Joan Didion - Salvador (067150174)

 

..DIDION'S

FACT.STREWN NOTEBOOK BLURS FROM TERROR.INDUCED SWEAT . . a tourist guide manque; a surrealist docudrama; a withering indictment of American foreign policy; andapoetic and apoetic exploration nfear . . . .A. CONSUMMATE POLITICAL ARTWORK . EX. CELLENT.'' -Chicago Ti,ibuneBook World ..THE

SALVADORANS ASSUME MOST POLIT: ICAL MURDERS ARE COMMITTED B Y GOVERNMENT SECURITY FORCES-NEARLY 7,000 N ONE YEAR . . . Joan Didion writes with a muted outrage hat appalls the mind and stiffens the spine." -Boston Globe "Bodies are found everywhere-in vacant lots, in garbage, n'rest rooms, in bus stations . . bodies, bodies-and vultures o feed feedon on them wherever he hey y lie. . . ACHILLINGACCOUNT." John Barkham Reviews

" SALVADORshines shineswith with enlightening bservation. No one has interpreted the place better . . . Its language s lean and precise, n short what we have cometo come to expect rom Miss -The Didion." New YorkTimes YorkTimesBook Review "HORRIFYING . . . the daily appearance f unexplained corpses, h e constantpresence f weapons in the hands handsof of unidentifiablemen . . . EL SALVADOR HAS TRULY BECOME THE HEART O F DARKNESS.'' -Atlantic Monthly

 

Booksby Books by Joan Didion Run River SlouchingTowardsBethlehem Play It as It Lays A Book of Common PraYer The White Album Salvador Publishedby WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS Publishedby

availableat special quantity areavailable Most washington square PressBooksare or fund remiumsor discounts ortulk purchases or salespromotions, remiums raising. Special books or book excerpts can dso be created to fit specific needs. For details write the office oI'the Vice Presidentol' SpecialMarkets, Pocket Books, 23O Avenue ol'the Americas,New York' New York 10020.

 

J u WSP lt

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of YorkReview Reviewof Portions of this book were published n The New York October 1982. Books n October1982. The author wishes to thank the following

for their permission

to reprint lines from:

The song "American Pie," written by Don McLean, published by Mayday Music and Benny Bird Company, A I97l . Used by permission. All rights resemed' The specified abridged excerpt from pp. 58-59 in The Autumn of the Patriarch Dy Gabriel Garcia Mdrquez. Translatedfrom the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa. Copyright @ 1975 by Gabriel Garcia Mdrquez. English translation copyright @ 1976 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Reprinted The excerpt from "Heart permission of Doubleday

by permission

of Darkness"

from & Company, Inc.

of the publisher. Youth by Joseph Conrad.

Reprinted

by

The lines from the poem by Roque Dalton Garcfufrom the book El Salvador: The Face ofthe Revolutionby Robert Armstong and Janet Shenk. Copyright A 1982, South End Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

publicationof of SquarePresspublication WashingtonSquare A Washington nc' Schuster,n of Simon& Simon & Schuster, divisionof POCKET BOOKS, a division o f the Americas,New York, N'Y. 10020 Avenueo 1230Avenue 1983by by JoanDidion Joan Didion Copyright @ 1983 w ith Simonand Simon and Schuster Publishedby arrangementwith Publishedby Card Number: 83-3?7 CatalogCard Library of CongressCatalog All right to reproduce whatsoever. form thereof nheany thisrights book reseryed, or portionsncluding Avenue 1230Avenue For information addressSimon and Schuster,1230 of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020 ISBN: 0-671-50174-7 Square Pressprinting November, 1983 WashingtonSquare First Washington 10987654321 are e colophonar WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS,WSP and colophon nc.. & Schuster, nc Simon& registered rademarksof rademarksof Simon Printed n the U.S.A.

 

I am indebted for generalbackground particularly to ThomasP. Thomas P. Anderson'sMatanza: Matanza:E E I Salvador's Salvador'sComCommunistRevolt munist Revolt of 1932 University of NebraskaPress: Lincoln, l97l) and The War of the Dispossessed: Honduras and El Salvador, 1969 University of NebraskaPress: braska Press:Lincoln, Lincoln, 1981); 1981);o o David Browning'sE / Salvador: Landscape and Society (Clarendon Press: Oxford, l97l): and to the ofrcers and staff of the United Statesembassy Statesembassy n SanSalvador. San Salvador. am indebted most of all to my husband,John Gregory Dunne, wh who o was with me in El Salvador and whose notes on on.. memories about, and interpretations interpretationsof events there enlarged and informed my own perception of th the e place.

