0:01

Warning. This episode contains

0:03

references to extreme violence and sexual

0:05

assault. Please use discretion

0:07

when listening.

0:20

Jamine

0:25

Josuel Cornel Jonio Castillo.

0:28

So

0:32

that's Coronell Jose Antonio Castillo.

0:35

He's retired now, but he spent his entire

0:37

career in the salvador In Army. I

0:40

met him for coffee outside my hotel in San Salvador.

0:43

He has short, neatly combed hair,

0:46

blue eyes, and smiles like he's

0:48

running for office. In

0:51

fact, at various points throughout our interview,

0:54

I thought he might be flirting with me.

0:57

In Cantal de Miel

1:02

lucien Siendo, he.

1:04

Was stationed in my family's hometown, San

1:06

Miguel, and he tells me that

1:08

the most beautiful women are from there.

1:12

I wanted to talk to Coronel Castillo to get

1:14

the military perspective on the war, and

1:17

he is not shy about sharing

1:19

it. For him, the

1:21

whole thing was very cut and dry.

1:27

Ohiamos

1:34

a lapublica.

1:41

Deracia.

1:43

You had to choose. You were

1:45

either with democracy or with the

1:47

communists. Coronel

1:50

Castillo has always been extremely

1:52

patriotic. When he was in his teens,

1:55

he idolized a well known military

1:57

leader, a man named Domino monte Rosa,

2:00

the head of the most infamous group of Salvadoran

2:02

soldiers, the Atla Cado.

2:04

Battalion, Giofiul

2:07

Mirador Deli, the Rasco Militar

2:10

came Cal Coronel

2:12

Domingo mont Rosa.

2:15

Vlade Cornel.

2:19

I'll be honest. Throughout her entire

2:21

interview, I felt really

2:24

uneasy. Coronel

2:26

Castillo is charming, smiles

2:29

easily, but knowing

2:31

that he was stationed in my family's hometown,

2:35

I can't help but wonder what he did during the war.

2:40

His hero the Mengo monter Rosa and

2:43

the Atla Coado Battalion are well

2:45

known for the human rights abuses they

2:47

committed. But it seems

2:49

like the Coronel might be uneasy with me too.

2:53

Before starting the interview, he asked me a bunch

2:55

of questions about where I work and

2:57

what the angle of my interview would be.

3:02

Ist Sea.

3:18

Quinteistoria.

3:20

Whenever you hear a story, you're going

3:22

to hear it differently depending on who's

3:24

telling it, he tells me. Coronel

3:27

Castillo is worried because

3:29

he feels like a lot of the storytelling

3:31

about the war is one sided, that

3:34

there hasn't been enough attention paid to

3:36

the violence committed by the f m l N,

3:50

and this feeling that the stories told

3:52

about the conflict are somehow incomplete

3:55

extends to one of the most controversial

3:58

moments from the war, the

4:01

story of a town called El

4:03

mosotekel.

4:10

See.

4:11

Elmosote is a small town

4:14

high in the Salvadorn Mountains. It's

4:17

in a district called Mora San where

4:19

some of the worst fighting during the war happened.

4:22

For many years, the town of

4:24

Elmosote laid abandoned,

4:28

but after the war a crew of

4:30

forensic specialists came from around

4:32

the world to investigate what had

4:34

happened to this small town,

4:37

and they discovered bodies, hundreds

4:42

of bodies from what would

4:44

later be called the El Mosote

4:47

MASSACREO.

4:50

Dontulm

4:56

savra com.

5:02

Coronel Castile's theory is

5:04

that El Mosote was an fml and burial

5:06

ground, a police where

5:09

the guerrillas went to bury their dead.

5:12

When I ask him what happened to the townspeople,

5:15

he tells me that in December nineteen eighty one,

5:18

there was a big battle that happened

5:20

in Elmosote.

5:22

El informe the classifics

5:26

d the

5:28

combati in al

5:31

in Frina albitia,

5:38

momento, contract

5:41

and combatido.

5:45

These theories that Coronel Castillo

5:47

has, they're nothing new. They

5:50

go way back to when the story of

5:52

Elmsoto was first reported, and

5:56

none of these theories are true. They've

5:58

all been disproved by the UN Truth

6:00

Commission and forensic evidence. Looking

6:04

back, I wish that I had pushed

6:06

back on some of what he was saying contradicted

6:09

his prepared talking points, but

6:12

I didn't. I just let

6:15

him say his peace, thanked him for his

6:17

time, and left. It

6:20

takes a lot of courage to tell someone in a position

6:23

of power you're wrong, you're

6:26

lying, and

6:28

in that moment, I didn't

6:30

have it. The

6:37

truth of what happened at Enmosote

6:40

is now part of the official history of El Salvador.

