who ran to the church got
machine-gunned. Some died in their blood on the cathedral steps, others were
trampled by the crowd. About a hundred were killed that day, never mind the
wounded.
"You've got to take the station elsewhere," the leadership told us. "Increase its
signal so that it reaches the whole country. Add short wave so that the whole world will
know about the murderers who run this country."
We spent the rest of the year looking for a technician who could adapt the
equipment, and a secure place to broadcast from. We found it in Morazán.
Draining the Sea to Catch the Fish
I was born and grew up in La Joya. When the killings happened I was eleven. I
lived with my parents, a little brother of mine who was about six, and a sister who was
nine, still a kid.
I remember the soldiers coming up the Black Road at about three in the afternoon.
My dad heard they were coming and said: "Let's go sleep in the woods."
But my mom didn't want to leave the house empty.
"You go," she said. "God won't abandon us."
"You've got to hide," my dad said.
"Go on ahead," she said. "I'll come along later with the girl."
The three of us went to a cactus field and my mom stayed behind hiding the pots
and pans, the kitchen things. She stayed with my little sister, and said that if something
happened the two of them would hide in the cornfield and they'd be all right. My mom
always trusted in God.
My dad and I and my little brother climbed up a hill they call Brujo Hill. They say in
the old days it was scary up there. From the hill we kept watch all night long. At about
eight in the morning, we saw the soldiers come into town and start shooting. From up
above we heard the noise of people screaming and gunshots. Then we saw a plume of
smoke come out of our house, and heard the dog barking.
"They killed your mom," my dad said. "The dog ran out crying."
They spent the whole day shooting and killing and burning the houses. At about
midnight we went down to the village to take a look. First we went to the home of a
sister-in-law who lives a bit out of the way, thinking that maybe my mum had managed
to hide with her.
"No, Petrona Chica isn't here."
That's what we called my mom. I started crying. My dad wanted to go to our
house and all he saw were embers, a cloud of smoke and no one inside. In a nearby
ditch he saw all the dead, piled up. He didn't see my mom, but he saw my little sister,
squashed in among the other bodies, and his brothers, my uncles, all dead.
Convincing a Gringo
I went along on the assault on La Planta to report for Venceremos, and also to
accompany Raymond Bonner, the New York Times correspondent we had invited to
collect testimonies and photographs of the massacre at El Mozote. That guy Raymond
is a fine journalist. He was in Vietnam as a lawyer and had some experience with war.
He always carried his camera and his little notebook to write everything down.
Licho was leading our troops. He put Raymond and me at the command post for
greater security.
"Don't tell me you want to get closer," Licho warned. "Suppose they kill this gringo
right under my nose, what happens then?"
But we were journalists; we wanted to see our special forces take the bunkers
from the cuilios. Our troops would have to turn into animals to sneak up those bare
hills without being spotted. These compas are cats in the night. When it's dark as can
be, they go out practically naked, wearing only underwear, camouflaged with dirt from
the same terrain. They sneak up, sticking close to the ground, measuring every
centimetre, making no more noise than a shadow. They toss a contact bomb or a
grenade from a few metres away, and launch the assault. That's how they took
emplacements that seemed impenetrable.
When they attacked the first bunkers at La Planta, the secret was out and the s**t
hit the fan. That's when Raymond got impatient.
"Ask permission," he says. "Let's get up to the line of fire."
I approach Licho and he goes bananas: "Stop bothering me. You're seeing the war.
What more do you want? To see the enemy's finger on the trigger? You two are
staying right here. As long as I don't move forward, neither will you."
After seven hours of combat, in the middle of an infernal gun battle, they tell us that
the soldiers are abandoning their posts, they're giving up.
"Let's go," Licho tells us. "Now it's okay."
We walked over to the spot where twelve soldiers stood with their hands on their
heads. They defended the town command post right up to the end. By now all of the
bunkers had been taken and the summit of La Planta was under our control.
"Take down their names," Licho tells me, "their age, the battalion they belong to, all
that. Then get that journalist out of here. The army's reinforcements are already on the
way. The counter-attack is going to be a b***h."
"Couldn't I see just a bit of Jocoaitique?" asks Raymond. "Take a few pictures, do
some interviews? Since I'm here..."
"Look Mr Raymond, we had a deal. You, Marvel, take him for a turn around the
plaza. Then, back to camp. I don't want this guy here when we have to defend the
town. He's seen enough. Get him out of here."
We had a few minutes to go into the town, look around a bit, and at least from a
distance see those four unconquerable hills surrounding Jocoaitique that were now in
the hands of the FMLN.
"It's one of two things," Raymond says, "either you have the best special forces
army in the world, or the morale of the soldiers defending those heights is less than
nothing. What do you think?"
