The Massacre at El Mozote

Radio Venceremos, the guerrilla radio broadcast, is a symbol of resistance to the Salvadoran government. Radio Venceremos becomes a sympathetic symbol as the narrative continues: “its every broadcast reminded the world of the Army’s impotence in much of Morazán” (22). As such, it also functions as a symbol of perseverance, occasionally even imparting a bit of levity to otherwise heavy subject matter; for instance, Monterrosa is quoted as saying that as long as Radio Venceremos is around, “we’ll always have a scorpion up our ass” (22). As the narrative moves away from discussions of the guerrillas’ day-to-day operations, Venceremos also takes a back seat, but it comes charging back at the conclusion of the book, in which Danner leaves us in the Radio Venceremos museum, where Monterrosa’s wrecked helicopter is kept.

The mountains in this narrative at first seem to symbolize safety. At the end of Chapter 2, two residents outside of the town of El Mozote, Sebastiano and Alba, decide not to join their neighbors in going to the town for refuge before Operation Rescue commences. Rather, they “hid in the mountains above their house” from which they watched “thick columns of smoke rising from El Mozote” (20).