6:44

It's been verified by experts

6:46

and witnesses. But

6:48

for many years the massacre

6:50

went widely ignored and disputed,

6:54

and even now there are people like Goronel

6:56

Gastillo who refused to believe

6:58

it happened. And it's important

7:01

because how we remember this moment. The

7:04

stories we tell and the stories we

7:07

ignore embody the

7:09

country's struggle with its past

7:12

and its present. I'm

7:15

Jasmine Romero and this is Sacred

7:17

Scandal, Nation of Saints episode

7:21

seven and Mosote,

7:26

We'll be right back. The

7:42

town of Inmosote is about two hours away

7:45

from my parents house in San Miuel. The

7:47

drive is almost entirely uphill,

7:50

and it gets really rough in spots. My

7:54

dad's truck was rattling so hard it felt

7:56

like it was going to just shatter into a million pieces.

8:02

Okay, so we're in

8:03

in the area

8:06

of now, but we're on a

8:09

really really

8:11

narrow dirt road.

8:14

Oh god, oh

8:17

god.

8:18

We end up in a paved plaza in

8:20

the center of a small town. We're

8:23

welcomed by the man that I'm here to see.

8:49

It's the Claros

8:55

Tolmente,

8:58

did they say, pa.

9:06

Lionelle Claros, the president

9:08

of the Victims Association of Lionel,

9:13

is here to lead us on a tour of the town. It's

9:17

lovely here, with a spectacular

9:19

view of the lush, green countryside. My

9:23

mom keeps freaking out at all the beautiful orchids

9:25

that grow wild here. Like

9:28

most salvador In towns, it's centered

9:30

around a church, like

9:32

Lesia de Santa Catarina. Leonelle

9:36

leads me and my parents through the plaza

9:39

to where that church used to be. There's

9:42

a memorial where it once stood. Is

9:45

the is the monument.

9:52

The

9:59

forty three years ago, in this

10:01

very spot, the entire town

10:03

of Elmosote was massacred.

10:07

This is based on the findings of the UN

10:09

Truth Commission. On

10:12

December eleventh of nineteen eighty one, in

10:14

the early morning light, townspeople

10:17

were ordered from their homes and gathered

10:19

into the town square. Soldiers

10:22

from the Atla Katal battalion, led

10:24

by the famed Goronelle Domingo

10:26

mont Rosa, told the

10:29

people that they'd be given food. The

10:31

soldiers then separated people into groups

10:34

men, women, and children.

10:38

The men were marched into the sacristy of the church.

10:41

It's a small room where the priests prepare

10:43

before leading mass. There

10:47

the soldiers tortured them for information before

10:50

spraying them with bullets.

10:53

Beside the church, there's a small building

10:55

called Ilgnvento, the convent.

10:59

It wasn't really a convent. It was

11:01

mostly used to house visiting priests.

11:03

When they were passing through the area, that's

11:06

where the soldiers brought the children. They

11:09

two were killed with gunfire. Finally,

11:14

across the street, the women were

11:16

lined up in the yard of a house they

11:19

were systematically raped, and then

11:21

the soldiers pushed them into the house and

11:23

killed them two.

11:26

The soldiers then lit the town on fire and watched it

11:28

burn. After

11:34

the war, the bodies of the townspeople were brought

11:36

here to where I'm standing now and

11:39

buried together. In

11:42

nineteen ninety one, a simple memorial

11:44

was built in their honor. It's

11:47

a big brick wall with black

11:49

marble squares laid across it in

11:51

a grid. Each squareless

11:54

ten names.

11:56

Lapare when

12:06

a pamo.

12:19

Some of the squares are all just one last

12:21

name, entire family

12:24

lines extinguished. Maya

12:40

Rufina Amaya is one of the very

12:42

few survivors of that day, and

12:45

she's buried here too. Her

12:48

testimony is one of the reasons

12:50

that the world knows the story of

12:52

what happened here. Rufina

12:56

lived in almost with her husband and four

12:58

children. On the

13:00

day of the massacre, she was lined

13:02

up along with all the other women in town. She

13:06

was the last woman in line,

13:11

ye yea.

13:20

Ye.