"Both," I reply proudly.
We followed a stream that led to the soccer field, looking for the way into town,
and on the way we saw the first bodies, two soldiers. We went on. A compa's body
lay on a corner. While we walked, Raymond was writing everything down in his
notebook and taking pictures of the empty streets. Not a soul was about. No dogs
were barking, you didn't even hear a chicken, no pigs running about. Nothing. No one.
Just the penetrating smell of gunpowder, which made it hard to breathe. We moved
cautiously, because when you take over a town you can't just walk in admiring the
clouds. There could be snipers anywhere.
In the palm-lined plaza, the local command post looked like it had been hit by a
hurricane. The last soldiers held out so stubbornly that we were forced us to wreck the
building. Piled up outside were military radios, two dozen rifles, helmets, uniforms, all
the booty. Roque, with his team of mules, was already packing it all up to supply our
camps.
We continued through the ghost town. Raymond wanted to talk to the residents,
interview them. How could we? All the doors, all the windows were shuttered tight.
There we were standing in the middle of the street, all alone.
"This is so strange," Raymond began. "You say you've got the support of the
people, but you just took over this town and all I see are dead soldiers and prisoners of
war. You've recovered weapons, but you don't have people in the streets. You're like
the US Army when they went into a Vietcong hamlet. They'd take the hamlet, walk in
like victors, but not even a dog would go out to greet them. What do you say to that?"
The question stuck in my craw. You're not going to believe it, but at that very
moment the door of the house in front of us creaked open. A child's face peered
through the crack, she put out a hand and waved at me to come. I approached and the
door opened half-way.
"Come in compas," I heard in a whisper from inside.
I waved to the gringo and brought him to the house. Click, the door closed behind
us. Inside, everything was dark. When our eyes adjusted, we saw two candles and two
women, an older one and one who could be her daughter. Each was at a grinding
stone, grinding corn. Next to them was the fire with a comal for cooking tortillas.
Beside the fire, a man at a table. On the table was a box filled with ripe tomatoes and
another filled with eggs. And there were three piles of tortillas, about thirty tortillas
high. The man picked up a tortilla, put an egg in it and a tomato, and handed it to me:
"Eat".
He made another with tomato and egg and gave it to Raymond: "Eat, you must be
hungry. When you leave, tell another two compas to come and eat. When the shooting
started early this morning we figured: 'Let's make tortillas because the boys are going
to be hungry when they come in. We'll stay up all night.' So I told her, (she lives next
door), and between her and my wife they made the tortillas. I brought in the
tomatoes."
"But," the gringo spoke up.
"Shhhh!" the man said, "There are spies in town, you know, 'ears'. Here
everybody's on your side, but there are a few frogs who sing when they shouldn't,
understand? That's why nobody's outside. But knock on any door and they'll let you in.
Everybody's watching through the cracks and there's food for you in every house. It's
the middle of the night and you can hear people making tortillas and you can smell the
fires!"
José Ignacio López Vigil
Broadcasting under Blankets
The very first broadcasts took place in '79. We painted graffiti calling on people to
tune in to our new station on Tuesdays and Fridays, and ran off leaflets announcing that
the Salvadoran people now had their own voice, their own station, the People's
Revolutionary Radio.
At first we went up on a little hill near the city to go on air. There was no other
way. We hooked up at six in the afternoon--for how long? Ten minutes, maybe fifteen.
A mix of commentary, revolutionary music and combative messages: agitation.
By 22 January, 1980 we were transmitting from the National University. That day
we'd organised the first big demonstration of the recently created Revolutionary
Coordinating Body of the Masses. Damn, it was incredible! Over 300,000 people in
the street, the largest mobilisation ever. People began gathering at eight in the morning
in Cuscatl&aacut;n Park. They just kept coming, a sea of men, women, youth,
unionists, militants with banners asking for democracy and attacking the Christian
Democrats and their civilian-military junta, imposed by the gringos.
At about 9.30am the crowd started to march, but since there were so many it
moved very slowly. When the ones in front reached the National Palace near the
cathedral, the ones at the back were still at the El Salvador del Mundo statue. The
march didn't go straight downtown, it snaked all around the side streets--it must have
been ten kilometres long, more or less. And there were people on the sides. All along
the march there were cars with loudspeakers tuned in to our station so that everyone
could hear.
We were back at the university broadcasting. Every so often a comrade would
phone to tell us how the demonstration was going. We also listened to what the other
stations were saying. That was the way we worked back then, pirating off other
correspondents because the RRP, our station, was completely clandestine.