 

This book is or Robert Silvers and fo forr Christopher Dickey

 

"All Europe contributed to the making makingof of Kurtz; and by-and-by learned hat, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppressionof Suppressionof SavageCustoms had intrustedhim intrusted him with the makCustomshad ing of a report, for its future guidance.And he written t , too. I've seen t. I've read t. It was hadwritten had vibrating with eloquence. . . 'By t h e eloquent,vibrating eloquent, exerciseof of our will we can exert a power simpleexercise simple for good practically unbounded,' unbounded,'etc. etc. etc. From soared and took me with him. The that point he soaredand perorationwas peroration was magnificent, magnificent,although althoughdifficult difficult to remember,you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence. I t made me tingle with enthusiasm.This T his was the unbounded power of eloquence-of words-of burning noble words. There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases,unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteadyhand, unsteady hand, may be regardedas regardedas the exposition of a method. t was very simple, simple,and and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment t blazedat blazed at you, luminous luminousand and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminateall the brutes ' " -Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

 

/-n three-vear-old El Salvador InternaI"" glassyand white and splendidly isotional Airport is glassyand lated, conceived during the waning of the Molina "National Transformation" as convenient ess o the re-capital (San Salvador is forry miles awlft until re severalhours) hours) than to a central halcently a drive of several lucination of the Molina and Romero regimes, the PacificParadise, Paradise, proiectedbeach esorts, he Hyatt, the Pacific condos,Costa del Sol; the tennis, golf, water-skiing, condos,Costa visionary nvention of a tourist industry in yet another causeof death is republic where the leading natural causeof gastrointestinal nfection. In the general absenceof thesehotels hotels have sincebeen sincebeenabandoned, abandoned, host touriits these nd to land at this resortson resorts Pacific beaches,nd on the empty Pacificbeaches, airport built to service hem is to plunge directly into a state n which no ground is solid, no depth of field no perception so definite that it might not reliable,no reliable, nto its reverse. dissolvento dissolve The only logic is that of acquiescence.mmigration is negotiatedn a thicket of eutomaticweapons, ut by authoriry the weapons are brandished Army whoseauthoriry whose weaponsare or National Guard or National Police or Customs Policeor TreasuryPolice or one of a continuingproPoliceor Police or Treasury of other shadowy and overlapping orces) is liferadonof liferadon shadowyand J

13

 

JOAN DIDION

are e D ocumentsar Eye contact s avoided.Documents a blurredpoint, blurred point,Eye of the airport, on down. Onceclear Once clearof psidedown. scrutinized pside the new highway that slices hrough green hills renof the tropicloud coverof deredphosphorescent dered phosphorescenty the cloudcover cal rainy season, ne seesmainly underfed underfedcattle cattle an and d dogsand and armoredvehicles, ans and trucks mongrel dogs and d steelan reinforcedsteel and CherokeeChiefs itted with reinforced vehiclesare aree, e, Plexigles n nch thick. Suchvehicles bulletproofPlexigles bulletproof featureof of local ife, and arepopularly associated fixed feature T here was he Cherokee with disappearancenddeath.Therewas Chief seen ollowing the Dutch television rew killed was s t982.There There wa of t982. Marchof in Chalatenango rovince n March Chalatenangorovince three-quafter-tonpickup pickup sighted near the red Toyota three-quafter-ton the van driven by the four AmericanCatholic AmericanCatholicworkers workers T here were, in on the night they were killed in 1980.There Toyota threeToyota andsummer summerof 1982, he three the late sp spring ringand onegreen' n one blue,and andone green'none oneblue, rucks,one oneyellow, yellow, one panel rucks, eachof of the mass eeportedpresent present t each bearingplates, bearing plates,eported featureof of local tendons (a "detention" is another ixed feature life, and often precedesa "disappearance")n the Amatepecdistrict Amatepec district of San Salvador.These are the deof armoredvehicles, armored vehicles, he colorsof tails-the modelsand modelsand colors makes nd calibers f weepons,he weepons,he particular particularmethods methods of dismembermentnd dismembermentnd decapitation sed n particular instances-on which the visitor to Salvador earns mto concentrate, o the exclusionof past or mediatelyto mediately ugue. amnesiacugue. future concerns, s n a prolongedamnesiac

Terror is the given of the place. Black-and-white eachwith n pairs,each with the barrel of a rifle carscruise cruisen police cars r+

 