13:28

When a soldier wasn't looking, she managed

13:30

to escape and hide under a bush. She

13:33

laid there for hours, frozen,

13:36

listening as the soldiers massacred

13:39

everyone in town, including

13:42

her four children. As

13:45

she lay there, she made a deal

13:47

with God. She vowed

13:49

that if she was spared, she would

13:51

dedicate her life to telling

13:54

the story of what had happened here.

13:57

And she did.

14:00

Pourkup and

14:11

she told it to tour groups and two journalists

14:20

Quadri Brazos, and.

14:26

Across the decades, again and

14:28

again she told her story.

14:41

She was found eight days after the massacre

14:43

by f M L and soldiers. The

14:46

interviewed her and began to broadcast the

14:48

news of the massacre on their clandestine radio

14:50

station radios.

14:58

Radiomos.

15:01

They also invited journalists from the New York Times

15:03

and the Washington Post into the area so

15:05

they could see for themselves and

15:07

report on the massacre. Here's

15:11

former New York Times reporter Raymond Bonner

15:13

reading his notes after interviewing

15:15

Rufina.

15:18

The earth was littered with spent sixteen

15:20

automatic rifle cartridges. The

15:23

house was shambles. Mama,

15:26

they're killing me. They've killed my sister. They're

15:29

going to kill me, screamed the nine

15:31

year old son of Ruffina, Amaya. She

15:35

was one who had managed to escape. This

15:37

is Amaya, recalled. The soldiers had

15:39

no fury, It just observed

15:42

the lieutenant's orders, they were

15:44

cold. It wasn't a battle.

15:47

Bonner and The New York Times reported

15:50

that seven hundred and thirty three people

15:53

had been massacred in Elmosote.

15:57

The Salvadoran government vehemently

15:59

denied that the story was true. Then

16:02

Salvadoran President Josina claimed

16:05

that the whole story was fabricated,

16:08

just fml N propaganda, that

16:10

the numbers of the dead were exaggerated.

16:14

The US, upon hearing reports of a

16:16

massacre, sent two embassy

16:18

officials up to the area to see if the story

16:20

was true, but the Salvadoran

16:23

military refused to escort those officials

16:25

into Almosote. They basically

16:28

dumped these two guys out on the side of the road in

16:30

the middle of a war zone and said, if

16:32

you want to investigate, be my guest.

16:36

So the officials came back to the embassy and

16:38

told their boss something

16:41

happened, but we don't know exactly

16:43

what. And that's what

16:45

the ambassador told the White House. Shortly

16:49

after the massacre, the US Ambassador

16:51

Dean Hinton was asked if the reports

16:53

were true. His response

16:56

quote, I certainly cannot

16:58

confirm such reports, nor

17:00

do I have any reason to believe that

17:02

they are true.

17:07

The day after Elmo soThe

17:09

was reported in The New York Times, the

17:12

Reagan administration certified to Congress

17:15

that the Salvadoran government had quote made

17:17

progress on human rights. They

17:20

too, called the story propaganda.

17:24

A determined propaganda campaign is

17:26

sought to mislead many in the United States

17:28

as to the true nature of the conflict in

17:30

El Salvador. Very

17:33

simply, guerrillas are

17:35

attempting to impose a Marxist Leninist

17:37

dictatorship on the people of El Salvador

17:40

as part of a larger imperialistic

17:42

plan.

17:45

Raymond Bonner, the New York Times reporter

17:47

who interviewed Rufina Amaya, was

17:50

removed from his beat reporting on Central

17:52

America and eventually left the paper.

17:55

The Wall Street Journal ran an article

17:58

lambasting The Times, meaning

18:00

that they'd fallen for communist propaganda. With

18:03

both governments denying or downplaying the

18:05

massacre, the story of Enmosote

18:08

would go basically unheard for

18:10

another ten years. When

18:15

the war finally ended in nineteen ninety

18:17

two, the UN sent

18:19

a commission team to investigate.

18:23

Finally, the bodies were found

18:27

surrounded by hundreds of shells

18:29

of US made ammunition, some

18:31

of the best forensic specialists around the world

18:34

came to this tiny mountain town to

18:36

help uncover what had been hidden

18:38

for so long, but

18:44

it was ten years too late. By

18:47

then, the theories about FMLN

18:49

burial grounds and shootouts with the town

18:52

had long spread, and

18:54

even with all the forensic evidence saying otherwise,

18:57

obviously, those stories

18:59

stuck to

19:03

this day. The number of dead is

19:05

uncertain because bodies were

19:07

continually exhumed for years, but

19:10

including the surrounding areas, the

19:12

best estimates we have are

19:15

two hundred and twenty men, two

19:18

hundred women, and five

19:20

hundred and forty one children.

