Very Inaccurate Movie

For picture of ponce_jose39's father go here:
h**p://bp1.blogger.com/_LKypB5UZFN0/RxcBTSOTmWI/AAAAAAAABKI/jAEOVc1cEk4/s400/Ren%C3%A9+Emilio+Ponce.jpg

Some Articles about his father:
h**p://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_7_41/ai_n9525193
h**p://www.elmundo.es/papel/hemeroteca/1994/04/07/mundo/553173.html

Obviously being his son, he's going to defend the military point of view in this whole conflict and completely demonize the other side, especially when people are still pushing for punishment for his father's involvement of the murders in the university UCA in 1989, as detailed in the following article and the two mentioned above as well:

h**p://www.derechos.org/nizkor/salvador/doc/denuncia.html

^This is an actual denouncement by a priest at UCA (as late as 2007 thus recent) about the many involved in that 1989 incident among which are none other than ex-Minister of Defense Rene Emilio Ponce, ponce_jose39's father.

This is not to say that this completely washes away any guilt or responsibility for any attrocities carried about by the guerrillas, but in the grand scheme of things, nothing really changed. The same poverty and unequal distribution of resources that El Salvador's oligarchy has maintained for a century and a half now still exist now, with maybe a few more members of the small middle class. My own cousin who lives there and is a fully certified dentist is struggling to get a job, let alone the millions of people who live in the shadows of the country, either as street criminals, low-paying jobs such as maquiladoras,or as starving campesinos with much less academic education than my cousin. History will repeat itself when the people realize that the end of the civil war only really shoved the vital issues that brought about the armed struggle under the carpet for most of El Salvador's population. Post-civil war the growing social inequality exploded violently into the street gangs that were rounded up in the U.S. and deported back to El Salvador in the early 1990's. It's reminiscent of how the energy and passion of the Black Panthers in the 1960's in the US degenerated, when it was infiltrated and broken up by the government into nothing, into mere street thuggery and gangs just as it has happened in El Salvador. It's the same anger about the same problems, but vented in a self-destructive way.

As long as few control the majority of the wealth in El Salvador at the expense of the starving, suffering, and poor majority, there will always be violence either from the top down as repression or from the bottom up when the poor get tired of being marginalized. There is no peaceful way to ask for one's basic human rights when those who would supposedly give it to you only see you as a pair of hands, as Arturo Xuncax in the movie El Norte trys to explain to his son in regards to how the rich view the poor in Latin America. You have to fight for your rights, and in the case of the Salvadorian Civil War that meant using fire to fight fire for the campesinos who joined the guerrillas. They figured they had nothing to lose as the military killed and oppressed them whether they fought back with guns, unions, protests, or with religion. It didn't matter one bit they represented a danger to the social order and they were exterminated with "extreme prejudice", as the military term goes here in the US.

Given a choice, wouldn't we all want to resolve our differences with civility and nice words? Of course. The world is much more complex and unfair. Using violence to get what you want might work in the short term, but it's only a matter of time before it gets used against you as the cycle of hatred and resentment it leaves behind are not easily forgotten by the victims that are tainted by its mark in their lives. Guerillas or soldiers, they are both manifestations of a larger illness that affects human kind in all parts of the earth, especially where former empires built their colonies: the inability to treat each other with respect and love, and the gaping absence of the concept of sharing. Most of the indigenous peoples around the world understood and still pratice these concepts to one degree or another, but most of that knowledge and way of living has been lost in the pursuit of our obsession with hoarding of all wealth and our lust for technological superiority for the most part in Westernized countries, foremost of which is the US.

I loved this movie, and I hope one day someone makes films from El Salvador in El Salvador about all types of topics. The lack of cinema from El Salvador is just one of the many symptoms that all is not well in the birthplace of my parents. Or maybe there are films in El Salvador but we don't get to see them here in Gringolandia. I'm hoping I'm wrong.

Saludos salvatruchos. Les mando saludos desde Los Angeles, California.


Traveler, there is no road;
the road is made as you travel.
-Antonio Machado

Hey ponce_jose39...It seems that posts like the one from PreguntaPorque really exposed who you are...Still living on the big fat foreign money???

Whoever says the guerrillas or communists were "just as bad" is, I think, seeing it through slanted glasses. By almost all reports, Amnesty International and so on, it was the government that committed most of the atrocities.

For what I think is a fairly accurate report, see this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadoran_Civil_War

While I have NO doubt that some terrible things were done by the guerrillas, too, the fact is the guerrillas formed to counter-act the b.s. that was being done by the government, and having to fight against them, I'm sure they felt some drastic measures had to be taken from time to time. It takes 2 to tango.

But over all and in general, it seems clear that the guerrillas committed much fewer atrocities and were fighting in a more defensive capacity than the government of El Salvador.

Its sad that everyone who sees this movie is going to believe exactly what is presented. It is a good movie. I don't believe its accurate.

There is no contention in any academic literature or by any major human rights group for that matter that kids as young as 12 were recruited by the government. I have read as young as 15 or 16 were recruited, but not 12.

Im not defending the government, I just think this movie went to far. And it is bad, because most people, especially in the United States dont know anything about the FMLN or ARENA or Roberto D'abuisson.

Ponce_Jose you really need to get your facts right. It was never the guerillas that took the children but the military, the Ejercito. They forced kids to join them. Guerillas were completely against recruiting people by force especially children. The guerilla did have a lot of children but they joined by their own free will, most of them joined to get revenge on the military who killed their parents and families, the military killed innocent people for no reason, it soon became a sport for them.