Transmitting from the university required some complicated manoeuvring. We
usually went on air at six o'clock when the most students would be around. We'd put
the aerial up on the roof and connect everything. Then we'd slip through a back door
into a little room--a little closed off corner on the first floor, like a storeroom. We'd
leave a tape recorder outside playing loud music to distract people, and several of us
would keep watch to make sure no one came near. Then those of us with the loudest
voices would take the microphone and begin the programme. We had to cover
ourselves with blankets to muffle our chants, otherwise they carried into the hallway
outside. It was boiling hot anyway, so broadcasting under wool blankets, like ghosts,
was a real ordeal.
On the 22nd it was my turn to be the fan. The Viking overheated a lot, it wasn't
made to transmit for such long periods. But with the excitement of all that was going on,
we stayed on air an hour at a time. Our first hour-long programme! And there I was
with a piece of cardboard fanning the Viking so that it wouldn't pass out. When the
announcers stuck their heads up for air I'd fan them too. Mariana was there, full of
enthusiasm, announcing, reading messages, greeting all the organisations represented on
the march.
Then a helicopter circled overhead and we thought they'd located us, so we turned
off the transmitter and ended the broadcast.
"Let's go out into the street", I said, "and see what's happening."
What was happening was a terrible massacre. When we got to the US Embassy,
we met people streaming the other way.
"They're killing!" they screamed. "Don't go down there!"
But since we were armed, we went on anyway.
"We're going to get it sooner or later anyway," one compa said. "Let's blow them
to pieces!"
"Don't even think about it. They're shooting from the rooftops."
It was inexcusable--criminal. That huge mass of defenceless people targeted by
sharpshooters firing from the roof of the National Palace itself. Other snipers were on
top of the theatre and other buildings nearby. Even people who ran to the church got
machine-gunned. Some died in their blood on the cathedral steps, others were
trampled by the crowd. About a hundred were killed that day, never mind the
wounded.
"You've got to take the station elsewhere," the leadership told us. "Increase its
signal so that it reaches the whole country. Add short wave so that the whole world will
know about the murderers who run this country."
We spent the rest of the year looking for a technician who could adapt the
equipment, and a secure place to broadcast from. We found it in Morazán.
Draining the Sea to Catch the Fish
I was born and grew up in La Joya. When the killings happened I was eleven. I
lived with my parents, a little brother of mine who was about six, and a sister who was
nine, still a kid.
I remember the soldiers coming up the Black Road at about three in the afternoon.
My dad heard they were coming and said: "Let's go sleep in the woods."
But my mom didn't want to leave the house empty.
"You go," she said. "God won't abandon us."
"You've got to hide," my dad said.
"Go on ahead," she said. "I'll come along later with the girl."
The three of us went to a cactus field and my mom stayed behind hiding the pots
and pans, the kitchen things. She stayed with my little sister, and said that if something
happened the two of them would hide in the cornfield and they'd be all right. My mom
always trusted in God.
My dad and I and my little brother climbed up a hill they call Brujo Hill. They say in
the old days it was scary up there. From the hill we kept watch all night long. At about
eight in the morning, we saw the soldiers come into town and start shooting. From up
above we heard the noise of people screaming and gunshots. Then we saw a plume of
smoke come out of our house, and heard the dog barking.
"They killed your mom," my dad said. "The dog ran out crying."
They spent the whole day shooting and killing and burning the houses. At about
midnight we went down to the village to take a look. First we went to the home of a
sister-in-law who lives a bit out of the way, thinking that maybe my mum had managed
to hide with her.
"No, Petrona Chica isn't here."
That's what we called my mom. I started crying. My dad wanted to go to our
house and all he saw were embers, a cloud of smoke and no one inside. In a nearby
ditch he saw all the dead, piled up. He didn't see my mom, but he saw my little sister,
squashed in among the other bodies, and his brothers, my uncles, all dead.
Convincing a Gringo
I went along on the assault on La Planta to report for Venceremos, and also to
accompany Raymond Bonner, the New York Times correspondent we had invited to
collect testimonies and photographs of the massacre at El Mozote. That guy Raymond
is a fine journalist. He was in Vietnam as a lawyer and had some experience with war.
He always carried his camera and his little notebook to write everything down.
Licho was leading our troops. He put Raymond and me at the command post for
greater security.
"Don't tell me you want to get closer," Licho warned. "Suppose they kill this gringo
right under my nose, what happens then?"
But we were journalists; we wanted to see our special forces take the bunkers
from the cuilios. Our troops would have to turn into animals to sneak up those bare
hills without being spotted. These compas are cats in the night. When it's dark as can
be, they go out practically naked, wearing only underwear, camouflaged with dirt from
the same terrain. They sneak up, sticking close to the ground, measuring every
centimetre, making no more noise than a shadow. They toss a contact bomb or a
grenade from a few metres away, and launch the assault. That's how they took
emplacements that seemed impenetrable.
