9 Harrowing Days: Diary of a Barrio in El Salvador

On Saturday, Nov. 11, several explosions cut the power to this working-class community, darkening dinner tables in tens of thousands of modest, crowded homes and disrupting the movie “Batman” at the Astor Cinema.

The longest and bloodiest urban guerrilla offensive in a decade of war in El Salvador was under way--two weeks of fighting that has destroyed hundreds of lives, homes and livelihoods with sweeping fury.

While the combat convulsed all of San Salvador and several other cities, it was poor communities like Mejicanos, a suburb of small factories, shops and 120,000 people on the capital’s northern edge, that felt the brunt of the guerrilla occupation and the fierce air force bombing and strafing that caused most of the casualties.

“Practically the whole town was controlled by the guerrillas,” said Mayor Daniel Antonio Rivera, 39, who had to be evacuated in a Red Cross ambulance Wednesday night after the rebels seized City Hall, Civil Defense headquarters and the police station.

The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front exhorted people in poor neighborhoods to rise up with its offensive in a mass insurrection to topple the government. That did not happen in Mejicanos, and the rebels retreated Sunday.

More out of hunger and desperation, dozens of men, women and teen-agers who had run out of food and money sacked market stalls that had been forced open by the guerrillas on the fifth and sixth days of the offensive. When the going got tough in Mejicanos, the tough went looting.

But hundreds of people here gave their homes to the rebels--some willingly, others out of fear--and almost universally blamed the government for the rain of death that fell in response.

After the battered rebel force had slipped out of Mejicanos though secret passageways, winding streets and steep ravines in the face of army reinforcements, the strongest impression left here was one of awe at the deadly force unleashed by both armies--and fear that nothing had been settled.

“Who won? I don’t know. The ones who lost were the people,” said Sigfredo Fuentes, 53, a government tax assessor who spent five days and nights huddled in his bathroom, the best-protected place in his house, with his wife, two children and two dogs.

Mayor Rivera said as many as 190 people were killed by the fighting in Mejicanos, most of them civilians who were buried where they fell or in a mass grave in the cemetery. A Roman Catholic priest said 300 wounded people were treated at a single church that became a makeshift hospital.

A tour of Mejicanos this week found devastation at every turn--perhaps one in every 10 houses was seriously damaged--and harrowing stories from every survivor. Pieced together, they offer a diary of a town during nine days of civil war.

Saturday, Nov. 11

More than 1,500 rebels marched through Mejicanos, a popular infiltration route into the capital from the northern rural province of Chalatenango. As many as 600 stayed and fought here.

Gunfire resounded all over Mejicanos as the lights went out around 9 p.m.

“The guerrillas were just boys,” said Saul Canizales, 30, who was trapped on the night shift at the Lopez Funeral Home and was to live among empty coffins for the next four days.

Sunday, Nov. 12

The guerrillas, led by Facundo Guardado, set up a command post in a brick kiln in the elevated part of Mejicanos and battled the 94-man government force based downtown. The ground fighting kept most people terrified--and indoors.

In a prelude to the air war to come, a rocket hit an unoccupied second-floor bedroom of Imelda Perdomo’s house, inflicting a shrapnel wound on her 87-year-old mother, one of 15 people downstairs.

The rebels forced Angel Martinez and his family from their tin shack that sits on a ridge. “They said if you don’t go, we’re going to blow up your house,” he said.

Guadalupe Lemos, a 28-year-old homemaker, lived on another occupied block. “I took charge of asking them, on behalf of the people, not to shoot,” she said. “I was afraid they would attract fire from the army. They said, ‘Don’t worry, we just want to rest here, but we will not shoot,’ and they didn’t.”

Monday, Nov. 13

The rebels ensconced themselves in houses all over the city, dug trenches in the streets and built barricades made of bricks, tree trunks and wrecked cars. They told people they were fighting to avenge the deaths of left-wing unionists in a bombing in the capital Oct. 31.

“The guerrillas had a lot of collaborators here,” said the mayor, a member of the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance. “Look how many hid them in their homes and fed them. I never imagined they had so much support.”

