Stories of the Salvadorean Civil War

    Stephanie Guevara

    Period 5 

    April 12, 2012  

 

Stories of the Salvadorean Civil War

 

There have been many stories that have linked history with my uncle  Reynaldo Guevara, which was my uncle, he was born in San Miguel, El Salvador in the year 1960. When he was 9 years old his father, Francisco Lopez, died on a terrible accident with changed his life forever.   Since he was one of the oldest he had to work with my dad and two of my other uncles. My grandfather had left a ranch for his family experience, but since he had such a sudden death the family lost the ranch. My grandmother still sent him to school because she at least wanted him to have an education.

In the year 1980 my uncle was 20 years old and the meet a beautiful woman. He fell in love with her by the minute he saw her.  Since he work as an office in San Miguel she also fell in love with him. One day when they went on a date he saw that she was acting weird. She had to tell he what was happening, and what was happening was that she was the daughter of guerrillas. The guerillas were after the police officer and everyone who worked for the government. My uncle told her that he didn’t care. Esmeralda Torres, my uncle’s girlfriend, was from Chalatenango, El Salvador.

My uncle saw many horrible scenes as a police officer. When people had enemies they would put a false accusation on them and sent El Squadron De La Muerte (death squad) to kill them. Military death squad swiped out entire villages believed to be assisting the guerrilla efforts (Wikipedia). El Esquadron was a dangerous gang that who torturously kill people who were in favor on the FMLN. The war in El Salvador started in the late 1970’s and ended in 1992. The war started because there was a communist party in El Salvador called FMLN. The FMLN were a political. Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or umbrella organization of five left-wing guerrilla groups (Wikipedia). The FMLN wanted El Salvador to became a communist country .  The other political parties didn’t want El Salvador to became communist. The war was mostly a political war.

One day Esmeralda came crying to my uncle Reynaldo telling him that her dad had just found out that they had a relationship. The first thing my uncle thought about was to escape the U.S. She told him that if he left to the U.S she would also leave with him. Esmeralda’s dad sends the death squad to kill my uncle and his friend. Carlos, my uncle’s friend, also had problems with Esmeralda’s dad. A week before my uncle, Esmeralda, and Carlos were going to escape to the U.S, the death squad captured Carlos and the death squad killed him. Since my uncle thought he was next he quickly gathered everything and left with Esmeralda to the U.S. When they got to the U.S they both immediately looked for jobs. The year they both got to the U.S was 1984. After five years of being in the U.S they both got their residency. After they got their residency they waited 2 more years to go back to El Salvador. When the went back to El Salvador they both found out that Esmeralda’s dad had been killed by one of his enemies.

On February 17, 2009 Reynaldo Guevara died on a stroke. Esmeralda is still alive and stayed with their four kids. There have been many more stories in between all of their difficulties in El Salvador, but the time they both escaped to the U.S was the most interesting one they both had.