EL SALVADOR

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<strong>EL</strong> <strong>SALVADOR</strong> Salvadoran Refugees in the Camp at Colomoncagua, Honduras, 1980-1991 A PHOTOESSAY BY STEVE CAGAN IN 1980 AND 1981, MORE THAN 35,000 REFUGEES fled from Salvadoran military actions into Honduras. In the mountainous northern part of Morazán department, the military’s scorched-earth campaign resulted in about 9,000 people fleeing El Salvador to the Honduran border town of Colomoncagua. The Morazán attacks are best known for the infamous massacre at El Mozote, which left only one known survivor, but there were a number of less well-known massacres, causing the Honduran camp to swell. By 1981, refugees concentrated in a camp near the town, administered by the United Nations and surrounded by Honduran military, were permitted to leave only with special permission—usually for medical emergencies. The refugees came from one of the most remote areas of El Salvador. They had lived in widely scattered family units. Children grew up knowing only siblings and cousins, and had little if any schooling. The soil was inadequate to support the traditional basis of Salvadoran rural life, the milpa (corn field), and frustrated farming efforts left people increasingly poor over the generations. Men supplemented family incomes by migrating to work in coffee plantations. Mistreatment and repression by the representatives of El Salvador’s notorious oligarchy and by public institutions were widely felt and resented. In these conditions, liberation theology found a ready audience, as did the revolutionary politics of the groups that would become the FMLN. The two liberatory messages reinforced each other. The response of the Salvadoran government to the increasing radicalization of the countryside was to launch a widespread military repression. While peasant communities suffered, the military was not ultimately successful, and in areas like northern Morazán, the counter-thrust by guerrilla forces pushed the army back and established a substantial area that remained under guerrilla control for the duration of the internal conflict. Meanwhile, the refugees in the camp at Colomoncagua faced a situation totally new to them. With the clandestine leadership of guerrillas of the ERP (one of the five guerrilla groups in the FMLN), who slipped in and out of the camp through the Honduran lines, the refugees had to create new social structures that would support life in their now crowded conditions. They had to learn how to live without land, unable to practice the agriculture that had been at the center of their family economy and culture. And they had to face life as people newly dependent on the support and solidarity of international agencies and organizations that worked with the camp. Within these strange and difficult conditions, a perhaps surprising set of changes turned out to support very positive developments. Indeed, looking back on their decade-long stay in the camp after the war ended, some of the former refugees saw their time in the camp as a “golden age.” With the support of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and a few European and North American NGOs, the refugees created several sub-camps, which they called colonias, the Salvadoran term for neighborhood, constructing dwellings, buildings for workshops, classrooms, nutrition centers and health stations, nurseries, a chapel, latrines and small gardens 54 ReVista SPRING 2016
THE PAST IN THE PRESENT From top clockwise: Camp residents wash their laundry in one of the very small streams in the camp, unlike the bigger ones at home where the women would bathe as well; men and women learn new skills such as using a sewing machine; a woman waits in the doorway of her camp home; men converse in the refugee camp: living in larger communities required cultural adjustments. REVISTA.DRCLAS.HARVARD.EDU ReVista 55
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SPRING 2016 HARVARD REVIEW OF LATIN
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HARVARD REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICA SPR
Page 5 and 6: Top: Labor Day protest for decent p
Page 7 and 8: FIRST TAKE A rose hangs on the wall
Page 9 and 10: PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS Caro
Page 11 and 12: PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS posi
Page 13 and 14: PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS Beyo
Page 15 and 16: PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS pove
Page 17 and 18: PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS and
Page 19 and 20: PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS ence
Page 21 and 22: PERSPECTIVES Carlos Dada Postwar Ki
Page 23 and 24: PERSPECTIVES devastated the country
Page 25 and 26: PERSPECTIVES holds skills or a tert
Page 27 and 28: PERSPECTIVES One out of every three
Page 29 and 30: PERSPECTIVES The pro-life movement
Page 31 and 32: PERSPECTIVES lepa, which in pre-Col
Page 33 and 34: ART AND ACTION Claire Breukel and M
Page 35 and 36: ART AND ACTION Performing El Salvad
Page 37 and 38: ART AND ACTION Venice Biennale, Wal
Page 39 and 40: ART AND ACTION Meléndez was named,
Page 41 and 42: ART AND ACTION An outdoor theatre p
Page 43 and 44: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT Salvadoran
Page 45 and 46: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT while in of
Page 47 and 48: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT ecution. In
Page 49 and 50: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT A military
Page 51 and 52: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT military-ru
Page 53 and 54: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT A Search fo
Page 55: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT Goals of th
Page 59 and 60: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT From top, c
Page 61 and 62: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT Clockwise,
Page 63 and 64: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT Recoilless
Page 65 and 66: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT Salvadoran
Page 67 and 68: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT A U.S. Army
Page 69 and 70: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT Above: Choc
Page 71 and 72: REMEMBERING ROMERO Lorne Matalon Sa
Page 73 and 74: REMEMBERING ROMERO From top, clockw
Page 75 and 76: REMEMBERING ROMERO Sergio Domíngue
Page 77 and 78: REMEMBERING ROMERO interview in his
Page 79 and 80: REMEMBERING ROMERO When Romero retu
Page 81 and 82: REMEMBERING ROMERO (Archbishop Ósc
Page 83 and 84: THE DIASPORA Sofía Jarrín-Thomas
Page 85 and 86: THE DIASPORA A Salvadoran-themed mu
Page 87 and 88: THE DIASPORA From the series, “Ho
Page 89 and 90: THE DIASPORA Marta Castillo Ramos i
Page 91 and 92: THE DIASPORA From left, clockwise:
Page 93 and 94: THE DIASPORA From left, clockwise:
Page 95 and 96: THE DIASPORA 4 2 3 From upper left,
Page 97 and 98: BOOK TALK democrat, who describes t
Page 99 and 100: BOOK TALK To Build or Not to Build?
Page 101 and 102: BOOK TALK ultimate theory that rule
Page 103 and 104: DAVID ROCKEFELLER CENTER FOR LATIN
Page 105: EL SALVADOR 1730 Cambridge St., Cam
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EL SALVADOR

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