19:25

It's a devastating number, especially

19:28

when you consider that two

19:30

hundred and forty eight of those children were

19:33

under six years old.

19:40

But Gronlicastillo, the military

19:43

officer we heard from earlier, had

19:45

an answer for why there

19:47

were so many children's bodies at

19:49

Enmosolte. His theory

19:53

is that the children in those graves were

19:55

child soldiers.

19:58

I shown an alle.

20:04

Samuelitos. It's

20:06

the name that right wing Salvadorans give

20:08

to child soldiers. I

20:11

don't buy this on its face,

20:14

it makes no sense. According

20:16

to the forensic evidence, hundreds

20:19

of the dead and Elmosote were babies

20:21

and toddlers, including

20:23

newborns. But

20:27

here's the thing. There's

20:29

a kernel of truth in the Coronel's

20:31

theory. There

20:33

were child soldiers working with the FMLN.

20:37

But their stories are much more complicated

20:40

than the one that the coronelle is trying to tell me.

20:43

And after the break we'll hear

20:46

one.

21:03

Chest senor.

21:07

Not far from almost on the

21:09

hot asphalt of a public playground,

21:12

I met a man named Jose.

21:16

Hasen.

21:17

Jose is not his real name. He would

21:19

only meet me in a public park and he wanted

21:21

to stay anonymous. He

21:23

joined the f mL N when he was twelve.

21:27

Generally Mintererella also

21:31

there he doos

21:35

in Pleno Condricto.

21:37

Jose grew up the son of a Campecino in

21:39

a rural area in this province, Morassan,

21:43

the area where the leftists were gaining a lot of ground.

21:47

Rimero Nucleos, Diamo Clandestino

21:50

Jorgania here Mile but heso

21:54

Jo.

21:59

He says that it's father joined one of the groups that would

22:01

eventually become part of the f mLAN Porque

22:05

Cio.

22:08

The a group of

22:10

Lavaltata for

22:12

la Falta, Portundia economic

22:15

for la Falta.

22:17

He felt like there was no future for his family

22:20

or children, no chance at an education

22:23

or to better their situation if society

22:25

didn't change. Jose's

22:28

mother wanted no part in any of

22:30

it. She worried for her children,

22:32

and she tried to flee the town with Jose

22:35

as a child. She

22:37

was killed by the armed forces.

22:39

Whende

22:43

if we ever car carrios albara and

22:45

maestra endo pelo

22:52

implementary posta the

22:56

Perla

23:06

de Masiel.

23:10

Josett thinks that because of his father's connection

23:12

with the leftists, the army killed

23:14

his mother, along with his two aunts

23:17

and his grandparents, but

23:19

it's hard to say for sure because

23:22

around that time the army

23:24

seemed to just be lumping everyone in the area

23:26

together, counting everyone

23:28

in Morasan Province as a part of the

23:31

leftists. It

23:35

was part of a military tactic that's

23:37

now called draining the Sea

23:40

to hurt the Gerrias by cutting off their means

23:42

of support and intimidate anyone

23:45

who might consider helping them. Draining

23:48

the Sea is associated with the

23:50

mass murder of civilian populations.

23:54

Last depart

24:00

in La Sona nor.

24:02

Aod heron Kera guerriero.

24:06

Er.

24:07

It was an invasion, he tells me, with

24:10

the rest of his family, Dad, Jose felt

24:12

like his only option was to join his father

24:14

and join the fighterouke.

24:26

Canno, can

24:29

you have a fast organizaui loco?

24:33

Since aver loka significava nagerra

24:36

mucho meno.

24:40

He was twelve years old, he didn't

24:42

really understand what joining a war even

24:44

meant. He went through some

24:46

basic military training along with classes

24:49

on how to read and write, and then

24:51

went into the conflict, but

24:54

he insists that he wasn't

24:56

recruited.

24:58

Yes, documento documenta.

25:03

Couto no no homilia

25:13

ytonsa.

25:17

They killed their families, he says,

25:20

we didn't have another option. It's

25:30

estimated that of the eighty five hundred total

25:33

FMLN soldiers, two

25:35

thousand of them were under eighteen. That's

25:38

what the UN classifies as a child soldier.