SALVADOR

extruding from an openwindow. Roadblocksmaterialize tt random, soldien fanning out from trucks and taking positions, fingers always on triggers, saferies andoff. clicking on and off. Aim is teken as f to pass he time. Every morning El Didrio de Hoy end La Prensd Grtfca c$ry czutionary stories. "UnA madre y flis dos hijos faeron dsesinados dsesinadoson on drma cortcnte (corao) por ocho sujetosdesconocidos sujetosdesconocidos l lunes lunesen en la noche": A mother and her two sons sonshacked hacked o death n their bedsby beds by eight descanocidos, nknown men. The same morning's paper: the unidentified body of a young man,strangled, man, strangled,ound ound on the shoulder f a road. Same morning, different story: the unidentified bodies of three young men, found on another road, their faces partially destroyedby destroyedby bayoners, bayoners,one one faced cerved to rePresent cross. It is argely rom these epor$ in thenewspepers the newspepershat the United States Statesembassy embassycompiles compiles ts body counts, which are transmitted o Washington n a weekly disaretransmitted patch referred to by embasy people as "the grimgrem." Thesecounts countsere erepresented presentedn n a kind of torrured code hat fails to obscurewhat is taken takenfor for granted n El Salvador, hat government governmentforces forces do most of the killing. In a January I 5 1982 memo to Washington, for example, he embassysued a "guarded" breakdown on its count of. of.6,909 6,909 "reported" political murders between betweenSeptember September16 16 1980and September f 1981.Of O f these ,909,accordingo thememo, the memo,922 922were were "believed committed by security forces," 952 "beIievedcommitted Iieved committedby leftist terrorists," 136"believed committed by rightist terrorists," and 4,g9g "comt5

 

JOAN DIDION

mitted by unknown assailents," he famous desconocidos favored by those San Salvador newspapers still publishing. (The figures actually add up not to 6,909 but t o 6,899,leaving ten i n a kind o f official limbo.) The memo continued: the e "The uncertainty involved here can be seen n th fact that responsibility cannot be fixed i n the majority o f cases.We We note, however, that it is generally believed in El Salvador that a large number of the unexplained killings are carried out by the Em-security forces, officially or unofficially. The Em bassy s aware of dramatic claims that have been made by one interest group or another in which the security forces figure as the primary agents of murder here. El Salvador's angled web of attack and vengeance, raditional criminal violence and political mayhem make this an impossible charge to sustain. In saying this, however, we make no attempt to lighten the responsibility for the deaths which housands,which of many hundreds, and perhaps housands, can be attributed to the security forces. . . ." The body count kept by what is generally referred to in San Salvador a s "the Human Rights Commission" is higher than the embassy's,and documented periforr odically by a photographer who goes out looking fo bodies. These bodies he photographs are often broken bodies.These into unnatural positions, and the faces to which the ere e bodies are attached (when they are attached) er ashuman human somedmesunrecognizable as equally unnatural, somedmesunrecognizable faces, obliterated by acid or beaten to a mash o f misplaced ears earsand and teeth or slashed slashedear ear to ear and invaded l6  

SALVADOR

el dia Cuscatldnel by insects. Encontddo en Antiguo Cuscatldn 1982:camison camisonde 2J de Marzo 1982: de dormir celester" he typed caption reads on one photograph: found in Antiguo Cuscatldn a sky-blue CuscatldnMarch March 2t 1982wearing wearinga nightshin. The captionsare captionsare laconic. Found in SoyapangoMry 21 1982, ound n Meiic*anosune l 1982. 1982,white Found at El Play6n Mry 30 1982, white shirt, purple black shoes. pants,black pants, The photograph accompanying that last caption he vultures got a body with no eyes, eyes,because becausehe showsa shows to it before the photographerdid. There is a special kind of practical nformation that the visitor to El Salvador acquires mmediately, he way visitors to other placesacquire nformation about the currency rates, placesacquire the hours for the museums. museums.n n El Salvadorone Salvadorone learns vulturesgo or the eyes, he that vultures go first for the soft tissue, tissue,or exposed enitalia, he open mouth. One learns hat an canbe be used o make openmouth open mouth can makea a specificpoint, can be sx/, with stuffed with somethingemblematic; somethingemblematic;stuffed, stuffed,sx/, landtitle, a penis,or, if the point has o do with land title, stuffed with some of the dirt in question. One learns hat hair someof question.One ess apidly than flesh, and that a skull surdeterioratesess deteriorates flesh,and roundedby a perfect roundedby perfectcorona coronaof of hair s a not uncommon sight n the body dumps. All forensicphotographs forensicphotographsnduce n the viewer a certain protective numbness, ut dissociation dissociations s more difarenot, ficult here. n the first place hese heseare not, technically, evidence hey docu"forensic" photographs, ince he evidencehey neverbe presentedn a court of law. In the ment will neverbe disfigurement s too routine. The losecondplace second place he disfigurements cationsere cations ere too near, he dates oo recent.There is the presenceff the presence therelatives relatives f the diseppeared:he women