When they attacked the first bunkers at La Planta, the secret was out and the s**t
hit the fan. That's when Raymond got impatient.
"Ask permission," he says. "Let's get up to the line of fire."
I approach Licho and he goes bananas: "Stop bothering me. You're seeing the war.
What more do you want? To see the enemy's finger on the trigger? You two are
staying right here. As long as I don't move forward, neither will you."
After seven hours of combat, in the middle of an infernal gun battle, they tell us that
the soldiers are abandoning their posts, they're giving up.
"Let's go," Licho tells us. "Now it's okay."
We walked over to the spot where twelve soldiers stood with their hands on their
heads. They defended the town command post right up to the end. By now all of the
bunkers had been taken and the summit of La Planta was under our control.
"Take down their names," Licho tells me, "their age, the battalion they belong to, all
that. Then get that journalist out of here. The army's reinforcements are already on the
way. The counter-attack is going to be a b***h."
"Couldn't I see just a bit of Jocoaitique?" asks Raymond. "Take a few pictures, do
some interviews? Since I'm here..."
"Look Mr Raymond, we had a deal. You, Marvel, take him for a turn around the
plaza. Then, back to camp. I don't want this guy here when we have to defend the
town. He's seen enough. Get him out of here."
We had a few minutes to go into the town, look around a bit, and at least from a
distance see those four unconquerable hills surrounding Jocoaitique that were now in
the hands of the FMLN.
"It's one of two things," Raymond says, "either you have the best special forces
army in the world, or the morale of the soldiers defending those heights is less than
nothing. What do you think?"
"Both," I reply proudly.
We followed a stream that led to the soccer field, looking for the way into town,
and on the way we saw the first bodies, two soldiers. We went on. A compa's body
lay on a corner. While we walked, Raymond was writing everything down in his
notebook and taking pictures of the empty streets. Not a soul was about. No dogs
were barking, you didn't even hear a chicken, no pigs running about. Nothing. No one.
Just the penetrating smell of gunpowder, which made it hard to breathe. We moved
cautiously, because when you take over a town you can't just walk in admiring the
clouds. There could be snipers anywhere.
In the palm-lined plaza, the local command post looked like it had been hit by a
hurricane. The last soldiers held out so stubbornly that we were forced us to wreck the
building. Piled up outside were military radios, two dozen rifles, helmets, uniforms, all
the booty. Roque, with his team of mules, was already packing it all up to supply our
camps.
We continued through the ghost town. Raymond wanted to talk to the residents,
interview them. How could we? All the doors, all the windows were shuttered tight.
There we were standing in the middle of the street, all alone.
"This is so strange," Raymond began. "You say you've got the support of the
people, but you just took over this town and all I see are dead soldiers and prisoners of
war. You've recovered weapons, but you don't have people in the streets. You're like
the US Army when they went into a Vietcong hamlet. They'd take the hamlet, walk in
like victors, but not even a dog would go out to greet them. What do you say to that?"
The question stuck in my craw. You're not going to believe it, but at that very
moment the door of the house in front of us creaked open. A child's face peered
through the crack, she put out a hand and waved at me to come. I approached and the
door opened half-way.
"Come in compas," I heard in a whisper from inside.
I waved to the gringo and brought him to the house. Click, the door closed behind
us. Inside, everything was dark. When our eyes adjusted, we saw two candles and two
women, an older one and one who could be her daughter. Each was at a grinding
stone, grinding corn. Next to them was the fire with a comal for cooking tortillas.
Beside the fire, a man at a table. On the table was a box filled with ripe tomatoes and
another filled with eggs. And there were three piles of tortillas, about thirty tortillas
high. The man picked up a tortilla, put an egg in it and a tomato, and handed it to me:
"Eat".
He made another with tomato and egg and gave it to Raymond: "Eat, you must be
hungry. When you leave, tell another two compas to come and eat. When the shooting
started early this morning we figured: 'Let's make tortillas because the boys are going
to be hungry when they come in. We'll stay up all night.' So I told her, (she lives next
door), and between her and my wife they made the tortillas. I brought in the
tomatoes."
"But," the gringo spoke up.
"Shhhh!" the man said, "There are spies in town, you know, 'ears'. Here
everybody's on your side, but there are a few frogs who sing when they shouldn't,
understand? That's why nobody's outside. But knock on any door and they'll let you in.
Everybody's watching through the cracks and there's food for you in every house. It's
the middle of the night and you can hear people making tortillas and you can smell the
fires!"