Tuesday, Nov. 14

Having overrun the town’s undermanned military posts, the guerrillas sacked City Hall, allowing people to make off with office equipment. Civil Defense soldiers fled after shedding their uniforms, which the guerrillas donned.

Wednesday, Nov. 15

Air force planes and helicopters launched a five-day assault on Mejicanos with rockets, grenades and machine guns. They destroyed such scattered targets as the downtown pool hall to an elementary school.

Guadalupe Lemos awoke to the bombardment and learned that a neighbor’s child had been killed. She left with 11 family members, and they walked 10 miles to San Salvador’s main football stadium.

Fleeing her home, Maria Julia Sanchez, 48, encountered a guerrilla who asked her to stay.

“But I have no food,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” the guerrilla said. “We’ll get you some.”

“After being trapped inside so many days, people took to the streets to look for food and medicine anywhere they could get it,” Sanchez said. “The guerrillas blew open the doors.” Stalls throughout the central market were cleaned out.

Amid the breakdown of authority, guerrillas came looking for the mayor, asking members of rival political parties where he lived. Two of his bodyguards died in the fighting before a Red Cross ambulance evacuated him, his father and a terrified air force officer to an army brigade headquarters closer to the capital.

Late that night, Angel Martinez, who had brought his evicted family down from the ridge Sunday to his mother’s home, awoke with the house in flames--apparently caused by a flare dropped by the air force to illuminate targets on the ground.

“We tried to beat the flames out with blankets,” he said. “Then the strafing started and killed my sister-in-law. By the time I could knock the (tin) wall down and get the family out of there, she was dead.”

Tuesday, Nov. 16

Finally, the army sent in hundreds of reinforcements, forcing guerrillas to take refuge in homes that, until then, had been left alone.

“Six men entered my shop with incredible bravery and incredibly well-armed,” said Joaquin Ulises Sanchez, 62, a jeweler. “A woman guerrilla came in shouting, ‘Old man, we’re winning. But be careful, there’s going to be more combat.’ ”

Sanchez fled. “Ambulances were passing full of dead,” he said. “That set off a stampede.”

As the army moved downtown, the guerrillas blew a metal shutter off the Ahorromet bank and stuffed their backpacks with bills. Looting continued as gangs of vandals emboldened and even armed by the guerrillas made off with booty as big as refrigerators.

The guerrillas dug in at their command post. Reporters saw a rebel named Rene eating chicken soup and showing three new recruits how to fire assault rifles. “The people are rising up,” he declared.

“That’s what they expected, but that’s not what happened,” said Javier Merino, whose home near the command post was destroyed. “When people heard those planes, they were to afraid to do anything. This was a battle between army and army.”

Friday, Nov. 17

Army troops entering Mejicanos scattered handbills portraying a dead guerrilla. “FMLN militant,” it read, “your companeros are falling dead in the streets. You’d better run!”

At St. Francis Assisi Roman Catholic Church, two priests dug a grave in the dirt courtyard for a woman and an 8-year-old girl killed by air attacks.

The priests and five volunteer workers raced into the streets to bring in wounded people--a heroic effort that saved at least 60 lives throughout the week.

Saturday, Nov. 18

Some rebels shed their uniforms, hid their weapons and slipped out of town, along with hundreds of people who escaped during a lull in the fighting.

The priests abandoned the church with all but eight of the wounded. Then the army raided the church and arrested them and four volunteer paramedics who had remained. The soldiers took four boxes of medicine.

Sunday, Nov. 19

The last guerrillas withdrew from Mejicanos. The army found about 100 AK-47 assault rifles hidden in a truck abandoned by the rebels.

As the week wore on, homeowners and shopkeepers trickled back to Mejicanos to clean up a mess of rubble, fallen power lines and festering garbage that looked like the result of an earthquake.

Standing in line to buy government-subsidized food from the back of a truck in the neighborhood, Guillermo Martinez, a 58-year-old welder, tried to sum up the week. “First, the guerrillas took over the town, then the army took it back,” he said. “All that’s certain is that we were in the middle of two military powers that have not given up fighting.”

NOT TO CEASE-FIRE

El Salvador’s president rejected a rebel truce plan. A16