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JOAN DIDION

who sit every day in this crampedoffice on the grounds loo k at the spiral-bound of the archdiocese, aiting to look These rekept. kept.These photo albums n which the photographs re albums have plastic covers bearing soft-focus color photographsof young Americans n dating situations photographsof (strolling through autumn foliage on one album, recumbent in a field of daisies n another), and the of their husbends nd bodiesof womeq looking for the bodies from hand hemfrom children,pess pesshem brothersand sisters nd children, or expression. commentor to handwithout handwithout comment moreshadowy lements f the violent "One of the moreshadowy deathsquad. xistence f these scene ere [is] the deathsquad. groups groupshas has ong beendisputed, been disputed, ut bysquads many henot death deathsquads consdtuteshe consdtutes . . Who Salvadorens. We do not believe difficult question.We is yet enother enotherdifficult squadsexist as permanent ormations that these squadsexist vigilantegroups asad ad hoc vigilante groups hat coalesce but rather as need.Membership Membership s also according to perceivedneed. uncertain, but in addition to civilians we believe andoff-dury members f the security that both on- andoff-dury was unofficially conforcesere forces ere participants.This wasunofficially right-wing spokesmanMai. Robeno firmed by who stated n an interview in early D'Aubuisson l98l that securiqy orce members tilize the guise sguadwhen of the death sguad when a potentially embarrasor odious askneeds askneeds o be performed." singor sing -From

the confidntial but later declassified fanuary 15, 1982 memo preaiously cited, Departtnentby by the podrafted for tbe StateDeparttnent n San litical sectionat sectionat the embassy embassyn SanSalaador. Salaador.

l8

 

SALVADOR

The dead and pieces piecesof of the dead rurn up in EI everywhere,every every day, as aken for granted Salvadoreverywhere, as n a nightmare,or nightmare,or a horror movie. movie.Vultures Vultures of course he presence f a body. A knot of children on suggesthe suggest the street stre et suggestshe suggestshe presence f a body. Bodies urn up in the brush of vacant ots, in the garbage hrown down ravines in the richest districts, in public rest rooms, in bus stetions.Some stetions. Some are dropped in Lake mileseastof of the city, and andwash Ilopango,a Ilopango, a few mileseast washup up near the lakeside ottagesand clubs requented andclubs requentedby by what remainsn San the sportingbourgeoisie. SanSalvador Salvadorof thesporting bourgeoisie. ome still turn up at El Play6n, he lunar lava ield of rotting human flesh visible at one time or another on ever every y television creen creenn n Americabut Americabut characterizedn June of tggz in the El SalaadorNeuss N eussGazette,an a n Englishlanguageweekly editedby editedby an Americannamed American namedMario Mario Rosenthal,as Rosenthal, as an "uncorroboratedstory . . . dredged up from the files filesof of leftist propaganda."Others Others rurn up at Puerta del Diablo, above aboveParque ParqueBalboa, Balboa,a a national Turicenna describedas describedas recently as the April-July 1982 ssue oI Aboard TACA, the magezine rovided ssueoI passengers n the national airline of Et Salvador, Salvador,as as "offering excellent excellentsubiects subiects or color photography." droveup I drove up to Puertadel Puertadel Diablo one morning in June of 1982, ast he Casa residencialnd residencialnd he camouflaged watch towers and andheavy heavyconcentrations concentrationsff troopsan troopsand d arrnssouth arrns south of town, on up e narrow road narrowed further by landslides nd nddeep deepcrevices crevices n the roadbed, a drive so insistently premonitory that after af ter a while I began o h hope ope hat I would pass uertadel delDiablo Diablo without knowing it, iust miss t, write it off, turn around t9

 

JOAN DIDION

missingt. Therewas howeverno way of missingt. washowever and go back.There Puerta del Diablo is a "view site" in an older and distinctly literary tradition, nature as esson, n immense Salvadorse€ms se€ms cleft rock through which half of El Salvador framed, a site so romantic and "mystical," so theatrically sacrificial in aspect, hat it might be a cosmic The e parody of nineteenth-centuryandscape ainting.Th sky y plece presents tself as pathetic fallacy: the sk t'broodsot'the stones we€p," a constant seepage f constantseepage moss.The foliage is weter weighting the ferns and moss.The thick and slick with moisture. The only sound is a steadybuzz,,I steady buzz,,Ibelieve believe f cicadas. Body dumps are seen n El Salvadoras a kind of visitors' must-do,difficult visitors'must-do, difficult but worth the detour."O detour. "Off Play6n," an aide o President courseyou have haveseen seenEl Play6n,"an Alvaro Magafia said o me one day, and proceeded