25:42

Jose's story is just one of them,

25:45

but it's a much more complicated story than

25:47

the one Coronel Castillo is telling

25:50

me about Samuelitos. When

25:55

I first talked to Coronel Castillo, he

25:58

told me that the war was a matter of choice.

26:01

You were either with democracy or

26:03

with the communists. Maybe

26:05

that was true for him, but

26:07

Jose didn't have a choice. His

26:10

entire family was killed.

26:15

Goron L.

26:16

Castile claims that the storytelling about

26:18

the war is one sided. There's

26:20

some truth to that. Even

26:22

in this podcast, the focus has mainly

26:25

been on the atrocities committed by the state, but

26:27

the leftists definitely had their hands dirty

26:30

too. They did use child

26:32

soldiers. Even before the

26:34

war. The FMLN did their fair

26:36

share of kidnapping, torturing

26:38

and murdering, but in the UN

26:40

Truth Commission's report from after the war, they

26:43

estimated that the FMLN was responsible

26:46

for five percent of the atrocities

26:48

committed during the war. The

26:51

military accounted for eighty five

26:54

The last ten percent is unknown. The

26:59

difference in all this is

27:01

power, the power

27:04

to choose whether or not to fight,

27:07

the power to tell your own story

27:09

and have it believed. The

27:12

Salvador and oligarchy and government got

27:14

to tell their version of the story. In

27:17

return, they got billions of dollars

27:19

in US military aid. Rufina

27:22

Amaya told her story. In

27:25

return, she was called a liar.

27:33

But I mean honoi,

27:41

yeah, you gonna do OK.

27:48

Gave him.

28:07

It's not easy for me, she says, But

28:10

there's no one else to tell it. People

28:13

say that it's a lie, that it didn't

28:16

happen. Those

28:18

of us who lived it, we know the

28:20

truth. Trufina

28:24

Maya spent her life testifying

28:26

about what happened in her small mountain town.

28:30

Her testimony was the backbone

28:32

for one of the earliest investigations into the case,

28:35

led by the human rights organization tutell.

28:39

It's an organization that was co founded

28:42

by Archbishop Oscar Romero. Tutella

28:47

Lal's report on Elmosote

28:50

continues to be one of the most extensive

28:52

and thorough accounts. They

28:55

led the charge on trying to get justice

28:58

for the victims and their families.

29:02

Grafina Amaya died in two thousand and seven

29:04

of a stroke when she was only sixty

29:06

four. She

29:09

died waiting for justice

29:12

to be done.

29:18

The truth of what happened here lives

29:20

on in the stories of the survivors

29:23

and their families still

29:25

here, telling the same

29:27

story they've told since

29:29

the beginning.

29:37

On the next episode, peace

29:39

finally comes to El Salvador, but

29:42

it comes at a price.

29:44

Sex Jesuit priests were brutally executed

29:46

and San Salvador last week. Their deaths

29:48

have triggered a heated congressional debate on

29:51

continuation of military aid to that country.

29:58

If you want to know more, I highly recommend

30:01

Mark Danner's book The Massacre

30:03

at Enmosote.

30:09

Sacred Scandal. Nation of Saints is a production

30:11

of AJA Podcasts in partnership

30:13

with Iheart's Michaultura podcast network

30:16

and is hosted and written by me Jasmine

30:18

Romero, produced by Jazmine

30:20

Romero Sofia palitza Car with

30:23

help from Jorge Just and Alo Rosibeles.

30:26

Research and reporting by Jasmine Romero,

30:29

Edited by Cyda Kevelo, Jorge Just and

30:31

Rose Red. Nation of Saints was recorded

30:33

in New York City at the Relic Room with engineering

30:36

by Sam Bear. Mixing and sound

30:38

designed by Paciquinones. Original

30:40

music by Golden Mines, Darko and

30:43

Aeme based on Patrick Hart's

30:45

original composition. Fact checking

30:47

by Edendira Aquino Ayala. Executive

30:50

producers are Carman geratol isaac

30:52

Lee, Rose Red and Nando Villa. Our

30:55

executive producers at iHeart are Giselle Bansis

30:57

and Arlene Santana. Sacred Scandal

31:00

was created by Melanie Bartley and Baulovadro's

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Special thanks to Cynthia Glavic, Joanne

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Gross and the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland.

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The recordings of Dorothy Casel in this episode

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were provided courtesy of the Ursuline Sisters

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of Cleveland Archives. For more podcasts,

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go to the iHeartRadio app or wherever

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you listen to your favorite podcasts.